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.

not too late to turn it around
time to try again

for the time that yet remains
for my sons and future friends

sure it all ends in death
and yes, Trump portends

but joy tonight on the telephone
and the sky the rain still sends

each day to play with letters
      free my mind from prose fetters
           bump, set, and spike those forgetters

word games and true names begetters

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!

Spanish California is intriguing to me
Heard the mission bells
Me gusta San Francisco
Moroccan mint tea

So many indigenous hunters
Dancers
Shamans
The archaic Fire

Yo estudio Espanyol
Para tres y media annyos
En la escuela
En la Florida

I've never been to Spain
But I kinda like the music
The Golden Helmet of Mombrino
Can't refuse it.

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

If I have hope
It's in the long term view
3773

The American Empire will Fall
Royal Albert Hall
Beauty Baltic Sea

Kamakura Buddha
Snowfall shunyata
Snowfall silently

Snowfalling on Cedars
Ishmael Chambers
Teacher teacherly

      Intentionality

Unusually attracted to the sacred
but truly, I ain’t a saint

It’s the stories and the symbols
That almost make me faint

But I’ve never left this world
Which money, misery and malice taint

I just stare at the moonlit sky
And Salvador Dali’s strange paint

He twice rejected my poems for publication
But then said God bless you for trying
Nicolus Cusanus
Truly, I was not lying

Lived twice in California
There I'm more North than South
Dr. Dee Ann Reeder
Sing me somethin' brave from your mouth

Arcade Junior High School
Coach Brian Katz
The world's greatest detective
The man who learns from Bats

The poems are not much
Probably all that I can do
Legends live on Franklin Street
Carolina blue

                   2772

The madman is the man
Who has lost everything except his reason
Chesterton was right
The heart has its reasons:
Emily's dress was white

Grey day blues in Maryland
Ordinary ugly
But basketball with my boys
Tonight two green lights

Barnes and Noble bookstore
Billy Crystal knows a hassle
Barnes is alright
But that Noble is a real ******* :)

I read a biology book
The evolution of the mammals
I remember Lou Whitaker
And shortstop Allen Trammell

9th grade biology
Mr. Crabtree's Florida class
Judi and I lab partners
Sometimes saw her at Mass

      She was a grand wee lass.

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!

the soft and gentle rain
       the coming nightflight train
               ah! to sleep away the pain ...

                             dreamschemes.

The Zealot and the Emancipator
                 good terrorist
                        brown

Holler if you hear me, dear reader
I'm tired and lonely tonight

The world presses upon me
I fight back silent fright

I was in Helsinki once
An afternoon of sunlight

Just walked around, Cathedral found
Afternoon delight

Escape from America
But where? Where to go?
Bangkok monsoon rain
Seattle cedarsnow

Libraries are quiet
Saint Thomas More
Night Train Lane
Verona, not Elsinore

Drifting toward death
Drifting. 54.
In my solitude
Adios, Senyor

             Or ...

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!

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!

The Vatican uses a lot of colors
But not too often blue
The Cathars got destroyed
Shiva the Destroyer too

Marguerite Porete was burned
I was once in France
Giordano Bruno was right!
Lord Shiva does his dance

Solitude is peaceful
And lonely as the rain
Croissants with strawberry jam
Paris to Marseilles train

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.

Vaccine first dose today
Uber to Friday Center

My language was intense
May it not prevent her

Carolina Inn
Quietly we enter

I really am quite Catholic
But I'm also a dissenter

                Salud!

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

1989
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Dr. William Thomas
Speaking of Karl Barth

Religion is ambiguous
Repressive by itself
Needs a little help
El amigo creative Art

I remember ***** Wonka
Don't. Stop. Come back.
Nixon destroyed Cambodia
George W. destroyed Iraq

          That's a fact, Jack.

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.

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

The Religions of the Book
Are religions of words

But the Buddha sits in silence
Tell me, have you heard?

I'm at bat
Men on first and third

Single to left
Theonerd

Blaise and Ms. Pascal
            Betty call me Al
                    Mark, my oldest pal ...

                                Wagering!

an essay tonight about dog parks
peaceful. happiness.

i miss my oldest son
distances distress

rode the bus through town
post card to Japan

Rieko, she's a wonder
Takahiro is her man

Sophia, in Tokyo,
I try to do the best I can.

The night has come
Shadows on my wall

Oxford, London, Wetheral


            Hey, Ya'll.

It doesn't end in exaltation
Hospitals and jail
****** little motel room
Howling inner wail

I rewatch Michael Clayton
Remember you, Roxanne
Rainy Night in Georgia
Stick it to the Man!

My boring little life
But bball with my son
Twilight taxi nights
Comin' home from 101

        un pequito fun

talents and troubles
    obsessions and confessions
               kindness and weakness

    
          the philosophy of fatherhood.

So much drama in my mind
But so much boredom in my days

The Wind Cries Mary
Purple Rain and Purple Haze

Ichiro Suzuki
Born too late for Willie Mays

But born at just the right time
For Taiwanese xie xies.

it’s all just in your head
these weird things don’t mean nothin’

And I believe them too
As I eat my chocolate muffin

There’s no doubt I’m quite troubled
Psychiatry can prove it

But why in my mind’s eye
rhymetime: can’t remove it?

My friend Mark's son
      David Markson
          Sacramento
                NYC

Beckett bridge in beauty
Book of Kells at Trinity
Young Irishman singing Guthrie
(“This machine kills fascists”)


Thanks a million to you from me!

Journey into Russia
Deep into the Taiga
The vision of Agafya

Let me not give up on the USA
It ain't over yet
John Brown's Body
Her body I can't forget

Help me, Dr. Thomas
Keep on pushin' through
Mario Cuomo long ago
Long ago at Seattle U.

Tomorrow a little basketball
My 3 beloved sons
I've known some Jesuit priests
Saw some Chicago nuns

My life is pretty boring
I dream of two who women
Ashes to the ocean
Whalesong and a-swimmin'

                  Bulkington!

his homeless feet were blistery
I tried to help a bit

the terror, indeed, of history
Eliade rightly noticed it

intensely my need for mystery
still present, hasn’t yet quit

Fr. Greeley leads me to fairie tree
stories, songs, Irish wit

A silent Guardian
Not a hero
Things Not Seen
Stanley and Zero

Bruce Wayne
He learns from bats
Sacramento
Coach Brian Katz

Hitch Hikin'
72
Chapel of the Cross
Carolina blue

Mr. Markson
Notecard Quartet
Columbus, Georgia
Place my bet

           Oct. 4th

The Catholic Church continues to decay
I watch Star Trek, take good notes
Hidey hidey hidey hey!
Mekong River boats

George Hunt SJ
Ludwig Wittgenstein
UB 40
Red red wine

     Naked dread divine

Tonight I smile at my loneliness
And the absurdity of my life
Alone at 52
Dailiness despair

I do love music
And basketball
And that Irish nurse
For my son she truly cared

                We die.
              I'm aware.

Not as isolated as I feel
I reach out you, dear reader
Language is the motherland
And I truly need her

Vegetarian tacos
Som tam in the dusk
I do not think of Bill Gates
Not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk

I do think of her
And my sons at play in water
California light
Her lovely lovely daughters

Books in the bathroom
Reading on the throne
My words, your eyes
Maybe not alone

Don't go directly at it
Wait. Let it come to you.
Help me dailiness
Help my hidden 2

The drama in my mind
But my life so ordinary
Silent monk in Bangkok
Asian eyes Mother Mary

Sometimes fear and trembling
Much I cannot see
I pass the ball to Alex
Tupac, Inca, 3

        God bless the Dead

I'm a child of the 80s
Can't quite escape

Lovely Florida ladies
VCR cassette tapes

Now 2021
Decades vanish like smoke

Shinkansen in the night
2037? One hopes.

                   No joke.

Dr. Cohen calls Shakespeare's plays a gift
Surely he is right
Rene Thornton as Prospero
I launch the car into the night

Brutus is deluded
King Lear is a Fool
I am Cinna the Poet!
I taught at Sage Ridge School

God bless Garrison Keillor
And the Writer's Almanac
God bless Andy Samberg
And his snack attack

Desafortunadamente
My favorite Spanish word
Hope for la Gente
Wonder if she heard?

      Yo soy un Theonerd.

Write about O, Brother
Urged my second son

A Man of Constant Sorrow
I obey this growing one

Ulysses Everett McGill
Always on the run

The glory of the music
The glaring southern sun

Saw it first in Charlottesville
Home of Mr. Jefferson

Don’t want an Empire of Liberty
Just democracy duly done

Still I wander in the Southland
Songs of heartbreak, hope, and fun

I pray down at the river
Pray my country gives up the guns.