What Child is this WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP! WHEEP! WHOP!  WHEEP! WHOP!
WHEEP!...
In Mary’s lap is sleeping…

“It’s okay, folks; it was just the muffins.”

Whom angels greet…
                                          “I don’t want a muffin, thanks.”
With anthems sweet…

In the baptism
of your
exhaustion

from the

night before.


I would guard
your sleep.

and prop
your head
upon my
chest.

let my thoughts
pour over
you,
like a soft
rain.

I would tend
your garden
while you
slept, and
play
like a
child with
your tangled

angel hair.

I would hum you
a melody in
your ears.
and keep your fears
at bay...

I would sit
and watch
you sleep.

In hope that
in the morning
when you
awake.

we would be

everything.

You were

7 or 8 years old

and all

that could

be heard

throughout the

house was

dinosaurs

dinosaurs

dinosaurs!


not just any dinosaur

we had to go

twice a month down

to the San Diego

Natural history museum

for a $40.00 Carnegie

collection dinosaur.


to say in those

days that that

put a dent in

my beer

budget and

golf money is

an understatement,


but each month

just like the moon

following the sun

they came.


I might not of

been as tipsy

in those days

as before,


and my buddies

often left for golf

without me,


but I would not

of changed a

thing.


to be intoxicated by

the joy on your

face with

each new dinosaur

we bought,


to hear you struggle to

say each new

dinosaurs name

over and over again

until you

got it right,


these moments

with you

became the

bearings of

my life.


and even now

you at 34 years old

we still talk about

our treasures and

you have each

and every one,


and I can't wait for

you to have a

son and to

hear the

echo in

this old man's

heart.


dinosaurs

dinosaurs

dinosaurs.!


and answer "yes they

are my beautiful

grandson,


yes they are".

A Manifesto Against Manifestos

          “You can silence me, but you can never convince me”
                    -graffiti on a bulkhead in Viet-Nam

I am not woke; I am awake. No one
Commands me how to see and think and write
I am not one of The Masses.  I am.
I am not one of The People.  I am.

I choose as my teachers Dostoyevsky
And Byron, too, and Shelley, Keats, and Waugh
Ahkmatova, Shakespeare, Chesterton, and Lewis -
Not some embalm’ed face upon a screen

I am not obedient, and no one
Commands me how to see and think and write

i lay stargazing
silent as the absent sun
gravity grounds me
like the touch of my woman
like the very thought of her

let my skin heal
my scars
died
into dead leaves
it's winter
they're all dead

piles of burgundy
on the concrete

don't wait outside for me
I'll always stay inside

thank you
for loving
my words
and lies

I believe I have no face

slowly
waves crashed
creating
a face

within the words
and endless letters

You were the madding chaos in my mind
The thought I kept thinking all the time
I begged for a piece to fall free
And those thought to drift away from me.

You persisted for years
As a thought on my mind
Even without a hello
Or an endearing goodbye.

After all the thoughts,
One wish came true.
Finally I would see you.
And with that hello
And a smiling goodbye,
I could send all those thoughts out
Into a clearing sky.
-ALC
11/30/18