there was once “a simple desultory philippic”
witty words put to music by men of another age
but now only lanky lyrics on a soundless page

that which hath power to soothe the savage breast
has long ago been mournfully put to rest
by a cursed plague visited upon my ear
that purloined much I rightfully revere

so for those who can still hear sweet melody
do not forget to bow down thankfully
for the syncopated sounds that still delight
and other treasures beyond our sight

so keen were his senses he could
discern differences in grains of sand,
hear gulls' calls long before others, and
recall the number of footprints
he left on his stretch of beach

yet he spoke not a word
since she passed, stolen from him
by a fever he felt from across the room,
while others had to lay hands
on her to know

the doctor would come
and go, whispering words to his father,
not realizing the boy could hear: "typhoid"
lay in his lexicon along with "suffering"
and "death"

then the priest and prayer
too late for the woman--there
for the father, son, and her ghost;
beguiling words like "comfort"
and "eternal life"

the boy did not reveal
being mute was of his volition
allowing less sentient beasts to believe
his silence was a manner to grieve
"ruse" he also knew

months did pass, and the
others implored him to speak;
he would return again and again
to his shore, where he heard
wings and winds and more

but there no creature
asked for his tongue to move;
his naked feet in the surf were enough
and when his tears wedded the waters
the sea made not a sound

on the shore again,
away from all the lol's, the ***'s
and especially the brb's

because he doesn't want
them to brb, or fret they have
revealed the dreaded TMI

he wants all their cryptic
and crap-tic codes to disappear, to be
erased from memory

and he can again be on
the Pacific, with his dreams and illusions
making tracks between the two

knowing they too will be
washed away at high tide, as evanescent
as an imho or a ***

though not birthed by silicon gods;
created instead from sand between his paws
and washed away by sea and salt

and the eraser, so I can
clean up messes with a bit
of magic rubber

this **** ink is indelible,
even if it's scrolled on a page
in ephemeral cyberspace

delete doesn't count once other
eyes have made a meal of your meaning,
digested and crapped out your words

I long for a Big Chief tablet
and the art gum magic I could perform
with nimble fingers and clear eyes

they could see the Rockies on most clear days

though their ranch was as flat as any Kansas cornfield

the slopes cursed them with wicked storm now and then

but other than a few shingles off a roof and a steer or two struck by lightning, their place was no worse for the wear

Father and Son ran this place as did two generations before them,

and after chores one eve they watched a flood they thought only God could command

they flipped a coin to decide who would take a truck of supplies and who would stay to tend to the herd

the boy won the toss--just as well the old man figured; his spirit was not as ready for the road as it once was

he helped his boy load all the pickup would hold and his only son left on a clear dawn

he sliced the Oklahoma Panhandle while most folks were still eating breakfast

Amarillo was in his rearview by lunch; he had a hunch he could make it all the way there by sunrise the next day

odds are he would have, had a fleeing Houstonian not fallen asleep at the wheel and pulled into his lane under a midnight sky

the doctor from a Texas town with a name the father wouldn't want to remember assured him his boy went fast...and didn't suffer

once the father got his son's mangled body in the ground,  the old man took his grief straight to the store, filled up another truck and left his stock to fend for themselves, as he took a journey his boy was not destined to complete

he didn't shed a tear while he unloaded the supplies on a new coastal plain, amid scores who did not lose a son

though surely he was not the only one, he thought, who would cry himself to sleep that very night

where waters his son never saw receded,
far from where the mountains meet the plain

you check on me many times a day
with my antique ears
I hear your squeaking shoes
on these vinyl floors
someone laid for those who came before
like passengers on a stalled bus
with windows that allowed only one view

I know you and I wait for the same thing
for you to check on the passenger who replaces me
he will be no different
a few more hairs, perhaps a few less stares
you will gently place your hand on his wrist
write in his chart, and maybe
glance at the date of birth,
do the mindless math
and wonder without wonder
if my replacement will have a bigger number than I

but I am still here
gazing at your angled eyes
while you count the beats
which slow a little each day
waiting for you to say
how long will this one last?

don’t worry, squeaking vinyl floor walker
when my drum stops pounding
I will try to make sure it happens
while I am asleep

he lay in a bed at the Salvation Army
the last in a row of bunks he knew well;
through the window, he heard birdsong

not the lugubrious refrain
of mourning dove, but a song
he did not recognize, sad nonetheless

the captain brought him ice chips
and let him stay, for he knew this was
the closest thing to home the old man had

this and a spot under the bridge
he shared with bats, most springs
summers and autumns, until the first frost

never again would he be outside
never again would he see the bridge
never again would he leave this bed

how nice to have music
in your final hours, he mused, how nice
to have a bed and pillow to rest his head

outside the window, sitting cross legged
on winter's dead grasses, a girl played her
flute, unaware of the audience she entertained

she was young enough to be his
granddaughter, but was not, for his only child
had died of black blood cancer, when she was nine

in all his years he'd heard myriad
birds' song, chanting chirps wedded to
the winds, winsome, but not like today's trilling

what he now heard faintly, as if through
warm water, soothed him, lulled him closer to
a deep sleep, one he knew would come soon enough

he did not fight it--take a nap he thought,
when he woke, the lullaby would still be there,
white winged creatures would yet make song
though now in great flight, far from this bed

first flight: your talons
in the grim grip of a teenager
belly filled with berries

dumped fast
in the back of an SUV,
long enough to find
a red brick nest

your guts quickly spilled
and you tossed in a black hole
for a long night with other avian creatures
black, big as pigs, smelly as well

at sunrise the hole rolled
but only long enough for it to be clutched
by a moaning monster, toppled upside down
the pigs sliding into its guts

but the wind rescued you!
gave you recycled flight, a full day
and night, until my wiper blade snagged
your white wings at 70 MPH

I could have dumped you
in the bin at the next rest stop
but you had a different vision
of redemption

instead, I dropped you on the road                        
where you would wait, without protest,  
for another gust

White, then...

Nature’s most honest hue
is the one we give a fanciful view
but when it graces gray winter skies
we know it will have its swift demise
for we see this purely driven white
will soon succumb to blazing light

What we gazed upon with rapt attention
will only receive an honorable mention
before it turns to slushy soot
and a soggy nuisance to the foot
‘tis easy to forget it was first white art
but it had no choice but to depart

So when you gaze agape with wonder
do not forget the spell you are under
will be like all white we seem to admire
a victim of some mysterious fire
the true subject of this enigmatic rhyme
the inevitable passage of time

you see through me
and I through you
and father, too
has always been that way
the limits of my sight
being cradled in the Shanghai night
when
outside, teeming masses flowed through
the black wet shine of asphalt
like ants en route to the mound they cannot see
…while you and father created me
after,
with the curtains tipping on the sill
and the warm wind calling
but not knowing your names
he blew smoke into the Asian night
while you watched the grey placentate plumes
swirl sweetly to the stained ceiling
adorning its placid plaster with mystic memories
and the forbidden scents I will never smell
for you and he would never tell
what rhythmic rhymes you made
with the masses plodding along
oblivious to your milky movements
while they stirred in another darkness

On the Nature of Writing—A Simple Rhyme

I write for me, not for thee
I write for me, in order to see
the things to which I might otherwise be blind
to rummage among ruins to see what I may find

I write not to create mystery,
nor to unravel history
not to fill my pockets with gold
or even have words for others to behold

because I write for me

when words scar a clean white page
like some tiny creatures released from a cage
I pause long enough to explore
why I opened their door

they were not asleep but only hiding
and when I allowed their silent gliding
I had to follow their puzzling trail
like they led to some great holy grail

And when I saw they did not end
but they like I could only pretend
I paused long enough to breathe
and finally to conceive

I write for me, and not for thee

so even if I don’t understand
the nature of this literary land
the words still keep walking
and my eyes keep stalking
the path I take for me,
but not for thee

cyclones of russet leaves  
doing devilish dances in her yard
while she read, sipped chamomile,
and listened to the cat’s warm hum by her feet,  
the neighbor’s Harley on her street    

the default ring tone
she never changed, interrupted her mid paragraph,
between the writer’s deft description of a noisy bar,  
and an anonymous couple walking to the car  
to find something they lost
long before that night    

the words that came
when she answered became part
of her own novel, lines scribed in a book
she would carry with her forever,
words she read over and over
as she ran to the car,
“your husband is in the ER”
“your husband is in the ER”  
“your husband…”  

he had gone for cat food,
asparagus, and likely some beer,
or Chablis if he remembered they were having
chicken Milan that very night    
and he did, because the bottle  
was yet on the floor board
of his Honda Accord, after…    

two officers met her
at the sliding ER door  
and the eyes of one, puffy with compassion
required they say no more than her name
this also now written in her own book
since half of it was his  
half, his

his parents arrived
at 2:56 AM the next day
having been entombed in a silver blue buzzing tube
two hours late from JFK--first class only meant more
mournful space around them  
they could not fill      

her own mother
handled all the arrangements, being a master at such  
having buried her father, the last pilot downed
in that crazy Asian war, and putting her older brother  
in the ground when white blood cancer
took him before he made it
to double digits  

services, closed casket,
were on a thick Thursday,
delayed a day while they
waited for their priest to return
from his own mother’s wake
in some other world  

all friends and family
gone by Saturday, leaving her to listen
for the cat’s hum (but he was hiding)
the neighbor’s roaring machine  
and more ring tones, more sound  
that would too become indelible lines
in her timeless tome, that began
on a windy Sunday

at the market
in front of me, he was buying wine
and breath mints for later

he was short twenty cents
on his hopeful purchase; I gave him a quarter
he didn't say thanks

for later
when he would tap on the apartment door
and she would answer, eager

would she let him
all the way in, would he stay
the night?

I hope
the two bits I gave him
changed something for
mints may matter

you did not recognize me
I am glad you did not  
maybe you did not see me,
standing by the salad bar,
sentry over the slaughtered greens
but I think you did,
when your blue eyes met mine
they did not pause  
surely they would have
if you knew it was I  
my blonde hair about which you wrote verse
is now as gray as the winter sky
the same sky that gave us cause
to hide in your cozy room
roll in each other’s arms
and believe those silky moaning moments
would last forever
forever, though we never said that word
I  w h i s p e r e d  it, watching you sleep  
knowing your dreams were not of me,
perhaps they were of the mountains you climbed,
the men you had to ****, the mother you never had
whose ******* my own could never replace
but you cradled and caressed them
like they were treasure,
like you had supped from them
and they sustained you
and allowed you the exquisite vulnerability
I saw in your young eyes
forever, I must have whispered
but  
you were of another time,
barely older than my spawn
and now under florescent  firmament
with other anonymous dreamers drifting by
pausing only long enough
to choose their own fruit or bread
I watch you become smaller with each step
watching you again with a w h i s p e r  
forever,
forever,
though you did not know
who I was
on this...winter's eve

gone heaven's blue palette,
pocked with whiffs of white cloud,
her last day, the sky wore only winter's grey,
she a gossamer gown, soon her shroud

an ancient arterial breach had filched
her gift of speech--her hearing, too, had
yielded to the years, though her sight was still keen,
and memory’s vault stored all she had seen:

a world at war, a man on the moon,
a child born and leaving her nest, too soon  
a husband in the cold ground, she yet longing
for the sound of his voice  

now her daughter sat vigil at her side, stroking her
ethereal white hair, her plum veined hands: her touch,
her smile, the last language she would know,
completing life’s gratuitous circle  

her final thoughts returning to her child in the cradle,
a pink, round innocence, when she spoke the same to her
with a mother’s soft touch, the easy curve of her smile  
so few suns ago, it seemed, so few

the boy had never seen a rabbit so still
only its fur moved in the cruel wind

he pulled an arrow from his quiver
and took aim at the cottontail

his hands shook from the cold, but the
arrow struck its mark, almost

the shaft lodged itself in the creature's hind leg
now the rabbit hobbled in the deep snow

leaving a thin red trail on the white blanket until
the boy caught his prey and snapped its neck

fresh hot meat for the night's meal
his father would be proud

almost back to the village, the boy spotted the wolf,
white, nearly invisible in the drifts

he drew another arrow, but then  remembered
what the elders had said

a white wolf in winter may not be harmed
and a gift must be proffered

the boy sheathed his arrow, and lay the rabbit
in the snow, the animal's blood still warm

the wolf and the boy watched each other
and a great gust swelled

the boy turned away from the blast, the wolf;
behind him he heard the howls

a synchronicity, the wail of the wolf wedded to the wind
a marriage of flesh and the elements

the two were one in the boy's ears, until he found
his lodge and warmed his hands with fire's gift

the words won’t come out…
it’s as if they have shut my metaphorical spout--
truly nothing verbally fruitful will sprout
maybe I am having a protracted senior moment
where nothing creative will attempt to foment
perhaps I really never had anything important to write
or my neurons have given up the fight
and my imagination has taken flight
and left me with thoughts of where to go for lunch
or whether I’ve had an accurate hunch
about where the market will close tomorrow
sad that I once could write on the nature of the Tao
and now scribble numbers about the falling Dow
tomorrow may bring more creative flow
but for now I’ll decide where for dinner I will go

I began with verse about Wyeth's Christina
but I couldn't see her face, and I've never been to Maine
though her twisted body pains me

then I flew to the opposite coast
summoned by the memory of a ghost:
my best friend at Bodega Bay, one fine day
forty Augusts gone

he threw a Frisbee to his Airedale
and we ate sprout sandwiches, avoiding the foul
karma from the slaughter of beeves,
hogs, he said

I would like to relive that day,
with its blue dusk, but the clock can't be rewound
and he is not to be found on the great Pacific

kin who barely knew his face
chose his final space--a hot hole on Oklahoma
prairies, not far from his drunken father
and others who never saw him watch
the sun sink gold into the sea

in my head I'll exhume him,
maybe return him to the waves
that reclaim all things

or introduce him to Christina
a continent away--he could help me know her
though her eyes face another world

after dinner on the porch
was the best time, he and grandpa watching,
waiting for the storms--a thunderclap
the sweetest note to both of them

sheets of rain rolled across
the big pasture, downdrafts made the boy shiver,
even cradled in the old man's arms

neither would speak, grandpa's good arm
would point, or wave, these movements a code
between generations, theirs at least

finally a twister appeared in the west
growing plumper as it spun across the fields,
spitting gray dirt from its base, a zigzagging
dancer without a care in the world

grandma and Aunt Helen
fled to the cellar, imploring the pair
to follow

though they didn't, for all their hours
gazing at the heaving heavens would have been
profligate had they hid in the ground,
missing creation's greatest crescendo  

the angry funnel ate a section of fence
wide as a football field, and felled a tree
not a quarter mile from the house--its roots
too shallow, grandpa thought

when the tempest passed, the sun made
an appearance, slipping between the cloud bank
that birthed the tornado, and the silent soil
in the devil's wake

in its final moments,
it glared at the interlopers on the porch,
perchance admonishing them the promise
of its golden rays was no sacred contract
but a fickle gift

he shoulders shame
carrying the weight of the dead,
slung over him

partnering with gravity,
these memory moguls slow him down
though he keeps trudging

when one drops, another
takes his place -- first his father, then
a brother, stillborn

not half the weight of a stone,
yet his carcass bends his back
like any full grown beast

for he did not weep
with his mother when its blue soul
was yanked from her womb

nor did he shed a tear
when his father's heart gave out
a billion beats too soon

when he forgets his sins as son  
he recalls another one--the boy he
slew on a brown river's bank;

floating still in the Mekong, riddled
with the rifle's rabid rounds, he often catches
a ride in memory's stream

leading a relay team of shame shifters
he carries with him every step, though
the world sees him walk alone

I'm there,
an old portrait hanging on the wall
in need of a good dusting--past worthy
of restoration

passers-by will now and then pause
(more then than now), and wonder what my
two grey eyes saw, what my folded hands held,
what words came from my pursed lips

then came you, all dozen years of you:
maybe you liked old oils; maybe you were bored;
but you stopped, you ate a plump pear
while gazing

you squinted to see the signature
of the one who created me, though somehow
you knew there was but one creator
who gifted all brushes

you read the brass plaque
which summed up my life--three names and
eight digits, the last four a score before you were born
then you closed your young eyes

because you knew mine were closed
despite the painting's vain attempt to keep them open  
and you imagined you were asleep, waiting for a new sun,
or for another curious soul to stroll by

one who would take the time to look
and, like you, wonder, who I was, and why I was draped on this wall,
in this quiet hall, where you stood, pear in hand, finding color,
light, in my untold story

I can't stop thinking about them:

the dead squirrel,

the doves whose droppings
dot my freshly painted fence--a graffiti
in scatological code beyond my ken

the unmarked graves of Sham,
Krishna, and Chauncey--loyal pets
who never got the needle

the Zinnias up from seed who feel ambivalent
about being alive--one day drooping, the next day
appearing to thrive

and the jacuzzi,
empty now except
for her memory,

the daughter whose name
I will not say, who fell asleep in that hot tub
and did not wake up

perhaps seeds sewn so near
don't know what to make of warm water's
perverse powers