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Like a playing card
turned sideways,
a King or Jack,
as thin as invisible,
I see myself sometimes
as the card they pull
to bring the house down,
to miss the goal,
spoil the broth,
muck the pile,
screw the pooch.
Please—
build my stack,
kick me through,
stir my pot,
rake me up,
just pet me.
Try again.
Mercy thickens.
Originally published in Mad Swirl
Aunt hauled me around
with her on her adventures
when I was young.
She was a free bird,
never had a real job,
only errands for her successful
mother and older brother, and,
my parents preoccupied with their lives,
a father busy with adultery,
a step-mother hiding in movie magazines,
left me at loose ends.
Aunt Elaine thought I was bright,
she stimulated my mind
in ways no one else did.
Always stacks of books by her bedside;
I think she read the whole library.
But pages would be turned only until a book bored her,
like the half-smoked butts she squashed, filling her ashtrays.
On the adventures in her world—
the zoo, baseball games, hole-n the wall eateries—
we visited champion bowlers who were lesbians,
she a closet one I found out years later.
Never married but verbally abused
her one boyfriend (her shield)
because he was a pro-union liberal,
snidely calling him her Comrade.
She read Marx but was a Republican
who loved Eisenhower, loathed Adlai.
Dressed like and was a beatnik
before they were named,
always wore dark sunglasses,
even inside, sported a tam,
frequented bars with peanuts on the floor,
quipping until her humor turned
the bar flies’ laughter into scorn
as her words became mocking fire,
forged by her boiling anger.
Too often I was the target of her ire.
The last time I saw her
when a young family man
who visited her only because
I felt her loneliness over the phone,
she was sloppy into a crying jag,
taking shots from a variety
of schnapps bottles, a rainbow of flavors,
getting drunker and drunker,
pounding the table over and over,
crying and moaning harder and harder
for every failure
in the world and her life.
Why did I continue to see her?
Why did I tell you her broken story?
Because I know she loved me
and, indeed, I loved her too.
Originally published in Rat's Ass Review
Forty-seven years ago, we laid my Father
in a frozen Groundhog Day plot.
It would have been fun to only care
about the folly of a rodent shadow.
Instead, we buried
his rags to riches,
life-of-the party,
addicted, family shattering
short life.
Forty-seven years later,
on the date he was buried,
I held my new grandson.
Warm, swaddling clothes
displace frozen ground.
My years now way beyond his
who never saw my wedding,
or any grandchild.
The Groundhog’s shadow is dark,
the tiny boy in my arms
brightens the day.
Little boy, little boy—
Will you see the sunlight of a long, healthy life
or the shadows of that brief buried one?
Much more than desolate winters,
may bright Springs guide your days.
Originally published in Ariel Chart
Early in Moby Dick,
Melville, glorifying Nantucket,
loved that faraway island,
attempted to find the opposite,
the nadir to this crown of New England,
where ships launched for whales,
where quaint sea shacks leaned,
the dark blue of the North Atlantic,
boats like shining diamonds in the sun,
wild, rugged green grass,
necklaces of fishing nets,
shores planted with lighthouses.
Melville chose to pick on Illinois.
What did Illinois do wrong?
Was it a cosmic offense
sent the glaciers,
slowly scraping
across its beauty?
Where are the seas, the mountains,
any elevation at all?
Just fields, fields, fields.
Are long, deep furrows,
corn and soybeans pretty?
Yes, beautiful sunsets,
but everywhere has sunsets.
Does it matter that nothing
blocks your eyes when you see
the blazing colors of the only
work of art in the Sucker state?
Melville scanned his world-wide mind,
harpooned Illinois
as if it were a leviathan
never to escape
his words.
Originally published in Ariel Chart
Stephen King’s dad never dreamed
he would bless his child
when he stomped out the door.
King’s unfaithful dad,
did a Melville and fled to the sea,
signed on as a merchant sailor.
He never even sent a postcard,
just left a trunk of horror
and science fiction books behind,
which young Stephen discovered.
Even if Stephen’s dad had stayed true,
Halloweened him, played catch,
skied or climbed trails, bounced
him off his heart’s knee, tucked
him in at night with ghost stories,
might King have become
the guru of fright anyway?
Perhaps inspired by this wraith,
Stephen imagined his own scary stories.
Wonder if they haunted his dad
somewhere on a ghost ship?
Originally Published in A Thin Slice Of Anxiety
A pilot accidentally fired a missile,
killed ten Afghan civilians going about their lives,
seven of them children, the photograph
of the grieving mother, arms pleading with the sky,
morphs into the napalmed, screaming girl
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, now an old woman in much pain,
fleeing on a Vietnam road so long ago.
Missiles have human brains and the mind
who misfired had to know
the air they breathed was always death.
What would he tell himself?
Was he hard-hearted? Murderous?
Was he truly defending his country?
When the heart behind the trigger finger
realized who he had killed,
was there any way he could make
this tragedy more significant
than the entire long and useless war?
Could he stand to look at the aftermath of his error?
Would that scene be printed and framed
next to his family photo on the bedroom bureau?
No, that image burned in his mind.
Originally published in The Taj Mahal Review
We waited, shaking,
newspapers under the chairs
we sat on in case we vomited
as the Grand Poobah--
our Father--
approached with a tablespoon,
filled to the brim
with the smelly oil,
aimed for our terrified gullets.
It was the cure of our generation.
Should any child manifest
the slightest stomach ill,
down came the dark, brown bottle
with the yellow label,
maybe skull bones on it,
given without hesitation,
the cure for all gastronomic pain.
My brother and I
faced each other,
began to spit on the floor,
pleaded with our Dad
we were too sick
to imbibe the ghastly brew,
like drinking Quaker Oil
we cried.
To no avail,
avail did not exist.
But the cries elicited some mercy.
Mixed into orange juice
or orange soda.
"Drink it down fast boys.
It will heal you quicker,
not taste so bad.”
It took me years to drink
a Big Orange, quaff
the golden elixir of Florida,
suck on a Navel.
Even after castor oil
proved worthless,
the mere mention
causes a shudder
in my soul.
Originally Published in Terror House Magazine
"Why worry about a speck in your brother’s eye when you have a plank in your own?
- Matthew 7:3
What if beside the plank in your eye
your brother had a millstone
not just a speck?
Old men shove young bodies
under the wheels of war.
Oil pipes thrust into
the body of Nature.
Ogres sell children
for fucks.
Those are millstones,
not specks,
specks, venial—gossip, white lies, petty theft,
minor acts,
to rent our daily webs,
an irritant you can rub away
like a fly in your eye.
I can forgive my enemy
but I can't forget what he did.
Let’s fling those millstones
far out to sea
hang them round the necks of the evil ones
destroy no more.
Originally published in Terror House Magazine
When I was nine, babysitter Elsie
flipped on Medic right before bedtime,
excited to have someone watch it with her,
snack on homemade cookies and milk.
The show features a nine-year-old boy,
whisked in from an ambulance,
pale, even on black and white TV,
afflicted by a weird disease
that sounds like a pagan God
from Sunday School.
He dies on this program,
his mother sobs at the end.
Sit stiff as a gurney,
don’t eat Elsie’s cookies.
Ask what killed that boy.
"Oh, leukemia. No cure.
Not many get it,
but don’t worry, most don’t.
But ya never know.
Daily created good deeds
so I could fall asleep after I prayed:
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
if I should die of leukemia
before I wake, I pray the Lord
my soul to take, ” until I got old enough,
realized it was just a TV show.
Relaxed until cousin Jane died from the disease.
I never let my young children
watch medical shows
until they were old enough
to switch the channel themselves.
Originally published in Terror House Magazine
It comes as a stark reminder in a text snapshot,
My infant grandson, sprawled smiling on the stone block in D.C.:
I HAVE A DREAM,
The great King’s legacy.
When I was born, there was no articulated dream.
Only the dream in the hearts of those who could not speak it.
The arrogant looks, beatings, shootings, lynchings.
My parents, unawares, could not dream.
Now, my son, the father of my grand boy, can dream.
He placed his wriggly son on that sun-drenched stone today.
Yes, Dr. King, my grandson may well walk hand and hand with your great grand- daughter.
Not for everyone yet.
But I still have a dream.
Originally published in Social Justice Poetry
“The Kid is here,”
said Peter to Paul:
“A poor boy, never had a chance.
His life--chance.
Don’t you remember ours, Paul?
Your road to Damascus.
Me, the cock crowing, three times.”
Catherine, his mother,
moved to Wichita, hell town.
Raised Henry, battled TB,
died in New Mexico.
Her scalawag husband
fled to New Mexico
for gold and gamble.
Alone, Henry, fifteen,
stole butter to sell for food.
The Sherriff let him go.
Clothes to cover himself
from a Chinese laundry.
Land lady sent him to jail.
Escaped, one of many.
Couldn’t find a job,
fell into crime, rustling.
Pat Garrett arrested Billy,
escaped again.
Garrett chased him down,
shot him in the back.
People said—fine looking a young man
you ever met, winning smile,
good dancer, ladies’ man.
“Yes, he qualifies,” said Peter.
“He had a hard life.
I’ll be proud to know him.
Paul, put him in the line
with the forgiven
who never had a chance.”
Originally published by Lothlorien Journal
TO BAUDELAIRE: Hypocritish reader— my fellow— my brother!
As a fifth grader I read a story
about the wind, sun, and traveler,
a battle for his will and heart.
The Wind boasted:
I can make him remove his coat.
The Sun laughed. The Wind blew hard.
The traveler wrapped his coat tighter.
The Wind sagged in the clouds,
red-faced and gasping.
The Sun smiled and smiled,
hotter and hotter.
The traveler removed his coat
and went on his merry way.
At ten years old, I asked the teacher:
Why did the wind think that would work?
She shrugged.
To think I can threaten others to change!
Looked into my heart. Do I do the same?
Does my bragging, my worldview
so consume me that I blow hard
like the foolish Wind?
Like the arrogant wolf, do I huff and puff,
try to knock the brick house down
only to plunge deep
into the boiling kettle of delusion?
Oh yes, dear reader
(thank you Baudelaire)
we do.
Originally published by Lothlorien Journal
Once when the world was new,
too pristine for coin, nothing minted,
people gathered shells, stones,
bartered for necessities.
Flash forward to yesterday,
millions of years later.
We have money now,
love of it the root of all evil.
A little girl found a blue rock.
She thought it was pretty.
She rolled it around in her hand,
pretended it was a jewel,
a truly valuable jewel.
Came the sound of an ice cream truck.
Ding a ling, bring your money
and buy your joy.
The little girl proffered the blue rock.
She had no money.
The owner smiled down.
He became a small boy in his heart.
She wanted a cone.
He gave her a sundae.
She gave him the blue rock.
He offered it back.
Originally published Lothlorien Journal
What moment of pleasure
can surpass the joy
of a shower after the lawn cut.
At the moment the water
rinses the sweat,
who can want anything better?
Yet we know pleasure
follows closely who we are
at any one time in our life?
If famished, a sizzling steak
or crispy tofu would delight.
In bed as an old man,
snuggling with an old lady
versus a young buck with his doe.
The joy of a healthy child born
versus the tearful college goodbye.
A first house for a young wife
versus a homeless woman
driven to the street.
Blossoms for a stunning bride
versus flowers on a casket.
Pleasure is all
moment and circumstance
so blast the water and soak
in the joy of life.
Originally published by Lothlorien Journal
It’s time for a little reflection.
He did not mean to shoot me.
He was just shooting
because he had a gun.
The bullet did not know
where it was going.
It did not have its own mind.
It was aimed or not,
but it hit something
and went my way.
I’m dead now
so my reflections
don’t mean much.
Originally published by Lothlorien Journal
An old man, arms crossed,
watches his grandson in Farm League,
remembers thousands of hours
on district ball fields across his life,
Major League, Little League, Colt League
games with his sons,
his daughter’s softball,
years of coaching them
and other childrens'
beaming faces, crying (there is)—
slides, homeruns, doubles.
steals, triples, strikeouts,
singles, walks, shutouts.
Today, thirty years later,
he watches a grandson
on the same field
he coached his son
to a city championship,
an indelible memory
like the trophy
collecting dust in his office
until his son carries
it to his own home one day.
Watches his grandson,
no curve ball here,
a heater straight to the heart.
Originally published in Euphemism Magazine
Old friends
sup on carry-out,
seldom cook any more,
uncork stories,
each a different vintage.
Alison, a dry wit.
Arthur, red with ire.
Rita, too sweet.
Rudy, a tart heart.
But they have drunk
enough love
to return again,
with a bottle of memories,
good till the end.
Originally Published in Euphemism Magazine
Cutting the lawn,
a bright Spring day.
Stepped into some fresh dog dookie.
Soft and squishy,
smell wafting into my cursing nostrils.
Got a stick, poor stick,
cleaned off the shoe.
Donned other old ones.
Revved up the engine,
odor rising from the roar.
Ran over a broken stalk of lilacs,
stink of bloom.
I cut on.
Originally Published in Euphemism Magazine
Life is like a delicious piece
of hard candy
popped in your mouth
and sucked and sucked
until it becomes smaller and smaller
as your teeth crack the last thin piece
and you swallow it at the end.
Originally Published on Mad Swirl
Roaring blue ocean,
the waves in and out
like God breathing.
Red toenails, green seaweed,
sea gulls, white caps lap white sand,
life guards, flapping warning flags,
while we who live in winter play
as the waves nip our joyful toes.
Hotels, like pyramids, staring at us,
always gazing, never changing.
Does the ocean look back at us too?
Are ocean shores in Heaven?
Do they mark the time we have left,
eternal, endless waves?
Originally Published on Fine Lines Magazine