The utter brutality of the Roman Empire
Simone Weil quite right
Took two years of Latin
Sor Juana's mystic flight

Born too late for shamanism
Born too late for God
San Francisco Zen
Yo soy solo Todd

Flush by Carl Hiaasen
Noah's family sees the Green Flash
Ain't no good in an evil hearted woman
True dat, Johnny Cash!

Books have been companions
In the library all alone
Embers by Sandor Marai
I threw a Rolling Stone

   Not Athens, Jerusalem, or Rome.

Gonna have to interpret me
At times close to association
Yes, I need the sleep
Yes, my medication

Time is the Cross
And the way through
See me on the Shinkansen
See her wet with dew

Charlotte alone in Kyoto
Me alone with you
Softer than the rain
2772

                   New.

I wrote her when I was manic
Probably not so smart

The sadness, then the panic
The postcards, stamps, and art

I like French cathedrals
Not Napolean Blown Apart

Every day a failure
Every day a brand new start

                    37.

..........everywhere exile.........
      traveling with a smile
    awareness of whereness
              home alone

Delusions and psychoses
Had 'em and still have 'em

Minds never truly touch
She doesn't know me now from Adam

Life is meaningless
Yet here we are, alive

What then must we do
In this our struggle to survive?

                       Not wive.

                            Dive.

Life along the Liffey
Riverruns and keeps on running

In this misty musical city
I keep playing praying punning

Post-modernity arrives
I reJoyce and am not shunning

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

Foggy mist in the misty mountain
I like it, yes I do
Bilbo Baggins, Bilbo Baggins
Pondicherry Zoo

                 137732

The psychoanalysts and the intellectuals
Will have a field day with me

All my sickness visible
Conflicts they can see

I don't deny this mental try
But I write for free

I do my best, if I pass the test
To others I will be

Wounded inspiration
Enduring vulnerability

Salman Rushdie was given a fatwa death threat
For writing The Satanic Verses

He says he does not believe in God
Or a heaven or hell after death.

He is literary, not religious.

But he also says
That when he writes
He has to use words like soul
And that there is something
Religion-like in the use of his imagination
To create believable fictional worlds.

And that he is struck
When in the UK
By the beauty of old cathedrals and churches.

He talks of future religion
As being in religion
But in a different way.

       My my, Xie xie

New York is cold at night
Fly me to the moon
I admit, I admit
A bit mesmerized by Dune

Marguerite Porete
Giordano Bruno
Georgetown's Dahlgren Chapel
Silently do who know

I wish we could talk
Just tell her unvarnished truth
Lost in Translation
Lost since my youth

                      Kyoto!

If you become a poet
What you leave behind is words
You wish for future readers
Readers who have heard

The music in your soul
The vision in your mind
The torment of your obsessions
I hope you treat me kind

Full moon tonight
White alight the glow
Church gentle stone
Celtic Cross I know

Little garden pathway
Frat house Fortunate Son
My prayers are in the angle
And for Taipei 101

          Thy will be done.

flight from Jerusalem to Vienna
the fam asleep, so I wanderwinterwalk
hot chocolate, bookshops, sparkling snow

St. Stephandsom sublimely above
      Me solo in the photo below
          House of Hapsburg
               gone long ago:


Yes, Dr. Freud:  to love and to work.

the mystery of where our thoughts come from
       the intimate alien sometimes plumbs
                          whispers!

Prayers for Matthew Shadle
Laozi, David Tracy, Whoa!
Leaving the University
Wisdom as you go

Quietly alone
Cometh NCAA
How I wish 1 minute!
Basketball to play

Tired, trouble sleeping
Anxiety attacks
Napolean Blown Apart
George W. destroyed Iraq

Animated movies
Bangkok 2049
Delicious noodle soup
I hope you treat me kind

       Seek. Meek. Find.

sometimes I don’t go
    memory - Reno snow
            (valley below)

According to G.K. Chesterton

sunset brings the yearning
especially as you age

seasons keep on turning
Bob Seger's Turn the Page

I am east of Omaha
no car for this road rage

so I walk and ride the public bus
gonna break my rusty cage

              and run.

deer sprints across road
car stops and waits: and waits

into the forest she goes
car now accelerates

I walk on home
to see my two roommates

I once was at the deer park in Nara
the deer commemorates:

                 Shakyamuni's traits

Gonna try to wait till May
Stay off if I can
Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day
Hints but no clear plan

I like Universities
But just to walk around
Musical perversities
The need for common ground

Thich Nhat Hanh in Berkeley
Living Buddha, Living Christ
South Side of Chicago
Ooo dat girl looked nice!

Abraham Lincoln
Spoke of the Living God
Some days all day thinkin'
Yo soy solo Todd

                    Hope!

When I heard the learned ethics professor
Proclaim "There are no moral facts"
Quickly I sat up, my ears attentive,
My mind focused and even frenzied.

I listened to him lecture, turned in my paper
And then walked into society
Where I gazed in perfect silence
At all of the passing people.

Franklin Street sweet
              wander walkin’ blues
                               Chapel Hill thrill ...

                     southern gentleman

David Markson
Old. Sick. Alone. Broke. Tired.
In New York City
Noting Bhartrari's bemoaning
Of the poverty of poets in Sanskrit

In Charlotte
My neighbors invite me
To celebrate Holi with them
Purple. Green.
Queen city? Ameen.

The Madame Curie School
The Indian professor at GMU tells me
These are not ordinary students.
Indeed.

I am an obsessive.
Women, words, White Nights
I discover Mr. Markson's works.
Tragic magic soars:

Mine eyes hath seen the glory
Of Rabindranath Tagore. :)

Living with her teaches me how to get along with the rest of the world.

Said Socrates.

daily visitations
intense the isolation
if hiddenness is revelation
is silence then salvation?

When my mom died
Pat Hinman saw me struggling
Looked right at me
And said: Now she lives in you.

It ain't over yet, mom.
I do not feel well today
Unstable. Unsteady.
But some good thing to do

Something for Scott
Something for the boys
Something for Something
Help me to be true, SJW!

I took an art history class at JMU
Don't remember it well
Mark Rothko blue
Picasso, Ishmael

Also took Calculus
Geology, Racquetball
The Once and Future King
River Eden, Wetheral

All the King's Men
Jack Burden. Jackie Bird.
Hits me, hits me hard
Albert Camus and the Absurd

Dr. Thomas and Pascal
I still place my bet
Little Sage Ridge School
Reno spins Roulette

                   37

The beach in Monterrey
My sons still so small
If I die at Night
The Darkness

Tidal pools
Hermit *****
Sand dunes
Markness

            California!

Aging means isolation
My beloved dead are gone
Still I watch the moon
The world just journeys on

My oldest now in high school
My youngest reading sweet
My middle son a joker
I do not twitter. Do not tweet.

Uppsala is so charming
So is Malahide
Romeo and Juliet
Could not be denied

Dragons fly at twilight
So do Ravens. So do owls.
I play basketball
Shoot the shots. No blood, no foul.

                     The moon.

                           Howl!

strange arrange of 37
         fearless dearness truest heaven
                        middle son now to turn eleven...


                                     treasuring:









                                           (words)

Live dangerously, said Nietzsche
I understand a bit

My little boring life
The starshine and the pit

I do love to travel
Leave these United States

Bid farewell to the ignorance
The violence and racehate

Stockholm. Taipei. Bangkok. Kyoto. Dublin.
The truly great.

it's 2 o'clock in the morning
but i had no idea

out shootin' hoops
can't see far from heah

Celtic Cross at midnight
one dear deah

in 5th grade lovely Laura
sat next to lovely Leah

           See ya!

Coincidence again
This time Father Greeley
Quick call from my dad
Sting on my cell phone

Curious, that's all
I tell John and wait
Maybe unus mundus
Chicago in the bone

        E.T. phone Rome.

My mind moves toward the mythic
And the religious and the philosophical

But I am aware I often look ridiculous
And that many don't find this logical

What can I say? It's a frightening world.
I think we all could use kindness help.

Is it real? No way to know.
But I pray and meditate and eat miso

                 (with a little kelp)

Mario Cuomo called it
Old fashioned Catholic guilt
Yes, I definitely got it
But I've also got Father Greeley
And  E I E I O

Sacramento as a child
Old Town Museum
Trains, mustard seeds
Reno for the snow

When calm comes - Thank you
If only for few moments
Moon over Mount Rainier
Hidey Hidey Hidey **!

                Let's go ....

I am not primarily a political person
Once I was a teacher
Little Sage Ridge School
Big blue Reno sky

The American Right is Ignorance
Fascism
Repression
Time for me to fly

I like quiet conversations
The Carolina Inn
Cranberry juice
Everything has to die

My bookshelf is full
Road to Heaven
The Notecard Quartet
Life of Pi

             Ay! Ay! Ay!

They took the cities
But we had better songs
Boston Celtics. Boston strong.
Calvert House. Alex Nava.

                Ping Pong

French sounds beautiful
German sounds intelligent
I told her her Irish accent sounds musical
She said only when we're drunk

I wanna go to Heidelberg
I read Jens Muhling
The man in 119
Takes his tea all alone

I'm mostly rock and the Blues
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
Achtung, baby
Is Billy Idol punk?

1985
When Doves Cry
Prince 4ever
They notice him in Rome

            little Red Corvette
          little black cell phone

It's true I write from Elsewhere
A country far star away
And next to the cemetery
I live from day to day

March Madness is near and nearing
Then April. Then Mary May.
Susan Darlene Meek
Still lookin' for the words to say

             Yea, verily. Way!

Not gonna give up on you, Ohio
Too many people I love
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Thank you, Andy Dove

Holy Toledo, Batman!
Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame
Everybody has a Hungry Heart
I have become a Name

Cousins in Cincinnati
Columbus, your days are numbered
Walnut Heights still delights
Dublin will be thundered

Youngstown live in Youngstown
Mr. Dirda in Sweet Lorain
Toni Morrison too
Beloved in her pain

       O! how I wish that it would rain...

Optimism is an illusion
Things do not get ever better

But hope can still breakthrough
The forgetting of the Forgetter

Hope for some connection
Hope for human kindness

Hope for misty morning
Hope amidst bleak blindness

I got some hatred for the Republican Party
What it did and does to my family
Please help me listen
Listen so I can see

                   please humility

I'm Anna Andresian. A.A.
This is Cameron Crain. C.C.

Cameron: We're friends.

Anna: Frenemies.

Cameron (big smile): oh **!

There's no afterlife for us
But there is a future for others

Their future is what matters
And we become their mothers

Or maybe it's their fathers
Or maybe it is both

The Dead will have no gender
But they do haunt, by my troth

To be an ancestor
An ancestor, not a ghost

O you children of the future!
It is you we now do toast:

                      Salud!

I'm tired and I'm lonely
54 and falling
Awake in the night
River Eden, Wetheraling

My life as real disaster
Pain on rain on train
54 and falling
Barcelona, Spain

My Indian neighbors
         Bharata
         Sunyata

quietly questing with Cornel West
I just want to do my very best
to walk with wonder, to sing with zest...

                          still Sacramento!

I hope I can smile at it when it comes.