CINDER SCAR

Before I knew about girls,
I chased Suzie down the block,
speeding after her bicycle
and her flowing hair.
Caused me to turn too sharply
into an alley, skid and crash
and still have a cinder scar,
on my elbow, decades later.

Suzie escaped that time,
but beckoned and called me
in ways I did not understand,
until one evening, perched
on my bike outside her window,
she pulled up the shade,
pulled up her t-shirt
and exposed her breastless breasts
as I gasped and stared.

I never forgot that scar. 

Originally published in Brief Wilderness

STEP-MOTHER

When her eyes peer into the mirror,
they look for fairness,
always saw her the most fair.

Beauty is in the beholder’s eye,
beneath the arched brow,
lit by jealousy.

Years passed; Snow White died.
The same carved mirror reflects gray hair.
The books around read death.
Bending to sit on the throne, back curses.

Spring outside once again,
an awakening kiss, a nightmare.
Always Winter inside now.
Fair never there.
And now it is gone. 

Originally published in Brief Wilderness 

VIOLENCE IN THE CORN

We were radical hippies, 
loving  August sweet corn
on a sunny, hot day
in a flower-painted VW van,
common transport for our tribes.
 
I was the most radical among us.
Bill, keen but mild-mannered.
Steve, who later killed himself.
Sally, sitting Native American style,
nibbling the cob as yellow as her silken hair. 
 
Why would we debate violence over pristine
sweet corn on such a lovely day? 
My political words heat up
as we opine back and forth, 
munch, wipe our chins between salvos. 
 
Bill, who died too young of cancer,
opposed any form of killing.
Steve, divided in his opinions. Sally into the corn.
I argue for revolutionary violence like the character
in Conrad’s novel, Under Western Eyes,
despite knowing a bomb blew him up.
 
Loud, popping sounds startle us.
We rush outside to find,
to our horror, a young man
lying on his porch, bleeding.
An old man waves a gun, 
meanders down the sidewalk 
as if he were out dog walking. 
 
The ambulance, siren blasting,
arrives too late. My testimony
sends the old man to prison for years.
 
I’m an octogenarian now.
With the wall of the world
fast crumbling, Bill and Steve gone,
Sally whereabouts unknown,
I know what I believe about violence.

Originally published on Monteray Poetry Review

MAKE UP SEX

Isn’t this always a part of relationships?
Probably more times than we can count.
Unless, you are a couple who never fights,
never has a serious argument—
she to tears usually, he to anger—
now we’re talking about the impossible,
like getting along perfectly
with every family member and everyone
you knew across your entire life.

Yet the good times always intervene—
a child wins a school award,
an unexpected raise, you buy a new car,
any kind of good news, or just the ache
of wanting to be together.

So wild sex is one way of healing,
through passion where hot, sweaty bodies
roil and take over the mind.
Pleasure, the goddess Lethe of Forget.

But old age changes things,
doesn’t it? The arguments and fights
do not go away, but the libido does.

So, spontaneously, he says:
“Let’s go out for Chicago dogs!”
Silently, she just gets into the car.
Kosher dogs, mustard, onions,
Kosher dills, tomatoes
celery salt, in a sesame seed bun.
Skip the hot peppers at our age.

Originally published in Cajun Mutt Press

QUESTIONS FOR GOGOL

The human obsession with purpose is merely
A distraction from the absurdity of existence—Gogol

Dear Nikolai, you inspire me.
I love the way you write,
but I can’t figure you out.
How can one so weird become
so great, show keen insight,
make us laugh through “The Nose”
and weep wrapped in Akaky’s “The Overcoat?”
What a storied life, odd from childhood.

Absconded with your mother’s mortgage,
failed as a poet, in government,
conjured stories of devils and witches,
flopped as a Medieval professor,
faked toothaches, often absent
to hide your ignorance of that Age.
Wrote the “Inspector General,”
but left for Germany because
your critics hated or loved it
for all the wrong reasons.

Wrote famous”Dead Souls,”
to lead Russia back to God.
But religion choked your soul.
Father K. intoned: “Sinful author.”
You burned a second version of “Dead Souls.”
Punished yourself. Starved yourself to death.
Exhumed–face down in your casket.

Others—cut off an ear, knelt for hours in the snow,
fatally shot in a tavern, found dead in a gutter,
forced pills down their gullet,
a dress loaded with rocks to drown,
another chose not to drown at the last minute,
spouted Fascism until thrown into an asylum,
a head thrust in an oven, a gun blasted a face.
Constant turmoil, banned, exiled too.

What price genius?

Originally published in Cajun Mutt Press

THE CIRCUS TAP

My Dad once owned five taverns,
each with a different theme,
one with all kinds of stuffed and kewpie dogs;
one with white pillars like a Southern plantation;
one a Latin theme with a large
cardboard cut-out of the famous dancer
Carmen Miranda, tall and elegant
as she danced with a bowl of fruit
on her head, intact even during her exotic twirls;
one called the Little Club with no theme
but Country and Western music
where he captivated my down-home stepmother.

The one I remember the most
is the Circus Tap. Circus scenes,
clowns, elephants, a whip-flourishing ringmaster—
pictures covering the walls, the most striking
a garish painting of a lady riding a Bengal tiger,
with her flippant hand flashing
as much come-hither as her eyes.

My favorite part at the Tap—
the Wheel of Fortune.
Centered on the back wall
of the horseshoe-shaped bar,
a barkeep spun it at intervals because
each fake red leather-covered stool
had a corresponding number on it
and if the wheel stopped on your number
you got a free drink and some backslaps.

Always packed, particularly on weekends,
some patrons waiting against the wall
for a stool to open up. They spun the wheel
every fifteen minutes, giving the customers
the chance to buy more drinks
while waiting for the miracle–
there were fifty stools–
of the Wheel choosing them.

Decades later, I drove by those streets,
a memory lane trip with my brother,
our Dad mouldering in the grave.
All the bars were torn down,
the three blocks of glittering taverns
with their gambling dens and strippers
replaced by paint-faded warehouses,
the sidewalks festooned with weeds
struggling in the cracks as I
fought back memories’ tears.

Originally published in Cajun Mutt Press

COUSIN PHEE

Beautiful, lively Cousin Phee,
could have been cast
as Daisy in Gatsby,
introduced me to women’s lib
when I was a late teen
through the life you lived.

Married to a successful lawyer,
praised him so much
to us cousins, bathed in
your smile and spunk,
I definitely had a crush on you.

The marriage crashed,
lawyer Bill Freeman made his case
for Miss North Carolina,
on the outside a version of you,
but on the inside these scalawags
split your heart in two
pushed you into
penning your woes
which is how I got libbed.

Grieved when you sent me
your memoir about the divorce,
loved your decision to fight for betrayed women.
Heart-broken when you died of breast cancer,
a flower plucked too soon.

Read your book avidly and wept,
gratified to find you changed
your name from Freeman,
to Phyllis Freewoman,
your heart stab.

Originally published in Spindrift Magazine

CLIMATE CHANGE BEFORE ITS TIME

In 1977, arctic fronts slammed into Florida.
Newscasters reported the word snow for the first time.

School children raced wildly out of class rooms
to catch and taste the flakes with their tongues.

Radios played White Christmas even though
Christmas had passed the month before.

Miami got a trace that was never recorded.
Tampa got two tenths of an inch and shut down.

It was a time of joy—except for the farm workers,
tossed out of jobs like discarded, frozen tomatoes.

The North had huge snow drifts,
complained about the high price of tomatoes.

Salads had less color. Juicy red missing.
Some tables now little food. Stomachs growled.

Decades later, summery Autumn in the North,
belies vicious hurricanes in the Sunshine State.

Originally published in Spindrift Magazine

APPOINTMENTS IN HEAVEN

We’d see people
from  human history,
alive and able to love us back.
Oh, most everyone believes
they are going there
even if they are not
sure about God.
But in our secret heart,
a shadow of doubt.
We don’t really know.

I choose to be positive,
believe Heaven is real.
Not worried about who won’t or will.
Babies who died in famine
or witches burned at the stake will—
not the robed burners.

So people get there, live forever
with all our pet friends,
no pain or death.
No regrets? That’s a hard one.
Streets of gold, harps, angels, halos.
Or a restored, Edenic Earth.
World without End.

I know what I’ll do besides
weeping joy with  everyone I love—
embrace every day,
every hero I knew about,  many I didn’t.
A lot of wonderful common folk,
a blacksmith who squelched a fire,
a fire eater who charmed a deadly snake,
a dairy maid who resisted her master,
a postman who threw himself
under a car to save a child.

I’ll set up appointments.
Was my job on Earth,
good at being an amiable gadfly.

We would meet at coffee shops
serving dark brew
picked by unoppressed humans.
All take turns serving.

Meeting family and friends.
Who else?

Already started my list.
Dostoyevsky, Dr. Salk, Mother Teresa.
Gandhi, Mandela, Father Kolb, Clara Schumann,
the Carters, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis,
my down-the-block neighbors.
The list would go on for eternity.

A God who made elephants
and watermelons will surely
have good things for us to do.
There are other planets to be explored,
a kaleidoscopic, expanding universe.

Maybe I will write a great poem,
perhaps you the great World novel,
a symphony an undeaf Beethoven
will marvel over.
Grow the perfect orchid.
Bees everywhere.
Build and plant.
We can even share our lists. 

Originally published in Poets' Expresso Review

MARCH MELTS

As I look out my window
at the falling, drifting snow,
some vestigial ice,
I know no matter
how fierce the wind blows
how loud the Lion—
March melts

When the King of Beasts cuffs
aside Cupid’s winter arrows of love
roars that Janus month into being
ignorant of the lamb he will lie near
when fully blown—
March melts.

When fierce storms pretend
Spring is just a young man's fancy
or the stuff of poems 
and winter covers the ground
as if a death blanket
Earth wrapped in forever—
March melts.

In Spring the buds
turn over in their beds
shut out the storm noise
cuddle with the Lamb
believe that—
March melts.

Fish stir beneath the tumult 
I string my poles
ice fishing in the rear mirror
blue sparkling lakes ahead—
March melts.

Originally published in Poets' Espresso Review

TO BOB KEARNEY

We were 16 and you drove
your dad's car, an old ’57 Chevy,
loaded our gang in,
up and down and around
our small town streets--waving
at girls crowded around
the Zesto Ice Cream Emporium,
where those summer beauties,
laughed and smiled, waved,
and sometimes gave us the finger.

A few decades ago, my wife and I
saw the Great Gatsby movie,
a sad and moving story
about Fitzgerald's wife.
Daisy was escaping, but had to stop
at a gas station where the Texaco man
sprinted out with a rag and filled it up
and the camera panned on
a gas tank reading: 29 cents.

The edge-of-their-seats audience
broke into hoots and guffaws,
as gas was over a dollar then
none of us knowing, like Scott,
and Zelda, that the price would shoot
sky high and higher and higher.

But one night, which I still
chuckle about Bob, your car
showed empty, empty, empty,

Tired of not enough smiles, winks,
and too many middle fingers,
you lurched the old car
into the Texaco, scraped
together 11 cents from our jeans,
and put in what we could.

Just enough to get us home
so that your Dad would
let us use the car next week,
leaving those young ladies,
waiting, waiting for our numerous
drive throughs and bys.
Hoping our meager coins,
which only gave the tank two fingers
would bring us around again.

Originally published in Down In The Dirt Magazine

GUMSHOE LIT

A view of Micky Spillane and my Dad

My Dad quit high school as a sophomore.
The Depression impoverished his family.
He was an A student, told a story
about how he found a wallet with $5 in it.
Despite what a boon it was,
returned it and got praise for reward.

Despite his incomplete education,
Dad devoured books and loved them.
When I was a teen, he insisted
I read Hugo’s Les Miserables
over my angst and protest.
I became a literature professor.

But among the book stacks
beside his bed, crouched Spillane.
After my dad died, I picked up
I, the Jury, one of a flurry of novels 
this tough-as-nails author’s
detective creation, the executing dick
Mike Hammer, reveled in. A perfect name 
for the way that gumshoe and my Dad
approached their hard-boiled lives. 

Sadly, later, when I found about my Dad’s
adultery and business chicanery, 
I wondered if the pull of Spillane
had turned that wallet-returning,
noble young man into a scalawag.

When Mickey said he didn't 
give a damn about critics’ opinions 
because more people ate
salted peanuts than caviar
and that none of his characters
drank cognac or sported mustaches
because he couldn't spell the words,
or that he didn't have fans but
a lot of customers because 
that should be the goal of writers,
I understood my father better and wept. 

Originally published on Rat's Ass Review

MERCY

If an active God exists,
“Forgive them for they know
not what they are doing,”
the greatest line ever spoken.
But if no God, those words
like BBs shot against
an iron-forged sky,
and the world ends
not with a trumpet,
but with a ping ping ping
and no mercy.

Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine

DANIEL AND HIS ENEMIES

Scripture Reference: Daniel 3: 13-26 (NIV)

God shut the ravenous lions’ mouths.
Daniel slept, a sleep of faith.
Not so the King’s advisors.
The King stood over the den,
his brain fetid with confusion.

(Had he not seen the fourth man dancing
in the furnace flames,
seen those Israeli boys
unsinged, not a hair…)

He should have known that the lions’ jaws would
never rip and tear the man of vegetables and dreams.
Anger filled the King. He did not have to speak.
Shot his eyes at the guards. Without a word, they seized
those who said Daniel would not worship the King.
Threw the advisors and their wives and children to the jaws.
Daniel wept.

Originally published in Grey Sparrow Journal

WENDELL BERRY SAID

In his poem, How To Be A Poet,
Wendell Berry tells me to sit down and be quiet.
Let my mind breathe.
He lists everything I might bring--
affection, inspiration, patience,
growing older—and says we should doubt
any reader who likes our work.

 Write without air-conditioning.
Communicate slowly--there are only
sacred places, nothing unsacred,
but some desecrated places.  

I found it on a poetry site I read daily.
Am I the only one who read this Berry poem?
Perhaps if I were sick, I would have missed it.
Perhaps no one else in the world read it. 

How many of the eight billion people on Earth
read his intriguing poem today about how to wave
a magic wand and bring verse out of your head
or dross as the day may be?

 I will consider his words as I write
a poem today or tomorrow
strutting and fretting my hour upon the page
that perhaps no one will ever read 
or a few outside my family 
or some retired guy whiling
the time he has left,
honoring what was penned
so long ago.  

 Originally published in Penman Review

ONION MEMORIES

 My brother and I travelled to see our property,
our only inheritance. That land was the one thing
our wicked stepmother could not finagle.

 We go there ritually every summer
to look it over, see about repairs
as if we were truly businessmen,
not the artists we became.
We need to sign a new lease every five years,
protect the annual stipend for our children.

 It is now a tire repair business,
was a Standard Oil before
the tavern we lived in during our childhood
was torn down after Dad's heart attack.

 As we walk around the old building inspecting,
we look at the down-turned shopping center
behind the property, half empty now, and recall
when it was just onion fields as far as you can see,
and remember the almost naked and dirty
Mexican children who roamed all summer,
stacked the onions, coming by at dusk to play.

 I remember a young girl with no top on
though she was old enough for one,
her buds arousing me and my curiosity
about why her parents would allow that. 

 Our mother said they were farm workers,
forced to pick onions every year for a pittance
because they were so poor—cheap labor.

When I looked out on the dilapidated shopping mall, 
I realize they are either dead or perhaps
their children are immigrants many reject,
like the onions that rotted in the racks,
thrown away, wasted, so machines
pick and stack them now. 

Originally published in Lucky Lizard

BOSOM BUDDY

My seven-year-old grandson
is his own best friend.
Has many school buddies
but plays for hours
with his creative self—
art work, Star Wars structures,
films movies on his IPad,
imitates Michael Jackson dances—
never afraid to be alone.

In my childhood, I rode imaginary horses.
Smoky, my invisible steed,
wherever he would gallop.
Then, my green and white Schwinn—
named Los Cappacaros from a Western
about some cool bandits—
took me into my teens.

Imagination
as a  childhood playmate,
such a fine gift.

Originally published on Borderless Poetry

CATARACTS

As a generation ages,
the word cataracts enters
our elderly lexicon,
begin to use a word
we thought were waterfalls,
not the teardrops of dilation.
Kind of scary,
a knife in your eyes.
But dimness propels us
to visit a surgeon.

Those who have gone
before say: No problem,
Easy peasy, No fears.

As I sit in the office,
trying out the assurances,
my mind wanders to Uncle Pete,
who terrified me when I was a kid.
Thick ivory-colored, horn-like
protuberances covering
both eyes, a monster’s smile.

Family said Pete was blind.
He only sat and tapped his cane
for need of things or company.
I felt sorry for him, vowed
I would never be blind.

In the office, cataracts
pop into my head.
Pete had cataracts!
No surgery for him,
Just eternal darkness.

No longer afraid,
I was just plain grateful.
Smile when the nurse
calls my name.

Originally published in Stripes Magazine

BEE-LESS

On my patio, a single bee
dances among the spritely flowers
like an ardent ballerina, flicks
my memory back to my bee life.

Grandma yowling when a bee
lodged in her house shoe, stung.
Mom delighted me reading Chandler’s
tale of Br’er Fox, stung surprised 
at the The Laughing Place when
Br’er Rabbit tricked him into bashing
a hornet’s nest and skedaddling. 
Bees at picnics, making us crouch and swat.
Swarming when I cut the grass as a teen.
Eating honey with Shirley from a comb we found.
As a hippie, honey over sugar in our decaf tea,
praised bees for their healthy sweetness.

Now this single bee is joined
by another, a tango across the petals.
I watch lazily in the hot sun,
doze off, flew away as I dreamt.
Wake up suddenly. Hadn’t seen
many bees in a while. Not nostalgia. 
Terror. 

Originally published in Loch Raven Review

HAIR

Sitting with long, white hair
in my old age, no haircuts
during the pandemic,
I reflect on my hippie years.

Standing in the bathroom
of a Florida motel with my cronies
I looked in the mirror,
a crew cut stub fronted my forehead,
a little water matted it down.

Terrible time for the barbers,
I did not cut my hair for six years,
a badge of honor, like ladies
not shaving underarms and legs.

There was a war, a terrible war,
the youth of our nation
rebelling in every area of life.
Growing your hair long
or leaving your body hair on   
was a statement of protest
against those who wanted
body counts.

It was the Age of Aquarius.
A musical celebrated
those extended follicles.
And it was cool.

Originally published in Highland Park Poetry