Time is running out on us,
The hands replace the feet;
Hasn't time run out on him?
What time can we meet?
His ebb's my flow,
His desert my beach,
His frozen bed my sundae,
Wrap him in white sheets.
His fall's my rise;
Will you close his eyes?
Has the shifting finished yet?
Count his hairs,
His last sun's set.

I'm a Swiss cheese man
With a life of holes.
People, places and things
Don't fall through the holes,
They are the holes.
They don't close in time;
There is an aura surrounding them,
And I'm not looking for fill.
I like my holes.
They become me.

I counted
Thirty-three flies
Stuck
On the fly-paper.
A few stll
Wiggled their wings,
But the feet
Were cemented.
Even if you're born
With wings,
You can't fly off
When well-grounded.

When you first left, it's true I missed you,
More concerned than surprised
Of a life not living with you,
And not on the lookout for.

We were deep into the day-to-day;
Rising, showering for my pay,
Coffee driving to be the workplace slave,
Going out to get a bite or two,
Watching favorite shows with you,
Before retiring for the night.
Getting rest, restarting bright.

It got steeper the further we climbed,
Something was missing, hard to define,
The kids came, there was less time,
Dashing here and there was all fine;
Will I miss that too?
I had plans. I stewed.

So, we cracked the atomic nucleus,
The fallout made us think;
We couldn't life in the shelter,
Outside would make us sick.
The emergency supply was dwindling,
You were itching to get moving,
But the all clear hadn't signaled yet.

The sirens wailed, get out and breathe
Fresh air and some needed reprieve.
One path diverged, and I'm good,
I don't miss you like I thought I would.

What are you hiding.
A stash. A cache.
A tatoo. You.
Do you have pride;
Are you black inside.
Is classical your gas.
Do you like your fine ***.
Is that a crucifix under your shirt.
Do parents think your friends jerks.
Is there a drink in your cupboard.
Expose it. Reveal it.
No longer conceal it.
The truth will set you free.
If you don't believe me,
Believe in you.

Less daylight...
More starlight
Is just right;
Prolonging
Our night.

In cities, flushed.
In landfills, buried.
In the Middle-East:
ISIS

Our music doesn't age like us;
It ages with us.

I've no master
In a lofty mansion
Forgiving wrongs,
Addressing my transgressions,
Throwing my daily sustenance
To be foraged before the dogs;
All-powerful and glory-ridden.
That's reserved for the down-trodden,
Praying from boxes,
Lucky to inherit the wind,
They're told.
But don't bank on it.

The last of the fools
Has been exposed;
I'll look no further
Than the end of my nose.
The glass has flipped
It's me I see.
The last of the fools;
Flip one,
You'll see.

I left my tidy home
For several weeks alone;
When nature interloped.
It was invaded,
Raided.
Droppings,
Breedings;
Laying siege
To my larder.
They'd been waiting
For the moment
Of conjugal entropy.
All they smelled
Was theirs
In dark and quiet.

But who turned on
The flat screen;
Made a cup of tea?
Sat with seeds
And left a pile
In front of my T.V.
Not mice,
But
Entropic progeny.

Sometimes my life splits me in two,
In daytime I never dream of you;
But then I turn my nightlight off,
My real world brings me back to you;
The moon is sun,
The sun is you.

Cain's despair of separation
Needed no mark.
His anquish looks back at me
Through the ink spots
And small words,
Useless words when the ethereal is in play.
The co-joining and sharing
Of organs and events.
Children carrying my stories to you
Like a string between two cans.
I hear your virbrations
Through them.

One smiles and smokes,
And ryes 'n cokes,
While claiming one's
Forever broke,
As one simultaneously
Takes a ****.
How does one
Manage,
At all
To cope,
Binging while
One quips a joke.
Has one found
The ancient code
The alchemist couldnt't
For making gold;
Or a money-tree,
A gem-studded bank,
Where wealth is found
By shaking free.
At times I shake
Like those leafs
When worn down by
One's Poor me, pleas.
I think I know
How one can binge:
It's all the Bull
You're shovelling in.

Whether it's
A novel,
A fist,
A bottle,
Adultery:
It's all about
Lying,
Lying,
More lying,
And more.

Poetry is
A hot knife;
Not a teeth-rattling
Jackhammer.

Speak truth to power,
And don't dismiss the facts.
Why insipidly focus on polls
Like the failing Times,
The Murdochian lies
And the Hedge Fund huskers
Do.
CNN is rudderless.
The media is fascist,
Bending facts to fit the frame.
There is no Venn Diagram
For comfirmative circles.
Don't treat the true and the false,
The outrageous and the normal
As glossed over good people on both sides.
The sides are not equally valid
Because the Post opines it so.

Wherever you go;
Whatever you do;
Whomever you choose;
Whenever you leave,
I'll not question Why.
But allow me a How.
How can I help
On this trip you must travel,
Climbing up hills,
Then viewing the valleys
On this quest
Of a questionable life.

I see you're getting old, sitting there,
With youthful eyes, but graying hair;
But I recall the splash of tresses
Blending with the golden sands.
The time shows in your hands;
You don't hide the blemishes
That youthful pride concerned you with;
The thin lines of loosening skin
Are not what keep you in.
But I recall your winter porcelain,
And summer lines of worship;
Cherokee cheeks and Burmese neck,
Sun-dappled tops and blue jean dress,
The tennis smash and victory dance,
The on and off of our romance.
And in your memory, locked away,
You dance and sing and nurse your babies,
As if it were today.

Old men know
As much about
Love as the
Fifty-one shades
Of our gray hair.

If one discounts the minors -
     Rafas
     Jujus
     Shamans
     Medicine Men
     TV Evangelists
     Animists
     Polytheists, etc.,
Move on to precedent.
There hasn't been one pointed to,
Or witnessed,
Whose name I would whisper
On bent knee,
For centuries now.
Will no one step forward
To testify on our behalf.
I'll go on-line to look
For a virtual someone.

We should run from the wolf,
But Red Riding Hood didn't;
She cut through its forest,
Like bait in its trap,
Presumed it to be
The wolf that it's not.
We fight them, tame them,
Blame and shame them;
We'll throw others in front of them
To save our own skins.
Its golden yellow eyes
Invite you to binge.
You know it's a wolf,
Yet knowingly walk in.
Whitt-whoo, the wolf whistled,
And the lamb stroked its chin.
A fox sent her candy,
But when it was handy
She cried, Wolf!
For that's what it is:
A wolf in sheep's clothing,
Or a ram that's been dissed?

The Vortex has bolted;
The Express left;
The sun, moon and stars
Conspire in the sky
In imitation of Spring,
Before the final plunge.

Then, the Red-winged,
Red-breasted and
Yellow-footed featheries
Will nest and roost
Where I don't want them.

The droppings of winter
Are exposed;
Last Fall's leafy refuge
Upbraid me;
Winter's cover
Is pulled back,
The slumber ends.

I am compelled
To join the festival,
Buy gasoline
For Spring's toys.
I will,
Perhaps,
Be calm
By November.

That field stone bridge, as bridges do,
Waits over brown waters, joining roads
Where Legions marching, marched on.
Her waters breached the ocean, bringing back
Bottles, birds and songs.

In the morning between the columns,
The water breaks from sloping bends,
But under the evening light, when the house
Across the bank shimmers,
They return, marching, dipping, flowing.

Time and time the ebb and flow disturbs ripples
In my mind.
Reflections change from foundations and windows;
Boots and birds go by with the Usk
To deeper waters.
The same tidal waters.
My time here joins roads with the bridge I walk,
Feeling leather below my knees, as Legions did
Before the dig.
Their shields and spears resting,
They bend over fires
And drink clear water that cleverly flows
In and out beneath the bridge.

These same waters,
Ripe in paradox,
Keep days and nights still;
Where past and now meet
In diurnal echoes.

Mr. Fawcett
Was a friend
Who ran hot and cold.
When he was hot
He drank a lot,
And smoked and toked,
And ****** and slurred.
We thought him quite absurd.
He wheezed and coughed
And finally croaked,
Turning himself off.

Beware the highs of March,
You've forty-eight hours.
Sliante!

"Mr. Biden, tear down this wall," pled Juan.

In Heaven,
Human love
Needs
Divine distilling.

Come hither.
Come by.
Come soon.
Come whence.
Come forth.
Come up.
Come hence.
Come often.
Come now!
Come back.

"I'm gonna," isn't good enough,
And good enough's not far enough,
And far enough's not near enough
To get us half-way there.
Forget about a song and prayer,
To get us where we need to be,
To where we breathe deep and free.

Happen upon
The special one,
Like you've known
Her all your life.

Take Aine,
My grandaughter,
Like I've known
Her all her life.

Our skin is a thin veneer
Plied over masks
That put a face on
Our many selves.
The visible outward features are shallow;
Beneath, we are change artists
Vigilant through eye holes.

She gave me a stone,
And her turkey wish-bone,
She'd been saving.
Then presented a pen
She'd hid in her sock
Under her bed,
In her special box.
These are her gifts;
They're all that she's got.
Gifts from a child,
Giving and smiling.
She's not eccentric,
To her they're aesthetic;
If I'm worthy,
Tomorrow,
There's a blue-ribbon stick.

The broken heart cries,
Alone...
But leaves visible scars.

My OFF switch is off,
Which means it's on:
I may have brushed it,
Flicked it in full sight;
I didn't throw a shoe at it,
Or ***** during the night.
But that's how my switch works
When I'm not attentive.
The OFF goes ON,
And then I'm done,
I head towards the cave,
Alone and dark,
With my finger on the switch
To flick, when feeling fit,
When I've had enough of it.

Every body,
Micro, macro or ***** Whale,
Whether healthy and hale,
Or weak and failing,
Will die trying to live,
Will bend, mend and maintain,
Suffer and celebrate to sustain
The body.
I am a body.
Not any body, but one of everybody.
I am bending,
I can mend,
I will sustain.
You could say,
I am some body.

She keeps saddest memories
Closest to her heart;
A death-like permanence
Keeping us apart.
Like X-ed out family pictures
In an album loosing pages.
She believes there were no good times,
Her memory's gone hazy-lazy.

Like the four horsemen
They're walking two abreast
In brown with clipboards;
Bulging satchels hang by their sides,
With brochures and pamphlets
For me, who looks down from my window,
To ponder when they leave.

The crowd on the hill is talking,
Gathering, nothing's still.
All ages, colors and creeds,
Smiling, grasping, awaiting his will.

It looks like earth they're offering,
Year after year the same.
Casting nets, these fishermen,
Fishermen beget.
They're card said they were sad to miss me.

They take it from the young and old,
The ill and hale, and all between.
They are the cream between the wafers,
These Guides and their cookies.

Her shield, displayed,
Shunned errant knights.
The force field, impenetrable!
She was armadilo-like, but
No soft underbelly.
No teddy bear arms.
She endured a hard day.
Me, a soft night.
I strayed on my mini pad
Till her light turned out.
I lay on my side,
Beside her,
In another Romantic tale,
In a galaxy,
Far, far away.

We are too much in the world
Of distant sirens, each one racing
To our homes.
The plume of smoke arrests me;
The shoe on the yellow-dotted line
I passed, wondering how one limps home,
Not noticing.
The other night I heard the empty thud
Of flesh and skin and then my cell was vibrating.
I have a message from South Carolina,
FB wants to befriend us;
Twitter assails us;
What's Ap pesters;
E-mail harasses.
We have more messaging orifices
Than a Bell operator,
And hearts beat faster with every siren,
Every baby's cry.
Night shades, ear plugs
And sensory deprivation
Will only heighten our anxiety.
We're kissing urns and spitting ashes.
Our connection falters.

don't call me old til 75
and only then,
if still alive;
only then
i'll let you drive
to florida -
the west keys,
and only then,
if i please.

i sleep late -
i seldom rise
without the help
of pfizer.

i soak my teeth
i wear a diaper
you think
it's yours
ever after
that's if the kids
agree.

yes, i have property
on the lake,
income rentals
you'd like to take,
but the kids,
they won't agree.

i am daddy,
sugar-coated,
yes, i know
my ego's bloated,
yet you signed on
for free,
but there's a hidden fee;
leave your family.

and you thought
lunch was free.

A milestone of life
Was marked last week:
     I wasn't hit
     I aged one week
So, nothing really,
So to speak.
But
In my right ear
Came a humming,
Caused by nothing
     (and this sounds funny)
Yet, the sound is something
Ringing in my ear.
     (but really, more like a humming)
I find solace,
When alone and thinking,
The sound I hear,
Louder than blinking
     (which isn't funny)
Assures me that
My motor's running.

What's this?
A set-up?
I never volunteered
To be the patsy.
A whipping boy?
Don't like the story line,
Or being the understudy
Of a flip side;
An expendable.
This is a con
In night gallery.

I'm in the crowd,
In the frame,
And the shot is printed.
Success at shutter speed.

Then you wrote a letter,
Started it endearingly,
Signed it with an old promise
That once was clear to me.

Cicadas and crickets
Bring up the chorus,
With bullfrogs and barn owls,
And winds from our forests;
Nature in harmony,
Be part of this song
Join in the choir
Come on, sing along.

Stars in the heavens,
Moon in the dark sky,
Meteors flashing
Like galaxy fireflies.
A roll of thunder
A warm washing rain,
No two Summer nights
Are ever the same.

Then the clouds come
Adding more fun,
A cleansing ensues;
I believe I'll stay
Til the end of this day,
And wade in the morning's dew.

Should tomorrow bring us sorrow,
It can't dampen this night's revelry;
So we'll stay and we'll say
As the night fades away,
*When dawn comes come what may.

My sleep is crowded
With recurring nightmares
Of failing Grade 12 French;
Standing naked and exposed;
Seeing the one you love
Love someone else;
The anxiety of an empty back pocket;
Swerving cars,
Crap falling from planes;
The inevitable chase and stumbling
Just ahead of the apocolypse.
The morning daymare news
Is definitely more frightening,
The end times more certain.

Jennifer is my cleaning lady.
Very efficient, and reasonable.
She comes every two weeks.
She knows all my shortcomings,
She empties my bins.
One week, she left me a note,
With a poetic question.
Two weeks later, I waited for her
To discuss her query.
Jen is lost without love,
Lost her love,
Wants to write about the pain.
Quid Pro Quo, thought I,
We were soul mates,
So I took the opportunity
To ask about stain remover,
And behold,
Her poem is born.

Mass.
It can be so heavy.
Especially in church.

Sleep, Timothy, Sleep.
Let wishes dance about
Your feet for now.
Let angels fill sleep sweet dreams,
While all is as it seems.

Sleep, Baby, Sleep.
Worry not of
Place or times.
As yet, be happy
With childhood rhymes.

Sleep, Dreamer, Sleep.
Let  fancies fill your age forever.
Heed your heart
As sage
In waking hours.

Sleep, Angel, Sleep.
From dreams with candent smile,
You brighten,
Then light again
Where Angels sleep.

I'm not searching
For a rental,
Something less
Than tempermental.
She doesn't need
To be a model,
Yet should react
To the throttle
When I press
The pedal.