longer light

look about here
the longer hours of light
bring bounty
as toppled in plenty
the already green spring sprouts
flag farmed fields in rows
and wave where wind blown
fragrant scents of new flowers
dash with insects and birds
bolting over this earth proving ground,
all hearts wish good weather
for crops, for running children
and beckon impending summer
to slip in
quiet as the moon

Vegan

she’s a vegan
a vegetarian
i’m happy
she’s not saying
she's a person
from the
star Vega

movies for the mind

novels are movies for the mind, any time
will take you away in notion, emotion or adventure
mark the page when you set the book down
when you return lights go down
curtain goes up
and theater will begin anew
where you left it

i tested
When i left he was on his sorrel by the creek
at nearly sundown
they sky was azure blue
with no wind and nary a cloud

When i came back hours later
he was still atop his horse by the creek
at nearly sundown
the sky was azure blue
with no wind and nary a cloud

meshes

the white shirts
some with ties
and the sweats
some with hats backwards

clash to the eye
dash by on their way
without seeing
much of each other

pocket order

just when i've mastered
the perfect winter pocket order
keys zipped in the left front
phone zipped in the right front
identification zipped in the left inside upper
money right inside upper, zipped

all of a sudden, spring is here
my jacket stays at home
and i do too
cause there’s nowhere to put my stuff

curiosity

curiosity startled the cat
and made it look silly,
it didn’t really kill anything

i remember her tattoo

the sparkling young woman with
the Carl’s Jr. happy star tattoo on her ankle
i haven’t seen again
or if i have i didn’t know
because it’s still cool and most likely
she’s still wearing socks

zip zip

zip zip i was seven
zip zip i was twelve
zip zip i was twenty seven
zip zip i was sixty four
zip zip i was

dear Captain

dear Captain, take me along with you and Rafal,
let me board and sail on to foreign ports
let the compass spin as the great prop churns
mark it all on the cart as we make way

i’ll tow the line, skipper
eat well and hold tight on deck
sleep like a baby as the ship bounces around
though heavy storms will wind up, you won’t let us down

by whales, seagulls, and flying fish
until entry to the bay and the flat channel narrows
finally to port, at a long pier for tie up
there all will wave goodbye

rain in heaven

in heaven it will rain
from two until four
on alternate days
warm water only, and refreshing

you'll have an instant umbrella,
splatter won't matter
cause the socks you wear
will dry immediately

The New Week

It is the Twenty First Century and we need to make some positive changes. There haven’t been any since October 4, 1582 when Pope Gregory XIII made the following day October 15, 1582. Maybe his rent was due, or it was his wife’s birthday and he didn’t have a present or she wanted to skip another birthday anyway.

Regardless, an international consortium of specialists has devised the following submission to pick the world up off it’s butt and set it on it’s ear. Those aren’t the technical terms they used, but it was the best I could remember; anyway, you get the idea.

the new week

Monday is a bit jarring
to start the week
let’s begin with Wednesday
when we’re already up to speed
then bring on Friday,
a feel good day

Tuesday and Thursdays
we can jam one after the other
and coast over them
then let Monday come last
if we can’t do away with it altogether
and put in a free day

so let it be written, so let it be done

must be facing north

coffee at a table in the shade just steps off the tourists path
opposite the long tall blinding stone bone-sunny travertine
of the Cancelleria, with oh-hum traffic on the corner
i scratch out this crude note, having left
tender words of the novels home like lovers
tucked in together, sleeping on the shelf

i sip pondering my next goodbye to Rome
as already summer looms nigh,
with sycamore trees along the Tevere green full
the shadow over me shortens, afternoon sun moves west
this 25 April, Liberation Day, of little clamour
even thieves and beggars are on holiday

stirring my coffee i recall
time on the road with Italian actors
where at bars up and down all of Italy
most stirred their coffee for thirty seconds
so I learned to do as they
and now can smile remembering them

market review

Call this - I told you so. Here's something posted on this site February 7, 2008, a few months before the dive.

market analysis
holy catfish the markets diving
and won’t come up for air
all your trouble is like a bubble
when it pops sit back and stare

no need to hurry if you want to worry
you’ve got the time to spare
but hold that frown, cause it’s going down
every stinking where

a man desires

all a young man desires in a woman
is a good figure, some brains
an eager willingness to do all the washing,
shopping, cleaning and cooking
while being a total sex maniac on overdrive
oh, and did i say rich?

but now that i am older
it doesn’t matter anymore
just so we’re nice to each other
well, rich still would be good

Rome Welcome II.

My friend Rocco, who works two days a week in the administrative offices of the police department, told me that over the Easter holidays six hundred thefts were reported at the crowded Rome train station.



our friend’s vacation was scheduled
to last three weeks,
while crossing the ocean he
spent six days aboard ship in bed
not a world class lover,
wasn’t sea sick,
he had suffered a stroke

five minutes after arriving in Rome
he reached into his pocket where
four credit cards, a drivers license, reminders,
several permits, papers and
cards too important to carry
that should have been left at home
plus five hundred or more, in cash,
were all packed and gone
in his stolen wallet.
his passport remained safe in another pocket
even thieves only have two hands

we walked him around a few times
though nearly in a daze,
i think he enjoyed himself

three days later i helped him buy a ticket
then put him on a train
for the remainder of his scheduled vacation
to see his family in Switzerland
where his cousin had just died
two days before

two for the street

They started there about the time I first came to Rome.

Thirteen months ago I wrote about the two old ladies living on the corner in front of Rome’s train station. This winter one was gone. A weeks or so later, the other disappeared.

No doubt one had died and the survivor was taken weeping to an undisclosed location for the aged, derelict, and possibly mentally challenged, yet feisty.

Had twenty years on the street had done them in?


I.

winter was long and wet
the rainiest in two hundred years
so they said,
if you can believe their record keeping,
no one can contradict
for sure, everyone talked about the weather

II.

first came spring,
then the two old ladies were back again
with bags and market shopping cart
taking turns sleeping
on one of the busiest, noisiest, wind blown corners
in all of Rome

the very corner where 20 or thirty buses routes
and any of the cities six thousand taxis
turn to enter the train station to pick up passenger
thus providing
twenty-four hour traffic, stench and noise

and there, an arm’s length from the curb,
in blankets and rags do they camp,
together again on their home turf
using a bucket or the restrooms at the station,
one at a time, as needed,
the two bundled octogenarians
enduring, perhaps enjoying
the great out of doors

III.

sure they could have more
a better corner
by the sea,
an open field
or in the woods
but they took what was available
i think i should be happy for them

on the bus

a kid had the double front seat
he was ten, skinny and healthy
I asked for the seat and he sprung up

it’s good for him to learn now
the way of the world, how old people
impose their will on the young

anyway, he didn’t need that big seat
I’ve seen larger wrapped sandwiches,
fold the kid up and he could ride in a lunchbox

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

began studying early in life
carved the pieta age at 23,
the David at age 26

five hundred years later,
still marveling, fascinated,
we wait in line to see his work

occasionally deeds
done in the fire of youth
are honored for a long, long time

rome welcome

I’d like to tell you this is a love story, something fuzzy, warm and cuddly. Instead I’m kicking myself for his misfortune. It wasn't my fault. I tried to help. I'm just asking why don’t they understand that 20 years in the city has taught me things an outsider doesn’t know?.

For sure I told him to be careful. I know I did. It’s a given. After all, he was a new guy to the city, coming in to the train station for the first time. But what good was my telling him? How can someone digest the importance of everything heard in a transatlantic phone conversation, when there is the excitement of the trip to think about.

When I gave him my phone number he wrote that down. But who is going to write down the warning “watch out for thieves”?


rome welcome

a friend arrived in Italy by boat
on a luxurious sixteen day cruise
with six ports of call
to the final port an hour away

wanted to help every way i could
hell, everyone likes special treatment
offered to meet at the train
to kind of ease him into the city

this experienced world traveler
said he could easily get one block to the hotel
he was going to handle it,
would call when he got in

about the time I expected
the phone rang, he called to
tell me yes, he was in Rome and
his wallet was stolen at the train station

credit cards and about five hundred dollars
gone with the quick hands,
this is not the end of the short story,
he still has three weeks to go

mediterranean see me

I may change this a bit, but here it is for now. I can critique my poem and say I should stay on target. See the objective, figure out what it is I want to say, and which way the words have to go to get me there. Today I prefer to do as the crew of explorers and let myself hop on board and ride willing to participate. Letting the caravan take me wherever.


mediterranean see me

free this morning
we could get in the car
and drive five hours to a corner of heaven
for sure we’d love it
we’ve been there

with the long blue of the med,
hearing it from our bed
and the morning fishermen
in little boats
sun hats and coats
so near on dawn
so clear over calm

in a sleepy town
with Filippo’s Pizza
the best dough out of Napoli
they say, I’d say
anyway

how far do we have to go
so I can hear the shore’s chill water?

rolling stones like breathing in and out
making them rounder

smaller in long eons
until they are tiny white grains
lesser than sand
blown away like dust
off the back of my hand

thrown up by the wind
lifted straight to the sky
soaring above birds
blown riding the blue

far off out to sea
over storms
circling the globe
above the Captain’s stout grey ship on the Atlantic
twisting back into time and Grandmother’s wagon
crossing dry Arizona in the late eighteen hundreds
over arrows and Indians

then sucked tumbling down
deep in the California desert
none too soon
by dull light of moon

it's stuck deep
where it will keep
in the bark of a Joshua tree
that lives a thousand years