my daughter bought me one
of those extensions for my cellphone--to take selfies
so I wouldn't forget who I was--as if looking at a "me"
in the face of my phone would remind me
I am John Smith, I am 73

and I had been an engineer
at a missile range for a 45 years and two months
that I had lost a finger in Vietnam and my wife
died in a automobile accident three years ago
and her name was Emma

but my daughter says I never,
not once called her mother anything
but "M" and now, whenever I read,
hear, say or write the letter M
I get a lump in my throat

my daughter has notes taped
on every surface of my house, reminding
me to eat, and take my meds--she placed
a big one on the door: DON'T GO OUTSIDE
but I wouldn't anyway

I like it here, where I think
I have been a long time, and it is filled
with things my daughter calls memories
and photos of a lady I don't recognize
with a sticky note on each one

the notes are all yellow and have
an "M" on them; I get that lump in my throat
when I see them, and sometimes water comes
from my eyes, though I don't know why
because Emma didn't look like that

the Siene does not run red
Eiffel still stands, though both
a million miles farther from our hotel
than they were at our last meal

had we not had a cancelled cruise
we would be listening to blue waves'
soft song in Nice

not now, instead
we hear the sirens' cacophony
premature dirges for the dead
wails of the maimed, yet
unnamed

tomorrow, their biographies will be
in print, their families numb in disbelief
longing for belief

and wishing numbers could be
reversed: 11-13-15, 9-11-01, 12-07-41
or perhaps AD plus one

when will this end, and
how much farther from Eve's
curious breach can we fall

careful I was, not to step on the ants
on the trail--a red commando column, carrying crumbs
to their busy mound, on auto pilot  

feet from their hidden queen, a felled oak,
infested with termites, gorging themselves
on its dying flesh, a cellulose feast  

one day soon, when rain carries workers
off their course, these two industrious species shall meet
and their cryptic ******* will fail  

leaving them with the choice of fight or flight;
the former will prevail, for they can run but never hide,
from treachery that comes from so deep inside

a sextillion tons of sea above me  
I am watchful sentinel, in the trench
Mariana--what strange creatures visit,
in this world without light  

day or night matters not, here,
where pressures are beyond measure
yet these beings glide by, more drifting
dreams than sluggish flesh  

my neighbors yet belch fire,
steam, and black cream from their bellies
as I did in my youth, but
I am now silent  

and though I have perfect recall
of all that has ever happened, I am crevice  
without the crease of time, and remember
not one sorrowful thing

when I returned, things had changed  
while the wild white dogs still gnawed
at their prostrate prey, by the tracks we all cross,
they were larger, and raised their mongrel heads
only at the scent of me  
for I now could walk so I would not be seen  
or heard by their blue black tongues  
my children’s children were not there    
perhaps wandering in another's field
of dreams, with another’s eyes,
perchance another’s thumping heart  
all the homes were old, and smelled of the past, yet
the young ones inside were who I hoped they would be  
filled with the bright eyed promise of tomorrow  
though I tried to know them, they only smiled,  
spoke a language I could not understand,  
and left each morn without me, wandering
with the beggars and beasts, on trails I could not see  
the sun shone through every door  
sending shafts of light at my invisible feet  
without warming them or giving them
safe passage among the same old dogs
I longed to know, but who never saw me
again

sixty-one minutes ago, a stormy midnight;
I watched the clock hands join as lightning
struck my high pastures

only last month, a twister snatched a steer
and dropped it in my neighbor's stock tank--not a scratch
on its hide after a cylconic half mile ride

tonight I had no fear funnels would find my fields;
the distant thunder claps taunted me, reminding me
they have fierce fire, but don't always bring rain

I watched the clock, waiting for 13:02;
only last month, my wife hid with me
in our storm cellar, praying

I prayed with her, though I doubted
a god was listening, or cared; my entreaties
were not for refuge from the storm

instead, I begged the black sky
my woman would be saved from white
blood cancer--for a miracle

that was not to be--the almighty saw fit
to perform one for a dumb beast that very eve
but not for my wife of fifty years

she lasted until 1:01 AM yesterday
13:01 I strangely conceived; I had the lucky
steer slaughtered at high noon today

I'd let it rot in prairie grass, were it not
for her--she would not want it to be carrion
for buzzards, a profligate desecration

she would want its flesh to be
a feast for a family she did not know;
hands clasped, giving thanks

to the same god that saved it
but not her; I can't rest, I'll watch the clock,
waiting for 13:01 again and again

White, then...

Nature’s most honest hue
is the one we give a fanciful view
but when it graces gray winter skies
we know it will have its swift demise
for we see this purely driven white
will soon succumb to blazing light

What we gazed upon with rapt attention
will only receive an honorable mention
before it turns to slushy soot
and a soggy nuisance to the foot
‘tis easy to forget it was first white art
but it had no choice but to depart

So when you gaze agape with wonder
do not forget the spell you are under
will be like all white we seem to admire
a victim of some mysterious fire
the true subject of this enigmatic rhyme
the inevitable passage of time

cyclones of russet leaves  
doing devilish dances in her yard
while she read, sipped chamomile,
and listened to the cat’s warm hum by her feet,  
the neighbor’s Harley on her street    

the default ring tone
she never changed, interrupted her mid paragraph,
between the writer’s deft description of a noisy bar,  
and an anonymous couple walking to the car  
to find something they lost
long before that night    

the words that came
when she answered became part
of her own novel, lines scribed in a book
she would carry with her forever,
words she read over and over
as she ran to the car,
“your husband is in the ER”
“your husband is in the ER”  
“your husband…”  

he had gone for cat food,
asparagus, and likely some beer,
or Chablis if he remembered they were having
chicken Milan that very night    
and he did, because the bottle  
was yet on the floor board
of his Honda Accord, after…    

two officers met her
at the sliding ER door  
and the eyes of one, puffy with compassion
required they say no more than her name
this also now written in her own book
since half of it was his  
half, his

his parents arrived
at 2:56 AM the next day
having been entombed in a silver blue buzzing tube
two hours late from JFK--first class only meant more
mournful space around them  
they could not fill      

her own mother
handled all the arrangements, being a master at such  
having buried her father, the last pilot downed
in that crazy Asian war, and putting her older brother  
in the ground when white blood cancer
took him before he made it
to double digits  

services, closed casket,
were on a thick Thursday,
delayed a day while they
waited for their priest to return
from his own mother’s wake
in some other world  

all friends and family
gone by Saturday, leaving her to listen
for the cat’s hum (but he was hiding)
the neighbor’s roaring machine  
and more ring tones, more sound  
that would too become indelible lines
in her timeless tome, that began
on a windy Sunday

gone heaven's blue palette,
pocked with whiffs of white cloud,
her last day, the sky wore only winter's grey,
she a gossamer gown, soon her shroud

an ancient arterial breach had filched
her gift of speech--her hearing, too, had
yielded to the years, though her sight was still keen,
and memory’s vault stored all she had seen:

a world at war, a man on the moon,
a child born and leaving her nest, too soon  
a husband in the cold ground, she yet longing
for the sound of his voice  

now her daughter sat vigil at her side, stroking her
ethereal white hair, her plum veined hands: her touch,
her smile, the last language she would know,
completing life’s gratuitous circle  

her final thoughts returning to her child in the cradle,
a pink, round innocence, when she spoke the same to her
with a mother’s soft touch, the easy curve of her smile  
so few suns ago, it seemed, so few

though she sat only two
pews farther back, her understanding
of things was different from his  

she imagined the body of the woman
in the casket in quiet, pacific repose, spirit departed,
welcomed already in some beaming crystal sky  

he saw red lips painted on
a powdered white face--eyelids invisibly
sewn shut over empty sockets  

for he heard the big people say
she had donated her corneas, and someone
told him what those were  

she believed, as she had been told,
the woman would suffer no more, and live forever
in a place surrounded by benevolent ghosts    

he did not understand how this thing
called soul could be so hasty in leaving a body
where it had lived for eighty years  

he had watched water drain from a tub  
and smoke from fires leave stone chimneys
and long hang gray in white skies  

she had seen the same, but when it came
to this strange thing called death, the word
she heard conjured magic, not tragic  

he only knew Daddy was not smiling,
and Mommy’s eyes were dripping tears; not one
person in the big room laughed or played    

except for the girl two pews back  
who brushed a doll’s hair and spoke to it
as if it could hear

others in the ****** ascended
to their white, breathing heavens
one by one, as if saying goodbye,
to them, was a solitary act

leaving him alone,
on the high branch--he did not fall
when gusts shook the oak, though
during stillness, he dropped

to the next leafless limb,
there waiting for him patiently,
drenched in sunlight that made
the crow's coat glisten  

soon clouds blocked the sun,
downdrafts pounded the tree;
he did not fall, until
the skies cleared    

then, to the lowest limb
he descended, now but feet above
a blanket of leaves, soon
to be his bed

other creatures would come, communing
with him in their way: his flesh becoming
their flesh, a sacred chemistry for all life,
after its pitiless descent to death

I was three, four--surely no more
we marched through the old city, I
mostly on father's shoulders, a place
I was perched so often back then  

of a thousand dry seas on the moon's
pocked face, only one my father chose to wed  
with a bomb crater: Mare Ingenii

to others, you were but a mammoth hole,
ill-timed casualty of the bombers wrath,
but Dad named you for a barren basin
on the dark side of the moon  

eons later, I was an ancient ten,
and John Glenn spun thrice around the globe
I then asked if we would live to see the real you,  
an astronomically sculpted scoop, two hundred
arctic black miles across  

dad said of course,
and I believed him, especially
after I asked when, and he said
a billion years ago

I found a skeleton of a bus
so far into the pines, I knew it had been
dropped from the sky, to save me  

they had to be far behind,
the other side of the stream, where those hounds
lost my scent    

Jed and Tonto didn’t follow me across
the shallows, and I’d bet all the money I ever stole
those curs and the posse ate them up    

there was almost half a moon, though
inside the bus was black; outside was freezing
drizzle pattering on the roof  

the coat I filched was soaked    
my trousers too--nobody told me
Alabama got this cold  

if they had
I wouldn’t have believed them
until that night  

I curled up in a ball
behind the driver’s seat, shoved
my frozen hands in my shirt    

then I heard that hiss, and saw
those eyes--I stayed quiet, more quiet even
than when I hid from John law    

then she growled, deep, slow
but I kept watching her eyes--emerald and still, still
in the place I first saw them    

then we were both silent  
I’d  *** my drawers before I’d move
freeze outside... get ate inside  

the hours passed fast; I drifted,
dreamed a little of being back inside, and woke
when the sun hit the cracked windshield    

she was still there
with two cubs nursing, now used to my smell
I suppose, since she didn’t jump  

when I slid down the bus stairs
into the frosty grass, where I saw a doe
chewing forbs, close to the roots  

lucky the lion had her babes stuck
to her teats, lucky I was between the cat and prey,
lucky the bus was in that grove

how could I not love you,
when you wrote of death, while others
courted coy flowers--I know you were not
a comely creature, and if you were Aphrodite,
perhaps you would have been love lathered
on cold Amherst nights, though I
suspect you would not have heard
a fly buzz when you died, for you
would not have been listening
for such a beatific symphony

the entire platoon, lost
even Leroy--all said he had the “shield”
in this field, he must have let it down
all six foot four of him, on the ground
beside him, Tony from Brooklyn
Fresno Frankie, all

the lieutenant, in motionless repose
his head resting on Leroy's ribs, his short blond hair crimson
from the base of his skull to his ears, color courtesy
of Leroy’s grated gut

not one sound
why had they not bayoneted him
with the others....he saw one standing over him, leaning
down with his AK-47, moving as slowly as the minute hand
on a giant black clock

where was the sun
after all these hours among the dead
hadn't the earth turned, or did it spin into a sky
where Helios had vanished, superfluous now
on this lifeless plain

still, in this darkness he saw
one by one, his sleeping brothers awake
yet drenched in blood, arms outstretched,
mute while they drifted upwards
in ribbons of soft, silent light

in a pale green room,
one sat, rocking slowly, an improvement,
the white ones said, but catatonic
was not a word she knew  

another crouched in the corner, also swaying to and fro
her Haldol doubled the week before, so she stopped scratching her legs  
but not before she had carved a Picasso on her thigh, a Dali on her calf  
****--there were no “cutters” then, black clad children who needed razors  
we had our own claws

my cell mate rocked too,
in her sleeveless jacket, by the window,
where the mesh cut the afternoon sun
into dappled diamonds on her frock      

the oldest woman in the world
crawled the linoleum highways counting each square
spouting off formulas, to prove the universe had order
though she did not have to say much to convince us
this was eons before “chaos theory” and we knew all the butterflies
flapping in all the world would not make a sound  
their vibrations scarcely noted, and no hurricanes
would emerge from their winged tempests  

I rocked too, and ****** my pants,
because I could, and if I did not, the white ones
and the zombie zoo doctor god, might decide  
to release me to the warped world, where
I would be expected to never rock again,
where there would be no queen counting squares,
where the clock would try in vain to measure the sun
and the scent of ammonia would be replaced
by nothingness

Etched in my memory is a chair in the Rexall Drug, Easter eve--me sitting on the edge of it, waiting

And the despairing look on my father's face while he too waited,  for some pill or potion to heal my big brother

Sitting across from me, asleep, was a woman--I believe the oldest person in the world

Together we were half this lonely planet, my father and the apothecary the rest of its survivors

Every other soul was gone, perhaps snatched early, by some unexpected rapture

Resurrection was nigh, but I was expecting only an egg hunt, and perchance a chocolate bunny


Across the street, a church sat in silence, its steeple cross barely visible through the Rexall's glass door

Thunder echoed through the night, and for a flickering moment, it was daylight outside


The druggist handed my father a small white paper bag, for which he gave thanks

He said, "Let's go, David." Not "Bud" or "Podner," and he didn't wait for me to get up

Even though it had begun to rain, he moved slowly through the lot to our parked car


Every time I think of that night, I wonder who was born the next day, to take my brother's place

Death I discovered, is not on a schedule--the doctors said he had a year, maybe more

Gods don't explain themselves to men or monkeys, at least not to the mortals I know

Easter was a good day to die I guess, but if my brother thought so, he didn't say

many have suggested fire
but I choose not to become cremains  
I want a plain pine bed
no magic elixirs
in my veins

why waste fluid
and time, treasured commodities,
before the *******

if law did not proscribe,
I would gladly let a stout stranger
toss me into a raging river

though my kin
may protest, fishes, crustaceans
would rejoice

after all,
lesser creatures
are always hungry
and grateful

a century skipped
from one soup line
to the next

never thought I would
stand in one, a homeless octogenarian
who doesn't like soup

the library serves sandwiches,
Eden’s apples too, on Mondays, but gray Sundays
they are closed, so here I be
at a holy house

that feeds beggars, bankers
and ******, but only after servicing
our souls, with etudes on eternity
and other hymns to which
I am deaf

tomorrow I will visit the VA
for my monthly meds, free potions
to pacify me while I wait for a bed
in the shiny new castle,
forever being built

in the meantime, I get the shed
behind the shack, of another "brother"
who tells me war stories

that can't be true, since he
was but ten and two when
the last bird chopped its way
into the Saigon sky

the embassy below yet teeming
with ghosts, and the screaming hordes,
scurrying still in a conquered land, desperate  
victims of our proud command

I don't tell him he does not
speak the truth, for he gets even more
potent pills than I to keep
his demons at bay

today the broth has chicken
and rice, and our platoon slurps in unison
after another plaintive prayer
to a god I never knew

tomorrow, over my white
bread and bologna, we will
be able to sup in silence, in the
calm cathedral of tomes

where I will try in vain
to comprehend the mystic
Kabbalah, or perhaps read The Grapes of Wrath
to hoist healing hope of suckled redemption
before my ancient eyes

.

the waters ring red
with the ferrous clay from these plains
brutish brown on cloud cluttered days
caramel during floods

my feet know nothing
of water moccasins, though
a rattler nipped an ankle on these banks
a million years ago

feet don't recall
they slip into the cool tickling stream
innocent, not looking for a Baptismal
though the serpents are ever present

slithering in the depths
just beyond my eyes, only a few silt filled steps
from my ten toes, waiting--wanting fallible
flesh to slip within their sights

where there will be no
original naked temptation, only the striking,
the ******* venom, and the second fall
from grace, without woman to blame

in this pasture,
one hundred days past,
scores cheered as the current coursed
through Bundy's body

this evening, I am here,
solitaire, except for my *****,
the cattle, and the fireflies sprinkled
against the night

my spaniel nips
at the flies, but they are quick,
eluding her jaws to perform
a brilliant alchemy again

amidst this spectacle,
cows chew their cud, unperturbed, unaware
it seems, magical lightning comes without
thunder from these creatures

the bovines don't scatter
as I walk among them--perhaps they’ve forgotten
those revelers here on a crisp winter night, eager
to celebrate an extinguishing of light

rummaging through the ruins
of the landfill, his sole fellow explorer
a cur, content when his snout sniffed mold
blissful when he discovered a can

his aspirations grander than the canine,
he hoped to find artifacts of the ancients,
and digging deep he did, an Apple, one of Job's
first magical machines, the monitor
dull but without a solitary crack

then a turntable, its diamond stylus
long turned to nub, veneer half peeled
by the blade of time--its final symphony spun
eons ago, or at least two dozen years

finally a Dr. Pepper sign, an old as time,
its 10, 2 faint but still there, its 4 long gone
the masterpiece's artist never lamenting
its weathered fate: he too had his time
his labors filling his pockets, pleasing
his eyes, and immortalizing him
in the open bowels of the earth

through his window
he could see the oak planted by his grandfather
or his father, or his, however many greats
that would be

few obstinate leaves lingered
like refugees who missed a hegira
to the promised land, or to the
red, russet heap along
the stone wall

some of its ancient roots
had wearied of earth's deep dark  
and now streaked across the yard
silent serpents laying in wait
for another eve

he wanted to write
of his lifelong arboreal companion
but his fingers had adopted a stiff grotesque pose
some forgotten fall, when the leaves
had been long in their leaving

words were there, waiting,
perched behind his eyes, then sinking
in some grave fashion to his tongue,
though to whom would they speak?

nobody remained
who read his verse
still the words kept lining up
not quite knocking on the door
demanding exit to a flat
white world

as his tired eyes rested
on the tree, the words rumbled louder,
until they pleaded, who planted you,
where are they now, and when
will we join them...?

the days, she counts
backwards, and recalls what she was doing
5000 sunsets ago

and she does know
5000 from now, she'll be gone, if number
wizards are right

on this winter night,
she thumbs through old photos
of loved ones now far away

she finds one of a sunny day
five decades past--she and her man long departed
sitting under a tree

there she can plainly see
the pines and the bed of needles
on which they made love

and directly above,
she squints to discover, a bird
caught in flight  

she returns to this night,
places the photo in the box where
it has rested all these years  

somehow, the image allays her fears:
the father of her children, smiling, holding her hand;
the bird she finally saw, wings spread forever

on the trail today,
I thought of something
I wanted to say

I told myself
I would remember, but
nothing's there

perhaps I wanted
to mention I had seen
a dozen bikes

peddlers whizzing by under 
cloudless sky, with no whipping
winds to ****** them

where the prairie's rude
riding gusts were hiding,
I do not claim to know

wherever they chose to go
their sabbatical left surface
waters calm, blue

but that's not what I had to
tell you--tales of cyclists unperturbed
by a stiff breeze

i said i wouldn't forget
and yet, here I am rambling,
scrambling to recall

what inspired me most
of all: not nascent blossoms or
butterfly wings, of all things

but the absence of an invisible
symphony, a silenced howling from
the sky's spectral lungs

i said i wouldn't forget; tomorrow
surely the winds will blow, and I will
catch whatever they meant to say

he don’t wait for night
to hop a freight
had his ears boxed and jaw busted
a time or two
by Santa Fe brakemen,
mean as steel
“Bones heal,”
he says
“I got places to go
Tishomingo,
where I bed Betty
and drink her homemade brew”
he don’t tell her he loves her, but
neither did her Mama, she sighs
he knows what she says is true
'cause his Mama was silent too
in her grave the day he was born
Daddy taught him to jump them trains
when you can,
not all this jabber ‘bout bein’ a man
keep rollin’ on those tracks
don’t look back to be a slave
to what’s behind
train’l take you where you need to be
Tishomingo, to Betty
if it don’t, that’s all right
Betty ain’t waitin’ up at night
and the train is free

Water

ON it,
U
C
U.
IN it,
U
R
U

thirty-five years
since Mark gunned you down
thirty-five years, passed
like a long sleepless night
that ends with taunting morning light
no brilliant sunrise grandly pronouncing
a glorious new dawn of man
although that would have been your plan
with your entreaties to give peace a chance
and imagine, imagine, imagine

now I kneel in this rain gray park
like a reject from some holy ark
a pilgrim in doleful disappointed pose
after seeing what your earthly brothers chose
was not to imagine a world of peace and love
but to wear reality like a cast iron glove
making mockery of your martyred chants
proceeding like a billion scurrying ants
deaf to your childlike pleas

across the soaked soil where your ashes lay
yesterday and today…and tomorrow
I feel the soggy sorrow
that you would have felt
if you could still see
all the rage of humanity

white petals pepper his ivy,
some droop casually into the monkey grass
all volunteers, their conception unplanned

after his early constitutional
he takes tea with them, and tells them
life tales--content they listen, hear

first cautious with his revelations
no lugubrious lessons he has learned,
little of loss:

his first kiss,
his summer sojourns with Uncle Elliott
his favorite hiding spot at play

then, when they've heard of joy
he praises them for their comely countenance,
their generous journey from seed

later, when he returns at eventide
he dares tell them of Sophia, his beautiful bride
who tended tulips before these interlopers came

he whispers, so he does not startle them, or perchance
wake her, as he confesses she lies beneath them, forever silent
in their bed

the lamb's lame leg, its death sentence
the rest of the herd headed up the hill, dog
driven; the shepherd, home in his hovel

they wait, the vultures; they
know no haste, though hunger pulls
them closer to the babe

abandoned by its mother, and whatever
god watches over such beasts, its breathing slows,
the carrion eaters tighten their circle

the babe kicks its three good legs
in defiance or desperation--neither the buzzards
nor I know, even though, I created her

to be devoured soon in this new grass
while the other sheep chomp the sweet swards
close to the earth, oblivious to her fate

the circle grows smaller; the creature
kicks no longer; her eyes yet blink, slower, until
the first talon tears into the left or the right

the choice matters not

I didn't pick my name
anymore than I asked for all this rain
to fall on my streets

I thank the good Lord above
Amelia didn't live to see this--me
in this chair, a leg lost to
the sugar diabetes

her cat disappearing
in the night

the water's to my waist now,
but I ain't cold--just hungry
and dog tired

last night with Noah's flood
arisin' I could have sworn I saw
two water moccasins slithering
around my one good leg

I did prayin' a plenty
and didn't sleep a wink

dawn came quiet--guess
the neighbor's rooster run off
for high ground

if there is any left on God's green earth

my ears are goin'
but I know I hear an outboard

someone is coming to save me
to pull me from this room turned to toilet

someone

the sound of that motor's fading...
they'll be back

in the meantime, I'll keep
calling for that cat

there's high spots
where she could be

and I could swear I saw
a ray of sunshine through
those clouds

and when they come for me
I'll tell them my name

give them a good laugh

Dickinson, Texas, August 28, 2017

his dream was always of a cart, carrying
limbs like those in so many slaughter houses
dragged along by two oxen, blind, backs whipped
by a golem whose red eyes illuminated
the path, the cart's carrion, and even
the black sky

when he would awake, he would feel
ravenous, not sated by his breakfast mush
or his noon repast--only when he sat for dinner
would he be full, after he drowned himself in wine, and gorged himself on a feast of flesh, charred yet
dripping with blood

the same sanguine soup, perchance,
he saw flowing from the wagon of his dreams,
the same as the crimson ooze from the humps of
the beaten beasts who transported
the ghoulish cargo to some crypt
in the greedy earth

to someplace he longed to see and
to be, in the dream, the one from which
he would awake with such perverse
hunger for life

I took rest on the river road
by the big Platmann place,

two stout stories, white pillared and regal on this prairie

envy ate my gut most days when I passed:
a fine car, servants and the like

today though, was curiosity stirred in me
since what I happened to see, was a giant
red-tailed hawk, splayed and stuck to an outbuilding, entails dripping

an avian crucifixion, I was told

after the raptor snatched up the Platmann's tabby

the pet was not saved, by prayer or the screams of the young lass who called the cat Matilda

though a handy shotgun brought down
the bird before it reached the stand of trees

(where it would have had its furry repast)

only winged and not shot fatal
the hawk was dragged back to the shed

where a knife slit its gut, and a fire forged hammer and three penny nails did the rest

the skies did not darken, nor did the sacrificed call out to an invisible father

'tis not the way of hunters, nor their prey

I did tarry a while and wonder, if a child's eyes saw this rapacious red reaping,

or knew of the dumb desperate need for a blood cleansing

on a Texas hot day,
a thrifty bird of prey, was enjoying
a red repast

his plate, endless asphalt, his meal
entrails of a cur, whose flat fate was sealed
by black Firestone rubber

the manged mutt left to be lunch
for a ravenous buzzard, with beak bent,
pecking at his fine feast, until

my mindless Michelins
gobbled him up, faster than his greased wings
could flap for flight

there was no power

from my Mumbai hotel I
could see the stream of people
in the narrow street below

a cart carrying the dead listed
and nearly toppled over

the ox pulling it did not stop
dragging the askew carriage along

passersby steered clear of the primitive hearse
knowing it carried the curse, the fever felling the denizens
of this muggy megapolis

a plague harvesting souls
quicker than they could be burned

the Mithi was thick with their ashes,
diluted only by tears of the mourners
who harbored fears they would be next

I was there, a helpless healer;
a doctor turned detective, running
a race to find a cause, a miracle cure

all my potions impotent,
all my staring at slides a lesson
in limitations, ignorance--a discovery
of crawling creatures too miniscule
to be dissected, too beguiling to be
understood

my eyes were tired of looking
at the tiny death moguls and their victims
my ears weary of the entreaties for relief
from suffering

yet I stood and watched, one wagon
after another, carrying carrion for the pyres

I prayed the power would stay off,
for light would have shone on me:
a curious survivor, unworthy of whatever
grace kept me from the heaps of lifeless
limbs bound for the fires of the night

When
I asked
for ten words,
I got…
much more

“Jeopardy” replaced
by ominous clouds
on Doppler’s screen
rains came!

my father is dead
though in the whimsical world of words
I can resurrect him, not in the raining rays
of the Texas sun, but in the darkness
in his Oldsmobile, on a Christmas Eve
bathed in the lighter lights of the season,
their reflections, rolling over our tinted windshields,
littered our eager eyes, in color
and cacophonous taunting,
“ ‘tis the season, ‘tis the season”

the children are not yet
disenchanted by these chants,
thinking still of presents under the tree
some flickering sense of mystery

I, old enough to shave and see the cords
that feed the mocking lights, catch a lump
in my throat, before it fills my eyes with terrible tears
for I know the car will take us back from whence we came
far from the Plaza where we watch the lights,
to the walls where the colors don’t speak
to a place where one day someone will die
and the lights and all my words
will not bring them back