Love, love, love
It’s that simple

There is only one ingredient
Do I have to say it?

Love, love, love:
Lil’ Draculina to baby

Ms. Black back from
Outside to in

Fred into
Well, Fred

Buddy boy served it up;
We got “Love, love, love!”

I try to live it:
Goodness not godless

It bears repeating:
Love, love, love.

Now again, adrenaline
My quest test
Is a go.
Go.

Project‘s launch
Just a hunch–
It’s needed
Now.

Pegs in place
Work begins:
Immigrant stories told;
Truth.

Days, months of hot brown
Walking around here, there

I wake with a poem of home
Far from the familiar fog

Missing the mist and rain
Missing the wet and green

Full moon tonight in Oaxaca
It’s full too, in Freshwater

Don’t forget us, gatos
We will be home and wet soon

02/08/2020
Oaxaca, Mexico

There are more than 17 dimensions
Even more ways to delay the
Here and now

Hike a ride
On Mr. Hawking’s bus
What a great, but brief, trip!

The Further we go go
The less we know know
Roll up for the Magical Mystery Tour!

Life is unbelievably beautiful
And remarkably breakable

A rush of joy derailed by
Some news inducing grief

Life seems bipolar because it is;
Crushes of fate between triumphs

What wets our eyes can
Sometimes beget laughter

Choose the latter
You‘ll feel better

An ambulance mourns and wails
Someone down in this town

Church bells chime at all times
Weddings, masses, memorials

“BRRROUOOGH! GAS! OAXACA!”
On every street on every morning

Smaller, stiller sounds; listen:
Cooing doves in jacarandas

Silent dogs on rounds;
Stealthy, not needing us

Squeals, peals of children
Skating, biking in the park

Schnack-fwack brush
Of shoeshiners

Twhick—shwick—thwick
Of fastidious street sweepers

Traffic, thrumming always
The humming of Oaxaca

Yesterday, a poem fluttered by
Fragile clumsy moth
Colorful, felt, smelt,  
It had something to do with
Light, shadows, and
A hint of vanilla
From ponderosa pines

In the breeze
From the trees
In a Mary Oliver forest,
“I thought the earth remembered me
She took me back so tenderly.”

Stillness.
Warmth.
Water.
Eagles.
Paddling.
Friendshi­p.

Sharing food with
Campfire laughter
Loving this life:
Going far away
To come home again

How far should you go
For what you don’t know?
Tomorrow?
Last year?
Marrakech?

Why should you go
To where you don’t know?
To borrow?
Revere?
Make a wish?

Where should you go
To walk it so slow?
Assuage sorrow?
Persevere?
Make a switch?

What you should know
To become thorough
Is time’s arrow:
Change gear,
Self enrich

Rat-a-tat-tat
Human blood splat
Worshipers now whispers

Christchurch
Pittsburgh
Minneapolis

Students, educators
Learning hate kills
What have we learned?

Parkland, Florida
Sandy Hook, Connecticut
Columbine, Colorado

And many many more
The NRA is complicit
Guns, (GUNS!) **** people

I sleep next to
The time traveller’s wife
I’m there with her
In the then when where again

She sleeps next to
The time traveller’s life
She’s there with him
Bending being here and then

We sleep until
The moment is right
We wake being
Me, you, us and them

HE: do you want huevos rancheros?

SHE: we don’t have tortillas

HE: no problem; we have tricolored tortilla strips!

SHE: we don’t have salsa

HE: no problem; we have cherry tomatoes. We have onion. Half an avocado

SHE: we actually have fresh cilantro

HE: we have salsa!

SHE: fresh eggs of course

HE: thanks, girls

SHE: beans?

HE: yes! Left over from February; when I turned 60. Thank you, freezer

(Half hour later)

THEM: those huevos: yum!

Freshmen,
(Her, him and they,
And all other
In-between iterations!)

Welcome to
CSU Northmost!
Furthest on the
Northcoast!

It used to be
Hills, Stairs, Umbrellas
Before corporatization

We had a radio station

No more:
Sacramento weather
CSU Chico news
Welcome to Jefferson!

Local news? No.
Community calendar? Whoa!
"Here’s what’s happening in
Yreka California…”

We hope you enjoy
Your time here
In the Northern Quadrant
Our quad-county area

We used to be HSU
With a KHSU and
A funky community vibrancy.

Welcome to CSU Northmost!

A pride of lions
A parade of elephants and
A shrewdness of apes

A prickle of porcupines
A crash of rhinoceroses with
A chatter of budgerigars

A gaggle of geese
Gleefully honking
Heads held high

A horde of crows
Cackling and cawing
Wings spread wide

A kerfuffle of Flosses
A gatherings of clans
A thankful flocking

Kerfuffle is commotion
A happy hoopla
Movement together

Noisy, gleeful, cantankerous
Laughing, loving, boisterous
Family to the end

You have the right to
And/or remain silent but

Speak your truth
softly or LOUDLY but

No, really:
SHOUT YOUR TRUTH!

Breath from your diaphragm
Knowing your is is am

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?

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.

“It’s on,” she said,
as she slid her hands
into her stirrups.

I countered with a hearty “Harf!”
and jumped aboard my steeley steed.
The klaxon clanged
and we were off.

I rounded the first turn inside,
scraping the turnstile.
She laughed heartily as
she glided swiftly by.
Suddenly, smoke and
screeching terrors!

Aluaurms sounded
Medicaloes swooped
swarming with pinging lights strobing
.
My steed whinnzied and shuddered
I swooped around and sloped down.
As I puttered to a stop,
she emerged from the twisted,

Ok’d.

That day, no one shivel lost,
but she had won!

Line three thrummed;
bisectional translateral
segments echoed sympathetically.

Eyes one through nine
snapped open
as all legs were put on high alert.

I proceeded down lines
two through five cautiously
to see what was disrupting.

What was I fractually perceiving??
Food, yes; but what—
The fly (but what? half a fly?)

twisted and twirled in my web a
s the homunculus shouted,
and the hairs on my legs tingled in horror,

as I heard, “heeelp meeee!”

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…

semester ends frenzied
with freshmen disheveled
I worry for their worries

I feel their predicaments
but not mine to solve
my words, I hope, are salve

retirement ripe,
I do my best
they must do the rest

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.

The sun kissed mountains
Greet me to the north
A beckoning mystery

The double domes
Of Templo Santa Domingo
Christened in golden light

Shine below the
Guelaguetza dome a
Spaceship mushroom

I walk the streets in early morn
Beguiled, bedazzled, in love
With our temporary home

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

I’ll never play checkers
  with my dad again
Can’t go back to that
  place or when

I remember being
  sick at six
But mom knew soup
  and other tricks

[here’s where you think
  of who/what you lost
both the gain and/or
  the precious cost]

We’re on a time slide
  What a ride!
    Only towards
       So look forward

Buenos días
Hoy es sábado aquí
Hoy es domingo allí en Australia
Hoy es በማንኛውም ቀን
En el Planeta Próxima

El sol salió hace 15 minutos
No veo ¿Que?
Esta detras de las nubes
Pero sabe estas allí
¿Porque?
Se lo que se.

Sé que cada día es un milagro.
Sé que para ser amado,
Necesitas amar
Sé que soy amado porque
Te amos

rye fphitter waht two…
What?

myie whust cheich punum
What?!

tessha bidda fikum…
I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

Ok I’ll kreshit bid it dit
What?! I’m

Honey, I can’t hear you…
Could you please speak up?

Yes!
mmimble schumble com

Timely serendipity
Time travel is slippery

I just went back to ‘68
Way pre-Watergate

I was just ten
Way back when

“Come on, Sherman,
Into the Way-way Back Machine!”

Who-hoo Hulu!
Two years after Sulu…

I enter the “Time Tunnel”
Running the funnel

Distanced, displaced
There I am:

Face to face—
It’s me again.

in a malaise
a general haze
not quite right
these days

the buzz is wrong
a sour note song
but, onward!
shuffle along

show a wan smile
while all the while
walking the maze
feigning strong

I need some grief relief
I need some glibness forgiveness
A second chance glance
Another shot at redemption

It’s the what we do wrong song
A second stanza reprise
Self reflection detection
And deflection surmise

And then one day it happened.
Not one gun was used, nor knife.
There was not a mass shooting;
no one was killed.

Not s car hit a pedestrian,
not even by accident.
No deaths by heroine overdose
nor by fentanyl were recorded.

No one committed a ****** crime
against anyone.
Doors opened for indigents
and immigrants.

It became more strange:

Truth was spoken everywhere,
even on Fox News.
Corrupt leaders abdicated—
get this—even Trump!

Acrid air cleared, waters too
and salmon swam upstream to spawn.
The earth cooled half a degree,
over the rainbow.

Yesterday, I was not a nice person
An entire episode of that

Apologies being crafted
Strategies hopefully drafted

A. Bourdain?
It was a trigger

Why I love travel
My best times with you

Showed us everywhere
Bonds we all share

Crass, adorable, unlikeable
(Self reflection there)

I didn’t suffer loss well
A man behaving badly

I was awful to my travel companion
No excuses; apology?

The past
Finds its audience
In the future

With rabbit hole logic
Place the eight
straight on its side

Tesser-react to
Come sliding
Back

———

1. MYSEXUAL

**** on cold ****
Kitchen confidential
Learning what feels good.

Unease of urges;
This body discrepancy!
Learning to work it out!

Frozen. Lying next to her.
Panicked. Breathing. Needing.
Yearning to work it out…

2. BESEXUAL

College class. Really.
Human sexuality.
Friendly entry.

Not many after; but all good:
Love fades to friendship.
Then: wife of my life!

"On” would be the term
For her electric touch;
FFFWOOMF! Ready for love!

3. BYESEXUAL

No post-****** depression
Resignation completion
Better just to sleep

Things peter out.
From flames, embers.
From embers, coal.

Did I want to start sooner? Yes!
Did I want to last longer? Yes!
Do I accept what’s now? Yes.

I reach down
And what is gone is
An identity fluidity to
Engender remember

Inney or outy
Is our infinity?
No. Flexibility
Today, he
Tomorrow…

Some songs transport me
Sometimes going deep
So deeply I weep

“Sounds of Silence”
"Puff the Magic Dragon”
“Cat’s Cradle”

Yusuf wrote
Father to son:
“It’s not time…”

I made that change
Pilgrim’s progress
Wending Westward

In my ‘67 Mustang fastback
Weaving 7 Cleveland lanes
“I know, I have to go away…”

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.

Life in the dark
Is no walk in the park
The best path forward
Is simply felt

Hold hands as you
Cross the avenue
From what’s sure to
What you thought you knew

Grab a flashlight
Shine towards what’s right
Trip on the cobblestones
As you hobble home

In the dark, the stars shine bright
Take a left at Cassiopeia
Turn right at Orion’s belt
Skip home on a lark, in the dark

The maw of grief opens
Slowly, reeking
Of onions

Wet eyes blink
From the lost cost
Bereaved, we weep

Still, not yet asleep,
We sojourn here
Bereft

I can live with 84%
That’s a B+, right?
Or at least a B?

.

I'm missing something essential
With intentions unimpeachable
I strove to get it right.


.

Right?





.

Man, it’s hard to be a man.

My big brother just
Called out of the blue as

Sun shown through a
Week-long grey mist and

I love the feel of blue skies but
brotherly love—far more important

I might be seen as godless but
We both believe in goodness

We are roommates
But no longer lovers
As we once were though
Thoroughly married still

I love her, my not lover
Who does not share my bed
Even as we share our dreams
For the rest of life it seems

We will conquer the world
Traversing indifferent distance
Always returning home
To hearth home and them

The cinders of eros cold
We both grow old
Gnarled vines entwined
The fruit makes good wine

I wish life had subtitles
Or at least a Babel fish
Deep in my ear
To hear…everyone

Or a translator universal
As Seen in all series Trek:
Denobulan, Klingon, Ferengi:
I’d buy that for a dollar!

Walls fall
Borders borrando
I think I’d like a
Lingua Franca

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.

Witless white man
in a sea of brown
without you, the
world still goes round

White bread privilege
tasty sandwich
boloney with oblivious
what wasted bandwidth

I yearn for post-racial
i own unconscious bias
“Gorbachev, tear down that wall!”
better world built by us

Nostalgia is nice
By its very name
A pleasure filter

A smell

A comment

A picture floating by

Your personal time machine
Kicks in, transporting to
Warm and fuzzy

People

Moments

Joy

You might want to stay
But no, not real
Enjoy it though

The dew rises
Sublimation
Water to vapor
Metal to rust

There is a time to acquire
A time to retire
A time to release
I hope I’ll know to

Let it go;
Exhale
Sigh
Slow

I have been to the top of the hill
Thinking as a hero

I’ve crashed into the ditch
My power never lower

Mostly, in-between
Taking all as it seems

Bored Sisyphus
Doing daily things

But some moments
Define time for action

Et–hem; that time is now

Grief is a bowling ball
Ripping down the lane
Leaving few pins standing

The map of grief
Has blue states
And blue states

Grief is a state
Of emotional tsunamis
Crashing ashore

Waters recede
Pins are realigned
We proceed apace

But with longing
And remembering
And the long tail of love

Today I lost my ****
I did; that’s all is it?
Older and bolder?

No, just lost my ****
Not bolder,  just older
Not good with it

I lost my ****
This is it
I’m old