Wonder Bread believer

helped strong bodies eight ways

for about a year

before clever scientists

found four more ways

then Wonder Bread

helped build strong bodies

twelve ways, no kidding.

so why’d they quit?

it’s been fifty years now

and if i don’t hear something soon

i’m going to quit believing

in advertising.

homeland security poetry

okay shoes off.   could be

weapons o'mass destruction in them

so down on da rug boys and girls

and spread ‘em

we followin' orders lookin’.

‘n don’ matter  none 

what ‘scuse  you got,

cause dis b Merica.

 wann’ a ejication?

put  chez  in da army

‘n  learn yez  practico

like  drive a tank n’ shoot

 

while on the other side,

a lesson in how to do life

at the Amish auction.

six  young  boys in a small cart

pulled in a circle for an hour

by a Shetland pony.

while all of them,

boys  as well as the pony,

kept mouths shut

and eyes open

making the circle,

enjoyin’ the go around.

and there’s equipment

to listen to your calls,

an we drive round

and listen in your house

we’ll feed you

hints in the media

and blur you

with delusion

anymore ‘n that

sheep  jus  don’t

gots da need

ta know

when she asked me

when she asked me to turn

off the sprinklers in twenty minutes

i nodded and  noticed the kitchen clock

and then the one in the living room.

they were ten minutes apart.

i began to tell her and she said

“Oh, jack” in that tone, you know which one.

“This is not science.”

“go make a clock then” is what i thought

but didn’t say,

then forgot where i was going with this

so i returned to the spot where i thought it

ever do that?

it usually works  -  to capture forgotten thoughts

return to the spot where you thought it.

this time it didn’t work.

looking out the kitchen window

there on the back of a chair

a squirrel sat intensely

looking in at me.

i had a plan where i was going with this

but  now, before i forget again,

i'd better go out

and turn off the sprinklers.

why i'm not writing everyday

a second summer tooth extraction
this one fractured on a rock
in take-out Chinese food,
kidnee stones, broken toe on my bear pad foot.

and i could be writing poetry
but got distracted.
how’s your summer?

i claim all the trees i see
and the three gulls above
in steady wind just right
that float near still like kites in a photograph

off shore wind
yellow morning sun
seventy eight degrees
still air, no breeze down here

a perfect day just now has begun


(  Note:  I wrote a word incorrectly in the above because in an effort to make more money Blogspot has sold out to a medical information company and alters blogs with difficult to delete site links.  More and more in this Twentyfirst Century it's all about money. )

happy anniversary

Pookashell-With-Kitties-All-Over-It
jumped into the shower
then came out immediately to kill four spiders
and although i was in the other room

yes, i caught hell
for i am The Man
guilty as charged
for as long as we both shall live.

not alone/ conspiracy

been working on this more than a week and can't decide how it really goes, but thought it was time to let it out of the box. i'll decide later.




not alone

everyone feels to be
number one in the universe.
although, not one is truly unique.
not squirrels, frogs, birds nor people;

yet, all living things can touch
the center cog on the wheel of life,
precisely the point
where consciousness is connected.


not alone b.

there are too many of us
for any one to be unique.
yet every squirrel, frog, bird and person
feels to be number one in their universe.

still, all living things can touch
the center cog on the wheel of life
and share consciousness precisely at the point
where we are connected.

what'd i say?

this quiet morning the robin returned
sat at the same spot on the fence
where the other day we had a chat
from the porch i gave the robin whistle

it looked directly at me
hopped one hundred-eighty degrees,
faced the other way
and flew away.

i copied

i copied the two note whistle,
the same as the bird in the tree.
the bird liked it enough to reply
and we traded calls back and forth.

for ten minutes our whistles continued
in changing patterns and pauses.
so now i've conversed with a robin,
yet have no idea what was said.

robinses

set to write good of them, i was,
cause hard workers they are.
first up early, feed the kids.
even give them lessons when they’re out.

always up at dawn, retire by dark.
mid day one'll sail in to sit and stare.
tween times sitting to think about the day,
waiting, staring at me, doing nothing.

then when i mow my heart grows cold against them
for i see the yard torn up here and there where
those hoppy bobbing, worm searching peckers
haven't replaced their divots.

days are like eggs

days are like eggs
some sunny side up
they’re hard, or scrambled
and, thank god,
always a few are
over easy

we live in small town ohio

on the back porch
sipping morning coffee watching
our pet wild squirrel,
not pet really,
call her acquaintance,
who takes peanuts from our hand
and presses her paw on ours
gently, touching the human goodbye
and thanks, as she pushes off.
we’d like to give her fuzz a rub
but she won’t stand for it;
she may be squirrel
but is not nuts.

now high above.
on a taunt electrical wire stretched pole to pole.
there she is comfortably sitting,
relaxing, thirty feet in the air.
then casually turning around

below is our small backyard pond
four hops long and three hops wide
where four large frogs
each on a different pond side
sun on the rocks.

a swooping shadow across my old wooden lab
then a splash in the pond
the first of our two mating ducks arrives.
she climbs out on a rock and twists her head around
to preen her feathers
looking good, feeling good.
he'll be in in a minute.

while practically downtown we are,
traffic here is wildlife.
rabbits i haven’t seen this year.
a large fox just sauntered through our yard;
he’s would have seen them, would eat them.
out front passing deer
are early risers.

plans - revisited

we make our plans
and choose our actions
sometimes based on reality
often times on dreams

the attractions to our suit
can be distractions to the root
not tailored to patterns
that follow the seams

my garden - revisited

my garden today was weed crowded,
a task undone far too long
so that work today, was my purpose
the labor in sun was my song

begin where it needs it the most
do all that you possible can
after a rest on completion,
move forward, and do it again

each part of life is in motion
moving ahead in the flow
your thoughts are merely a notion,
love doing, and not what you know

oil change

bused around eyes open.
needed an oil change, not me, the car.
that sort of service wasn’t what we noticed
before we had a vehicle.

in Rome nothing is easy.
i asked friends, several.
a bus ride took us along likely avenues
found a place, we’ll give it a try.

need oil drained,
the correct new oil put in
and a replacement filter, yet i know
in Rome nothing is easy.

discarded the idea of the place we found
drove out of the city.
found another oil changer
on the old salt road.

the guy was quick, kind and did it right.
when a job is complete i can relax
for it seems, for a while, that
everything in Rome is easy.

four and four

four seated facing four.
an interesting ride
for three others and i observing
enthusiastic constant chatters, as we rode
in an otherwise silent little electric bus.

three were on cell phones talking
in exceptionally loud voices, nonstop.
a fourth looked out the window
no phone, but spoke vehemently
to another someone, unseen.

the future

i'm an old man
and little kids are here in my future.
did i catch up with the future
or did it catch up with me?

a video clip of an Ed Sullivan Show
TV appearance by Buddy Holly
i may have seen live in Ohio
when i was a kid in 1958

i’m watching in 2011
on my computer in Rome, Italy.
the future is here for me.
so i caught up with my future?

little kids have their future ahead,
out somewhere beyond starlight.
so if i am in my future
what are they doing here?

When old clothes were new - (from sept. '09)

archeologists say
first clothes were made
seventy thousand years ago
more or less

before that? you tell me
what’d the cave man wear
sticks and clam shells?
maybe dinosaur skins

now in a cave in the Republic of Georgia
archaeologists have found colored fibers
that indicate the cave that may have been a factory
engaged in producing colorful textiles

found were strings and ropes
dyed fabric yellow, gray and turquoise
and one in pink, twisted together
carbon dated to thirty-four thousand years ago

scientists, not prone to speculation,
estimate that even then the fashion styles
changed every six months
and runway models were skinny



Scientists credited with the above discovery are
Ofer Bar Yosef, George Grant MacCurdy
and Janet G. B. MacCurdy of Prehistoric Archaeology
in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University
Bar Yosef and colleagues have been working in this cave since 1996.

earthrings

worn for ages
tree rings and planet loops around the stars
neither pages nor sages enough
to say what events have been

or to count the multiplying hours.
now don’t cha go thinking cause you have a fancy title
that things are going to happen,
nothings gonna happen.

Piazza Plebiscite where plebeians gathered
or fled, to get away from their boss
or their wives
same matter.

we knew the bar they hung out in at
(i say it that way for the like English speakers).
a photo of the bar could have done it, i didn’t have it,
and it wouldn’t really do, anyway.

in black and white, the brightest color grey
nondescript, old, sparse, gaps in wood.
local tired day end guys at worn tables, one room.
some few drink wine, others beer.

they were medium, halfway into life
one with cane, a couple younger and spirited,
some old, there was the Bar Keep woman
and then M. and me.

half the customers and the Bar Keep are there now i bet.
plenty of drinkers and talkers, light thinkers,
don’t ask me to say i wrote that unless you understand
it’s a tribute. for sure what they were thinking. they were saying.

we had draft beer at a table outside the door.
the church was practically in the bar yard
we watched them parking, with which some had
a hell of a time to get right, never straight.

M. went to a machine
but they wanted too much for so little
so she came back without. then Bar Keep
brought over fried snacks. she had a heart and vision.

i could see across the way Filipo’s pizza
near to opening for the evening
had two white lights
on either side the open door.

it was still late afternoon, very late,
after seven, maybe eight, and still
while i was deciding the real time
the clock on the church tower rang bells seven-thirty

‘s how i know now my report is accurate.
an i made a note.
street lights came on then,
beginning yellow tired.

i asked abut mosquitoes cause the sea’s a few streets over
and Bar Keep said, “here it’s not so bad, just normal.”
but we all know that can be bad enough
when you’re not in the mood to entertain

damn mosquitoes zam blam slam.
but i’m just saying now
cause we’re too early in the season
to have reason to get alarmed.

everything you see, you don’t simply take
you make it what you want
although a gondola ride isn’t romantic
for the guy who rows everyday to make a living

like they make toast

like they make toast
windows closed
on the bus we rode
hermetically sealed

jackets pealed
lady seated by me fanned herself
so hard i thought
she’d lift off

then to an eatery so far from the center
that we looked like locals
where plates twice as full
cost half as much

ate in the shade
and thanks be to God it made
for a real good
sun shiny time

she grips tightly two

long handle wooden spoons
stands over an empty large metal can.
has learned Morse code
and is writing.

quiet, listen.
dit, dah, dit,
dit, dah, dit, dit
ahh, it’s an audio ebook.