Even the famous fade to nothing
What do the non-famous do?

Lay awake and ponder zero:
72 - 72.

The transience of everything
Like tears lost in rain
When breath becomes air
Moraccan train to Spain

3000 years of Egyptian history
A few pyramids in sand
Ethiopia
Tanzanian band

Dark Star Safari
Old Patagonian Express
Her apartment in Istanbul
She quietly gets undressed

I'm a man of many obsessions
Decades, driving nights
3 brown libraries
2 green lights

             Mr. Spock kites

Entertainment is the thing
We'll strive to please you every day

Shakespeare in Staunton
101 in yon Taipei

Hidden Daoist hermits
Following the Way

Rock n' roll mystery music
The way adult Americans play

But I did not **** myself
Because I wished to learn more
About mathematics.

So I wrote a few poems
Visited a few countries
Threw a few snowballs
Hospitals at night

Bainbridge island ferry
Tempura, miso soup
Snow Falling on Cedars
2 green lights

          But I can't quite ...

small things, the little way
a contribution here to stay
a lifetime's love in time today

                  helpfulness

You have to resist the loftiness
Until it overwhelms
Precogs reading books
Ending Minority Reports

No scorn for the ordinary
The Shire eats in peace
Frodo leaves at 50
Sam does not abort

I'm with Tolkien on the Shadow
Have to send it back
Serve the Secret Flame
You shall not pass!

Must be women priests
Must be trust be once
Jesus was a sailor
Seattle contemplative Mass

        Thus it came to pass

Pace Sartre
God is an Artist

Like a painter
Not a Bonapartist

Where there's Light
And where there's darkest

          Creativity!

Countries are the problem
Armies, nukes, prisons, police

I yearn for the Cosmopolis
As some yearned in Ancient Greece

Socrates revealead what justice is
With those that he did greet

Plato wrote of Eternity.
Pythagoras did not eat meat.

Jesus Christ was crucified.
A mockery. A Defeat.

Ludwig enters a house in Vienna.
The wife in the home says to him,
Would you like something to eat?

The husband in the home overhears this from another room and calls out,
                   Don't ask; Give!

Which Ray Monk argues (persuasively) is the event that inspired Wittgenstein's dictum:

                  Don't think; Look!

Walnut Heights, Ohio
Huffy 57
Sacramento, California
Mr. Blazona. Kevin.

I still miss Mark
Ernest Thomas. Jerrod Pope.
Read American Cosmic
Watched in the theater Nope

I play the long term game
I will not be goaded
Strike when strike you may
Prepared, locked, and loaded

Driving Q to work
And where he can play Magic
Stranger Than Fiction is comic
The Dark Knight is tragic

                      Elpis.

Grateful for her kindness
Amazed by gentle beauty

Memories in mindness
Want to do my duty

JMU the journey
Chicago, Mason Nation

Try to be true to my schools
Now we all our on staycations

                        Ain't Talkin'
                        Just Walkin'

with aging, the growing stranging
     the living and the dead, unkind words and words unsaid
                    regrets, upsets, deep debts...

                                fewer and fewer friends
                  and yet (yes, Mom)... endurance unto the End.

.....A poem for you.....
Hair black, Eyes blue
      Susan, not Sue

              te amo

Reading of Beethoven
But remembering Mozart

American music
And American go-karts

I in Vienna
St. Stephansdom ghost art

Paris is for lovers
Not Napolean Blownapart

    The Incredibles.

Don McLean sang that Vincent
Was too beautiful for this world
And his eyes were China blue

But Jerusalem, Jerusalem
That just ain't true

You should leave the NRA, Don
See what Jason Selvig means

By the way, callooh! callay!
Vincent's eyes were green

(mine too)
And Mr. Markson's on my team

         Stealing Home it seems.

None a ‘dem canna stoppa da time
   just rolls on, where da rhyme?
               Kamala Harris
              are you in line?

To An Athlete Dying Young
Is the one that I remember

I was 17
Might have been September

I still play basketball
Now shoot by myself

Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now
Tolkien on my shelf

                      Will Ferrell
                             Elf

College Partnership Program
         Taking attendance
               Hello Clarice

John Coltrane
Once said
He wanted to play the saxophone
So well
That if his friend was sick
He could heal him.
If we had a drought and needed

                         Rain

Trane could play and make it

                           Rain


Oh, John - Bless your dream:

                     Love Supreme.

Dublin and London
Stranger Things

Taipei, xie xie
Asia brings

Unique Uppsala
Cathedral bell rings

St. Augustine again
Dylan sings!

Help me be gratified with the ordinary
            Help me, Mother Mary
                         green

..................Protection......................

Martin Marty fears the chaos
but the chaos is within

I too know my Nietzsche
I too am Thomas, called the Twin

There is no bowtie barrier
separating the self-righteous from the sin

One More comes in the Name of Love
Can you hear me as I begin?

Gonna write a little one now
The little way is power
The Daughter in Daoist Dublin
But no man knows the hour

                      Ole!

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

Into the Spider-verse
     multiplicity and reverse
           can’t let time corral us
                 Oh my, Miles Morales!

I attack then I step back
Wait and watch and wonder
Guerillas in the mist
Valley rolling thunder

In Thailand I touched a tiger
You should see the plate
Exoplanets spin
Something radiates

Also rode an elephant
Horton Hears a Who
Professor Santayana
Reno Rendezvous

Rabbits in my yard
Gladys the Fighting Squirrel
God remains Unknowable
Never right without the girl

                Hello Clarice. :)

My poetry is often good
Because my marriage is often bad
Please protect my wife
Sweet Sir Galahad

Peace comes dropping slow
Grateful for relief
Seattle in the snow
Years of restless grief

I pray for the animals
The Eagle and the Hawk
The spider and the bat
Tea for two to talk

Toledo to East Lansing
Dr. Robert Coles
Flush. Hoot. The Giver.
Things Not Seen and Holes

            Beyonce Knowles

The Divine Inert does not move
Exoplanets spin
Cardinal Newman is quite right
We have to lose to win

Oxford in the twilight blue
A kindly, friendly chap
I'm still a-lookin'
Somethin' off the map

You can run 10,000 miles
Still stay where you are
She says the Universe buries jewels
Within yourself the star

Women are more interesting
She holds me and I shake
Bullet train to Tokyo
Nothin' but love to make

              Quest Quake

Desantis says he'll take the arrows
So give him poison darts
I like Dash Incredible
Not Napolean Blown Apart

Seminole resistance
All through Florida State
She persisted with persistence
Must have been something she ate

Vegetarian burritos
Sometimes a tuna sub
I like it Jersey Mike's way
She and I talk in the tub

Salvador Dali Museum
Dylan sings of Key West
My fingers in her ...
My mouth upon her breast

           You know the rest ...

I read Richard Rodriguez carefully
What he does with italics!
Sacramento days
San Francisco nights

Eastway was a nightmare
Students savages
Ignorant attention
Relentless racial fights

Never been to Quito
Never been to Lima
Never been to Rio
But someday my sons just might

Cortez was a killer
Pizarro was one too
The Dead hide in Zero
Do the Dead delight?

         Brown. Not white.

basketball beyond belief
             roller coaster relief
                             game days!

nearly constant complaining
   insults and call naming
         without allurance
                 endurance

Dreaming can be scary
Feels like I lose my mind

Consciousness returns
I rest from what I find

Today I rode the bus
Of course I wear the mask

Inigo is a Spaniard
Ignatius was a Basque

More Buddhist than Catholic
Why do you ask?

Not the spider
The Spider-Man

Can we do it?
Yes we can!

historical events become mythic categories
         star-crossed lovers, epic glories
           super heroes, origin stories

         Democrats vs. Republicans
                 Whigs vs. Tories

Still silence is where time’s true Shore is.

I keep trying to stop writing
But I can't
What exactly do I want, Adam Ant?

I have tales to tell
Some hard (for me) to believe

Strangers, ?aliens?, dreams
Numbers, children conceived

But confusion, coincidence
Illness, repeated fears unrelieved

Keep me mostly quiet and searching
What to trust? What deceives?

Nighttrain near London?
Dublin All Hallow’s Eve?

If you don't read the papers
You'll be uninformed
If you do read the papers
You'll be misinformed

But I hold out hope for the Guardian
I was twice in the UK
She drank Turkish coffee
Royal Albert Hall

Took a train north
River Eden, Wetheral
Watched the Two Towers
Saruman does fall

Gerard Manley Hopkins
Oxford after all
Kingfishers catch fire
Sprung rhythm enthralls

I still hear London Calling
Mr. McCartney. Paul
Heard him live in Baltimore
Sweet Loretta Modern at the mall

                        Right, y'all?

Playing good D again today
And I'm on the attack
Ron Desantis was in Baghdad
When George W. Destroyed Iraq

Midnight's Broken Toll
I eat a Midnight snack
You shook me all night long
And I'm Back in Black

Exoplanets spin
Maybe UFOs
Yearning still within
No one really knows

Xanthippe was a shrew
So was Mary Todd
I'm in Taipei 101
And 101 is odd

have trod, have trod, have trod ...

Maryland is kinda quiet
My son plays basketball
Korean grocery store
All Walls Fall

Midnight Train to Georgia
I hope she understands
53 and falling
E Street rockin' band

Mystical graces come
Mental illness too
Mohandas K. Gandhi
Muslim Christian Jew

I keep writing
Keep posting
Keep sending
But I don't know what to do

                    Do you?

I love music
The way it makes me feel
I return to Silence
The only thing that's really real

Immature poets borrow
Mature poets steal
The solitary bird
Sings quietly in teal

The Buddha spins
Spins the Dharma wheel
Buddhists sit
Christians kneel

My mind breaks
Only death will heal
Solitude
Mexican meal

     Holy frijoles!