it was a formal affair, amaranth napkins
folded neatly in laps

everyone clapping in unison; an obligatory
percussion of pink palms

when we left I asked you
if you enjoyed yourself

your terse "I guess" was predictable,
even though you invited me

under halogen haze, I watched you
distance yourself with every step

until you turned to me to say,
"I meant to end this before today"

I knew you would say this as soon as we entered
this man made sea of light

and saw black waves undulate around you,
cast by your perfect gown of white

she drank only Teachers Scotch
with me, and only with me she said

a half truth--she drank
only Teachers, but with any slurping soul
who had the time  

the fraction of that lie stuck in my gut
waiting for our Scotch, our Teachers Scotch,
to wash it down, to flush it through a black hole
to some yawing universe that only existed
in the last drop of the last bottle
from the last oaken barrel of...
Teachers Scotch

I did not expect the truth from her
except I loved pretending it was there
waiting to roll from her tongue into my empty ear
along with the scent of the fine whiskey
she drank only with me
(but never all of thee)

hypodermics lined up like firing squad rifles, loaded with Morpheus' mortal brew

at this "humane" place, where we stare in the face of every critter we "put down"

felines, canines, by the score--there will always be more

we do it Thursdays; each gets its own black plastic bag, for a trip to the incinerator

courtesy of the county's grandest
crematorium

that has donated the friendly fire for our four legged friends;

we watch the trails of smoke fill the night sky

there is no Zyklon B to fear--not here, where we use shots instead of showers

and pass the hours scratching the ears and petting the rumps of those we slaughter with sleep

drought dry only a fortnight, and no trace
of the swimmers--not a bloated bass or a skeletal carp
only a few lily pads burnt russet by the sun

all else, perverse interlopers from modernity:  
bullet banged beer cans, truck tires,  
and the ubiquitous bottle water plastic
waiting patiently for the next ice age

no sign of one fish that emitted a last gilled gasp here

deep beneath the bed though
progenitors rest, theirs and ours,
antediluvian, Permian, as permanent as the word allows
my footfalls above them today
tomorrow silent where they lay

Sijo 1  

The rapid rattle fire, red tracers screaming in silent air,
woke me from half dream sleep--eyes open are better than eyes closed,
when ears are filled with black noise, and Victor Charlie wants me dead

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
withdrawing,
allowing
p­eeks
into
dreamless
darkness,
practicing
for
nothingness

in the paper, online, carved in stone, I see them:
some strange, some strangers, some friends,

all still, all gone, all with a minuend, a subtrahend and a difference;
what difference they made, I can't calculate

but their numbers are smaller than mine, tempting
me to believe I'm on borrowed time

extra days, hours, that will themselves be smaller numbers--smaller than those who will witness the mute math of my life

the barks of men silenced
the hunt over,

the sun driven drip of water from pines,
a petty pelting on my shoulders

a grand distraction--this season of minutes, hours
when white becomes invisible

until its ghost dots my cloak, streams down my rifle barrel
and falls again onto blood drenched ground

this patter of sound, such a docile dirge
to the slaughtered

the daybreak tracks the doe made now gone:
victim of a rising sun, a warmth she will never again know

they are snow laden, silent
save the gurgle of the brook

no leaf is left to stir in the breeze
though they make soft bed for my boots

I come upon the fawn, fetal curled,
felled by winter's white bone

where is the doe who left her here,
far from hunters' easy squeeze of the trigger

what perverse tilt of the earth brought
her forth out of season

and what reason was there for me
to stumble upon her--still, frost painted

hungry beast will find her,
fill its belly, bury a bone if that is its custom

her only dirge the fading sound
of my footfalls receding in the wood

though the trees will stand sentinel,
patient though not penitent, awaiting
the sprout of spring

summer song yet a dream

in black sky above us, the shreiks
of the shells cut the air, sharp, until
the dreaded booms which tell us
how close

how close the rounds landed
to our trench, where we hunker, drenched
in dreck, mud and blood, an unwilling
audience to this martial symphony

screams stream skyward
and comingle with the next volley,
a cacophonous courtship of vibrations,
invisible, but we know it's there

a miserable marriage of metal
and flesh--monkeys made into men
who ****** their own; who are determined
to sing these sour songs

when the lobbies stop, the only sounds
are the winds, the ones which will gently carry
the sounds of men moaning, crying,
praying for silence

in your dark eyes
disguised
as stardust
is spirit rust

little remains
of my grandfather's house:
raw rafters, warped planks with hints
my uncle invested in paint

the windows all gone, time
and twisters took them, and much
of the roof--what is left of that sags,
a silent submission to gravity

a woodstove survives, cold
to the touch, with no memory
of the fire it once birthed, the precious
prairie timber which fed it

now it knows only mourning
doves' song; winged squatters
unperturbed by my presence, as if
they know I lay no claim to now

the old boards have stories
I will never hear: the birth of babes,
reading the Word by kerosene lamps,
the last breaths of men

the songbirds may know,
but they woo the living in flight--a
future of nesting and fertile eggs; they
owe no belated dirge to long lost kin

penning a poem in his Oakland
flat, he was stuck at double nines
each of the lines was fueled
by a Winston, each stanza, cheap
red wine, and quiet desperation

outside, the beat of bongos, the pop
of zip guns and the wail of sirens; if
the summer of love was hot at Haight,
nobody told the Panthers who crashed
in the pad below his

he wanted to tell the world this,
epic style, an odyssey on asphalt
a choreography of elbows breaking glass,
and boys running fast, in 'hoods where
every mother's son died too young

but he couldn't weave the right words
to end a story that started with **** filled
hulls of ships, the crack of whips, a war
of bro against bro, and Jim Crow to keep
the nightmare alive in the light of day

now the "Man" snatched them up
with draft notices, turned boys into men
and men into monkeys to be mowed down
in jungles in a question mark on
a map most had never seen

stanza 99, where were the words?
another Winston, another swig of sweet
red wine, though nothing came, until he
heard it--a baby crying in the night
and he picked up his Bic and wrote:

Here you are, coal black child of a distant star
calling out in a language as old as time, "I am hungry!
Hungry for more! Fill my belly with mama's milk,
my lungs with god's free air, and let me grow strong,
straight and brave--brave enough to dream through
all this dreaded darkness."

Oakland, August, 1967

two of them
to my naked, simian eye
are identical twins

though one, a mere millennium
of light years away, performs its
magical fusion yet today

the other disappeared before
dinosaurs devolved; its phantom
photons now without a source

but both poke pinholes
in the blanket of night, gifting
what some call divine light

not I, for if gods were igniting
those gaseous masses, they would both
yet be furious and fiery white

and not tricking my meager sight,
deceiving me into believing, there is
eternity in an eternally dying sky

proud buck
frozen, close
heart in my
cross hairs

I squeeze
the trigger.
nothing
happens

except birdsong

as if
they know
some doe was saved
from widowhood

by a
mystic
misfire

proud buck
froze, close,
heart in my
cross hairs

I squeeze
the trigger
nothing
happens

except birdsong

as if
they know,  
a doe was saved
from widowhood

by a mystic
misfire

the atom waits, patiently
he knows no haste
has no grand plan
but when it comes to waste
he is THE proverbial man
we claim to know
his magic and his math
though when watching his show
he often takes a capricious path
dividing and multiplying
when only asked to add
grounding us when flying
replacing haughtily happy with soberly sad

we no longer hide under desks in schools*
or worry about bombs being dropped apocalyptically
but we would be even bigger fools
if we expected him to behave any less cryptically

we are still on the beach
staring at the place from whence we all came
anguished that Eden is not within reach
but can the tiny atom shoulder all the blame?

he's someone’s grandson
his body bag just like the others
viewed from the outside

inside with him
are stories, waiting to be told
over, over again by the mothers,
the mothers' mothers

who imagine they keep him
from the ground with their telling:
bassinets, bicycles, back seats with girls
finally bayonets with the boys

some of them
his buddies, beside him now
with their stories, waiting
to be told

he stood on the platform--the rails
beginning to reflect the sun's first orange light,
burning fog off the woods, slowly

only that morning, he'd read
of a man out west who threw himself
in front of an oncoming train

he heard his own westbound
locomotive; he continued to watch the tracks
painted longer by a rising sun

he loved sunrise, though sunset,
of late, pleased him more, for he knew
they were finite, for all creatures

he suspected the man
who met the roaring diesel head on
had done his own counting

his own reckoning sunsets were limited…
but he wondered if the man knew that very beast
he met, though one of many, was called,
"The Sunset Limited"

he had a third beer
before the hot platters came    
he would have had another, had she not
stared, like she going to ask every question
he did not want to answer…
how did it feel to slap his first wife?    
how did it feel to pull the trigger  
and mow men down like so many weeds?
those were the questions in her eyes  
and had he ever told anyone, what happened that night  
when they came upon a village, where the young ones
slept with the dead, their ancestors
only a few feet away, watching, mute,
beyond the paddies where they planted the rice,
the narrow trails where they hunkered and spoke
the ancient tongue, not adulterated by the romance of the French
or the clumsy amalgam of shredded sounds from the new soldiers  
the giants who ignored them in the steaming light of day
but came one night, bringing strange smells, oiled steel
muzzles pointed at their faces, shoved into their empty ears
grunting and groaning in an even more grotesque tongue  
leaving tears and trembling in their wake,
the torn flesh, the wounded wombs, the silken vessels  
meant to be there for the milky planting of tomorrow’s seeds  
not the greedy groping of the interloper’s devilish deeds  
was she asking about that night, the sounds he recalled
like puppies under heavy foot, or worse, like
the madding moaning of his own sister
when someone ripped her open  
not in the distant killing fields
but in the back seat of her car  
not two miles from where they sat  
where he ordered more beer, and
she asked those questions with her silence,
with her eyes, the questions he would never answer  
not after all the beer, in all the free world,
and he was pitifully glad
they served no sushi, in Kiki’s, though
the sharpened knives were there
ready for his confessional
and the raw slaughter of truth

hunched over, a brown-skinned army,
picking, the field soon to be stripped of its bounty;
they will move to the next one, fast,
before the fruit falls to the ground

"los ninos, los viejos tambien"
the young, the old ones also help, though
they are slower and tote less a load  

when the day is done, they build fires
for the frijoles, and to keep the night's spirits
at bay; they sleep in the shanties, the sheds
the master provides  

the next day will be the same, though maybe
not as hot--maybe a rain will give them respite
from their labors  

a gentle, short shower they pray,
for a storm might lay ruin to the crops, the treasure
they borrow only long enough
to basket and truck

not even a cloud visits the white sky
so the stooping, the loading drags on without relief
but from the north, a cool wind does blow

in it they hear a voice without cords vibrating,
yet one that speaks a language their hearts know well,
telling them their toil is to be brief, yet eternal: that winter
only whispers now, but soon commands all to rest

coyote yelping helps;
the winds, too, distract him
from the now

the Comanche who
put the arrow in his back
lays beside him

gone before him;
that is condign comfort
to him

he cannot speak, nor move
his tongue, but he smells the
*****, the creosote

he sees the clouds,
stingy white whiffs in a hot
summer sky

as good a day to die
as any he reckons, and
he feels no pain

again the yelping,
closer now -- are they talking
about him?

will they beat the buzzards
to his body? would they begin their
feast while his eyes are yet open?

he closes them; the flapping of
the wings does not arouse him--he
knows they are on the Comanche

beaks and talons at work
he lets himself drift, content the
vultures are choosing the dead

but they fly off; the coyote pack
approaches--the pads of their paws
patter on the hard caliche

he lets himself sleep
dreaming now of sweet green grass
and good water

and the coyotes begin their work:
the ***** and he now a solitary offering
for the ravenous dogs

the white coat lords,  
the army of nurses, the aides, didn't think
he understood their language

nor did they know
he had been a warrior in his homeland
and bore scars, inside, out

they paid little attention,
as he buffed lackadaisical linoleum, scrubbed porcelain *******,
making them ethereally white

though the amputees,
the hobbled, the battle burned, would wake
to the sound of his labors:

his broom swaying to and fro,
a softer metronome for their ringing ears
a cadence of condolences
for their beating hearts

I had one of the first--a clunky chunk of modernity in my 1984 Beamer,

no speed dial, no contact book, and Bluetooth was as far away as the moon

but boy I was cool yapping while cruising down the PA Turnpike,
my Lab on the seat beside me, eagerly eavesdropping and slobbering in equal measure

he got to witness the end, the news delivered over the airways:
she was dumping me because I was too needy

too many flowers, too many calls and unannounced visits; affection morphed into the smothering mother it was

I exited the pike with the news lumped in my throat, looking for a place to hide

a roadside stop with a view of farmed fields--the sun too bright

I dialed her number at least thrice, but never completed the call;
the connection would have been dead or dying anyway

in the distance, I saw their carriages:
a procession with the clopping hooves of obedient beasts, the laughter of children, and monogamous men and women who didn't know the meaning of "co-dependency," "neediness," or "smothering"

and eyes that would have stared in disbelief if they saw
the ****** cell phone

I challenged him
burly ******* captain
stubbled beard as coarse as sandpaper
standing there in muggy dusk
arms akimbo,
mama san starched uniform stained with swagger and sweat

two silver captain's bars ******* any of my brilliance or bravado
all he had to do was speaketh the words
“need those maps, head out at 2230 hours”
and that was a death sentence
which was commuted to life
if four decades since has been life

there are not words for the black
of moonless jungle
except nothingness and paralytic fear
and through that lightless, lifeless, abyssness
I crawled, crouched and crept along
sometimes as slowly as the minute hand on my watch

the silence, the silence, the silence
became my splintered cross
to carry to my place of crucifixion
at my Calvary Hill behind barbed wire, blue lead barrels and
fearful eyes

silence, silence, silence, black wordlessness
black soundlessness
punctuated by shallow precious breaths
and imagined slant-eyed demons
waiting behind each berm
to turn the timeless night into timelessness
of more black

should I chamber a round?
and follow its solitary sound
into the silent holy night
and shatter my own fragile fright?
would that end this knowing without knowing?
and answer the question,
“is this fear worse than the answer?”
since questions have answers but answers have nothing
the nothing of which I was sure I would become a part
in the silence, the silence, the silence
of the black canopied jungle
in Tay Ninh Province
in 1967

where I was sentenced to death but allowed to live
in silent, black wordlessness
sentenced to live
to wonder, after all these years of shivering fright and flickering light
did the captain become a human?
And was I really allowed to live?

Thanks all poets for keeping the 10 wp collection alive

over 600 poems in less than 50 days--thanks to all who have embraced this form and contributed to the 10 word poem collection in the Fragment Group

When
I asked
for ten words,
I got…
much more

those folks hired white help,
maybe a Mex to tend to the yards
but they let old lady Latty wash
their soiled sheets, bath towels
and undergarments

they sent out their fine clothes
for that new process called dry cleaning,
a magic Latty would never fathom--how
you gonna clean anything without water
steaming, lye and labor of love

but Latty knew those folks
whose ****-stained drawers
she was scrubbing had more secrets
than money, and she knew to keep
lips God gave her closed

for nobody need know about
the joy juice that was on the sheets
when the man of the house was
gone, and the towels covered
with the seed part of that

weren't none of Latty's business
what sins were seeping under the
cracks of those fine wood doors, or
what other rich as Croesus gents were
walking softly on the polished floors

Latty was off Mondays, but
not on the Sabbath, for it was
often the eve of that holy day
when the most soiling was done
and that didn't bother her none

for Sundays the folks was mostly
gone to church, and whatever sinning
was to be had took its rest like the Lord did,
unless sitting in a pew with a man
you never loved counts as such

Tulsa, 1908

I am the age at which you died
no comely pictures immortalize me,
though I am not washed white with time
like you

a lone silver streak stripes my chin

many would say
you were too sensitive for this world
thus rushing your years
and guiding the barrel to your mouth

I would pit my pain
against your Nobel torments any day
if such things be a contest,
what is not, though
a rabid race to the grave?

but who would really win?
for your mother’s madness did not leave you
skittering around like a cat on a hot tin roof
and your father’s anvil hands
did not leave scarlet letters
on your skinny legs

excuse me then, if I don’t
grant you a capital letter in your name
excuse me if I don’t applaud your time in the ring
or say bravo to the iconoclast
for your sparse use of words
(though, “for sale, baby shoes, never worn” was…perfect)
excuse me if I don’t think your readable feasts
should be on everyman’s menu

you were but a man
who drank and ate and fought and ******
until you could no more and decided there was nothing left
I respect your triggered choice and do not call it craven
but janitors aren’t made legends
they just clean your brains
from the floor

fine Furhman's Funeral Home
used the best alchemy money could
buy, to keep her flesh fresh

and a master seamstress
sewed her wicked wounds so not
a single soul could see

she was stabbed forty times
from her rubicund cheeks to her
pedicured toes

Furhman's was the best, above
the mediocre rest, in gifting mourners
with a pleasant view

when I got their bill in the mail
it had an itemized list, which included
a charge I had to contest

not because of penury or pettiness
for I am a wealthy weeping father, but
I couldn't see spending a red dime

for crimson polish they painted
on dead toes, slid in slick hose, and
hid in patent leather shoes

my wife said write a check for the
full amount, crying this was not about
what we the living could yet see

Baton Rouge, April, 1989

balking, then walking into the suburban night,
I have escaped the TV, the PC, the clutter of memories
and the last two hanging, breasty incandescent bulbs in the galaxy,  
soon to have their filaments burn out amid the indifference
of florescent pigtails and their infinite, incessant hum
I have escaped into this night      

marching on, marching on
the sullied, sacred sidewalk squares
past the dentist’s house, past the woman whose husband was murdered
by his best friend over a case of beer, and had her eternal fifteen minutes on Dr. Phil
past the retired educator, past the woman who…hell I don’t know what she does--she drives a gold Avalon
and never retrieves her Sunday paper before noon  

marching on, marching on  
I count cadence, move as if I am headed
to another battle, and I am, but I won’t see my enemy tonight
he is yet on the black horizon, waiting for me, and you    

marching on
when I pass the widow’s house a second time, a third (?) time
I smell her cigarettes and see the orange glow in her garage, like  
a lonely firefly moving to and fro, in the universe she creates for it
before flicking it to her oil stained concrete graveyard, stomping it out
never to let it fly again, though by my next circle she will have birthed a new one  
and given it a foul fickle journey of its own    

marching on
a truck passes me on my final lap  
its fumes mixing with the cool moonlight
I hold my breath, wanting neither lunar light
nor carbon monoxide for my evening repast
  
when I breathe again,
the scent of tacos soothes my olfactory,
I do not know its greasy origin in this dark place  
nor do I care, but I inhale again more deeply
daring the odor to tease me again  
and help me forget what
I escaped to find  
marching on