Back in the bad old days of my youth
When I found myself isolated and alone, unemployed... friendless
Had nothing to look forward to
And a body full of pains
I was sitting out in a back shed one day... despairing
How had things come to this I asked myself
And what could I do?
My life had really gone off the rails...
Now I had these two young pet cats 😺
They were my best friends and confidantes
While I'm sitting there... busy despairing
One of the cats comes in and jumps up onto my thigh and quietly just crouches down there
And closes his eyes
It's like he's saying "I'm with you in whatever you're going through, you're very important to me"
It interrupts all my despairing, I smile and think it's rather cute
And then... then the other cat appears, he comes in and he does the exact same thing
He jumps up onto my other thigh and crouches down there and closes his eyes
It's like they were saying "You belong to us, you're our best friend, we don't like to see you unhappy, we're here for you, we're with you in this"
I had to smile, even laugh to myself
I thought it was like God was sending me these animals to cheer me up
To tell me not to give up
That there was still hope in this world/ this life.

The two cats were tomcats
When one of them grew older he went wandering looking for a female probably (wasn't neutered)
He got killed on the road, knocked down
The other developed some kind of mange and would go around crying
In those days people were poor, they didn't spend money on animals
My Dad eventually got sick looking at him and hearing him cry
He threw him in a bag one day and doused him with water
Put some sticks and stones in it and threw him in the ditch (it was cold Winter time)
For the next couple of days and nights you could hear the poor animal crying
Until at last, there was silence
(It was like that scene from the Silence of the Lambs movie
When the young FBI agent recalls her childhood memory of hearing the screams of the lambs).

They were there for me but me, I wasn't there for them.

that porcelain face with spider
legs in black mascara they'd dance
like Mati Hari wearing a crimson
sari. Hazel colored iris scream

from all they've seen. They've held
back a river with honey glazed
ham. Stuck to their shell like a razor-
shell clam. Frosted cornflower

shadow is painted over the
lid. Curtained in bangs of ink pasta
squid swishing back and
forth like windshield wipers. Nose

blowing gunk out like winded
bagpipers. Or if they were sewn
tight with needle and thread she'd lay
them to rest like an indigo spread.

This thought has always haunted me.

People you meet once
and never again in your life.

You have a static picture in your mind
of their face
the small conversation
their little story they tell you
the place you met them
in a bus, a shop, on the road
interactions not long
but meaningfully small
yet leaving a memory in you.

I think of all those people
I stopped by to ask for time
seek direction of my destination
or asking where I might find
food or a resting place
in an unfamiliar area.

Once and just once you meet them.

On a summer trip, I was looking for icecream
in a strange place off the highway
walked ten minutes to find a shop
where for that brief encounter
the seller made me feel like
he had known me for long
shared the history of that area
the migration and culture of the residents
before helping me with the right icecream.

Sometimes I wonder
if they would have enriched my life
were they part of my association.

Not scholars, not rich, but simple men
who bring you down to earth
and carve a space in your mindscape.

Sadly you meet them once in your life.

I feel it's so designed.

The bees of Brazil
Their there still
Still the bees
And still the Brazil.

But should they grow ill
The bees of Brazil
Should they grow ill
They'd no longer fulfill
They'd all just be nil.

There'd be no more hunny
It wouldn't be funny
There'd be no more money
It wouldn't be too sunny... anymore.

But today - anyway
They still take their fill
The bees of Brazil
They go where they will
... Until

My 10th grade year,
Dad put my brother,
Tobin and I in a  
private school in  
Camarillo California.  
  
Mom sent us  
to live with him after  
we traded our  
education, back in  
Des Moines, for **** and  
sitting around  
listening to Led   
Zeppelin records in the  
basement.  
We had it all figured out.  
  
Before we started
a day of class, we  
went on a week-long   
skiing trip to  
Sequoia National Park.  
I loved that school.  
A passion grew in  
me for literature,   
Melville and Dickens,  
Dylan Thomas and the  
rest of the greats visited  
me in my dreams.  
They were good, gentle  
nights back then. 
 
I wrote a paper on  
Billy Budd, and received a C  
for my weak effort.  
Dad explained aspects of  
the story:  
plot  
theme  
antagonist  
protagonist  
and tragic character flaws.  
I didn’t get a C again on  
anything to do with  
literature.  
I was still inept  
with the numbers game.  
Math didn’t hold my  
Interest.  
It dog-paddled, then drowned in  
my budding poet brain.  
  
I had a gorgeous Dutch  
Girlfriend, Van Vleck or  
Van something or other.  
I acted in the play,  
and started at small   
forward on the   
basketball team.  
I even got into a  
fight with a kid for  
telling the principal that  
he sold me a little ****.  
I was suspended for a week,  
but Dad didn’t seem to  
mind that much.  

He gave me a copy of   
Don Quixote, and told   
me to write an essay a day.  
Back then, I was  
the prince of the private school.  
 I started to care about  
learning.   
The teachers taught with  
zeal and zest.  
The lust for literature was  
born in me  
beneath that smiling  
West Coast sunshine, and  
melancholy California fog.

They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.