Bewildering diversity
Lookin' for the bridges
What dreams may come
Sailing distant shores

I read City of Ember
Long live Doon and Lina
Egress in the morning
4s and 44s

Difficult day today
Help me not catastrophize
Get a little sleep
When it rains it pours

Not much winter this year
Beauty blue tonight
The porch has two green lights
Very faithfully yours,

                        Todd

Football in the misty rain
          just us, just us
           endless wish

Mohammed's Night Journey
There must have been lots of stars
Will I get to Istanbul?
This love that we call ours

Kinda weak today
Might need Hydroxyzine
Carolina blue
Irish eyes are green

Ethiopians in Seattle
I eat a little bread
Cornel West in Toledo
Are there rocks ahead?

I keep writing because ...
Will they dismiss me as mentally ill?
I eat tuna salad
Whales in seas eat krill

                  Thy will ...

God is not real
But She is the Better Story
Stephen King in Maine
Me in Baltimore

Grey day blues
Hard to concentrate
Star Trek tonight
Enterprise does soar

My son makes creme brulee
I like French cathedrals
No parlez vous Francaise
2024

          Ocean's pounding roar

                         Nice!

Mark told me I left my soul in Chicago
Maybe right
Wilderness of skyscrapers
One Dark Knight

Not really American
But where else to go?
Gotham
Tokyo

Dublin
Uppsala
Vienna
Taipei

Istanbul
Heidelbe­rg
Chungnan Mountains
Xie Xie

      No nay never nay

I too know the futile
in vain I often write

today the true blue sky
but soon negation’s Night

from women more rejection
from men a distant light

solitude’s soul sorrows
companions on my flight

my children and the music
relieve, revive, delight

The wordly are the least forgiving
The climb is for the cruel

I still admire Pascal
I see no need to duel

But who will understand?
Who knows the hidden heart?

Not the American Empire.
Not Napolean Blownapart.

We all fish, all wish
For a fresh start.

Malahide was so curious quaint
Am I in a painting?

Patrick is the patron saint
Washed on an empty beach

A southerner I ain't
But I drank tea in charming Savannah

San Francisco y Chicago
Turn the river green

               Things Not Seen

roller coaster ride
but roller coasters are fun

she doesn't know quite how yet
but truly, Rey's the One!

to overcome my weaknesses
and do what must be done

                                       loyal to friends
                                 and endure till the end

Our world of wonderment and terror
Who can understand?

Frodo’s the Ring-bearer
And I too a fantasy man

I mean I need to enter Mordor
I’d be both Gollum and sometimes Sam

The Cracks of Doom, they call to me
Vertiginous I often am

In real life evil can’t be defeated
But still we plead and plan

I’d gratefully go with Gandalf
Misty Mountain or Shire sand

My imagination runneth over
But my wife says I’m boring bland

*** is fascinating, but violence is not
   hidden desires, food for thought
      rational animal animality got
             transience, transience
                       transience

                             Not.

I'm pretty sure
2023 is the time for me to wait
But I'm not sure if I can do it
Patientia

Centuries have to pass
Women preside at Mass
She was a grand wee lass
Miso soup with kelp

St. Therese in the Episcopal Church
Quaint and curious
Small *******
Croissants

Long distance running
Night trains
Avila, Spain
Toledo

          Vegetarian burritos

so much health anxiety
so I just take the bus

walking does my good
I miss when it was all of us

silence lasts forever
music makes me trust

french fries to gulls at Ivar's
the wind begins to gust

sky! sea! mountain! mist!
ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

To His Royal Highness Prince Posterity
Swift's dedication
La Florida in El Futuro
Long distance meditation

Watching The Batman today
Gotham gone quite dark
We don't talk anymore
But I miss my friend Mark

2072
Nuclear annihilation?
Rothko green and blue
Please protection from predation

Diana Walsh Pasulka
Now that was quite a book!
Extrasolar water
Q studies with a French cook

          Chewbacca was a Wookie
   (but his friend just called him Wook!)

I've written an awful lot of poems
But I do not reach
Do not breach
It's the silence that surrounds me

I'm probably Buddhist
No religion
No hope
No life after death

Silence
Loss
Snow
Breath

Shinkansen
Fo Guang Shan
Shabu Shabu
Arthur Edens reversaleth

                  Lincoln
                  Lear
   ­               Caesar
                  Macbeth


               ­         0

Bill Moyers: So which is it, Mr. Rodriguez:
More American or more Mexican?

Richard Rodriguez: Actually, I'm Chinese.

No one ever erected
A statue to a critic

Slaveholder statues
Now are paralytic

Christopher Columbus
A genocidal sadist

Donald J. Trump
An ignoramus hatist

The old ways are dying
Can't be resurrected

The Republicans keep lying
Cannot be protected

Queequeg was a sailor
Came from Polynesia

Why did Shakespeare write?
He said it was to please ya

Intellligence is pleaure
Words in mystic motion

First time I ever kissed her
Near the moonlight ocean

I am tired and I'm lonely
But solitude is truthful

Gather all ye rosebuds
Today's truth is for the youthful

Tomorrow's truth is waiting
I wonder who will know it?

I've tried to plant my seeds, sir
Dear reader, I will show it

Hidden truths are deepest
For centuries they keep waiting

Even scholars cannot find them
When they are debating

Hidden in plain sight so
For the true blue seeker

Just like honest Jonas
And honest true Tim Meeker

The Universe has brought us
The Dragon Warrior!

But that was just an accident.

There are no accidents.

The red fox in China
Red Pine rodeo
I climbed Yangmingshan
The river told me so

Just a little poetry
Before my time to go
God bless Alex
Hidey Hidey Hidey **!

             Whoa!

I think Pascal is correct:
Shallow thinkers focus on the unusual
Deep thinkers on the ordinary

The sheer wonder of the world
Arigato, Mother Mary

You walk around  a room
Deer in an open field

Terms of endearment
The way the hurt is healed

What then of predation?
Terror in the Night

2 outs in the 7th
2 green lights

Walnut Heights, Ohio
My Mr. Spock kite

Dublin to Dublin
Purple, black, and white

                  Insight!

grey grey grey grey
        dismality
       endurance

udon noodles, twilight sky
   chill in the air, Cambrian Cai
          low full yellow moon
                 my, my, my!

Rabbi Nahman left Jerusalem
Noticed Arthur Green
Yo soy also tormented
Yo soy Things Not Seen

She and I and lonely
She is always 17
Rainin' hard in Frisco
Jolene! Jolene! Jolene!

Long distance information
Get me Memphis, Tennessee
Please protect her 2
Please protect my 3

She was 1 and done
Give him destiny
Laughter in the morning
Mother Mary Let it be.

                 Si.

Providence ambiguous
If providence at all

Unknown the Unknowable God
Silence is the Call

The Albino Whale swims calmly on
As before beyond recall

In the misty, morning starlight
I hereby curse the Border Wall!

It ain't over yet
And I got a few ideas
Bit part to play
Mostly behind the scenes

China on my mind
And the UFO
Shamanistic Way
Chicago: Things Not Seen

I ride el autobus
But maybe soon a car
Ah! to drive again
I pray for dear Taipei

Drive to rising Charlotte
Maybe Macbeth in Staunton
Maybe California
San Francisco si xie xie

Live to fight another day.

I'm growing fond of my little town
Help me listen long and better
Now she knows, One man Overthrows
I simply never could forget her

I'm a lonely, troubled soul
In search of I Don't Know
Kamakura Buddha
Seattle cedar snow

Have been both blessed and cursed
Am quite afraid to die
She dances and she Frances
Purple goes the sky

                 I Thai Wai

gout flareup
i limp along

Cautious Man
beauty Bruce in song

Confucian temple
drums and gong

London calling
Hong Kong

     ****!!!

No one important
Just as well
My Letter To You?
Only time will tell

Jack Burden
Ishmael
Sandor Marai
Quinlin Witherell

Walked the beach in Nice
Yes, I wish her well
Colin Powell Lied
Baghdad fell

MAGA rallies
'Mercan hell
Zen Center silence
Ring them bells

          Poe!

Tolstoy's struggle with God
Like 2 bears in one den.

Hello, Sophia, I'm Todd
Help ignorant American men

We need a little wisdom
Like Kyoto needed Zen

In 2023
And in 3710

                        Amen.

Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley)
And his friend, Charlie, an Anglican clergyman
Are walking through streets in
South Africa
Discussing unjust laws
And unjust men
When they are approached
By a couple of thuggish whites
Who speak belligerently
And angrily threaten
Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley)

We've warned you, they threaten.

Gandhi gently smiles:  

           We've warned each other.

Unrequited love
Maybe the purest kind
In Siena the Middle Ages
In Bangkok Buddhamind

I love basketball
The sweet left hand stroke
In my solitude
I play with young black folk

Dread annihilation
Courage when it comes
Satellite High School
God bless my friend alums

If time is like an ocean
Lightning storms at sea
Please protect the children
In Thailand, Land of the Free

                    3773

It might already be over
My moment small and done

Just a little Hitch Hikin'
Then the wait for the setting sun

But then again maybe not
It may have just begun

Donde esta la sabiduria?
Ah! My Santa Rosa one.

Said Isaac Bashevis Singer.

not a national poet
a citizen of cosmopolis

a reader and a walker
very, very far from this

but I too disappear
like humid Bangkok rain

the Buddha was correct
life is suffering pain

maybe to Chiangmai
on that true nighttrain

maybe beyond the sky
maybe just insane

Women are more interesting
They really really are
Lady of the Lake
Exoplanet star

California Coast
San Francisco Zen
Un pequito fun
Gracias. Muy bien.

Seattle cedarsnow
Talented Ethan Hawke
I'd like to hold her close
Hours and hours to talk

But I live alone
Like the Chinese monks
San Diego, Sandor Marai
Embers in my trunk

               Bookstores!

Scarlett Johansson
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Susan Darlene Meek

I do not find
do not find
But i seek seek seek seek seek

Predatory terror
In the natural world
claw and awe and beak

Thai spirit houses
Mamasan
cabinets cedar and teak

                 Eeeeek!

Her hair is black
And her eyes are blue
Ay yay ay yay ay!

Now she lives
In Denver too
Ay yay ay yay ay!

And I ask you friend
Since I'm Carolina blue
Do you think saw the movie view?

After, not because
To do the best I does
     At the buzz...

it's truly a ******* country
in a ******* ******* world

the Trumpfucks raid the Capitol
Trumpfuck flag unfurled

Kamakura Buddha
silent in the snow

just a few years
then forever gone we go

     Ay yay yo!

Taipei, Taiwan typhoons
    Shinkansen speeding soon
           In Bangkok the monsoons
                  Seattle (I view the moon)...


and the rain it raineth every day.

I'd like to be a good ancestor
O yonder future ones

If you remember me at all
Remember too my sons

We sense you on the foreign shore
But see you not: no none.

Frolic in ferocity
Futurity find fun!

love is littleness
a smile on Franklin Street

no bigger than a basketball
with everyone we meet

night has come again
my sons with Pokemon

despite my anxious fears
i say tonight: c'mon.

               till dawn

I dreamt of Markson's book just now
Could there be a fifth?
Told her it's a warning
One greater than I

City of Ember is hope for me
So is Road to Heaven
So is Embers
So is Life of Pi

Markson in New York City
92nd Y
Don't wanna be a specimen
Not her kinda guy

Need to refill the Lithium today
Have not read the Bluest Eye
Have read The Human Family
Margherita pizza pie

               Lee Tal and Shay

Father Greeley
A yellow dog Democrat
A ******* loud mouth shanty Irish priest
Talkin' Chi Town

Dr. Thomas
Southern gentleman
Caring, generous, charming, funny
Mozart y Karl Barth

I might drive to East Lansing
See what I wrote Robert Coles
Won't drive in a Rolls
My Camry has to go to the shop

I'm not a professor
Beggar girls at Angkor Wat
Prayers for Scott
Twist the plot

              Rebel Yell!

no purpose, just dailiness
   work, family, music, rest
        no great goal is good, I guess
                  less is more, more is less

Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosopher of Pessimism
Admirer, like me,
Of Plato, India, Buddhism
Sympathizer to the suffering
Of non-human animals
(me also, hence my return
to vegetarianism)

He concluded
After surveying mostly
European and Asian history
That no woman
Ever created
A single enduring work of art

He always puts the Man first

Mr. Schopenhauer of Frankfurt
Meet Ms. Dickinson of Amherst

We arrive in Wetheral at night
I wai and whisper, we’ve returned    

mystical the mist, River Eden sight
time now for time to be unlearned

Warsaw saw war, but now we do not fight
They ask identity, shock in my mind burns

Precious days, then the Irish flight
Perhaps psychotic, perhaps sacred silence
                      My soul churns.