What is this?

That small walking Boxelder knows the
secret of the early summer heat on red and
black wings. Why does it join with others
on every beautiful perch? What moves it there?
What calls it to the concrete walk
to dodge the feet of twelve year olds?

There is fear in seeing the universe move.
Any direction emptiness filled by
bogeymen and hobgoblins of the mind.
Demons who can crush your soul to the empty
blackness you see for a brief second
when the roses sway in warm south wind.

This is the fear of something larger
This is the terror of uncenteredness
Less and less time is ours to use.
Why not watch the universe move
in a pair of wings red and black
marching toward the joy of the sun?

Powerful Pasts and Weakened Futures

We leave parts of ourselves on roads
of our own making.
Roses and operas
cathedrals of stones that make the Gods blush.

Strip mined beauty, overgrown gardens
derelict churches. We own them,
pray in them, wish that
friends and lovers could rescue us.

Watching the future roll away is the soul of pain.
In our comfortable stone we watch others
tending their gardens as our vines grow
pulling down our castles as our bodies
turn to stone golems, Magic envy machines
driven by sorcery for what we do not have.

Summer Teacher

The cats settling into stout middle age.
The way hummingbirds levitate in the trees
patiently waiting for sugar water.
My legs function these bright at six mornings.
It must be summer.

The phone never rings with calls from
anyone I want to speak with.
How everyone here has a little extra
something in them that shines.
It must be summer.

How heat saps any strength to move.
How the energy is gone at 3 pm or earlier
everyday. How the mind closes up shop
puts a sign out that says back in two months.
It must be summer.

The anger at my vacation and constant
napping at disgraceful intervals.
Plan and develop or reconstitute the mind?
The annual question that means
it must be summer.

Words Heard Outside the Library

I was just thinking about you
Mr. One Eye.
Don't tell me you were thinking
about me it's
creepy and not in a good way.

I was thinking about your girl
I hurried out
of the parking lot not wishing
to hear more than
I was blessed to be cursed with.

They speak in familiar strangness
while the homeless man
sleeps in the midafternoon sun.
I walk past scared of
what failures tonight will bring me.

No immediate survivors (Thanks Alan)

Lying came so easy to you.
Take for instance the one that saw you beating
an unknown drunk with a chair because he
made the mistake of sitting next to you.
You only wrote bad checks and stole
people's clothes from a hotel in Kalispell.
That wasn't physical it was fiscal.
Why tell mom you beat someone like that?

You told me the same tales and sold me on them.
It was the unspoken thing after every slap
or glare or kick that voice calmly saying
to me or anyone who would listen I beat a man
with a chair. We were a family of malcontents
and broken things never talking about anything.
The truth I knew was to be scared of a lie.
This is how a family disintegrates.

You're the cartoon villain that keeps on giving.
Finding your obit the day before Father's Day
this year, eleven years after you died was surprising
as I never wrote one or was asked for memory.
Your obit said no immediate survivors.
Some stranger to me writing obits about
my father. Someone I never met whose name
remains unknown and voice unheard.

No immediate survivors was right.
I'm not a survivor, I'm a remnant.
A small remaining quanitity, a trace.
Dad I'm putting my bruised psyche to the wheel.

Listening to NPR in a bad mood

Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes.
This place is full
of Questionable Amusements.
Worthy substitutes strike me as
a step down into beige knowns.
It is fashionable to say the right things
and do the right things, ask the right questions.
But there is never an answer to any of it
that makes any sense to anyone
least of all me, you.
Am I worthy of a substitute? Is anyone?
I hate the politics but can't get enough of the
games and hypocrisy and the voices endlessly
wanting what they cannot have. And Clint stands
on the side saying
Deserves got nothing to do with it.

Questionable amusements on the news
and the websites, speeches to those already
willing to work and vote for this fool or for the haircut
who abandons his past for a chance at
an executive future. There is no beauty here.
Questionable amusements mean judgment
of you by someone else who has amused themselves.
Worthy substitutes are deemed by someone somewhere
to be worthy of doing but not worthy of you.
Be afraid of those worthy substitutes.
Be sure of those questionable amusements.

Pepper Shaker

When I was young I loosened the
tops on you and waited,
watching from a nearby booth as
unsuspecting diners
sat down and grabbed you.

A man with his family tempted doom
and lifted you on high
over the breakfast special plate.
The loosened top soon failed
and confetti pepper
dusted eggs, hash browns, daughters, fruit.

I expected sneezing and a
burst of laughter.
I got yelling in my father's voice
at a volume usually left
at home after he came late from the bar.

Light Blue Plastic Universe

I am the universe in light blue plastic.
Use me for knowledge use me for sport
find King Arthur on the shelf next to
football and how to border quilts.
Pockets are damnable but wallets are worse.
Give me a child who carries me free
and easy, clicking against change,
paperclips and wrappers in gentle satisfaction.

The card from the store tracks your purchase.
I track your discoveries.
The card from the store gives you access
to the same old things you bought before.
I give you access to forgotten authors
long dead waiting for new readers,
fresh voices among packaged plots.
I give you glimpses of your needs not wants.

To the Green Worm on the Rug

I gently placed you, coiled and scared
on a receipt grabbed from the kitchen table.
Did you hear the thunder of breathing
the soft echoes of padded feet
when the monster came looking at you?

The It crouched and sniffed around
the green anomaly in the beige field.
Paws gently prodding the coiled form
claws not yet extended, the monster
hesitated before she decided to eat you.

I saved you from this toying death.
Taking you outside I passed the stairs
with cobwebs and spiders, danger time,
and found a spot of dirt in the yard.
You uncoiled and crawled away.

Mets vs. Cubs 8/5/82

These gentlemen know large stadiums
not small, not intimate, not like it should be.
Not like the first time.

Nineteen Eighty Two and the Cubs
were there, terrible and I did not care.
It was a game! The green is what
I remember. You hear it so often, but
we could touch the ivy from our seats
in the second deck halfway up the first base line.

I don't know who started that game
but Jay Johnstone hit the first home run I ever saw.
The bat on a perfect plane across the shoulders
The ball a gentle, sunlit arc of white
softly landing in the basket in right center field
not caught by eager hands but by chain link.

The crowd booed someone from the Mets and
cheered when he failed, some guy from a baseball
card with a giant moustache named Kingman.
I didn't understand. Why boo one in particular?
I booed the Mets in general being a particular
child of nine, licking a wooden spoon covered in ice cream.

Rabbits in a Field

Quick! That thing is not on wing!
Pain in a screaming package of muscle
and aerodynamic perfection.

Lets run! Quick!
Ears bobbing, dodging, hopping
over the empty field.
No one sees us in our moving!
No one sees us in our moving!

Treeline! Quick!
And the shade announces we are safe from
sun and heat and airborne violence.
We are not food we are a family!
We live to run another day.