poetry

His nickname was “Spanky.”
A Vietnam vet who slept
under the rattling rails
of the brown line on Western.
With gashes grossly gathered upon lips
from bar room fist fights
he would wander through nights
floating with alcohol wings
probing the street with passive stare.
Dust in every pore.
Dirt under every nail.
Drink on every breath.
The sweat stench of summer
wrapping its odor over the alleyways.
The war bitter soldier stands
trapped in his splintered mind
howling hourly,

“Pay, or die…” the Death
Sentence Big Pharma-
Insurance Mob just issued
a neighbor; and a Frankenfood
experiment’s irritating my gut
The water smells swampy some days,
like bleach others; Tents grow in night
air like multi-colored mushrooms—crazy
cancer cells; Another school’s shuttered,
its teachers scattered in the wind, like
pencil sharpener shavings—Money for
Bombs, not for books—Wow, the wars
went from seven to nine this week…
Here they come again with Fear:
‘Freedom of Choice,’ binary bad

… and that is exactly what she did.
Following the echo of the Sonic BOOM
which had EXPLODED
inside her long un-beating heart.
Rising, with a sizzling and crackling…
like flame eating its hungry way up kindling.
Five years of dormancy
is a prison sentence of the soul…
but, the steel which knits its way
into the very core of your being,
following such a trial… is unbreakable.
With gritted teeth and clenched fists,
she cast off those heavy, dusty old blankets
of Depression and Despair.

high above
the highest peak
the shores of Asia
did I seek
imagined deserts
to the South
future voyages
from the mouth
into which waiting
thoughts would stream
through Rhenish hills
to stormy seas.
Very distant
beaches seen
beyond valleys
with richest green
birds in thousands
flocking past
bees and berries
eaten fast
watching
as the flood recedes
leaving only
what man impedes.

Sometimes the parable has more
Underlay to it
Than ‘truth’ itself. Within the coma
Of a year’s stark breath
The Flowering Tree has known
Rankness. Frailty. Near death.
But what of concepts germinated
When the leaf was truly green?
More pliable? When
Time’s perpetuity evolved
To the salute
Of an earth-keeping unlined hand?
Conceptually, the “I” remains – as
It must. From
Beyond the society-of-one
There’s another
Masquerading “anon”.
She knows of the slit
In the belly…

Scheming demons I did dream,
And quite convincing they did seem,
There’s nothing else and they did swear,
To nothing else we can compare,
We like it thus and always did,
So keep the other options hid,
For it is bliss to never know,
Much easier when the bar is low,
They tell it like it’s act of grace,
As subtle as a smashed in face,
The that by which we must exist,
“It’s common sense”, they did insist,
They did remove the socket’s eye,
For seeing we should never try,
Be careful what you choose to hear,

A Red-tailed hawk on a power pole
surveys the last day in a year
riddled with deceit.
There is no truth
like his, with the fanning
of the primaries as he claims
his portion of the light
on a day too warm for the season.
Beside a slow running creek
the cottonwoods change color
while higher than cactus
and mesquite
the air on the plateau is clear
where big trucks roll
and a lone tree is decked
out in tinsel, hope
and stars.
We’ve reached the altitude
for ravens, with dry

Across my spine is a shiver shake
electric in its natural rhythm
from the boil in the gene swarm
to the lava licking atoms’ lust
all I ever wanted was a true love
back before I was a tadpole
turning tricks in the primal soup
catching waves when the moon cries
cotton candy blistered sugar lips
razor thin with the sweetest shave
cutting years off my lifeline
shove the clock with a deep push
In my mind is a pile of gold
silver shimmer in the syrup heat
when the sheets wrinkle through the night

damn the aristocracy
damn the democracy
damn all the military
killing for profit
killing for fun
killing everyone

A seated man is lifted
his arms held out stiffly
apparently frozen
We look from our curtained windows
fearing that we might be next,
the jobs all gone.
Is this another country?
we ask ourselves
where the underclass don’t belong
where the mentally ill,
those who have lost their jobs
sit on generous sidewalks.