MRS B’S CROOKED TEETH

You, the wife of a handsome English prof
who made literature sing.
We, the hippies who lionized him.

We came to your porch evenings,
drank and smoked dope,
marveled at his insights,
e.e. Cummings to Shakespeare.

But I felt a weird vibe.
As the prof drank more and more,
he began to ogle the hippie chicks,
flirt with them, stare at their braless breasts,
letch at them and ignore you.

Mrs. B., an Iowa farm daughter,
your teeth turned your face ugly
compared to the nymphs
who oohed and aahed at your husband
who unabashedly played to them,
left you, mouth closed, lips protruding
rooted in your church shoes,
sipping a Coke through a straw
to prevent hand wringing,
a simple dress, revealing
an awkward body, hiding
a burgeoning figure, babies
asleep inside, unawares.

I’m just a repentant, old hippie guy
who did his own damage to women
back in the Day. Mrs. B., I’ve mused
about you in my retirement years.
Hope you fled to better off.

Originally published in Beatnik Cowboy

CHEESES

He was the most broken boy at the Home,
sexualized in his childhood.  
He had to have someone with him
at every minute, except when he was sleeping.
He could sleep alone.
He could never be alone with a woman.
Once, when he first came and we did not believe,
a pert, blonde intern took him to the bathroom.
Going up the stairs, he smashed her against the wall,
groped her till she screamed,
only had males with him from then on.

He loved Harry Potter,
would volunteer to read about that wizard boy,
pout and act out when it was someone else's turn.
He would do no other school work,
except for the bribe I concocted,
being his main teacher and knowing
that special ed meant all reasonable tactics.

I found out he loved cheese, not to eat,
as he only picked at his cafeteria food,
never asked for cheese.
Students were rewarded with supervised
Internet time for doing their work.
Once when he did an assignment,
I asked him what he liked best.
He said cheeses. Not cheese, but cheeses.

For his reward Otto chose to view
hundreds of cheese types in the world.
Although we supervised him, we needn’t.
For that rare time of peace, he would click on
one cheese after another—Cheddar, Colby, Edam,
Emmenthal, Gouda, Parmigiana—
preferring yellow ones,
ogle the pictures and descriptions of them
as if…
fight us when his computer time was over,
sometimes hugging the machine
as if..,

He was with us for a short time,
bound for the one state facility
that attempts healing of these kids,
with little success,
abused, in his case, by both men and women,
his record read.

I have never been able to linger at the cheese case
or view pictures of voluptuous cheeses
as they appear in magazines
without remembering Otto.

I wish I were in a world
where something so delicious
like an edible sun
could heal a hurting boy,
understand why such perversity
is in our universe.

Originally Published in Piker Press

HUMAN BITES

A mosquito is born, a human is born.
Both destined to die.
The mosquito does not know this.
Mosquitos will never think on it,
no concept of prevention.
The insect will just do its blood thing and die.
That is the difference between the two. 
The human seldom thinks of death.
Eventually, the human accepts reality.
When he does, he doesn’t want to die.
He is against dying but realizes 
it’s a futile thought, a deceptive myth,
numbs himself with myriad palliatives—
an apothecary shelf of addictions.
Why do humans, who know they will die,
devise so many ways to kill each other?
The mosquito might give you a better answer.

Originally published in Synchronized Chaos

ELEGY FOR WASTED CHICKENS

We already know the way they do it,
squashed in cages, unable
to stand, move, spread wings
until it is their time to become
Wangs or cordon bleu or parmigiana,
make Popeye and the Colonel richer.

Even the defective tiny chicks 
are gassed like baby Jews,
the yellow from the stars
cover their quivering bodies.

 In a cafeteria, my student shouted:  
“Yuck, throw those wings away.
They’re disgusting; I hate them.”
My daughter boiled chicken,
a fat breast and a leg quarter
for her dog, but it was too fatty,
crunched it down the disposal.

Does it matter if the chicken is eaten?
In Chicken Heaven is there a kind
of dignity if you are consumed
instead of a funeral in a garbage bin?

Originally published in Synchronized Chaos

SCREAMING WOMAN

I was five, taken into Arkansas woods, 
where an old couple lived.
They were distant relatives.
They have no names, just images.
I don’t even remember the husband
or the other men who dragged her out screaming.
I was transfixed, flung into a nightmare.
She was naked, squirming, screaming:
“Don’t take me! Don’t take me there!”
Later I remember asking—Take her where?
To the hospital, no ambulances would
go that deep in the woods. 
She had cancer but refused to go.
Act of mercy, her husband finally said okay.
Like a barn razing they came,
four of them grabbed her, 
carried to the old black car,
screaming and screaming. 
I‘d never seen a naked woman,
never used an outhouse
where I hid before I threw up
and swore I would never die. 
For a long time, it was like a dream,
but Aunt Sallie gossiped 
and my adult mind remembered 
like finding out the monster
under the bed was real.

Originally published in Synchronized Chaos

VICTORY TREE

What we named her, (of course) her,
when my brother Victor gifted this birch
forty years ago for our new house warming.
I wasn’t much into planting, but Vic
had green hands as well as thumbs
and blessed us with this sapling,
about the same height as our young daughter.
 
Victory grew massive as she was destined,
overspreading our yard with birds,
shade, green stalwart comfort, Fall palette.
Shielded us from the annoying sun
when grill and wine were summer.
Once our cat hid in her upper 
branches overnight, making us
think he was lost, but our tree
found and harbored him.
 
Victory aged, went into growth retirement—
like we are now—and died, 
had to come down—today. 
 
We held hands over her stump, 
reminds us our children
will one day spread our ashes.

Originally published in Spindrift Magazine

CATALPA WORMS

When I was a hippie/radical
just driving around, I spied a road sign:
CATFISH POND: $5

Even then I could afford the fee
so I sped home, grabbed my pole,
wended to the little lake, paid my fiver,
stuck a frantic worm on my hook
and gave my bait a chance.

Disappointment. No catfish bit,
only tiny blue gills swarmed my worm.
Just corn or bread would work
to catch the little critters, too small to keep.

Discouraged, I looked around
and noticed all of the other anglers,
heard frequent splashes,
giant, fat catfish flailing
on the shore, laced on stringers.
Even though the sign said:
LIMIT FIVE–the cats kept coming.

Confused and amazed
I asked a man, dressed in faded overalls:
“How’re you catching them;
I can’t even get a bite.”

Without answering, he lifted up
his line and pointed to his hook,
an ugly, big, green worm
writhing on the end.

“Catalpa worms,” he said.
“Want one?”
“Sure.” and he passed me
a long, fat greasy one.

One cast and I was part of the club–
a fat, sassy catfish struggling
on my line as I reeled it in.
“These worms grow on Catalpa trees.
Every May, collect and freeze ‘em,
have catfish all year,
frozen’s as good as fresh.”

His wife and two kids came over,
a smiling woman holding a net
and a barefoot boy and girl carrying a blanket,
which they flung open to reveal
scads of tiny blue gill, flopping around.

I had to ask: ”Why the little ones?,
not big enough to eat.?”
The smiles widened:
“Oh, yes we do!
Deep fry, don’t have to clean.
Eat ’em whole, better than French fries?”
The kids giggled glee.

On the way home with my one fat cat,
I mused on my radical beliefs.
our attempts to save the world,
feed the poor, and was thankful
God provided ugly worms
to these people of ingenuity.

Originally published in Duck Duck Mongoose

MY PERSONAL LIST OF COMPLAINTS

An African woman, raped at gunpoint,
one chance allowed her to flee,
made it to Brazil, trod 3,000 miles
to the US/Mexican border.

Pregnant now, an activist group
took her to Ohio to train
as a nurse assistant.

She left a ten year old son behind.
Group raised funds for his rescue
before he is killed or forced
to train as a child soldier.

None.

Originally published by The Bezine

LIFE RAIN

Every storm runs out of rain.
                    —Maya Angelou

Into each rain some life must fall.
I made that up. How about that?
Maybe someone else said it?
Lots of people say the opposite.
Rain falls into our lives.
Yeah, we know that.

When it is raining hard, pours
like the picture on the salt box,
white rain on a blue background,
we do watch the rain fall hard.

Do we watch the life fall too?
Do we close up our umbrella
and let the good things shine in?

Start right now. Pick up your life
and hold it in your hands,
turn it over so you can look at all sides.

We do see the rain, lightning,
hear the thunder roar.
We always see the storms.

But sometimes on a nice day,
we don’t see the sun.
It’s just too nice outside to notice,
as we take it for granted.

Open up your arms wide
when the rain stops pounding,
let the good sun
bathe you in its light.

Don’t be afraid of the rain—
ever.

Originally published in Piker Press

CABARET RE-VISITED

On the TV news, I watch the faces
of people wearing red hats.
When their hero appears,
they stand at the bar,
raise their beer glasses 
in praise. The bartender shrugs,
carefully tops the foam.

The scene reminds me 
of the iconic movie Cabaret,
when American brat Liza Minnelli
charmed the audience,
Joel Grey mastered his Liebchen
and mocked the Jewish gorilla.

Nazis terrorized Jews,
killed Frau Landauer’s pet dog,
left the bloody corpse,
rang the doorbell,
ran away like 
a crude Halloween trick.

As Count Maximilian hustled
Sally in the beer garden, a blond,
blue-eyed Hitler youth rose up,
sang a chilling patriotic song.
O, Fatherland, Fatherland inspired
broken, poor and angry

Germans to stand, join
the rousing tune,
plant their hopes firmly
like a flag for der Fuhrer.

The Nazis viciously beat voters
at polls, their uniformed soldiers appear
in eerily greater numbers
filling the final bar scene.

Today, our own frustrated
rise to salute a different tyrant,
recover their pride,
hoping, once again,
to be saved.

O, FATHERLAND, FATHERLAND
MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Originally published in The Bezine

IF NOTHING IS DONE

Can a human be a drop in the bucket of history,
a tiny ping in a vast cistern, but jump in anyway?

In WW II, Witold Pileki, officer 
in the Polish Underground,
hounded his commanders to allow
him to join Polish Jews sent to Auschwitz,
suspected something dreadful in that camp, 
left his wife and two small children.

Arm-inked #4859, he discovered the atrocities.
For three years, smuggled reports
in dirty laundry to the outside,
every basket a chance for capture.
He knew what the prison guards did to spies.

His reports: gas chambers, ovens 
to the Polish Underground.
Sent those atrocities to Americans and British.
No one believed.
No one would do such things!

We have a history of things done,
not a history of things not done.
How many would have been saved
if someone had listened?

Waited, arranged escapes for prisoners,
but nothing done. Frustrated,
faked typhus and escaped himself.
Spied against Russia till the Reds killed him.

We call so many heroes—tycoons, doctors,
baseball players, astronauts.
Is Witold still a hero
if nothing is done?

Originally published in The Bezine

DISNEY IN NIGERIA

No Disneyland in Nigeria.

Cannot be.
Disneyland is fun in the sun.
So much fun.
Nigeria:

Missing children.
Missing lives.
Missing history.

I wish Nigeria were just a ride.

Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine

FATHERS-IN-LAWS

You don’t get to choose
who your kids marry,
choose your in-laws.
We fathers-in-law meet periodically.

Pete is a give-the-shirt-off-your-back guy,
the father of my son’s precious wife,
which is why we know each other.

Retired,
he was a truck driver and still spots in some.
Retired,
I was an English teacher and still sub some.

We meet for coffee,
sometimes dinner,
talk of what we can.
We both like cheeseburgers.
Pete recently lost his wife to smoking.
My wife quit at twenty.

Pete fought in Vietnam,
won't give details.
I was a leader of the anti-war demonstrations
in the 60s.
Gun control
is anathema to him:
Guns Save Lives.
I cite the number of mass shootings
like nowhere else in the world.

Once, Pete lost a job to an African-American.
He rails against Affirmative Action.
He is rabid about the Wall:
Immigrants are dangerous for our country.
I think this nation’s greatness
rests in its open arms.

We both love sports,
but root for different teams.
My team usually beats his team.
We laugh about that a lot.

Our local university sported
a Native American mascot,
which I think is racist.
Pete thinks it’s a shame
the school dumped it.
I asked him to read a book about it,
but he doesn't read books.
He never had a chance to go to college.
My Father made me.

He is a conservative Christian;
He would call me a liberal.
Pete thinks America went downhill
when prayer was thrown out of schools.
I say you can't force people to pray
what they don't believe.

We both love our families
and our grandsons.
He has a great daughter,
a heralded therapist.
My son is a professor
at a major university.
Pete also has a wayward daughter
who will never straighten out.
I had a sister like that.
He listens to my advice,
even though we both know it’s hopeless.

Sometimes Pete pays the bill and sometimes I do.
We always shake hands,
vow to do it again,
look each other in the eyes
with cautious respect,
a kind of friendship in America.

It's what we’ve got these days.

Originally published in Piker Press

GRATEFUL FOR GENES

Raking up the damn infernal,
eternal leaves and grass
every year without fail
they fall on my heart, brain and breath,
can't even burn the dang things no more
so I do it to make my wife happy
wonder if I will still rake if she goes first
but, sweating and swearing,
now realize at 80 how many
I knew are under the ground
with the colored leaves on top,
red blood, yellow phlegm,
orange juice physic, purple splotches,
wonder if they can hear
the raking and the bitching,
or know how grateful I am
I can still do it at all,
don’t have to hire
a neighbor boy yet.

Originally published in Uppagus Magazine

TWISTED SISTER

Hey, sis, who I cried
so hard not to hate,
got the short end of too many sticks
broken by the men in the family
married a Jewish boy
flunked out of college together
his mom broke up the marriage
three abortions, failed
to tell dad who died of a sudden
heart attack, causing your massive guilt
dyed beautiful strawberry blond hair
until it looked like a broken bale
creative early childhood teacher
thrown away with addictions
two jobs—  first a dress store,
no paycheck, ran a bill up for garb
last job a telephone sales lady
fired for rampant body odor
married again, best pea soup on Earth
ravioli to think you were Italian
drank him out of the house
into an alimony shackle
hatred and denial his only luggage
moved near your brothers
lied faster than constant
emphysema-hacking breaths,
spiders and snakes spewed
from lips like the bad sister
in the fairy tale. No words of love
or pearls of wisdom versed
like the kind, good sister
angry and demanded care
for every immediate need
ran out of money, never
able to untwist pills, died
in permanent nursing home,
funeral more glad than sad.

Originally published in Cajun Mutt Press

MY WIFE IS ALWAYS SINGING

As if she were a bird in disguise.
she looks like the woman I married,
maybe a different kind of a bird now—
not a blue bird but a partridge—
older now, feathers graying
she still sings much of the day.

It was song that won my heart
when she played her guitar
and I first noticed her beauty,
her smile and her voice.
She usually sings in our kitchen now,
but songs all around the house
day and night, personal vespers
burst out with all the lyrics.

Saying she is a bit absent-minded
which indeed is true, a family chuckle,
she impeccably remembers all the lyrics
of those songs to me, our children, and God
which spring forth like bird rituals.

Now in old age, she still sings,
even as we read side by side.

I expect she will sing at her own funeral
before she nests and warbles forever.

Originally published in Green Silk Journal

HEAVENLY REFLECTIONS

I don't know if flowers go to Heaven.

Will poisonous Calla Lilies,
Irises, Tulips, Morning Glories,
grow in Heaven's Garden
beside Roses, Violets,
Zinnias and Sunflowers?

Which flowers will
shine their faces
towards the sun?

Does it matter
what they were?

Originally published in Piker Press

GHOST SHOOTER

Today, sitting in my bar,
I read about the Parkland shooting,
student desks tombstones.
I turn around, glance at the entrance,
a gunman, like a spectre, blasts in,
the room swims in blood, more shots blast off,
people scream, dive behind tables, fall to the floor.

I close my eyes, shake inside,
until my head clears, the vision retreats.
No ghost, no shooter.

In my long lifetime, I’ve felt safe,
unlike Hickok, never felt my back
couldn’t be turned from the door,
at sedate art galleries, myriad churches,
wild rock venues, raucous football games,
staid libraries, all my schools.

I slowly sip my drink,
peek around, the jukebox blares,
tinkling glasses and laughter.

Maybe somewhere else
that night, not a ghost.

Originally published in Piker Press

REVOLUTION

Yeah, Dad, damnit, why did you have to die so early,
just another way of abandoning me my shrink said
and you were really good at that, screwing me up.
You were so busy building your empire, papered
with bills and dames, you didn’t take much notice.

Yours, a hard life, had to drop out of school as a soph,
work crap jobs to support your scoundrel parents.
But you got straight A’s till then, were really bright,
could have been a college academic like me.

A loan from your addicted mother,
rich from taverns and race horses,
propelled you to a personal war on poverty.
toward cash and fillies galore, despite your background wives.

We didn’t talk much except sports;
you more an announcer than a father.
But now, looking back, I remember you read a lot,
big impressive books, you told me about sometimes.

Then one day you found I was reading way below my ability.
The Hammer came down. You were good at Hammer.
Brought home a fat paperback—Les Miserables by some French dude,
Victor Hugo, thrust at me and pronounced sentence:
“Every night after dinner, you read this for an hour.
Otherwise no phone calls with your friends. None.”

I would have argued if I were not afraid of you.
Took the tome in hand and slinked into my bitterness.
Then, my little war—“You can’t tell me to read this damn book!”
Sat in the bathroom after dinner, vent open to hide my smoking,
glared at that yellow paperback as if it were to blame—
cursed it, cursed you, cursed Hugo—but boredom won.

Picked it up finally, crushed by no choice, opened and read.
Like a curtain rising, Jean Valjean, Fantine, Cossette, Javert,
captured my mind and sent me into my revolution.
I could not put it down. I carried it everywhere, even got into trouble
in class for reading it instead of the assigned dullness.

Propelled me to be a literature major, get my Ph.D, teach Les Miz
and the wide wide world of books to others— Heart of Darkness,
Huckleberry Finn, Ivan Illyich, Catcher In The Rye—a library now.
Enthralled students were enticed, not forced to join those adventures
by a father who abandoned them but changed their lives.
 
You are long gone like Hugo, but both of you are still alive for me.
Sometimes you don’t know who someone is till you look back.

Originally Published in Poesis Magazine

HETTY AND DINAH

To Mary Ann Evans
Author of Adam Bede

Praise to you, Mary Ann Evans,
shame you had to call
yourself George,
Adam or Seth a better name?
No, a better name—
Mary Ann Evans.

Brilliant author, mirrored
the human race in those ladies,
born of different seeds,
Dinah, chosen by Heaven,
Hetty of the shallow heart,
infected with envy, covet.

You understood the world,
the way it allows natures
to bend or shine,
as if the naked Empress
rules the human race.

Originally Published in Poesis Magazine