no dogs

no dogs, no friends, no air conditioning.
make a note: no friends this season.
they don’t know these closet poems exist,
it is no rhyme, for little reason.

let me cover what i’ve written
with my hand so no stranger sees.
pretending i am - doing this at the library
in air conditioned leather arm chair comfort.

no time for dogs.
no need explain,
had one before,
don’ need one again.

there is heat going on,
and one more thing:
also there is plenty
of no air conditioning.

our unit is down,
away mechanically, and electrically,
imploded, internally squat ,
no boom.

could have gone to air conditioner school
i’ll day dream about that
while i wait in line
to take out a loan for a service call.

now if i were writing this at the library
i’d be in absolute comfort - way!
and maybe that would make all the difference,
words would flow and not stick together either.

sweet corn is very good this year,
thought i’d tell you a good thing.
had more today with plenty of butter.
envy me,

and while your at it
do me a favor - envision me
eating warm fresh sweet corn lightly salted,
seated in cool conditioned air comfort.

another space between

another space between
on a bus way out again,
way up denial, 27 march,
one month into chronic birthday digestion

make a note
sound waves, light waves, ocean waves
slow waves, fast waves, wet waves
more stuff you don’t have to Google

on the bus with folks from Nigeria
the six year old kid was quiet and observant
obviously not a TV junky, make a note -
dots of sun light from a board with holes - do it

not thinking of you, like the two end to end
parking spaces open and a one car pulls in the middle
and essentially takes two
he was not thinking of you either

deep up denial again, but it’s all true
i could tell we were far out of the city
when we saw a guy leading two camels,
at least they were on the sidewalk

sometime notes i make on the bus
can’t be deciphered because of the jiggle
but i know what i saw
about the camels i mean, i do so verify

note: when Italians count on their fingers
unlike America where one is the index finger
here, one is the thumb
just thought i’d let you know

m. just read a news story online
about a man arrested for trying to revive
a road kill possum
with mouth to mouth resuscitation

then TomC writes to say
he couldn’t digest his cornflakes or something
cause i skipped a day
pshaw! maybe when i was ten

i could have skipped all day.
what i did was lose a day just like
Ray Miland in Lost Weekend, Billy Wilder, 1945,
in which he played an alcoholic

and i just saved you more Googling
maybe Google lost some money then
and/or will make it up
somewhere else

note - if i wrote this in paragraph form
and you printed it, it’d waste money
on ink for big letters and periods
or space there of


(reprise from march 2010)

brushing teeth, mine

brushing teeth, mine
i fell asleep brushing my teeth
thinking how my grandmother used to like
Saturday TV with the midgets wrestling

"Your mother's mother?" she asked
"Yes," I said.
"That figures."

now what was that supposed to mean?
i gave her a sharp look, i did
you should have seen it.

anyway i didn't really fall asleep
zoned out into brushing land
more like it.

a mild trance state
perfectly normal
it happens, right?

(reprise from March '08)

these are the Amish

neat and country clean,
shiny faces,
bowl cut blond hair boys,
girls heads white wrapped,

chin to ankle dresses.
hand made clothing
neatly pressed.
brains stilled of the noise.

save click brush sweeping of the brooms - whisk, whisk.
and heavy clip, clop stepping horses
pulling black carriages.
the family is a unit.

we turned in at the hand made sign
but they were fresh out of eggs.
notice also said donuts.
girl said they had ‘em.

gave the nod, she left her push mower,
to kitchen storage out back.
walked barefoot the length of the gravel drive
in her ankle length gray swaying dress.

returned with an assortment in a plastic bag,
seven or eight doughnuts for a stiff five bucks,
weighing in slightly less than near a pound apiece.
puffy fresh, sticky sweet, tasty mighty good.




why wasn't there a coma after tasty?
cause the rule is: you write 'em any way you like.

simplify

occasionally friends tell me things
and i recognize the words
that i told that person
some years before.

now a good friend has told me
he remembers and benefits
from something i told him,
“Simplify”.

i thought a credit to his intelligence
for him to remember who told him.
then i had to look it up
to see where i read the thought.

It was Henry David Thoreau who wrote in Walden -
"Where I Lived and What I Lived For"
“Our life is frittered away by detail... Simplify, simplify, simplify! ... Simplicity of life and elevation of purpose.”

Walden Pond was on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Henry David Thoreau once wrote
to his friend and mentor, Emerson,
"Simplify, simplify, simplify."

Emerson wrote back,
"Don't you think
one 'simplify'
is enough?"

my fortune cookie said

my fortune cookie said
well, it didn’t say
it read,
that is to say, i read.

should i start over?
that’s not what i in the cookie read,
but it seems a good idea,
starting over.

if we have a choice,
if we’re not rich enough, healthy enough,
or have loved enough,
food to eat, place to sleep.

let’s work on it.
make our own cookie fortune.
print it by hand,
send it to ourselves

with insufficient postage,
then act surprised when
the postman returns it to our door,
i mean, to my door.

it’s not our door
cause we don’t live together.
well, we may,
but not you and i together.

you may live with someone,
that is possible,
but, if you’re not M.
you and i don’t live together.

but then, i am me,
you are busy being you.
now give me
my fortune cookie.

you have to make out
as best you can.
make it up.
make it out.

and i know you will
because we all
are doing the best
we can.

i don't have
to read that
bit of truth
in a fortune cookie.

ten o'clock in london

ten o'clock in London
BBC radio reports

fifty dead, suicide bomber in Bagdad,

Israeli soldier posed on Facebook
with blindfolded, handcuffed old Palestinian women,
under the caption life is good,
said she was doing no harm.

scientists estimate
four thousand elephants
left in the wild.

also, to keep you listening
a tease about the Beatles in Germany.

you know that’s not a recent event,
the beatles left germany fifty years ago.

that story would come at the end of the news
to keep you listening.
they’ll promote it several more times,
stay tuned.

our time

in the comfort of home
while reading a story of American Indians,
a scene where others watched
from an open tent flap,

a brave arrived in camp
left his tired horse
then laid prone at the stream
to drink clear water

in pure air
under heat of the sun
quiet all around
ripples of the stream.

it occurred to me
that now
is not like that anymore
and we each have our time.


I have reworked this many times, although still not entirely satisfied, the point of it was important enough that it superseded an attempt at art. We each have our time.

Honey, I'm trying to keep it simple and say it how it is.

bee

What did I find, the Queen of Queens? This fat bee was large with a black rear end the size of a refrigerator light bulb, no kidding.

I see my account here doesn’t differ much from the poem, so there you have it - I’ll put a wraps on this so you can proceed to the real meat of the bee.


bee

from the porch
i see a bee
large and in the flowers
had to walk up close
to get a good look at

yellow body
a swollen back end like the hood
of a shiny old black Buick
jeeze o’pete
zip on, big buddy
zip on

nxt!, notes on heaven

First is nxt, a strange mechanical piece, I put on this site August '08. I was looking through my files, found it, and brought it back. Recycling is good.

Also back a second time is notes on heaven from November '08


nxt!
giraffes have the same number of neck bones as humans
nxt, yr nxt
sorry, machine I was just reading . . .
nxt!
make your selection and insert coins in slot
nxt!
give me a minute, i was reading the instructions
out of order!
wait, I put my money in
nxt!
you took my money
nxt!
what is the disturbance here?
oh, nothing, officer, but this machine just took my money
machines don’t make mistakes, come with me, civilian
don’t handcuff me, is that a taser, bro?
pick him up and drag him to the wagon
nxt


notes on heaven

notes on heaven
cobblestones are laid smooth
with grass growing between,
all rivers shall run clear,
here i noticed the Tevere yesterday
golden brown, like a shiny pie crust,

back to heaven,
if you have to park the meters will
give you money. all birds and animals
and people speak the same language,
sounds like Chinese but isn’t

house at isn't der

I’m working to enter poetically into the sound and rhythm of the 21st Century, for that I’ll sacrifice conventional grammar.
Face it – “down to da ground” and "do dee dark" have poetical swing.


house at isn't der

when a haunted house
gets torn down,
down to da ground,
where do dee dark night spirits go?

would dey stay up der somewhere
in thin air,
ones formerly of creaky stairs
dat wandered upper floors by night,

dose dat whisper talked,
den easily walked
through solid walls,
like dey weren’t der? or were dey?

an tell me, can ghosts be
able to see
to remain in a house
dat isn’t der?

as light
by night
as a whiff
of scented candles.

poof!

driverless cars

With the latest technology, engineers are taking a journey from Italy to China in driverless vehicles! The 8,000 mile trip will take about 3 months!

They are making the trek with two orange vans, and each is equipped with an actual person for when instances arise that the automobiles can’t handle.



latest technology
driverless cars
give me a blue one baby,
send it to the drive through

call ahead, roll down the window,
have the attendant throw in a loaf of bread
toss in a cold beer, put it on the tab
then honk me goodbye, baby, i’m going to China.

uses the computer

uses the computer
to play solitaire.
i ask what web sites he looks at
and he puts a silly look on his face,

guessing it appropriately condescending,
arrogantly feigning intelligence,
to cover ignorance and indifference,
then puts black eight on red seven.

barbeque in the country

picked up Darrel at his farm,
first saw work he’d done,
talked a bit, checked the time
then hit the road.

off out there we drove,
a country parcel north o’ the village,
parked in grass at the part tin clubhouse
for a Sunday good eatin’ chicken barbeque

the American Legion put it on,
country eatin’ fun, for all’d come,
at the intersection of parched long fields,
on a rise by rail road tracks.

men fired slow baked glazed golden chicken,
cole slaw, barbeque beans the ladies made,
plus chocolate sheet cake frosted,
with as you please coffee and lemonade.

under yellow sun, very still this hot July noon,
doors and windows were slung open a mile,
an electric fan hummed a welcome summer breeze
in our rural, out of the way, little town Ohio.

not always the hero

ok, so, just to show I’m not
making myself always the hero,
i got off the crowded bus smiling,
saw a flash of white

flapping large as a napkin
right on the front of me.
my zipper half way down,
my shirt was sticking out.

oh, darling you'd think i hardly hear you

for me
no mail for decades.
nary a post in the box,
only cobwebs on my cobwebs.

no need for an in box.
that space by my door
could be permanent no peddler signs
for every holiday occasion.

and now this,
my sixty-fifth birthday year,
i have already received
more than sixty-five solicitations,

not from a chick
to walk me across the street
down to the corner bar
and whisper “watch both ways” into my ear.

what arrives is another offer
for an inexpensive hearing aide.
i’m sixty-five - they’ve got my number
and must be selling it door to door.

Bee Gone

You best bee learning . What’s a bee for? Bee's wax. What do I call this poem? Is it Bee gone or just Gone. I’ll work that out later. The next part concerns you.

Because you're dead doesn’t mean you have nothing more to learn. Let's start there.

You don’t just die and get angel food cake with ice cream and a gold beanie. No, seems there’d be a school for the dead to teach what they didn’t learn on earth.

Straighten ‘em out, work ‘em a bit to make saints out of them; or do you think they just get sent back to earth, recycled stupid. I suppose it could be. Let ‘em stumble along again on their own, and see if they can do any better. I don’t know how it works.


Bee Gone


sitting on the back porch
smoking, having morning coffee
a small bee came zipping around
persistent, wouldn’t go away.

i thought perhaps it could be the spirit
of my dear friend, or my uncle
coming back this warm summer day
checking out how things are going.

staying near
making circles
all alone
going fast.

i blew smoke on him,
brushed him on his way,
not to be disrespectful,
but, he’s got to learn.

The BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico began late May or early June.
I guess I may be stuck there.


tough time

tooling down the road
a wild turkey on the right,
standing where you’d be
if you were thumbing a lift.

i blew past him doing fifty plus.
geeze, he was big. big as a dog.
had he heard of the oil spill, do any of them know?
is that why he was out walking? was he stunned?

this is a tough time
appalling, unequaled.
great damage has been done
to the waters, to the life, to the earth.

and we are the caretakers.
oh, what we have we have left for our children,
this legacy we’ve created,
all for pieces of silver.

i thought to continue to write here, to divert attention
away from thoughts of great sadness - disaster.
let me tell you - it isn’t easy, it is sad.
nothing is easy now. so sad.

time machine

standing on the corner
watching all the girls go by
listening to Dean Martin sing that
in 2010 Ohio.

i’m in a chair,
93 degrees outside,
M. in the kitchen,
Dean on the programmable radio station.

a 1908 Saturday Evening Post short story on my lap
that’s takes me back to the old West.
and I’m in a chair in 2010 Ohio, M.’s in the kitchen,
Dean is on the radio singing for us.

you want a time machine?
pick up a book,
turn on the radio,
92.8 degrees outside - so says the Internet.

the son also sleeps

it’s a doggie dog world
look it up.
that cracked me up when I read it,
you know it has the clang of truth.

it’s a doggie dog world,
that’s why my son is having therapy
for a shoulder he took on a bad job of rock climbing
and that doctors sewed upon.

taking naps is safer.
his daughter sees summer slipping away.
he denies the truth,
however, being father makes one old

and consequently forgetful.
i don’t think he hit his head.
hope the old fart remembers
to brush his teeth and change his shorts.

daughter is right,
summer is slipping along at high speed.

m. is locked in at high speed warp factor,
and worries too much.
i worry if she is too tired
to make something good for dinner.

last week she picked blue berries
while i waited,
sat on a bench, read,
and between customers talked to Pseudo Farmer

who lives in Ohio two months each year
in a house built in 1822, fantastic, huh?
and the rest of the time is in Montanna,
no relation to Hannah.

Ohio is 90 degrees,
has been for a month
and will continue warm.
sweet corn is good.

i am too.
half as good as her blue berry pie,
i ate it.
these are words to live by.

solar eclipse

beneath tall ancient sculptured stone monuments
a half hour past noon, waiting.
excited anticipation from crowds gathered on Easter Island,
for scientists proclaimed that Pacific island on the path.

then murmurs hushed, eyes opened skyward
as a moon blanket covered sun, brought five minutes
of daytime solemn darkness and stars.
earth’s seventh full solar eclipse of the 21st Century.

i am old and have yet to witness a total eclipse.
that it good, for it means
there is an event ahead, both moving and spectacular
for me to look forward to.

paper in my pocket

paper in my pocket
making note
preparation for doing
like setting the table

dad did it.
inadvertently, he taught me,
jot thoughts down
afore they get away.

time ticks quicker

notice what’s going on?
mowed the lawn two days in a row.
usually it’s right to wait a week.
we're moving in quick time.

tell someone please
turn down the gas
on the time machine,
obviously it’s running too fast.

many flowers blew into bloom
within a pair a days.
now don't be thinking this is paradise,
life is more like a rolling pair of dice.

blowin' across the highway

political division of the sexes
an obstacle in long standing tradition
the world may someday surmount
or complacently continue to avoid.

like a garbage can
blowing across a highway,
you better stay alert.
try not to cross paths.

continue to not think about it,
most times you may be lucky,
or do right and change your ways
before one has your number.

teeth is all

brush my teeth is all
she asked me what i was doin’
teeth is all i'm doin’
teeth is all

then seven-thirty and we were driving.
she wanted to pick blue berries early
before it got 90 plus humid degrees.
many, many, a record many pickers had the same idea.

through a heavily wooded area on the way,
the guard rail ahead at the crossing came down.
oh no, a train, i moaned, then zip - like that
a locomotive and one train car flashed by.

forty feet ahead of us a buck deer crossed the road
from woods on one side to woods on the other.
two small young deer came out undecided on the road.
we waited 'til the adult female rushed them across to the woods.

at another bend in the road
was a large wild turkey in the brush.
right at the side of the road's where he sat.
a big guy, geeze he was fat.

back home after berries, a blue jay had hit our kitchen widow.
looked open, too clean? don't think so, more than likely
he was thinking distracted and flying too fast.
was lying dead when we arrived. m. got the shovel, buried it.

and the day began
with m. waiting in the car.
only needed a minute to brush my
teeth is all.

mocking bird hill

came out of a song, the name did.
skipped in on the wind, stuck like discarded paper
beyond the fence where Hoppy lived in a shack
at the town dump, on a knoll above Mud Brook.

he was resident care taker, barroom dart baller,
and sometime crossing guard downtown.
a tiny fellow in second hand clothes, worn seaman’s cap,
one leg way shorter than the other.

we’d examine approachable edges when we went dumpin',
finding some old wood piece, or metal gadget,
antiquated discards, to pick up, cart off,
recycle and transform into inventive service.

a busted end table or a bicycle,
an unbroken bit of colorful depression glass,
an original period lamp in need of rewiring,
a long, long time before anyone spoke of toxins.

today not a trace is left of that place on that knoll,
plowed and replanted clean. the dump's been moved,
gone with Hoppy, as are most of those who remember,
the rise over the creek called Mocking Bird Hill.

train 28

that’s the date in June 2010.
i want to differentiate
cause see i’ve talked of trains before.
in absolute way quiet three a.m.
that’s when they come, you know.

with first a subtle vibration in the tracks
from twelve to fifteen states away.
then i got up ate, slept and ate and drank and slept again.
three days later Goliath Machine approaches town,

of course total darkness.
not a star out tonight,
they only come like that, at night you know.
steam rolling vibrational thunder.

with a whistle
a warning
hear it

You
You there
I mean you
Take warning - Watch yourself,
I am coming.

shakes ducks eggs in the marsh
corn kernels rattle off cobs in the fields
and homes from their basements trough foundations vi-
vi-vi-vib—vib-vibrate.
god o’ mighty it’s Heavy Metal son of a bitch
clobbering everything.

i’m three blocks away from the tracks
and total down to dust destruction,
every home, bird’s nest and dog house
tween here and there destroyed
by the merciless rattling shakathon.

yet, like a mystery,
somehow
sleep comes,
deep mellowing sleep.

and then magically
when first bird tweets,
all is rebuilt by dawn,
everything, up and down the streets,

including fillings, crowns and molars replaced
and neighborhood groundhogs back in their burrows,
robins eggs return to their nests,
no cracks in the sidewalks, no more.

all is well again, healed by sight
of first morning light
when i awake and go to the window
and look out that way
to see what happened.

summer storm

summer humid, you can't believe.
oven hot and closet still.
something brewing west,
thick heavy sky darkness rolling.

rain races, beating, hail, high wind - boom,
lightning cracks a quarter mile away.
what’s hit’s on fire
or gone blown to hell now, i’d say.

half hour later, all’s still again,
a bit cooler, lone wren cries loud,
accounting for it's family.
with that we’ll end the day, show’s over.

talking to oneself

talking to oneself,
i did it today,
and know when i say
that’s not what it is at all.

it is speaking to the spirit
of friend or loved one,
absent for the moment
by a nick in time.

they've cut down the big tree

they’ve cut down the big tree today,
bet it’s two hundred years old.
was old fifty years ago
when i was a kid.

before i ever thought of old
i saw it when i rode past
heading for the beach
on my bicycle.

recognized it then as a giant,
the largest trunk in town.
maybe old as the town. course fifty years ago,
they tore the town down too.

called it urban renewal
when they leveled the town.
promises were made,
but they never rebuilt it.

not the town, only city offices
police and fire department
had one police car then
have seventeen now.

urban renewal was for the city
officials and city workers,
not the down town, where the people
walked, shopped and gathered.

now this tree taken down.
makes way, it’s the future.
i’m telling you now,
they’ll never rebuild that tree.



Save some of the world as we know it for the children.

news out of Africa - they are talking of planting trees east to west, coast to coast to rebuff the encroaching Sahara desert.