^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Arthur Benjamin Franklin: my Unca Artie, my favorite. A High School football star, known as Red Franklin, he was famous for his dark red hair.  He used to chuck me into deep water at Chrystal Pool to terrify me for 5 seconds, then hoist me onto his broad shoulders.I suspect I was his favorite too.  War came and he had to go.  I cried and cried on the herringbone patterned bricks at the train depot in Kelso. I have a v-mail he sent to my mom, his sister, dated 1942.  He was a belly gunner on the B-17’s that  were flying the area where Rommel was fighting.  He brought my sis and I back little leather suitcases, tooled in wonderful designs by a skilled artist somewhere in the orient. I still have it.  A treasure.

Grover Cleveland Franklin: My suave uncle, joined the Navy in WWII and became a deep sea diver. The kind that wore those heavy suits with the big glass bubble head.  He helped detect and destroy mines around battleships.  In doing that brave work he lost his hearing and came home as a lip reader for most of my childhood. I was always  a bit suspicious because he seemed to read lips so well. He even got written up in the newspaper because he could sing while putting his hands on a phonograph and feeling the vibrations of the music he couldn’t hear. We kids would always try to make loud noise behind him but he never once reacted to it.
Many years later I learned that he confessed that his hearing had gradually came back.  He was a hero nevertheless.

About their names: Both being born in North Carolina, back in the 1920’s it was common practice among the country folk to name sons after famous people.  I also have another distant relative named George Washington Franklin. I love having hillbilly DNA.

<>

the supply of words is not inexhaustible

neither are the combinations thereof;

what is inextricably true, of these two linkages

that is not exhaustive, is my endless delight,

in finding the ones that I’ve yet to contemplate

till you brought them waving to my eyes,

so as far as I’m concerned, you originate

delight daily, and that is the spark you create

making every day, the eighth day of creation of the world.





Sat Aug 22
2020

the best thing you could teach two another

is how to love themselves,
so they can return the favor;
now that would be a refund!

anthem

we pledge allegiance
to each other, our state
of-just-the-two-of-us,

hands on each other’s
heart, we cocoon, snuggle,
it’s always warm in our land

like Camelot, never rains,
always in agreement, every
votes never tied, for we are

a colorless world, only one,
the color of the day, is what
we feel, create, and believe

we sing only duets, our music,
only perfect pitch harmonies,
this our anthem, sung twice daily

when the sun should rise,
and when it should set, but,
since our sun never leaves

we do it for pure pleasure

i love poetry
unto
death or till
the watch
stops ticking

which ever comes

last.

our hips fit,
our hands entwine,
fingers unlockable,
laughing twogether,
“mighty fine”
she’s wearing the Levi’s,
I’m wearing the Strauss,
and it looks like we
been stitched together

her hand slides
easy in,
to my back pocket,
smiling
she announces,
we like, fit,
like a wedding announcement,
we fit like,
like an old country song

we see a movie
with our crew,
lights go up,
everybody loved it,
she secretly, her nose
wrinkly wrinkles,
one too long car chase,
my eyes are grinning
from corner to corner,
knowing she’s knowing
i’m all in, full in her
with agreement total

they took us to a tailor,
suits we required,
made to measure,
fit as perfect, as
perfect we be, as
perfect as we were,
matching customized,
white shirts, black tie,
shiny black shoes,
for matching caskets,
everyone saying
we just fit together,
even now,
crying ‘so long,’
for so long,
see you guys
so soon,
you two
fit,
like an old country song, one that everyone knows, all the words.

Serpentine of hard green sheen
Born in hydrothermal’s spleen
Where pressured, metamorphosed plate,
Converged at boundaries’ Vulcan gate
To lay in tumbled disarray
Where octopi and dolphin play.

From olivine and pyroxene
Derived the crystal serpentine
Through Hellfires’ metamorphic fate
Now crystalized to Greenstone state.

There lying in the golden light
Of mountain stream in tumbled sight
Refracting in the morning sun
That glint of green since time begun.

M.
That glint of green, a jade boulder
in the tumbling mirth of a plummeting
mountain stream in New Zealands'
wild Southwest.
Jacksons Bay
Fiordland National Park
June 2017