Pardon me, sir.
May I borrow
your squalor
for a photograph?

I love
the repetition
of those wrinkles in your brow.
Hold it, please.

The contrast
of your brown skin
against the white plaster chipping
is marvelous.

When I
get them developed
I'll send you a print.
They'll look great in my portfolio.

Thank you
and your wife
and your eight kids
for this pose in poverty.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I have spent most of my life
walking through department stores.
I have come to feel that
Bill Blass, Ralph Lauren, and Calvin Klein
are close friends.
I ride the escalators for exercise.
I have become a professional cologne tester.
I check my credit rating daily;
American Express knows me
by my first name.
I have been married and divorced three times--
to two mannequins and a sales clerk.
I got stuck once in a revolving door
during the entire "Summer Madness" sale.
During annual clearance I inadvertently
got marked down to $42.50,
but due to inflation,
I have regained my worth.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

I shall write of simple things.
I shall write of dark skies and
black dogs, gardens full of red
tomatoes and green spinach,
of small streets where children
walk through the haze of distant
summers. I shall write of mountains
and men, of the sea, of fishes and
porpoises and whales. I shall be
among the plains and write of
old ranch hands with gnarled
fingers and leathered countenances.
I shall tell of cities and concrete
and lies, of schools and scoldings,
of hurts and healings. I shall whisper
of things human, of love and lone-
liness, of suffering and supplication,
of tender moments and terror. I
shall write of the simple and profound,
for they are one, borne of the same
center, which we call infinity.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

What is the afternoon for
but to listen to the sonata
of footprints peering at
pictures hanging on plaster walls?
Perhaps a little child searching
peanuts and parables?
A saraband of gentle sounds
whisper the turning of pages.
I utter causes socialistic,
evoking from the DAR:
"Do you want ruin this country?'
And I pause to swivel in my chair
and think of little people
who lie dying
in the corner of streets
unpaved with human kindness.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Arms reach out to us from
other continents and our own.
Would we not be so
preoccupied by an arms race
that we might embrace these
children of different races with
love? I see faces laced with tears,
fraught with fears;  I cannot
countenance the human hate
that abets, not abates, this terror.
Is it simply human error that we
are more concerned with pork-
belly futures than the future of
children with inflated bellies in
distant, and not-so-distant, places?
Or do we mean to be mean? It
disgusts me that this misery
flourishes. We nourish our inflated
sense of self-importance;  and we
export what is of no import.

Copyright 2019 Tod Howard Hawks

We sense it because it comes inexorably,
this is the beginning  of good-bye.
Her eyes avert his, a touch with no
feeling, a caress more cautious than
caring, a kiss when lips do not meet,
this the beginning of good-bye.
A perfunctory placement of the hand,
a conversation moribund, sipping
scotch and sodas in silence, a call that
never comes, memories that have grown opaque,
this is the beginning of good-bye.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Trees that were green
now are brown, yellow, orange.
The grey sky lies
like a depressed woman
on hilltops and in valleys.
Where is hope? Is it
in the red and rashness
of the berries and seeds?
May I touch the fallow land
like a little country boy,
quick and peripatetic,
finding joy under cracked
leaves and limestone rocks,
hazelnuts and hickory?
The raccoon tells the deer,
"Eat the green leaf,
eat the green leaf
before it dies." Skies are grey;
trees huddle. A forest
is a place for rest.
I lie with the lizard.
I fly with the hawk.
I eat red berries.
I lap the water
that flows between
oak and walnut trees.
The white of winter comes:
I enter my heart
with the brown bear
to keep me warm.