The woman
Next to me
Vexes me
Unwittingly

We share our
Space and place
Meet and greet
Carefully

I wish we could
differently.

Maybe?

I lost a day today
Pickled in anger and
Stewed in ennui

I lost a day today
All my to-dos not done
Opportunities gone

I lost a day today
Left with stress and strife
It’s WWD all over again

Sunlight slants at crazy angles
Gold light flooding
Through windows
Winter‘s herald

It’s a cold beauty this
First deep frost a
Jagged white carpet
On the green and brown lawn

Autumnal peace
Blankets the valley
As we reflect
And give thanks

One.
Might be fun…

Two.
Might be you…

Three.
Be with me?

Four:
Ask for more.

Five,
Combined lives.

Six;
Pick up sticks.

Seven:
Life unleavened.

Eight—
Navigate straights.

Nine:
Leave all that **** behind.

Ten.
Then.

"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)
"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)
"PROSCH!” (kerrchikit)

1970s photography.

Fingers fumble for
Another four more–

“TIk” it’s out;
“Chik” another in.

Icy-blue light cube
Ready for more:

“PROSCH!” kerrchik.

Instamatic imagery,
Flash cube fun.

Is our future faith-based or
Freak fate?

Eternal kingdom or
Just dirt?

Is it really nature versus
nurture…

Or is that a false choice and
It’s both.

Nature is fecund and nature is
fetid.

We begin then end contemplating
Beyond.

We were right all along while we
Were wrong.

There’s an itch that
Can’t be scratched

That’s what you see on me
Face pock-marked red

(Legs worse with this skin curse
A mottled battlefield)

Dead patches picked at
Skin flayed raw

My admission:
A compulsion…

Work the edge with a
Fingernail wedge

REMOVE DEAD SKIN!
Quick dry then dead again

Itch, scritch, pull scab anew
My dark avenue.

Oven love-in!
Propane magic a
Stolen coven

Fire proven for
Frozen provisions not
Microwave woven

Heat it up
Oven cauldron
Cook a dozen!

A chicken sits to think
While sitting lays an egg
No joke, there’s a yolk
Ensconced in membrane

Outside the albumin
Called white when clear
Humpty Dumpty smear
All still in calcium shell

Layers of understanding
Sometimes cracked open:
Is the yolk on you
Or is it white privilege?

Eye are us on IRS
Simplify that tax plan, man,
Widdle ole corporations
Need a break, for Christ’s sake!

Millionaires need more money, honey.
On our backs, poor middle class
Trillionize deficit spending
Always has a happy ending

For the few by the many
Conservative fiscally; riskally
Trickle down, IRS
Golden rain on all of us

I need to sleep a
Deep sleep to

Un-cement
Intent and

Turn around for
Rebound

I need sleep

Still I am up
Left over pm

Awake mistake

Lonely boat
at low tide
bereft

Lost ribs rise
above gray mud
stark

Muck stuck with
elemental exposure
bleached

Proud vessel now
mussel struck
stuck

Loneliness
is quiet
as an ache

Loneliness
is hollow
at its core

Lonliness
Is inside-out
inertia

The gravity
of the situation
pulls you

Down

I want something
A sirloin steak
A piece of carrot cake

I want more than when
Not who but now how
Something more than then again

A purple drink umbrella
A creature double feature
An itch unscratchable scratched

I want something

Lil’ angel black
Perches nightly
Guarding him
All night long.

He sleeps a lot,
Slow old boy
Downstairs resigned
Downsized.

He saved her
She loves him
He tolerates her
Appreciates, grudgingly

Every cat, every dog
Has their day.
Better yet,
They have each other.

Near Halloween
He turned thirteen

Buddy boy born,
It’s a good boy yarn:

Came to us as an adolescent
Eager, fun, ever present

Present for the scent
Of every teaching treat

Sit, stay, come, heel…
(The last one meant walk, walk WALK!

Down to the park!
Smelling all my neighbors!)

But Halloween was hard
Doorbells, voices, lights,

Mobs of noisy people
Invading his protected spaces

Lunging! Barking!
Instinct loosed!

He learned, through the kids,
The “trick or treat”

Then he learned to love it all!
Licking costumed faces

Sniffing ***** bags
For obedience treats

It used to be hard with every doorbell dash
To control big golden yellow buddy boy

As we, and he, got older
(he quicker, the 7 to 1 brief flicker)

We relaxed our grip on him
As he mingled with wizards and goblins

When the next mob of kids arrive
Your SpongeBobs, your Vader’s, your Ghostie-ghouly space invaders

No tricks, a real treat: a new generation meets
Mellow yellow buddy boy saying, “Hi"

Somebody threw you
Away. Wow. To stay.

Black cat
Splat!

Fur ball
Hiss! Rrrawll!

Then Buddy Boy sounded
You rebounded.

Now, shifted
Impulse conflicted

(Claws on paws
Teeth unsheathed

Twitchy touch
Playing rough)

Now relaxed
Switched back

Lil’ Draculina loves him
Under chin

Loves me
Kneads me

Right back
Black cat!

first, relief
I don’t have to do
anything

dishes *****
bed unmade but
everything else

6am to 6pm brigade
promises made
love delivered

chicks in
cats fed
dog abed

then, lover lonely
misses wife—
not the strife

The rising rock
A strutting ****
Seeking Venus
Turns to *****

Rocks to stone
Stones to pebbles
Pebbles to sand
We wash away

I loved the ****:
Tongue teasing
Emergence…

Elegant rising from
Folds within folds
Rising sighs…

Lust to laughter
Owning ******!
Gift from me to you

Terrified at first.
Girls. *******.
Teeth?

I fell in love –
I fell in love –
I fell in love –

She, mostly;
An occasional he.
Which makes me…

Me.

Who?
What?
Where was I?

Uncertain lullaby?

A taste,
A smell,
A sound—

Alarm nearby but:

Frozen asleep
Stasis stuck
Hush-a-bye solid goodbye:

Frozen!

“I CAN’T MAKE MY LEGS MOVE!”
Caught tween here and there
A living/sleeping nightmare

Dreamer tries to wake,
Remembers Borges’ circle;
Who dreams the dreamer?

Nightmare ends as
Barrier weakens
Fluttering eyes awake.

Shift, move; pillow fluff—
Chasm crossed;
Glad I’m not in my coffin.

Ergo I am
Sham, eye yam
Green eggs and spam

Ego flim-flam
Partizan
I am what I…

Yosemite denizen of
Potato dimension

Not rat but rabbit with
Rabid storage habits

When you don’t hibernate
You better compensate

Be the advocate ant
Not absent grasshopper

Support your PBS
It’s your better Nature

‘Twixt here and there,
slippage

What’s right and true
gets bent

This way or that
depends

On what you now
decide.

Come on, comma,
#hashtag, pound for pound
Embedded endash–
WHIPLASH!—EMDASH!

There’s the exclamation!
But the crux of the biscuit:
Zappa’s apostasy
Is the apostrophe

Suave semi-dash-colon-
A change of ideas, but not;
Punctuation as comedy:
And th-that’s all, folks…
Period.


(don’t get me started about the $#%¥!ing little upper right circle degree thingy)

Make the Moses message minimal
Two tablets become one
10 commandments crucibled
Only one remains:

Don’t be greedy

Step north south east west
Topsy-turvy choices
Whirlagig way to go
Arounds abound

Make a choice
Bet on the red peg
Double down
Scritch “Hit!"

One for a high
Two for low
Three for pig
No mistakes

It’s a crapshoot.
Aim high.

I’ve invented gravity wave goggles
I slip them on and see back-and-forth
Click click click click click backward:
Big brother John shows me how to tie my shoe.

Click click click forward
Sock war with brother Wally.
Click click; seizure of brother Joe’s room;
See sock war. Click; I’m here.

Cluck. Cluck.
Cluck cluck cluck…
“Preserve your memories
They’re all that’s left you.”

regressive country
past progressive

rights human
redefined denied

your civil right
to be uncivil

polemicized
ploiticized

you essay
your world

topsy-turvey—
orangey

eulogized

Me, standing up
For myself
Summer camp, 1972

Catholic camp
Anything but
Everything ****

Big guy
Twice my size
Calling me gay

What’s gay anyway?
Didn’t know then
Now I do

It felt entirely unfair

Hairs tingled
Skin prickled
Kicked in adrenaline

Little fat boy
Stood tall
Never to be bullied again

I’m going to have some fun
With my rat-a-tat word gun
Words profane and words as pun

“A well regulated militia....”
Means hellya! we can police ya
And send you another noticia:

We CAN regulate your sorry ***
(Sorry, you think that crass?)
And negate forever your NRA impasse

Hey, you, you NRA ringers
I care **** about prying “cold dead fingers”
60 dead, 500 ******—that's what lingers

Legislators, grow a pair
Make good laws: strong and fair
End this mass-death love affair

While nostalgic
For the future

Makes me Pine for the
Quintossence of

An enterprise to
Better us with

Music classical while
On the voyage nearing

Symphony No. 9 sounding
In the deep of space as

Picaresque maneuvers fret
The worf and weft of a

Passion/logic debate as a
Sign of the times and I

Make a discovery:
We can move beyond ugly.

A history lesson with
An ever rising screed

A lesson not lost
Of human cost

"Island, water,  huge!" is said
By orangey Cheeto-head

subatomic love as an
attraction/repulsion thing
while planet's orbits swing

i am neuron
striving to be proton—
but recall electron

and all that matters
niether here/there
is all that matters

time slows,
shows, goes

feel it come—
then its gone

anticipate to
participate…

(endeavor to
remember)

I think I’m a Bhuddist
Because I’m catholic
Look it up

I think I’m humanist
because I’m sympathic
It’s what’s up

I think I’m a pugilist
Fight the fight fantastic
Loving cup

Marginalized and minimalized  
****** wife with knife
Boss with memory loss
With whom I spend my life.

*** vowed
Then disavowed
I fell in hot hot  love
With stone-cold *****

Unicorn grow a horn
Your **** smells of blueberries
She walks away with ice cream
Didn't hear a word I said

M-bree oh! I didn't know!
Eggshell walk; afraid to talk
Husbandry is hard
I am on my own

Home alone

Ameliorate:
To make better

Asked if we could
We knew that we should

We said yes and
Plum blossoms blossomed

Welcomed ambitious souls
Into our lives and home

Oaxacan students
Changed our course

Family extended,
And we, forever bettered

we plug along
day to day
up early
doing our job

i’m a lucky *******
liking my accidental career
molding minds
for decades

aiming at a last goal
needing collegial words that
come and come and come
and i’m humbled,

left floating

*** of magic soup
mother toiling
leftovers boiling

a kitchen *****
making food for a dozen
with leftover magic

chicken soup first
a ratatouille iteration
mixo mysterioso: gumbo?

a shape-shifting soup

amazing Grayce fed us
dressed us, taught us:
love.

Fish sticks
Powdered milk
Tang.

Fish sticks
Powdered milk
Tang.

Bologna
On Wonder bread
With Mustard.

Liverworst
On white bread
With ketchup.

American cheese beneath
Toasted Wonder Bread
Campbell’s tomato soup beside.

Lunch. With mom.

I need
I need something

I scratch at my neck
And peck at my phone

I want
I want something

Just what it is is elusive
Just below the surface

I want to scratch the itch
Answer the question

But I don’t know the now
I sit, anxious

Rejection reaction
Who is yelling at whom?

Button pusher
Make your game claim.

Have it escalate
To blame game.

My good impulse
Repulsed; intent bent.

This cat and mouse ****
Will bring the house down.

FBI like SCI/FI
X: Scully and Mulder

Sceptic and Mystic
Science informed Intuition

Solves the mysteries
Of scurrilous skulduggeries

Heinous histories
Resolved collaboratively

Mind games
Literally;
Now.

How?
Mentally
Find aims.

Hide shames
Figuratively;
Somehow.

I want to give you
******—
not sarcasm

Marred love
from married love
to scarred love.

I need touch to
bridge the chasm
don’t you?

Finding a film for my love
Flowing from Amazon Prime

Stopping in a wonder of words
I know whose woods these are

Dead Poet's Society
Echoes deep in my personal well

A prevailing influence now a
Confluence to career’s end

I wouldn’t call it plagiarism
Just another poem made possible

We pass through
Interstitial stuff
"Riding on a
Carousel of time”
Says Joni

I’ll jump on the
Dapple grey
Up and down
Round and round

Painted pony
Brings me round
To the rough
And here I stay

I don’t have to
I might want to
Then I will do

Inspiration might
Strike
Or not

Door 2B or
Hackneyed allusion
Art collusion

I may, I might
If not, alright
But, yes:

My story is unexceptional
But for a few exceptions

A story uneventful
Except when remarkable

There are characters dull
And characters full

It’s a whirlygig existence
More than a water slide ride

Take note as it happens
No one else keeps score