Ball of scratch and
Survival scruff
That did a ditch dive

Feline finding us

Lil’ Draculina
Eschewing touch
Now seeks and gives love

There she is with her dog
He is old and dying
She is purring hospice

Ensconced tween his paws
Nose that sensed her
Saved her

Friends till the end

dragons march
up the valley
spitting fire

dragon’s roar
rolls down valley
echoing

dragon drops
fall as rain
it’s fall again

Sun is out
On Sunday afternoon
Summer into fall

I’m inside
Insulated
Cool

Curtains drawn
Ceiling fans on
Never thought we’d need AC

Three digits
With tiny circle
Right, and a bit above.

Three digits
Never here before
Not cool, not cool: HOT!

Watch widget
Says it’s only eighty-seven;
How hot in 2097?

Fresh faces
New futures
Writ large

Opened door
Adulthood beckons
Careers unknown

Friends made
Choices to make
Future shaped

Welcome all to
College smorgasbord!
Choose wisely

The fate of the world
Rests with you
And you and you.

Our familia
Are familiars

Alliances abound with
Conundrums around

There is love, true
But quick to misconstrue

And misinterpretation
Creates red frustration

Then misplaced anger;
And malplaced angst

Siblings feel betrayed—
Untrusts, untruths replayed

It’s a Punch and Judy show
It plays out mean and slow

A sad, but vibrant
Painting by Van Gough

What way
We can’t say

Imagery
Left to be

Poetry not
On the clock

Turn a phrase
To mayonnaise.

I slip out of time
No reason, no rhyme
Moments internal
Becoming eternal

The world whorls
Senses spin
Past is future
Now not now

Relatively needs sensibility
As temporal moments swirl
Eddies distract and detract
Be here now

There is a false bottom
Where we hide our hearts.
We make it, conceal it
And think it’s done.

There is a false bottom
Sins sequestered
Stories not told—
Unseen unknown.

There is a false bottom
Unknown even to us
Beyond that bottom:
Abysmal abyss.

Every moment is stolen
Past is past—
Immutable

Future is malleable
Maybe
We don’t know

We know now.  
Whoops!
Past.

Number two gets knocked around
Snockered and knockered by
Plans backfired.

But Orville knows deep in his heart
(that is red red red as his nose)
That number two is still good, too.

One, golden, pure as driven snow cones
Head high held in the ozones
Knows not what just misfired.

Number three, trickster, conspired:
Pitting one against two.
What transpires inspired is clown!

What we thought was gone
Is gone.

So long!

What we think will come
May come.

Somehow
Cherish the here and now.

What is not not true is not unnecessarily untrue—
Usually.
What’s actual?
It’s all possible
While not all probable.

Just ask Mr. Spock.

To floor to bid old boy good night
When I realize I’m paralyzed.
Pain—icy fingers flowing from
Back to calf with ankle rankle.

Second time this summer;
But I claw a chair to summit
And seek deep sleep
For tomorrow’s Dentistry.

Freshteros to Denteros, journey made.
I sit in Throne of Drills;
Cavities filled.
Yet still, a crown is lost!

Channel 3 had Commander Bob;
Eyewitness news on channel 7.
Channel 4 could be watched—
Sometimes.

UHF was a twilight zone,
“Imagine if you will…”
Twiddle those rabbit ears
Tune in if you can…

Local news with a weather man
Gesticulating, cut to
“Shoe sale at Tom McCanns” or
“Save on snap peas at the A&P.”

Then cable:
240 stations with nothing on
Re-runs; if you can find ’em, tape ‘em.
Stack ‘em up and maybe watch ‘em.

Cut the cord.
Nascent net hits the nation
You tube surf to some URL,
A network station replacement…

Netflix, not Nielsen’s
Binging, not “tune in next week…“
Amazon, Hulu, Utube, or Vudo,
Storytelling bettered.

Back in the days of Commander Bob,
"Mutual of Ohmaha’s Wild Kingdom,”
Followed by “Wonderful World of Disney”
In Peacock Technicolor

Cancelled shows meant
Unfinished stories
Tangled plot-lines
Unresolved ennui.

Now, you pitch to Netflix *****, get a “yes.”
And tell a story In 6 to 10 episodes.
You won’t be canceled after number 3;
Vox populi decides Season Two.

Story arcs matter;
Just ask David Lynch.
25 years later, you magnificent *******,
Agent Cooper crushes his chrysalis.

I’m invisible

Corporeal,
Physical but

Invisible

I can’t be seen

I’ve left my mark
My scent
My ***

My words
My works

Still,
You don’t see me

I’m down in the dumps.
Why? I don’t have the mumps.
Sure, life has its bumps,
Even some humps.
I’ve known many chumps,
As well as some grumps;
(One called me a frump!)
Yet—my mind does its jumps;
Something deep, deep in my ****?
A rumble, stumble, grumble;
Oumph! Ugh!
Quick, pass the stomach pump:
It’s, it’s—
I’m passing a…

Jared, Jared, face so red
Kissing Kislyak in Trump’s stead;
A fleeting meeting—
Collusion conclusion?
Rrussia ain’t Prussia, Bellorussia!
Conclude to collude would be so rude
I’d rather be punk’d by Ashton Kutcher,
Jared Kushner. Gotcha!

I love this life,
Right here
Right now.

My deck.
My lawn.
Summer sunshine.

Peaceable kingdom:
Buddy boy is smiling
Ms. Black is sprawling
Lucky is strolling.

Fred…
Is just being Fred.

Relaxed Annie is
Asleep there
In her chair.

It’s 5pm
In July
In Freshwater and
Still 80 degrees.

I’ll take it.

We all need sol’s fast bright photons
To feed our planet’s green plant protons
And with its chlorophyll
There’s a way we know it will
Release some electrons
Sugar-making depends on.

Ruminate on ruminants—
Green grass consuminants.
Dairy, beef concluded on
Solar sugar chewed upon.
Sun, sugar, solar food.
A photon’s single goal pursued.

I may be mostly vegetarian,
A non-mammalian true contrarian;
I don’t eat beef
But love the leaf!
3.00×108 m/s
Lights our life, free and fecund!

Friction
Isn’t fiction
It’s great
Things grate
I surmise
To hydrolyze,
A basic strife,
Gives us life.
What seems mystical
Is really chemical.
To life!

Oh say can you see
Through the rocket's red glare
And the canon's loud roar
How we glorify war
Glory, gory hallelujah!

This land was their land
And now it's our land
But it's not your land
Though made by your hands

That pick our grapes and
Hang our drapes and
Landscape lawns and
Harvest prawns and
Caretake children
Carpenter homes
Clean motels
Cook and serve…

Et cetera.
¿Tu hablas español?

Be kind to our
Illegal friends
For mujer may be
somebody's mother.

Old dog,
wait for us—
Surely, you can do that?
Don't go while we are away

Stay!

The kitties need you.
The homestead needs you.
We need you.
We love you, buddy boy.

Old dogs teach us so much:
Loyalty, love, friendship.

Impermanence.

Buddy boy, please
Be here when we come home…

Okay?

I once had a love affair
With Shakespeare
From Nick Bottom's fuzzy ***
To Launce Gobbo in the know
And feisty Feste crooning a Jewess

Then a new direction
R&J breaking rules
Pants on a Shrewess
Two Gents Rockin' 'bout Sylvia
Bleachers, lights and stage
A comedy, no Error, then
Tempest, the Next Generation
Prospero in 2314AD.

Yep. All of them:
Complete works! (abridged)
Before I left the park.

A gap in time before
Darkly pierced prince
Mourning loss of mother
Ends the affair.

OK; I will:

I will drone on and on about this and that
and you won't get a word in edgewise.

Droning is fun! You don't have to
check your mouth
or worry about vocabulary;
you just need to keep talking!
You can talk about sheep,
you can talk about skin lotion.
Did you know that lanolin
comes from sheep shear?
But no one yet has figured
a good use for hairballs—go figure!
I mean, the Scottish figured out
what to do with sheep's intestines;
I mean, the Scotts figured, yes,
I'm talking haggis!
But then again,
the Moonlanding was staged.
It's true!
Evidence of soundstages
for that prank can still be found
in Area 53.
But back to Hagrid —
in the Deathly Hollows
he seemed 3 cm smaller
than he did in the first HP movie,
and I'm not talking about Hewlett-Packard.
Can you imagine Carly Fiorina
as president?
I sure can't!
Did you know that you can survive
deep in the redwood forest
by licking the slime of banana slugs
for needed protein
and protect yourself from hypothermia
by plucking hundreds of fiddlehead ferns
and delving deep inside them…

hey, I think my drone batteries jus

Evidence is everything.

You can think something else is so;
You can hope something else is so;
You can believe something
Someone else has said is true.

There is no fake news
There are only fake facts.
Your take on the facts
Introduces subjectivity:

"Danger, Will Robinson, danger!"

Subjectivity rocks the boat
Distorts the daily;
Removes truths and
Introduces indecision.

Subjectivity *****
Fax me the facts.
Just the facts, ma'am,
Just the facts.

Lil' baby peeks
From her towel cowl
Placed to placate
Her hissy scowl.

Spastic cat relaxes,
Spies with her little eyes
Safe within her clothy cave
Believes she's invisibile.

Later, much later,
Lucky emerges, yoga stretches,
Black cat arches back,
Shudders; tail's end softly twitching.

Ready again for tactile affection,
We stroke her silky fur
Feel her subtle purr;
Lil' baby again.

My brain
Membrane
Contains

Coltrane
Brisbane
Bi-planes

Mansplaining
Hydroplaning
*******

Guilt explaining
Speaking plainly:

Fruit
Truth
Pie
Lies

Life
Liberty
Pursuit of something

Jazz and ****
What it is

Enjoy the fizz

Hello, yin, I'm yang.
We're different but mostly the same.
You're white, I'm black,
We curve and enfold:
A little of you in me,
A little of me in you—
Not a lot, just a dot.
With that, we complement each other.

Did I tell you you look especially good today?

Garaj Mahal installed. Check.
Appointed panels point to sun. Fun!
1880s shack gets a gingerbread attack.

Our accidental shack now a home;
Roof, gutters, **** and tube
Kicking and screaming into 21st century.

Hopefully our last crusade
From shack to home—
Retirement refinements.

Still, discomfort continues:
Pulling on my jeans
Solar installers wave across roof lines.

Breakfast with traveling guests
Suddenly includes Trevor
Smiling, painting trim the through the window frame.  

Soon, our own summer home again
(Home two-point-three-point-four!)
As we reconnoiter our nest for the rest.

Bless me forward
For I have sinned;
My last concession
Was 52 years ago.

Father, I've lied and slyed
But always told my truth;
Sins of father sync to son
I see his truth but live my own.

Hail, Mary, and our father
I can be contrite and right.
I don't seek Yahweh's forgiveness
For my trespasses, I seek yours.

If this is a one-shot deal,
And this humanist realist thinks it so,
Your forgiveness matters more
Than some spirits' in the sky.

I'm talking in poems,
Not taking out loans.

Should I stop?
Listen to rhyme cops?

Limbic brain knows
As expression flows;

Alliteration assignations,
Word associations.

Autonomic metonymy
Brings out the best of me.

It's nothing really,
No, really it's nothing.
Don't worry about it —
Didn't happen.

It's not a problem;
(Or, as I see it, pablum.
Yet, I seethe at your slight
You myopic fat pigeon-******!)

(Did I say that out loud or just think it?!)
No, no; it's fine.
Tuesday? Sure.
Yeah, me too!

Stanley and Zolda
Kitties before tragedies
Knew nothing of opera
As they came home with us
For their beginnings and endings.

"She walked up to me
And she started to purr
With her big gold eyes
And her dark grey fur,
Oh! My Zolda!

Zoe-El-Dee-A, Zolda"

Magnificent Stanley!
Tiger of Freshwater;
Fishbowl yard too small
Wandered far afield—
Too far too soon.

Zolda kept close
Big Buddha girl.
Queen of hearth and home
Friend to two big dogs
Tolerant of cats after cats.

Tristan and Isolde
Chose us as many would.
Stanley taught us tragedy
Zolda rests in peace.
A tale of two kitties.

There is not a door
No lock or key
No password required

It's more like quicksand
You are in it before you know it
But you know the sinking

No amount of thinking
Stops the drop
It's real not rational

How low do you go?
No knowing
Not far, you hope.

I interfere?
I'm in your way?
My presence offends?
If you want to be alone,
Leave.
Don't blame me
For being me.
I live here, too.

It's complicated
Living with another

Both have wants and needs
That intersect or conflict

Conflict is
Complicated

No easy way out
Best to stay with intersect

Darling,

The sun is out
My door is closed

Clouds come from within
Not without you

I assert my right to live
Here, not aggrieved

This land is your land
This land is my land.

The canyon of my imagination
is clogged and dammed.  
What am l to do?
Wave from the sidelines?
Send up a flare?
Dissolve into despair?
Write an opinion piece?
Or take another tack,
Completely unexpected.

I wait and see
And hope it will find me

I fall through time

Crawl through space

Zig-zag slip through years.

Memories roil and bubble;

Photos float and dissolve

Years melt; memories collide

Familiar faces and places

Surface and eddy—

Click, stick, then sway away.

Mom. Sis. Nephew. Friend.

Loved, remembered, cherished.

All fall away.
Past is present
Present passes,
Falls through time.

I love you all.

I twiddle with my phone
A futile search for meaning.
It's not good to be alone
And find only yearning.
For what?

Unknown.

When life lurches,
Add a modicum of control—
Downshift.

Flight or fight is
Lack of hindsight.
Take a chill pill.

Inaction might be
The right reaction
For stress reduction.

Oh, polluted-full with noxious skies
Of coal-born ashen rain
For awful earthly travesties
Undone the truth is plain

America, America!
Trump sheds his waste on thee
And rapes thy good
Your motherhood
From sea to oily sea

After the reign of rain
And five years of drought and doubt
The fecund world is green again
With sugar packets growing

Plums aplenty on trees one and two
Cherries and blueberries ripen apace
Late blooming apples
Three varieties, small as olives

Festoon trees one to four
Grapes, clusters of little green B-Bs
Promise wines, jams and galletes
A feast after famine

Best yet, peaches!
Only one last dry year
Now, dozens upon dozens
Fatten in the June sun

Bigot spigot on:
Bloviator gladiator
Spewing racist rhetoric:

"Multiracial intersectional
Non-Ableist unpacked transphobalist
Micro-recessive-macro-regressive
Cis-gendered 4th-wave femininizer
**** nonsense!"

—Every Archie Bunker

Every. Single. Day.
I try to do good.
Build a bridge—
Mindful of the future:

Create something.
Clean my messes.
Fulfill responsibilities.
Say something nice to someone I love.

WWD gets in my way
Every step of the way.

Darling,
I'm still fighting.

My body know bullies:
Flames to my limbic brain!
I tense, clench, clutch;
Time and stomach prolapse…

(I'm being bullied;
This makes no sense—
Stay? Run? Respond?
How? Snarky? Politely?)

Retreat seems best.
Breathe, think, relax.
Talk it through with my wife.
Let the F-or-F response flush.

Rhetoric can be a fine-pointed toothpick for
Lifting lint from disagreement
Or a coarse cudgel
Driving points home.

My body knows bullies,
My intellect knows notions.
Trust your body.
Trust your brain.
I do.

The refrigerator is humming;
It would only take a thumping
“thrrr!-thrrr!-thrrr!-thrrr!-thrrr!-thrrr!”
To sound like film through sprockets.

My dad captured family life
On 8mm then super-8 film.
He taught me editing.
Splicing, cross-cutting the past.

Thread it; see it, cut it…
Get out the razor blade
And thin strips of splicing tape.
Make the past more perfect.

We are our own editors.
Remembering and forgeting.
I choose to remember joy
And excise the pain.

Wally and I would race
Fulfilling our childhood task
Collecting office papers for fire.

One of us: your office.
Grabbing your wastebasket first—
Looking for fobidden pleasure treasure.

Around the fire pit,
Forms 623-A and 506-D were flames.
Miss July? We claimed!

Up in the hay-loft,
Buried in the way-back,
*** caches established.

Thanks to Amazon,
A thought I think upon:
My dad read SERIOUS SOCIAL ****!

It wasn't always all about ***.

I'm just six of ten;
You had children
Often.

It wasn't 1/10th love
It was all in.
Always.

Grayce Thonberry Floss
You taught us all
Grace.

Thanks!