GETTING AND GIVING

I didn't notice my young wife
baked banana bread
sometimes I don't notice things 
and I didn’t see at first
the tears in the corners
of her eyes thought
maybe I made her sad
not noticing the bread
which made no sense
why tears on a stunning Fall afternoon
she nodded towards
the empty space in our living room
Our late cat's climbing perch gone
cherished until the right moment
to give our dear pet’s things away
neighbor Tim in the doorway sunlight
finally found a girlfriend
who has a sweet cat
out the door went Alou’s memories
perch and collar and ceramic kitty bowl
cried together.

Originally published in Pangolin Review

OF MARGARET WISE BROWN: GOODNIGHT MARGARET

Little one, as I rock you to sleep,
you do not yet know your world.
Your room is blue, not green—
no telephone, red balloon,
or picture of a cow jumping over the moon,
no kittens or mittens, no bears, young mouse.
You have a comb and a brush, a clock, a doll house
and your Grandmother rocking you, hush.

You do not know of Margaret.
I will tell you now and I will tell you later.
You will not understand me now.
Will you understand me later?

Goodnight Brownie:
Beautiful, green-eyed, blonde-haired vixen,
extravagant, eccentric lover of King Juan Carlos,
a John D. Rockefeller nephew,
Ms. Michael Strange, ex-wife of John Barrymore,
others.

Little one, do not kick your leg up in the air
if your doctors tell you no,
clotting your leg and stopping your heart.
Do not give your inheritance to a wastrel.

Instead write 100 picture books
with melodies you can whistle.

Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises
Goodnight foolish choices
Everywhere.

Originally published in Rat's Ass Review

DEAD BRONTES

Oh, you think I write
of Emily, Charlotte, and Anne,
tragic young deaths,
lives snuffed out
caring for neglectful father Patrick,
wastrel brother Branwell.

No, I tell of older sisters
with forgotten names,
Maria and Elizabeth, who died
at Cowan Bridge School
from hunger and cold.

Patrick spirited the surviving sisters home
to create Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Agnes Gray,
and assorted poems by fake male authors.

History has a way of raveling.
Ah, but that unraveling leaves life
full of mystery and grief.

This is for you, Maria and Elizabeth.
What might you have penned
had Patrick repented sooner?

Originally published in Rat's Ass Review

BROTHERS

Our father relented about BB guns,
gave me a shiny new one for my birthday,
excited to try it in the Forest Preserve.
It was sunny and bright
when my brother and I took turns,
like in Christmas Story, shot down imaginary foes.

We didn’t see them, we brothers
who laughed and traded our toy between us,
didn’t see the neighborhood boys emerge
from the thicket, a smirk of conquest
planted on their faces, a snarl:
What have we here!
Did Daddy give you a gun?
Too dangerous. Might hurt you.

Lifted me upside down,
shoved dirt in my mouth,
grabbed the gun from my brother,
threw him to the ground.
He rose like an angry snake, attacked them.
A quick, hard punch, his nose spewed blood.

I knelt beside him as they strode away,
their cackles never forgotten, nor the ping pings
as the gun became their birthday present instead.

My brother became a master carpenter,
fashioned custom furniture,
now creates only for friends.

I taught special ed children, whose families
sometimes punched them in the nose,
forgot about their birthdays.  

Never knew what became of those brothers.
Some don’t redeem themselves. Some do.

Originally published in Bindweed Magazine

ONE WHO LISTENED

Albert Camus died in a car crash at 47

Camus,
push the rock
up, up, down,
up, up, down,
Sisyphus no myth,
born from a Plague,
absurd Stranger,
you should not have listened,
died because you listened.

What of the sayer,
the one who spoke,
the one you listened to?

Your Editor persuaded:
“Drive to Paris, Albert;
It is so much faster than the plane.
Believe me!”

We say because we say.
We cannot put our hands
over our minds.

The grief of the Editor:
“O, Albert, what the world lost
because you listened,
Existentially.”

Originally published in Bindweed Magazine

THE STRETCH

Thoroughbreds blister to the top
of the stretch, heading for home.
So are we.

We hit the bend of the turn,
aged decrepitude looms.

Rounding off a full life,
headed for home.

Not sure what is home.
Not sure how long
the stretch extends.

Finish strong.

Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine

HOW WOULD MARTIANS SEE US?

What if Martians visited us?
Crashed down like the Orwell broadcast?
What would they see?

We think we look normal
though sometimes we say we look odd.
But no humans really look odd--
we all look alike enough--
and none of us really look inhuman
even if we act that way.

Martians probably
don’t look
odd to each other
with their myriad
eyes, colors, proboscises,
heads, skins, limbs,
tongues, teeth/fangs.

Would Martians look
beautiful to themselves?
Or would they find themselves unattractive,
compare themselves to each other,
grieve over looks like we do?
Look scary only because
we imagined, drew,
pixelated them that way?

How would they react
if they saw our eyes, ears, teeth, hair?
Symmetrical unlike Martians.
Watched us run, jump,
make love, defecate,
kill each other
cry tears,
cut our toe nails,
sunbathe, sunburn,
eat, eat, eat—with or without manners--
have to sleep,
want to wake up.
Birth from our Mothers,
bloody mucous,
pray, die
conduct funerals.

What would they do?
Would they kill us like we fear?
Adopt us and take us home as pets?
Suspect what we would do to them?

Is the third hand of some Martian
writing a poem right now:
HOW WOULD HUMANS SEE US?

Originally published in Page and Spine

I’M SORRY

We say to the animate world.
We have inflicted so much hurt
on other humans—even the ones we most love.
We neglect a dog, a cat, a horse,
leave a bird cage ajar, stomp bugs.
We have not been St. Francis.
Sorry, a healing balm.

But what of the inanimate world?
Some say plants feel pain
when we yank them from the ground,
routinely murder the lawn.
We can kneel down
in our own garden
or by our mower and say it.
And, lumberjack—apologize to that tree
you just axed.

What about convenience items?
When they break, we bitch
even when we break them.
Like it was their fault.
Hey, if you buy 47 things
with moving parts, the law of averages
says at least two a week will break.
When you cuss out your furnace
or TV—humble yourself.

Do you stomp the floor
when you stub your toe?
Do you kick a chair
when you bang into it?
You put it there.
Or the table you bump,
the sidewalk that scrapes your knee.
Teach your children early on,
extend the chain of life to the lifeless.

Could be life changing,
apologizing not just to the living,
breathing world,
but to every
thing.

Like to your bed for not making it every day,
letting her live a rumpled life.
Like your toilet some still call a commode.
Sorry for all the shit you have to put up with.

Mea Culpa—to all the rocks I threw.

Originally published in Bombfire Magazine

DESPITE: OF HANSEL AND GRETEL’S WITCH

A bone bent rag pile
before the Pearly Gates
waits for the Saint
to pass judgment,
broods on forgiveness.

One says she knows not what she did,
but she did build the candy house
—lemon cookie walls, chocolate windows,
red and green Christmas candy roof, apple pie porch—
like a predator on a playground,
peeps out for any sign
of fattling children.

Her natural witch clairvoyance
knew they were coming,
Hansel’s bread crumb scheme,
snatched away by the birds
as she would tempt them
then slam the purple candy door
and pop him in her cage.

Smart children, honed
by the step-mothers’s wiles,
Gretel devises
the twig finger
to out-trick the tricker.

Day by day, the crone’s eyes
see wood instead of flesh,
impossible to wait
for succulence,
orders Gretel:
Light the oven,
carrots and gravy,
bake the boy.
Stupidly bends over
to test the heat,
whoosh the witch
into the fire.

The children flee home,
find their kind woodcutter father.
Bring baskets of goodies,
celebrate love and family.

The stepmother banished,
the children see her once more—
buy her bread and soup—
despite.

Originally published in Bombfire Magazine

FODDER

Years ago, when my wife and I drove deep into red clay
for a Georgia wedding, we explored outside Atlanta.
We both loved antiques and quaint
shops with doodads and local candies,
but noticed Army recruiting signs,
by most of the cash registers,
an expected rite of passage
for recent high school graduates—a way to glory,
a badge of honor to escape dirt roads,
closed store fronts, weedy playgrounds—
the bright cardboard signs spelling fodder
for the great Mad Cow in the sky
who chews and chews and cuds them up.

On the news this morning, a father and his son
from Georgia, argue for Freedom
not to wear masks or distance
as they mass-return to school despite every Covid warning.
The curly-blond boy,
a linebacker on the football team,
mouths Freedom as if it were something stuck in his teeth.
His Dad, sporting a Bass cap,
mouths the same words like a fish gasping for air,
asserts his right to get sick and die
just as the young men and women did so long ago
when I was younger and thought it would change.

Originally published on Rat's Ass Review

CARBON MAN

Roped into a summer job
as a railroad yard clerk
before college when novels, poetry
took my time.

Real fear to work with real men,
underscored my first day
when an engineer screamed at me—
a carload of Lincoln-Continentals
decapitated, routed on the wrong track,
the previous clerk’s mistake.

Relieved until the Boss said,
“Watch out kid!
At night when you’re walking
between the cars recording numbers.
Old Ralph decapitated,
a piece of board sticking out.”

Covered vacations by the regulars,
switched jobs every two weeks
until early August,
spent a month as a carbon man.

After forty years, Joe got sick.
extra time off.
The Boss said, “It’s your job now, kid.
Easy. Insert one of three carbon sheets
into piggyback lading bills—
three, five, seven.
That’s all you do all day, what Joe did all day.
For forty years.”

What is Joe like?
“Doesn’t talk much, just does his job.
Loves his wife, beer, the Cubs in that order.
No kids,” said the Boss.

I developed a system for variety,
an hour of threes,
hour of fives,
hour of sevens.
Repeat. Repeat.
Sometimes in reverse order.

Time crawled through August.
Joe came back. Thanked me.
“How’d you like my job?”
I couldn’t ask,
How can you stuff carbons for forty years—
not run screaming toward the tracks?

Soon in college, I read Hamlet.
To be or not to be?
A carbon man.
I made my choice.
Realized my luck.
I am sorry men still stuff.

Originally published in Gray Sparrow Journal

JEZEBEL

On vacation at a Florida animal park,
our unfaithful father jumped
by a Spider monkey, instant love,
aptly named Jezebel, ripped
the pocket of his shirt, snatched
an expensive Cuban cigar,
smitten, he bought her, flew home
to his current wife and kids.

But a gift can be a burden,
cage cleaning, monkeys
rival pigs for stink,
watch her wild destruction,
shreds the kitchen curtains,
rips the blouse off my girlfriend,
who ran screaming from the house.
On accident, I slam
Jezebel’s fingers in a door,
blame comes home in a rage.

Then New Year’s Eve,
escape to a frozen roof,
a midnight fireman climbs
a precarious ladder, alone,
our mother melts, cries for mercy.
Dad spirits Jezebel to Florida,
where she is warm and safe,
and the hoarder of non-wives,
can stay a while.

Originally Published in Monterey Poetry Review

GENEALOGY

I

We could so easily not exist,
the one in a million sperm
penetrating one
of the countless eggs
defining our DNA.
We know little of our history.
What happened
in Neanderthal days,
the Middle Ages, myriad wars,
plagues, fires, crashes?
Sometimes we know of
close encounters of a nearer time,
family stories, tales of
what might have been.

My grandmother,
engaged to a German boy
she met at an Arkansas college.
One night on the new-fangled phone,
being wooed, a gun blast,
shattered the night air,
causing an unforgettable
silence on the other end
of that messenger of death.
The backwoods insanity
of unrequited love caused
a would-be grandfather,
a spurned beau to gun down
that foreign lover,
caused my grandmother
to droop like a plucked flower,
cause me to never be born,
never to tell anyone
of that dark night
in that Arkansas Hell.

II

Years later, at a California beach,
the sea grabbed that same grandmother,
almost ended me again.
Near the fierce undertow, deathly afraid of water
(our Mother told us later),
she slipped off her shoes,
stood a few feet from the shore.
Crowded beach, hundreds of bathers,
shading their eyes from the blinding sun.
The riptide pulled, grinned evilly
under the water, dragged
her down and out,
her wraith-like body sank.
An Olympic swimmer saw the disappearance,
plunged, grabbed a foot. A moment
longer she would have slipped away.
Again, a tale I would never tell.

Originally Published in Monterey Poetry Review

PORK CHOP HILL


This Korean War battle has always haunted me.
Originally named Hill 255, a stupid, demeaning title
replaced because that hill
was shaped like a pork chop,
almost comic relief to the brutality,
so much horror and sacrifice.

I’ve never wanted to be a soldier.
Thank God (Who does not take sides).
I missed all the many wars in my long life,
realized how easily it could have been otherwise.
Glad my two sons dodged it,
not by intention but happenstance.
Just born lucky. History can be that way.

I have no business writing this poem
unless it is all right to hate war
and not think that any words about
how horrible it is stinks of the unpatriotic
like fetid bodies inside the bags.

Trudge up Pork Chop Hill.
I was never there,
but I read about it over and over,
an obsession for no reason I know,
maybe some kind of historical survivor’s guilt?

Now I can see it, smell it,
the muck, the monsoon rains,
washing away the blood again and again
as the trapped men battled back and forth,
the longest battle of the war,
to take it and lose it and re-take it,
for “no strategic or tactical reason”
said the report.

This Korean War battle has always haunted me.
A 980 foot high pork chop,
a butcher’s cut,
helpless men,
defining life, defining death
for so many
tragic men
we will never know.
No glory here.
No glory at all.


Originally published in Fevers Of The Mind

BREAD OF MERCY

When Bishop Myriel blessed Jean Valjean,
gave him the silver candlesticks
of liberty, equality, fraternity,
it was the single loaf of bread
which cost nineteen years
in a wretched prison,
Valjean stealing it for his sister
and her seven starving children,
moved the Bishop’s heart.

In France, the poor gnawed coarse
black bread, mixed with sawdust and bark
while the rich ate soft white bread,
and it was fancy cake that tumbled
the arrogant, pretty head of Marie.

Once, I discovered a law in Paris
allowed any indigent soul
to take a loaf of bread without penalty,
a tribute to Valjean and the Miserables.

Stark contrast to our country where our leader
tries to end school lunches and food stamps
as he devours the cake of greed and corruption.

Do we need another Hugo to pen this misery,
inspired by a man he saw dragged
away without ceremony for one stolen loaf?
We’ve not learned in three centuries
to bake mercy into the staff of life.

Originally published by Young Raven's Review

WHOSE FAULT?

I don’t care if that donkey
spoke to Balaam or not.
Let the scribes and scholars
bray over that.

On a mission,
tempted by Balak’s riches,
Balaam blessed the Israelites
instead of cursed.

My issue is beating the donkey.
Because the poor creature balked
when he saw the Angel,
which Balaam did not see,
the prophet, in a rage,
pummeled his poor donkey—
three times—
with a whip, stick and fists
each time the donkey cowered
before the fearsome Angel.

The donkey,
his loyal beast of burden,
had never disobeyed her master,
asked why he beat her.

Balaam apologized
when they were back at the stable:
“I am sorry.
I did not see the Angel you saw
my good friend.
You did and suffered.
Why I did not see it
is in the Lord's hands.
No fault of mine.”

The donkey could no longer speak.
She would have said:
“Never beat me.
Avoid the sorrow later.”

The donkey forgave her Master
and served faithfully,
died at a ripe old age.
Neither saw an angel again.
There were no more beatings.

But on that road, Balaam cursed
instead of blessed.

Given no guidance,
his humanity chose.

Originally published in Communicator's League

THE VASE

In my old chair, I scan the room,
see objects seldom noticed when I was younger.

A white vase shaped like a woman’s head high on a shelf,
given to me by my mother
to pass to my only daughter when I die.

My father, an adulterous husband,
brought the vase to the hospital.
Mom discovered one of his lovers gifted the vase.

Surprised she did not smash it,
transformed into a beautiful gift.

Sitting for a time that afternoon,
my mind conjures the future.

My daughter, tears in her eyes,
tiptoes up, grasps the alabaster face,
clutches it to her bosom.

Originally published in Communicator's League

CUP RUNNETH OVER

In ancient Israel
the holy men
collected tears
in a special cup,
every time they laughed,
mostly when they cried.

As life struck their hearts
and the tears flowed,
they would catch them
in their holy cup
until it runneth over
and in those hard times
with some merriment
the cup runneth over
so that the blessings from God
were not why they said:
My cup runneth over
but because
they had human hearts full
of sorrow and compassion
and sometimes great joy,
an offering,
blessings for who they were
and not for what they expected
and only some,
hopefully very few,
had neither a cup
nor many blessings.
Amen.

Originally published in Communicator's League