RESCUES

Today we rescued a dog.
She is cute, lovable.
Never had a home,
never looked at by anyone
the kind man told us
who rescued Butter
from a wretched cage,
confined by hoarders.

Home now
for the first time
sniffing away loneliness—
yard to smell
nearby park
leash walks
toys to hassle
laps to snuggle
beds to flounce
more touches
in a single day than ever.

South of here,
children in cages
crammed together
not even their own,
like dogs on display
at PetSmart.

Separated from family,
crowded, inadequate
clothes
showers
food
attention
touch
love
Indefinite.

My wife and I cannot
stroll into that place
look into imploring eyes
bond
fill out paper work
take a rescue by the hand
perhaps stop at McDonald’s
on the way
home.

Originally published in The Literary Yard

STILL SPEAKING

Even after my Mother is dead,
she speaks to me.

When I was five, at a theater,
her ghost nudges me,
reminds me of a movie
about the life of Chopin,
the theme
his Opus 40, Military Polonaise.

She stories:
You were so enthralled,
refused to leave,
wanted to watch it again.
Your Grandmother and I
dragged you up the aisle,
screaming away.

Another memory rises:
Dragged from a different movie
about my first crush,
the ingenue Margaret O”Brien.

Lucky in love
with music and beauty was I.

A passionate boy.
It never left.

Originally published in The Literary Yard

OF PARROTS AND FRIENDS

After my wife’s weekly visit with her friend
who has early Alzheimer’s, she sheds quiet tears,
I listen to her speak of creeping dissolution.

On our honeymoon, I got to know who I wed,
watched her enjoy a bird show as if the various birds—
pigeons, toucans, cockatoos—could understand, appreciate.

The parrots riding trikes came last as the bells struck noon.
Before those birds finished, the audience rose and fled to their fare.
Not my wife. We stood alone and watched till the last bird was done.
She clapped and clapped as if those parrots knew, could take a bow.

Now she tells me of her friend who paints, stands or bows no more,
just lies glaze-eyed, hand-holding, when only fetal remains,
sympathy falls silent, no clapping heard,
that same heart and kindness, like the brilliant sun
that July day with the birds.

Originally published in The Literary Yard

MENGELE DROWNED

Off the coast of Argentina,
after hiding for years.
Stroked out while swimming.
Maybe the shark in his conscience
attacked his heart?

My son sent me a Twitter note
about a Nazi resort
just over a hill from Auschwitz
where the officers cavorted
with their sex kittens,
their Weibsbild every weekend.
“Have a drink.
Aren’t you cute.”

R & R from death,
child experiments,
the smoke of flesh.

Happy smiling faces,
shining through the faded photos.
Life is a playboy club.
On the weekends,
you can forget the grim work.

Heroic Nathan Hale once said:
I only regret I have but one life
to lose for my country.

Was Mengele—
Fallen Angel—
chagrined
he only had one death to give
for the terror in the
children’s eyes?

Originally published in Nine Muses

ROOM OF FORGIVENESS

Open the door.
Gingerly.
Who might be there?
It is the stuff of restless dreams.
Recall the Grimm tale
sisters who
spat vipers or
spoke jewels.
Go inside anyway.
See who is sitting on the sofa.
Stare back at the pain.
Open your mouth.
Say it.
Even if ashes fall on the floor,
Together you can sweep them up.

Originally published in Mad Swirl

FORM OF ART

A lawn could be art. Cutting it, mindless task,  
source of youthful grumbling, getting in the way of life,
too busy to care about oil and gas, weeds, dandelions, neighbors’ eyes. 
But now, in my late 70s, something I can still create, 
form art as I cut—I think it looks beautiful! 

Originally published in The Sea Letter

CLASS BEHIND GLASS


I visited the aquarium,
saw all you pretty preeners.
Angels, Tetras, Neons,
Double Reds, Corydoras,
fanning your tails
to the ohs and ahs of the gawkers.

I did not see your brothers
and sisters that wait
for the hook you will never smell,
the blue gill, perch, crappie,
bass, catfish—plebeians
of inland lakes,
who will swim carefree,
until they bite that barb
strain and pull
jump and flop
against their death.

They will never swim in a tank
with colorful grasses, fake diver bubbling,
toy stone castle,
food sprinkled in daily by soft hands,
the sweet hum of the filter,
protecting their delicate lungs.

Do those who can afford to sup
on grouper, snapper, orange roughy,
oysters, lobster, calamari,
get to adore
the prettiest, most delicate
water world debutantes?

I see my reflection in the glass.

Originally Published in Monterey Poetry Review

AUNT DEDE

is dying to no one's surprise.
88 and has been failing,
survived Parkinson's for 15.
Meaningless numbers,
just like the spate of emails
and texts about her pending demise.
There will be no gathering
at her request.
Would be no gathering anyway.
Virtually everyone who would come
have had their own funerals
or live too far away. 
The texts elicit tiny pebbles of sorrow,
barely a ripple in our ponds. 

She had a vibrant life,
a noted audiologist, 
world traveler with her doctor husband.
Then one daughter committed suicide,
another succumbed to a painful disease.
For that Aunt Dede is remembered.
Not her life—those deaths.
Oh, she was also afraid of cats. 

Hibernating away at the edge of a Wisconsin burg,
she and her husband dealt in antiques
until they turned into them.
Today no one gave more than a sad
passing nod in their texts

to her going. 

Originally published in Cactifur Magazine

SILENT NOISE

Silent night, Holy Night.

Holy, not silent,
slam of the inn door,
frightened braying,
staccato birth screams of Mary,
Joseph’s sobs of fear and joy.

Terrified shepherds,
whimpering before the army of angels,
choir of Heaven
turning the night sky,
an amphitheater of star.
Glorious, brilliant, loud!

Rachel weeping,
gnashing her teeth
over her slain children,
while Herod raged.

Magi pointing at that star
wild amazement,
in the cold, night sky,
jubilant marvel over
Who they found,
What He means.

Silent noise.

When quiet Peace was born.

Originally published in Spillwords Magazine

A TRIBUTE TO MOSS HART'S AUNT KATE

Moss Hart of Camelot and My Fair Lady fame.

 

Moss, families have one or two eccentrics

and yours had Kate.

She took you to the land of thespian magic

several times a week,

silly giggler at the worst times

when it wasn’t even a comedy.

You didn't care, young Moss.

When she set fires,

they locked her up.

You tried to find her a fire escape,

remembered how she

spirited you to the shows

ignited your heart and mind

to make people laugh and sing.

Let's toast the Kates of our families,

the odd among our kin,

take a moment to applaud them,

mine the gold instead of the dross,

turn them loose on the youth,

see what magic appears.

Originally published in Broadkill Review

CALUMET CITY


How does a tiny town triple every weekend
as if people were stuffed into it?
It ballooned into riotous noise, laughter
pumped full of sin—Little Las Vegas.
We teen boys stopped our red truck
before the open door of a strip joint,
pretending it stalled to get a glimpse
of the naked flesh until the doorman chased us
around the block to try again later.

We had Uncle Art, big rings on his fingers,
the rich relative, owner of three taverns:
The Circus Tap: Where spinning a wheel of fortune got you a free drink if you were on the right stool, a painting of a scantily clad lady riding a tiger staring at you.
The Little Club: Where my Father cajoled my Step-Mother from country music to his bed.
Art's Dog House: Where oodles of Kewpie dogs were stuck in every crevice, begging for a drink.

Art bought a handgun, twirling it on his fat finger
in our living room, not removing the yellow tag.
“I’m not paying those fucking Dagos
another dime for their damn protection.”
My Father: “You’re crazy Art; they’ll kill you.
You can’t protect yourself.”

The gun, with the yellow tag still on it,
was found by his body, riddled by bullets.
The newspapers called it a robbery.
We teen boys took our friends past his house
where his widow lived to look at the plastered-over bullet holes in the garage,
making us big shots in the neighborhood.

Returned years later to that razed section of town,
taverns resplendent with neon
replaced by ill-painted, sagging warehouses,
bent spears of grass growing between cracks in the sidewalks,
that once had danced,
the only town that gladly lowered the number
on its green population sign.

Originally published in Gold Dust Magazine

GAG REFLEX

We all have this protection,
a way of sloughing the ugly,
vile things of this world.

As a child,
the older boys knew.
It was easy to make me gag.
The mere mention of snot,
runny eggs, poop, boogers,
blood and guts, vomit,
became an instant horror movie
which I hate and will never watch,
while others seem to revel in being scared,
love to talk of the disgusting.

The bigger boys, the jocks
would hold my small self upside down,
string hockers from their lips,
make me gag and gag,
stalk my lunch table,
spit out gross things
until I gave them my lunch.

Once on a pier in New York City,
my grandsons found a poopy diaper
and threw it my way,
making me gag,
cruel fun they thought was funny.
Sometimes we laugh about it now.
Told never to bring it up at table,
they sometimes do.

It has never gone away for me
as the evil of the world.
war, injustice, the greed of the rich,
will make me hack forever.


Originally published in Former People Journal

TO GABRIEL

Why didn’t Mary slap you
when you told her
she was conceiving a child by God?
Or scream at you or faint or curse…
when she heard archangel words?

That much faith.
Knew no body that bright could lie.
Knew of Messiah.
Someone had to birth Him,
no Suffering Woman Servant in Isaiah.

Instead obedience, acceptance,
even joy, fearless blessing, clapped her hands,
threw her arms around you, Gabriel,
danced with glee
before she pondered.

Originally published in Former People Journal

UNSUNG HERO

Why would anyone dig up the graves of those atrocities when they have fasted from that horror
since Uris meticulously detailed Mengele’s sexual experiments on children in QB VII?
I threw that book against the wall and read no more about those monsters,
saw no more films, not even Schindler’s List,
though a commercial later revealed the red coat that will always haunt me.

One man, just one man, unsung hero,
removed my fingers from the eyes of my mind to look again at Buchenwald.

Buchenwald: where 56,000 people died.
more than American soldiers killed in Viet Nam.
Buchenwald: all those attempts to architect the cells of Hell.
Those were real—tiny, bare, infested—not Dante’s circles.
Death spaces for Jews, Poles, Slavs, mentally ill, physically disabled, gypsies, Free Masons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, political prisoners, gays, sexual slaves,
children.
Outdoors: Vernichtung durch Arbeit—“worked to death,”
and screams of pain in the “singing forest” when those men—strappado
Oh, I cannot write what they did to them,
and Gernick Schuss, 1,000 Russians shot in the back of the neck, and the
children.

One man, just one man. What can one man do?
He can tell a lie. He can tell a lie of mercy.

Like Shiphrah and Puah who lied to save baby Moses.

The headquarters at Buchenwald was dark on that rainy day.
The Nazi command had fled. They knew the Allies were closing in.
The phone rang.
How many times?
How many times did that phone ring?
What if no one were there?
But, he was.
A hand reached out.
The hand of one German man
who had the presence to tell the guttural lie of mercy.

Command told him: “We will blow up the entire camp,
raze the rooms,
destroy the 1,300 prisoners left,”
including Elie Wiesel,
Elie Wiesel, whose luminous Jewish humanity gave lie to deranged Nazi fantasies.

The unsung (I sing of him now!) spoke:
“We’ve already destroyed it! It’s done!”

(Oh, Sweet Lie!)

“The prisoners are blown up.
The evidence is destroyed.
We covered up what we did.”
(as if the blanket of history could ever be pulled over that bed of horror).

The solution was simple, more brief than my imagination.
No reason to complicate mercy.
The Commander answered: “Okay, ‘In ordnung.’ Okay.”

In a few hours, the camp was liberated,
Weisel saved with the others,
the Nazi command tricked.

The name of the one man unknown forever.
The result of one act can change everything.

Originally published in Rat’s Ass Review

DON’T DRINK THE WATER!

Walking out of the monstrous
gilded cathedral, glinting
in the Mexico City
afternoon sun,
I pass a crippled man
one leg, one crutch,
a dirty hat,
before his toothless grin.
I drop in 20 pesos.
I want to stuff every peso,
every bill Americano
into the hat.
I don’t.
Instead, I go to McDonald’s
for a plastic bottle of agua.
20 pesos.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

FEAST

The snake spake its lies
in soothing pigeon-cooed voice.

Eve heard the fang-words
dripping with evil

did not pluck the apple
in her naked hand

snatched the snake
by its shiny throat

throttled it until
it writhed its last

lay limp on the branch
eyes glazed in amazement

apple-branch, spit-roasted it,
sated drooling Adam.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

STEENY

We called him by his last name,
never Reggie.
Just Steeny
or “Steeny Weenie.”
Back in the 50’s before geek
became a word for uncool or nerd,
before Dylan glorified GEEK
in Ballad of A Thin Man,
Steeny was the object of our taunts,
the bullying we all did
before that was a word anyone cared about.
I jumped in too,
feeling icky inside
when I helped pile on the abuse,
always in a group, never alone
when we pummeled him.

He just took it,
no expression reflected from his coke-bottle glasses,
no hand to his hair when we mocked his cowlick,
just moved on down the hall,
used his locker door as a shield sometimes.

O, that Halloween night.
Boy, did we have a lot of candy!
A surfeit of sugar in all forms.
Still soaped windows,
left lit bags of shit
on porches when we rang the bell,
watched the furious owner
stomping his shoes dirty.
Devil boys.

That night, bulging bags.
I had to carry mine with two hands.
Around the corner, Steeny.
Alone, bag full.
Like piranha we attacked,
ripped the bag from his hands and ran.
“Steeny Weenie.
Steeny Weenie.”
Only then did we hear
the night-shattering sob.

Now, as my daughter weeps,
shakes before me, her own bully demons
pulsing in her heart,
do I remember Steeny.

Originally published in the Communicator's League

GOD'S TOYS

What if all the stores
collapsed into rubble
hauled away?
Or disappeared into the sky
like some concrete Rapture,
all the children left behind
no way to buy new toys
no need to wheedle parents?

Children look at playthings
in their homes,
broken, rusted, boring.

What for
the children of Eden
had Adam and Eve stayed,
eschewed the apple?

Skip rocks in a stream,
swing on a tree branch,
fruit wars,
count the stars,
love their pets,
outrace the four rivers.

Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine