The vegetarianism mostly Quixotic
The animals get slaughtered and slaughtered
Predatory terror
Life as horror story

Buddhist monks in forest
And temple
And palace
And hut

A poet of place
Her face!
Her name
O glory!

The imaginary becomes real
She dances
She sings
She teaches

                      What?

So shy, so shy
Even at 51

I don't like crowds
Except rock concert ones

Well, sometimes I like train stations
I like to ride those rails

It might be biochemistry
But today the pain prevails

               Each entails ...

The critics don't really understand
You can't translate the poetry into prose
And so it goes
And so it goes

I wrote to Daniel Berrigan
Seattle, JVC
He kindly wrote me back
A good way said he to me

I hope that he was right
In Berkeley Thich Nhat Hanh
Buddhamind in Bangkok
Sunlight Gamla Stan

I do pray to the statues
Do not now attend Mass
Must be women priests
Thus it comes to pass

       Suzy Sassafrass

the rain it raineth every day
   I'm a fool, so this I say
     we reach the beach
        my boys at play...

                sunlight

Inner Harbor, Baltimore
               4044
          Un Escritor

We gather around the pickup truck
Hablo un pequito Espanol

We listen to each other
Cerveza rocks and rolls

I walk alone in darkness
I discuss Mayan zero

I want to be a fighter
But I surely ain't no hero

Viva Guatemala! Viva Mexico!
Thank you, mis amigos. Onward we now go.

The Borg believe resistance is futile
Ann Coulter does as well

But they absorb and spew forth hate
And they can go to Hell

Mr. Spock lives wisdom higher
Robin Williams too

The comedian an Episcopalian
The Vulcan star a Jew

I learned from both while growing up
though a Catholic boy was I

Both resisted in their way
I was moved when both did die

I’d like to teach like Mr. Keating
For Dead Poets he should’ve won an Oscar

And the heartbreak beauty final tweet
In memory - Live Long and Prosper

I see the sacred terror
Heathens take it slow

Facebook is not error
Sledding Reno snow

Soon the little stamps
Sanchez (Emilio)

Sleep, the night is light
Planetario

             still don't know

I am a taxi service
And I kinda like it
Meet my children's friends
Get everyone safely home

I liked Siena Cathedral
Fettuccini Alfredo
Bruschetta, pasta, olives
Honeymoon in Rome

Coincidentia Oppositorum
Neils Bohr, Nicolus of Cusa
God as Not Other
Stately pleasure dome

Prayers for Cornel West
Viva Sacramento!
Mark, Ernest, Jerrod
Ohm mane padme ohm

         Moby **** tome

Obscurity is searching
Memory. Locations.
Jung said Unus Mundus
I say mystery

Feeling for the future
Forward generation
2072
3773

Keep her calm collected
Ry and Scott and Safe
Sanctuary place
Beauty Baltic Sea

        xie xie ni

America began in genocide
Slave labor all around
Everybody knows
I am the newsboy of this town

Canada is quietly
Mexico is more
Dancing on the ceiling
4444

          forgotten lore

synchronicities happen all the time
for those with eyes to see

I watch, and wait, and wonder
pray to Let it Be!

think I'll drive to Wilmington
walk the campus, see the sea

do you think she read my poems?
on purpose or coincidentally?

Not gonna finish
Just a draught of a draught
A short little essay
A makeshift river raft

Hath the rain a father?
Anne Hathaway
Por favor, Senyor
Gracias. Xie Xie.

      Postcard play

The man who wrote Dixie
Was a Northerner
From Ohio
Horrified to discover
Southern troops sang it in the Civil War

It was also a favorite of Abraham Lincoln's
Who requested it to be played
When Lee surrendered
At Appomattox
A gesture of good will

Mary Todd Lincoln
Elizabeth Shaw
Xanthippe
Kiss me, Kate

Oh I wish I was
In the Land of Cotton
Old times there
Are not forgotten

     But I'm gonna have to wait.

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing praying punning

Postmodernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

Though much is taken, much abides
Including silence, exile, and cunning

Oxford twilight, dreaming spires
        ancient things, friends and fires
                Gandalf the White still suspires

Will I rest in peace?
Hard for me to know

Dublin pubs do sing
Seattle cedarsnow

The four of us in London
To Wetheral we go

Alex in Tucson
Batman Chicago

      Overthrow!

Morningless sleep
That's what Epicurus called death
A Republican wetdream
Nobody Woke

What Americans value most is money
All those SUVs
Doctors with degrees
George W. Lied. Nobody spoke.

Avatar 2 was boring
Paul Theroux's Deep South
Buy a sword
Sell your cloak

Mr. David Markson
Viva Mexico!
Senyor Santayana yo ...
Alone. Tired. Old. Sick. Broke.

Kierkegaard says
That real despair
Is not being who you are

Look close. Think far.

Ambivalent about the professors
Some wonderful! Some arrogant ******.
Could I be a classic?
Chinese temple sticks

Archbishop Oscar Romero
Murdered during Mass
My blue soccer shirt
El Salvador drives past

Hablas Espanyol
Pero solamente un pequito
Heard Cornel West lecture
At the University of Toledo

Tired after work
Gonna take a bath
Donald J. Trump
American sociopath

             2024

The Secret Token
         CROATOAN
              History’s mysteries ...


                            linger on

taxi in Taiwan
      young sons sung
               Trappist -1!

Charleston at night
Wind blows to the water
Exoplanets spin
Blue sky, Purple Rain

What might have been
Black haired, blue eyed daughter
Rachel Dawes
Mary Jane

Ordinary boring
Sleeping late and long
Not much hope
Salamanca, Spain

Grateful for his calls
Flickering memory
7 Bridges Road
Downbound Train


Tray ay ay ay ain!

Rest in Peace, they say
and surely they mean well

is annihilation rest?
ain't no tongue can tell

peace only briefly possible
in this world of woe

if death is morningless sleep
therefore, speaks Epicurus:  farewell, I told you so.

the return of forgotten things
  Mombrino mind does sing
      philo-Sophia planting

rereading All the King’s Men
American demagogue reappears again

Jack Burden burdened
The Boss’s troubled twin

A student of history
Anne Stanton’s boyfriend

The Great Twitch and Great Sleep
But he cannot pretend

To truly explain
The tragedy he’s seein’

Political contempt
Brings a bad ****** endin’

Those ignorant white hicks
Turn against you in sin

No good from the bad
Just the bullet assassin

But Jack not beat down
Gets the girl in the end

A little hope from Dante
last lines in rhyme

Into the future
Responsible in time

letting go is difficult
perhaps Impossible for me

I cling to past promises
and beautiful memories

I fear and dread the End
lightning striking anxiety

to breathe in silent need
I pray moonlight sets us free

Thanksgiving coming soon
Created by Abraham Lincoln

The Eucharist my silent tune
Can they see now what I’m thinkin’?

To look at the Morning Star
Do so without blinkin’

Much that is near and far
About to go down sinkin’

I'm coming from above
The metaphor is flight
Rocky Mountain Higher
Sor Juana, Mohammed's steed

The Eagle and the Hawk
I just wanna talk
And I wanna ...
A pal's last need a thing to heed

Home is where the Air Force sends you
Patrick for my father
Water for her daughter
Silently I plead

               Please read.

the pain ends in death
so for that I must be grateful

the sadness in each breath
the ignorant, the hateful

2 weeks in Tokyo
jazz club full of wonder

lightning over the Atlantic
La Florida in thunder

my children are my greatest joys
though tonight I call from far

twinkle twinkle exoplanets
how we wonder what you are!

The little way is hidden power
Power in paradox
No man knows the hour
My name Todd means Fox

French couple in Dublin
I listen on the bus
Territory troublin'
Just the three of us

The Celtics played tonight
I like parquet floors
Moroccan mint tea
Dusky Spanish Moors

          37 floors

gratitude for smallness
gratitude for Mark

to do something worthwhile
before the falling Dark

if it rained for forty nights
would there now be avatars in the Ark?

the Na’vi to battle free
for Eywa we too Embark

staring at Guernica, focus on the flower
no man knows the day or hour

but for my friends and country I will try
prayers above Seattle's starry sky

Fr. John Grace, help me be true
decades later, I still remember you

                                             Amen.

Mary like a mountain
Jesus like a river

I sing the Songs of Experience
Like William Blake
I have no apologies to make

I'm with you, Bob
But I also have old fashioned Catholic guilt
And embarrassing sins
So I remember Chicago soul
And I pray to the Lady of the Lake

Marguerite Porete
Surely no fake

Standin' by God's river
My soul begins to shake

Not Sir Walter Raleigh
Not Francis Drake

          Tupac Amaru!

So they laugh at me. So what?
Earnest, Hemingway.
Once I was a teacher
Dawn goes down to day

Extinction is forever
That's what biologists say
Blackie Ryan - he was clever
Silent is the Way

Waiting as I'm drifting
My sons: Callooh! Callay!
He loves Kanye West
I love Marvin Gaye

Loneliness is painful
Still i say xie xie
Rainy Night in Georgia
Rockabye in L. A.

            Santa Fe

Last night she dreamt of San Pedro
Madonna at my teenage dances

Crazy for you it's true
And now the Argentine kind Pope Francis

Italians do it better
Jackie Graziano

Vinnie Testaverde
Her secrets. My te amo.

           Todd. Me llamo.

So there I am
Shootin' hoops
1982

So here she is
Glasses now
But still the eyes of blue

John Scotus Eriugena
9th Century
What was that like?

Did enjoy Art History
And racquetball
But not Psych

               Suicide
             Said Mike

i've known the mystic terror
my fears form full of mind

love is waitingly
listening and kind

tragic from the music
trapped tiptop by the past

silently eternal
Hey Now! everlast.

football for hours, the boys and friends
she speaks softly now with strangers
Springsteen and Flannery - Unknowability

steady, steady, steady, steady....

              The stalwart trees of Savannah.

Cardinal Spellman of New York sent Pope Paul VI a Rolls Royce with solid gold door handles.

Self consciousness is painful
Know we have to die
Scifi movies tonight
Gratitude for Ry

My dad made it to Knoxville
Darkness falls for I
Living alone is lonely
Exoplanet Sky

She's gentle, kind, caring
But I am not her guy
We live a short time
Nobody really knows why

I like used bookstores
Might reread Life of Pi
Hope springs eternal
The Boxer: Lai la Lai!

maybe the anxiety
and religious dread
are just biochemistry

my lifelong search
and lifelong angst
only biology

a bipolar roller
again I go
into mental agony

I write from the pain
And I write in hope
The bridge to you from me.

One from calm this morning
My boys are far but fine

The battle for the Princess
We both must drink the wine

I saw Fezzik walking
Sprung from cages on Highway 9

Peace flows like a river
Though rare and hard to find

Yes, I want to trust
Tust the secret signs

Ivan Karamazov espouses protest atheism
Just too much evil in this world

Evil inflicted on children
The blood does scream and curl

Alyosha patiently listens
He is no Sean Hannity

He is a Russian angel
And his name means Defender of Humanity