As I lay these things out for you to understand, please do not pretend that you do. These words are full of tricks. Like taking you to a place you have never been, and making you feel like you know it, making it all feel familiar. I called the place Argentina, but it was no further away than my writing desk. Do you understand now?
You think you can see children playing in the street and laundry hung from high windows, a street vendor honking his wares from an old cart, a cat lounging in a sunny doorway. But what was really there was a bowl of nuts on an old wooden table and a man dressed still in his pajamas, his pant legs tucked into his woolen socks, shaking his pen to get the last few drops of ink down before he consigned it to the waste bin and got another from the kitchen drawer. The coffee that was steaming on the stove might have been from Argentina and the weather could have been balmy and not frigid like the old man’s heart as he tells you his tale.
The old man’s writing had been previously thwarted by his children as they taught him to believe that he was destined and doomed to stay in that lonely old clapboard house forever, but he had escaped to a faraway land. The cat got up and wandered slowly in the trafficless street looking for something to eat. A child with a stick and a hoop came running by and the cat scurried out of the way. A very low rumble filled the air which smelled of cinnamon. No one knew the noise was from tanks because no one there had ever seen one before. A woman with a puffy dress that made you wonder what she looked like underneath it cocked her head out of a kitchen window. A steaming pie beside her revealed the source of the spicy smells. A flock of starlings flew by.
“Raul,” she called, “bring that cat to me. I have some milk for it.” The boy threw his hoop and stick down and chased after the cat which eluded him effortlessly by darting under a low wagon. The barker laughed and held out an apple for the boy and distracted him from his mission.
The old man groaned again and shifted in his chair and sipped his coffee wondering whether he should stop writing with his pen and shift to the keyboard because the pace of the story was about to pick up dramatically and go from a leisurely day in a small old town to full scale war. The old man pushed a button on his keyboard, but nothing happened. He remembered that he had unplugged it the night before and reached down from his chair, groaning again, and nearly fell out of it reaching for the plug. His elbow hit the coffee mug and spilled it all over a stack of bills waiting on the table to be paid and a stream of invectives flew from the old man’s lips. A woodpecker pecked loudly on the side of the old man’s house, and the same flock of starlings flew by his kitchen window. Are you curious enough now to go ahead and turn the page and see what happens in chapter two?

████ when █ ██████ feeling,
██████ a ██ ███ ██████ reeling,
and ██████ in a ██████ today,
I ██████ ███ or ██████ to say.

I want to answer
every one of these poems
as if they were letters
in my inbox, I, a minor
celebrity with no staff;
I would get up early
and read each one;
I would encourage you all
to not despair, or ever
stop writing, and above all
to realize, there is no shame
in wanting, hurting, being
over wordy with petitions,
baring your soul, or
hurling your visions
into the poemsphere;
we are mutually stuck
and this is such a great way
to get traction

things seem to be
looking up in dreamland;
my assassins, usually appalling,
must be on vacation, and
there is more flying,
and less falling;
the big green puddle
coming from under
the refrigerator
receded on its own,
and the wild fox
running around
on the living room floor
found his own way out
through an imaginary cat door,
which is why
I didn’t get up
this morning
at the usual time, but
turned over again
and dove back in
for more.

all you who scroll back
y'all come to your senses
there is nothing there

I don't remember
opening this other
bottle of wine, but
it is here now with its
disgusting insistence

we don’t waste nuthin’
around these parts,
we boil down the bones
and make slaw of the stalks,
we compost the peels,
and crush up the cans,
eat all the leftovers,
chew roots for our hearts;
we do the same with
memories around here,
we forget all the sad times
and concentrate on cheer,
chew bark when we’re aching
and for sadness drink beer,
you may do as you like,
but be sure, if your wasteful,
better not come around here.

long lost lovers
of humanity, why
do you persist, it
has to be painful

what the heck is wrong with me,
ain't I got no sense?
I've spent my time with
frivolity, and lacked for
recompense; I never counted
anything before, but now
I'm feeling spent, maybe
I should have
played the game

for what can compare
with the fanciful
drama of dreamland
where mechanics long for
the rusty old tools
of their past
and swans
larger than life
call to you
with raucous honking
then carry you
to magnificent heights
riding on their
billowing backs
bundled in blankets
of warmth among
the brilliance of stars
and a simple flat tire
results in multiple
tow trucks hauling
each other higher
while troves
of innocent children
explore pristine
mountain towns
in awe of nothing
in search of fun
and happy old ladies
with open purses
provide substance
with pleasure
and the prospect
of gloom
is nowhere
to be seen?

It really does feel good
to get all that dam-
ned laundry folded,
here is satisfaction;
nice, clean, almost fluffy
piles of things to wear.

oh, man
I am having
a really good time here
all by myself,
making a lot of noise
to make up for
the silence

I have met so many
beautiful devils,
one tried to stab me,
one tried to shoot me,
on stole my heart, and
when I wanted it back,
she took my car; ******

the last time I saw Moon,
standing naked
in the holding tank,
he was screaming
at the top of his lungs,
he was screaming
for the man to relent,

he had come to
the end of his road
and he was pleading
for a chance to return,

but the man just jeered
and pushed him, brutally,
over the edge;
my brother has gone,
my father, too,
no peace in their final hour,
turning the last corner,
their discovery abrupt,
horror and headlong descent;

can Lazarus plead
the rich man's cause?
though no bridge
may span the gulf,
might prophets yet
reach living ears,
the risen Jesus,
glorified?

give me drama
in my shoes
give me drama
with your boots
give me drama
like the blues,
give me drama
in cahoots
with understanding
of the current
situation right at hand
understanding of the history
at everyone’s command
give me drama
with your mouth
give me drama
with your hand
give me drama
with your music
give me drama
with your band
it’s not that I am bored
or want anything that’s bad
it’s just drama makes me happy
and drama makes me sad
and I need these strong emotions
I need ‘em just because
in all today’s accounting
I’m not quite the man I was.

give me drama
when you talk to me
drama when your mad
give me drama
when you look at me
and tell me
I’m so bad
give me drama
when you yell and say
you’re never coming back
give me drama
in the laundry room
and drama in the sack

I need drama like
I need the air
drama just to breathe
drama on my podium
drama on my knees
give me ALL your drama, mama,
give it to me please

The temperature has
fallen to ten degrees
and I am looking into the
woodstove now, and seeing
how the densest of wooden
logs eventually succumb
to the fire, and watching
a news report of the LA
fire, and remembering when
I lived there, and flipping
over to the president elect’s
dinner with the governors, and
concluding that even the densest
of people will eventually
succumb to the truth, but
there will be unimaginable
losses (does a period go here
or shall I put a semicolon
just in case?)

imagine that loneliness
has an executive secretary
who works his/her work schedule,
and loneliness forgets
to give her/him
the proper recognition, and
when he/she forgets everything,
loneliness turns up the isolation

I thrash any poor schooner
whose plight I encounter
and toss their bounty to the winds;
me, I sail with the words behind me
as wind, I have worlds to conquer
I’m off to anywhere, Malta?
a Burmese mountain top?
the beleaguered streets of
South Chicago, a brothel
in Yokosuka, the sties of Iowa,
the fertile fields of Mendocino,
meet me there, and we can talk

Silence,
  though sometimes golden
  is now awkward;
I came to you
  longing
  to drink
  from your fountain,
but you knew
  you could never fill
  this emptiness that is me,
    and you demurred,
    and sighed,
    and held me
  in your sad eyes,
    and wet my lips
    with a single kiss.

I woke up
wondering,
why is the sun
shining in through
a north-facing window?
it was
my big maple tree,
bright yellow
in its dazzling,
autumnal display;

the trip to town
was a glorious drive,
the sky
full of falling leaves,
windows open,
my half-finished poem
flapping
on the seat,
I drove more slowly
dodging wooly bears;

the autumn colors
remind me
of the corduroy shirts
I wore
as a boy,
and the multi-colored
drip candles I made
in my bohemian days;

I’ll do my shopping,
then see if the leaves
have fallen
from the gingko tree
on the college lawn,
then go back home
and think
of all the things
I’ll write
while sitting
at the kitchen table
this winter,
by the woodstove,
when the leaves
are all mulch
in my garden,
the snow is falling,
and evergreens
reign supreme.

typically, when something
fell from the kitchen counter
onto the kitchen floor, the
old man let loose a stream
of invective, but he held it in
this morning; he was expecting
company and didn't want
to be found in a kitchen
full of asterisks

or maybe I should
just stand on the thing
I want you to see, and
hail you as you walk by

I believe that a haiku
is not just seventeen syllables
written in three lines, but
a poem, with three lines
that present distinct ideas
tied together, and brought together
by the poet artist,
who can constrain him or herself
and preferably there would be
one idea on the first line, 5,
enhanced on the second, 7,
and then both tied together
in the third, 5, totaling 17
so,
let us try harder
make sure that we are writing
interesting stuff

(or whatever, I don't know)

I was in my room
laying quietly
in the dark,
waiting for sleep
to come
when I heard
him crying in the street;
I went out
in my nightgown
and stood,
as still as I could,
in a patch of light
in the yard;
he came by again
and stopped
and we beheld
one another silently
for a long time;
then I went to him
and touched him
on the arm;
he followed me in
and without a word
took off his clothes
and climbed
into my bed;
we touched, tentatively
and stared into
each other’s eyes;
the streetlight
coming in the window
made his features
gaunt, and loneliness
shared the room with us;
after we made love,
he dressed and went out
the door, silent still;
I went to the window
and watched him walk away
crying again,
louder now.

I spent the first half
of my dream
trying to find
the superglue;
finally, I went
to a store
and they only had
eleven tubes
for six dollars.
I couldn’t do it.
I knew I had six tubes
somewhere at home.
Then the clerk
gave me two tubes
she had in her drawer.
At last! I had my superglue.

I spent the second half
of my dream
trying to figure out
what I needed the
superglue for,
and why the neighbor
was driving his truck
in my yard
and who all those
noisy people were
that prevented me
from hearing
what you were
trying to say.

The birds that stick around
don’t sing much
in winter, I mean,
what is there to sing
about? They are cold
and probably envy
their migrating friends;
I hang with them,
through the winter,
give them seed and suet,
fatness to keep them warm,
but tonight, the birds
are singing again, and
the robins are back,
so, I guess it is
time to shout;
The birds will sing
and I will shout,
I will let my
happiness out.
let it be a song

We’ve all felt it,
been thwarted by the
thwarting forces of Thwart,
left to wonder
what we’ve done,
what was our part, well
come inside and ponder
until the forces depart.
You would think it simple
to just get up and go,
do the things that
you want to, but
oh, no, oh no,
the first tool rule is
always applied, that
the first thing you need
has found somewhere to hide;
you hunt and you search,
it’s nowhere to be found,
and you thought your organizing
skills were so sound; here
have some tea, sit for awhile
and talk to me. It’s the gremlins
I say, they are always trying
to mess up my day. Oh, you don’t
believe in fairies and such,
then, what do you think
has been hindering so much?

Before the time
that men besought
themselves to write
their tales,
there was a man
who dreamed up
letters.

He sat alone
beside a rock
upon a prairie
conjuring ideas
that swirled within him;
the more he thought
the more the thoughts
demanded words;
the more the words
demanded letters,
the more he thought.

Soon he found he couldn't stop. All around him charcoal scribbling began to appear. His friends laughed and said, "What is that? Even a child can draw stick figures. Those are just scribbles." They couldn't see the pattern. The letters were just crazy lines.
Once when he stood before them and read the scribbles they laughed some more and slapped their legs and thought him a clever storyteller. But they never dreamed he had written those ideas down.
The prairie turned white and he would walk around stamping the letters large, with his feet, in the snow. And they laughed some more at him stamping in the snow. And when the spring came, he took the shoots of the new reeds and soaked them and rolled them between two special stones and sharpened a feather to a narrow point and with the syrup from a dark blue flower, he etched his letters as tiny as he could onto the dried papyrus. And the young ones, the ones who could see his markings without squinting, were silent and watched him and wondered.

"What are you doing?" asked a bright-eyed girl.
"I'm keeping my thoughts," the young man replied. "Want to try it?"
"No," she giggled. "I'm afraid. They may make a fool of me if I keep them."
"Oh, **," he said, "you may be right. There's risk in this endeavor. But not much now, since I'm the only one who can see them when they're kept."
"Then I shall sit with you and see what you have done."
The two sat upon the rock and the young man asked, "Would you like to have a name?"
The maiden giggled again. "I have a name," she said. "It is Ariel."
"It is good to know you, Ariel, and with the birds your mind does soar, but would you like to bring your name down to the earth where you can see it?"
"See my name? That is strange, this thing you say. The name I have is only there when another says it."
"But I can make your name appear upon this rock."
He put his hand upon the rock and looked into her eyes.

Black and white are all the same to me,
I have this attitude because I’m blind,
I never wanted this to be;

when people touch me, I want so much to see
just who they are. I know that I would find
them different, not like in this darkened sea;

and the sort of person that I want to be
is always thoughtful of others, and kind
respecting their differences with charity;

We all sometimes act toward others stupidly,
not thinking how they’ll take things in their mind,
we call them names without apology;

So can we all just stop the vitriol and be
a race of people who have left the hate behind,
and try to broaden our humanity?

There are many things that make us disagree
But maybe we could leave them undefined,
And concentrate on things that make us free,
Like love, respect, and our accountability.

fie upon you
my subjects,
you have no idea
what I have done
for you, to bring you
to the brink of wonder.
you are all conclusionless,
while I only, reign in
alcoholic confusion
helpless while spouting
these illusions

(later)

this is the shortest joke in history,
only four words, a dialogue,
question and answer period,
an inquiry, a response, and
somehow it gets a laugh,
emma would love it!

Let me be known as the Sinks Grove sentinel,
I’ll keep a watch from dusk until dawn;
I’ll report on the news even though unsensational,
On the street, up the hill, at the store, on my lawn;

I’ll tell you the things that I hear from the birds,
Report on the rabbits that squeeze through the fence,
Sustain your attention with irrelevant words,
And keep an eye out for Marjorie Pence;

If Ed wins the lottery, I’ll give you a shout,
If the dogs keep barking, I’ll stop up my ears
If you’re worried about thieves that are lurking about
I’ll give you a call and calm all your fears.

Let me be known as the Sinks Grove sentinel,
Sensible and skeptical, lamentable, intentional.

You looked up
from your poetry reading
and out the window,
and in your mind’s eye
you saw me, standing
at the end of a long pier
where I had just awakened
from a dream about flying,
with a look of wonder
on my face, because I had
never woken up before from
a dream standing up, except
as a small child who had
sleep-walked into his mother’s room.
There was a moon on the lake
and a small rowboat tied to the pier,
and I climbed down into it, and
as I settled into the boat,
the water rippled and
the lower moon began to shimmer.
In a visual way, it was musical
and I hummed along. As I did
the boat began to move with
no apparent means of power,
effortless propulsion just like
the flying in my dream.
All I could do was relax
and see where the boat
was taking me. In the magic
of the moment I stopped humming
and the boat likewise slowed
to a stop. I stood up and dove
over the side, swam under water
for as long as I could hold my breath,
and when I came up, I saw you there
reading, involved with my words
on the page, and I longed to be with you.
You couldn’t see me waving, you only saw
me climb back into the boat, rowing,
parting the water with a soft, diminishing
slap as I disappeared into the distance,
but I rose from the water, flying again,
and come up behind you; you looked away
from the poem, wondering what it all meant
and I put my hands together and pushed
forward with all my will power and
flew into your heart. That is where I am
now, and I intend to stay until you can
break free from your imagined reality
and come into my story with me.

Alexander the Great
had a wart on his ****,
it bothered him
so much he cried;
he was stuck with the thing,
it wouldn’t go away,
no matter how hard
he tried; he tried doctors,
magicians, incantations
and chants, formulas
to help him in bed,
but it wouldn’t go away,
he was stuck with the thing,
so he conquered the world instead.

religious conclusions
are often correct
though disdained
by profusions of
the charged intellect;
the reason we’re here
is not so mysterious,
we’re products of a God
who is often less serious
than we hoped he would be;
he may be just curious
like you and me

we could be staring
at the ceiling together
lost in wonder; but no worry,
our time will come;
how does one
pop a champagne cork
with decorum?
is there no way
to decompress
such a powerful reality;
what person lives
in such a weak-*** place
as where you need to cook
on med-high? Let us
invite them back
to simmerland,
poor scorchers
of innocent garlic,
their culinary attempts
of bravado
leave a disting-
guishable aroma behind,
their loving search
for the unknown,
that which was not
before but lays ahead,
is testament
to their sincerity
and enthusiasm,
their recipes
a jumble of surmise,
but they always pull it off

Do I need to escape
to realms of wonder?
I have been impregnated
with the banal existence
of assumed reality
for too long,
and my mind grows
restive

oh ****, it's Friday
and nobody gives a ****
they're all drinking

when we scroll
through this and that
looking for hearts
and minds similar
to our own, we are
full of hope, but the
reality is that there
is just too much stuff
out there, so we often
confine our search
to the first five words.

A lone sailor,
wistfully making his way
to the coast of Venezuela
to visit his ailing mother,
his sail in taters
from a vagrant wind,
his small engine
belching smoke
and overheating,
looked up and saw
the sky fall;
space debris
splashed all around him;
he crossed himself
and wondered.

Life seems to be
an arduous climb
up steep, winding roads,
with harrowing bends,
to the top of a mountain
where you can turn
in a full circle,
and see all around you; or

it is a long sea voyage, all alone,
where you can see that same horizon
all the way around;
the monotony tempered
by the anticipation
of reaching shore
somewhere, maybe to find
something new; or

it is a long walk
in the woods, lost,
all the trees seeming the same,
until you find a clearing
and see a house,
or hear the familiar sound
of traffic on a nearby road; or

it is a journey upriver
battling against the current,
losing headway when you angle
for either shore; frustrated
and out of strength from
the continual rowing; or

it is a tedious drudgery of work
on an assembly line
of routine and boredom,
your paycheck no remediation,
your weekends bland, similar,
a welcome rest, but
holding no promise; or

it is a tiring routine of meals,
the same over and over,
until you end up putting
hot sauce on everything,
and your mouth and your mind
go numb in rebellion
to the lack of creativity; or

it could be a walk through a city
down unfamiliar alleyways,
large buildings blocking
your view, with a fear
inhibiting the anticipation
of finding your way out again,
a foreboding at every corner; or

maybe it’s an accumulation of meaningless things,
a discarding of meaningless things,
an argument over meaningless things,
a long oration from meaningless people
about the meaning of meaningless things; or

it can be a search through a library
of information, roaming
through the stacks, taking
books down, looking
for secret directions,
hidden meaning between the lines; but

sometimes, it is the joy
of a song with others, the
harmony of worship, the
serenity of hope, the
other-worldliness and the tears
of the sadness for yourself and
everyone else caught up in it,
and the faith for what might be; and

sometimes, it is just
the joy of food with others,
sitting together in comfortable chairs,
the chitchat and the laughter,
the regaling of memories
of how you somehow made it,
miraculously, this far;

and then, as if waking
from a dream, you climb from
your bed, dress painfully,
groping for your slippers, and
you stumble through your home, and
lurch to the door, open it and marvel
at something radiant and unexpected,
a prospect of new adventure,
where everything will become
the epitome of all you sought, and
you will become the epitome
of all that you have ever been.

trudging through the snow
I find a place where I can
see the moon, how it relates
to this cold, and alternately
bleak and beautiful landscape
I don’t remember you, I don’t
even know your name anymore,
why should I?

if I wanted you to see
what I saw, wouldn't it
be better to just point,
rather than conjure a
bunch of flowery language
gibberish that leaves you
wondering who the hell I am

I think of you every day,
  and my thoughts fail
    because you are
    so far away;

my thoughts are not words
  that tell you I miss you;
    they are not pictures
    that conjure your beauty;

there is no color, no line
  no meter, or rhyme
    no past and no future
    no increment of time;

my thoughts are feelings:
  needs, pure wanting
    sometimes,
    expressions of longing

that words would fail at,
  and pictures distract from;
    only touches
    would do them justice;

I think of you every day,
  and my thoughts fail
    because you are
    so far away.

The whippoorwills
are a portent of dawn;
long before sun’s rising
they awaken the
alert ones who
welcome the light,
encourage the morning
with its singing birds
and countless bugs,
enthusiastic for life;
whirlpoolS spin endlessly,
grabbing whatever they can
and swirling it
down into darkness;
whippoorwills are for
the listening ones;
the hum of the freeway
and the buzz of mowers
and trimmers
and blowers and
planes and gulls
is for the others
who swat at ambience,
caught in life’s vortex.

Still ones,
listening ones,
stop the wheel!
Everyone grab a spoke.
Let’s turn the spiral
in the other
direction, let it come
from the center out.

(Be sure to read my previous post, Chapter One, first)

As the story continues to unfold in newspapers all around the world, Raul and his mother and their cat sit bewildered at their kitchen table. The window is blown out and flies are everywhere. The old hawker’s cart lies in rubble on the street, the old man face down in the dirt beside it. The laundry still remains in the upper windows but is tarnished by soot. The old dirt street has been shredded by the tanks’ treads and buildings with gaping holes in the brick tenuously stand. No one is moving in the town, only Raul and his mother and their cat.
“Tell me this is all a dream,” says Raul’s mother, but Raul can’t. He can’t even speak because he is so choked up with tears that words will not come. He gets up from his chair and comes to stand by his mother and rubs her shoulder tenderly. She drops her head into her arms and sobs.
A Paris newspaper headline declaims, LES REBELLES DEFERLENT SUR L’AMERIQUE DU SUD. And another in Berlin, DIE REBELLEN FEGEN UBER SUDAMERIKA. The President of the United States issues a stern warning while privately wondering if he can marshal a strong enough protection at his southern border to prevent the rebellion from spreading. He has totally forgotten about the large Canal in Panama. He picks up his private phone and calls Raul’s mother. “How did you survive the attack?” he asks. She doesn’t understand it, how her phone is still working, and where the tanks have gone. “No se,” she replies. “No sabe,” echoes Raul. She doesn’t know. Raul doesn’t know and POTUS doesn’t know either, having been fully preoccupied with thousands of drones flying in over the Canadian border with smiley faces painted on their undersides, and the stubborn refusal of the prime minister of Sweden to answer her phone. FRILLIP he writes on a notepad on his desk, not even understanding what the letters mean. The word had appeared to him in a dream, and now a skywriting plane was writing it up in the clouds out of the window behind his desk. And by now you are wondering what the old man who is writing this is getting at with all his gibberish. The answer to this question is, “Absolutely nothing!” He is just wasting time on another dreary winter day. He stands away from his computer, goes to his kitchen and brushes his teeth, then pulls his pajama legs out of his woolen socks, disrobes and heads for a hot shower.

One bird told another
and he in turn
another
until
in no time,
word was passed
halfway 'round the world;

and though the bluebird
could not communicate
the exact
meaning
of the language,
so foreign,
still, he sang,
and the sense
of the thing
was imparted;

and though the woman
did not know
she was hearing it
in the bluebird's song,
that secret thing
the man had told
the nightingale
so far away
was imprinted on her heart,
and she felt it
and put her hand
over her breast,
and breathed in
and smiled;

And the man
did not know
what the birds
had done.

While looting was a
major concern during
the current catastrophe,
I saw the opportunity;
as a murderer and a thief,
I wouldn’t have to creep in
and be discreet anymore,
I could just boldly
walk in and pick anyone out
and take their wallet,
bludgeon them to death,
if I like, and take
all their cash, and leave
them there; unfortunately
I was thwarted again, by
the unfortunate circumstance
of my own demise, this hospital
room, and all these tubes which
connect me to that life I abhorred.

We are tiptoeing
on the edge
of the precipice,
our senses tell us
to draw back,
but there is a
certain element
of mystery
and surprise;
can we trust
the people
we are with?
Anyone could just
reach out and
give a gentle shove.
Maybe we can fly.
We've never been here before,
we've never really tried.

the things that we say
have no matter, they
come out like slobber
or slather, our pro-
pensity to comment
lacks moment and reason,
our ideas are defined
by the temps and the season,
follow me, brothers, to print,
take off your glasses and squint