A Green Leaf in Winter

Collected Poems by

Marc Kohler

Walk Straight

Here and now

She Was my Little Girl

The Words do not Count

Thank God for Turtles

There will be no more days

There is an I in every poem
There is an I in every life
There is a truth in every moment
We know that every I is never the
Same as any other I
Snowflakes with a much longer life
We I’s need each other
The I’s sometimes have it
And the nays can win, too.
But when it comes sometimes, whether
I am I or I am in this poem or not
Sometimes, just sometimes the I
Is no longer. No ayes or nays.
Just not being an I any longer.
The not I is there, in the corner.
Lounging like a pimp, and
The not I has put a bear trap on I’s leg.
The I or this I or the poem encased I
Feels that pain, and life for us
makes us an island
and no one will see this I because all they
will see is their reflection, for I am a mirror
Reflecting back whatever they want to hear
The mirror through which no voice can come through
This I then lives in silence
Colossal silence, deafness, and, terror
And with not I.
Not I knows that this I cannot hold on
Not I knows that he will win.
The not I will have this I kill this I
This I will practice to see if this I can get
The rope over the pipe.
This I will drive recklessly into seven accidents,
This I will not sleep for two days straight
And be told that a third night will cause hallucinations.
Then again, this I learns that the not I has a life of its own
Not I decides not to sleep, be reckless, or terrified
Everyday
Yes, this I’s hand will do the not-I’s bidding
And this I will not have any I left
Except of course, the I of this poem
Who shall after the work of the not-I is done
Live here, on this page
forever.

Much is said with few words

Much is said with few words
So, I try to make things short
The theater is walking the boards
And Hamlet added yeast to his wort.
He said the thing that seems the best:
Being is better than not being
Not being is never, never a rest
I mean really use your bean.
When you lose your love
When you can make no sense of the day
When you want to fly away like a dove.
There is one thing that you should meet
“…That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.”
This will stop your hurricane.

And the night creeped in

And the night came creeping in
like the feral cat who accepts the food I put out
but he will never acknowledge that I exist.
I have always had a tangible touch of Nyctophobia,
that fear of the dark which can eat me alive.
why must we survive without light, just darkness
running everywhere over all things
clasping all of our dreams in its ragged hands
We are dead to the world and all the things in it
A death that comes absolutely
let us pray for release from its hold.
I know that the sun can crush the darkness,
and we ignore its rays, and warmth and light and
the gift of the new day.
the day, the new day, maybe my last day, maybe not,
we are not born into our world.
We just get up.
we died when the night creeped into our lives,
And the morning means that we have been reborn.
And we just get up.
The night destroyed our lives, and the day is the miracle
That we all ignore
Miracle of miracles, we rise in the light every day.
and we stupidly take it for granted.

The Thirty-Year-Old Eulogy

Death came too fast for him.
He was a proud person with oceans
Of talents, words, and loves.
The cancer was in his tongue, and
It had a life of its own.
Logic, my heart, and my love for him
Were standing by, hoping to help the doctors.
To say to think to pray to hope against hope
That this death would not happen
Or be put off or be forgotten or lost
In the rush of our lives.
We do not want to be slaves to fate.
But we are slaves to the truth.
The truth after thirty years is the same
Every day, every passing day, every passing
Moment.
He died, and I lost a large part of who I was.
He has returned to the dust that made him
To the inert particles that were him.
And that is why thirty years means nothing
Thirty years are just a blink of my eye
And my dust continues to walk, talk, and live.
The truth, that truth that we know every day is that
To dust we shall return.
And pretending that we are not the miracle that
He was, that I am, that you are, and we all are.
Our dust does not let us know that truth.
He was a miracle, and after thirty years,
After decades, after hundreds of years,
After those thousands of years, we are
And shall remain animated dust.
I miss him, and I have learned from him.

We are here to help people

We are here to help people get to the other side.

Important work.

Starts immediately, and we do not know it

Which is okay

Okay every day.

And especially in those last days

That touch, that moment in knowledge or suspicion

Is with us every day, and we will not admit it.

I am not here.

I am not here

She is here, but cannot talk.
They say she can hear.
So even though I am not here,
I can sing to her some simple songs.
I am not here, because I left last night
Left her alone, and said that I would
See her in the morning.
They never said that she might die.
They never even suggested it.
I talked to her on the phone and
she did not know who I was.
I could have, should have, would have
If I had thought about it’
jumped into my car and drove to be with her.
I told them that I would be there the next morning.
They called me a four thirty AM on a phone
That she and I did not use, and asked me to call
Kayla.
I found that message three weeks later.
Three weeks after she was dead.
They do not want to answer my questions
About why I was called.
Why was I allowed to leave?
Why did she have to die without me there?
So, as she died that morning after a pulse
Every ten minutes,
I was not here.

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The loss of our muse is something that confuses

The loss of our muse is something that confuses and confounds.
Without our muse or muses, we have no one to talk to at night.
We have no voice to clear the cacophony of human existence.
Filled with the cries of so many of our own identities that we have and own and run to when we are scared.
The bully, the pleader, the lover, the loser, the smart one, and the not too smart one.
An existence that is much too cluttered with too many inside, and oceans outside.
There are for us too many people, too many memories, too many deaths, too many trials and tribulations to hear anything
Anything anywhere anytime.
It is he, she, or it, the muse, who comes with dainty steps, no stamping or marching.
With a soft and quiet voice that is more like an aura than an
Actual voice, more like a candle lit and burning
With no troubles from our storms.
The muse is the small set of windshield wipers that let us see,
Lets us risk and write, lets us give to the world
All the love that we can muster,
and then they are gone.

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They left their thoughts somewhere behind themselves

They left their thoughts somewhere behind themselves                                                               For they were in a tear to find the cause of the ruckus around the corners of their homes.
They were all running for dear life, for a sound had over whelmed all of them,
Every person living in that neighborhood.
The sound was not an explosion, or gun fire, or even yelling.
No, people described as a big sound, but more like a giant
And almost endless exhilaration of some gigantic breath,
More like a wind from a hurricane, and but not as dangerous.
It was more like an exhalation of a vast quantity of air.
Even as they ran in the direction of the sound, they could
All feel wind or current blowing them from where they were going.
From where they were trying get to with unbridled enthusiasm.
The air blowing them back, only strong enough to raise their hair, blow off hats and lift some skirts.
And, then, in the park at the center of the town.                                                                                    They could see the trees all being blown, too.
Not harshly, more like a large invisible caress.
There no cars moving on the streets.   They were just filled with
People who had chosen to chase after something that they could only sense, and sense throughout their bodies, a kind of a little electrical shock coursing through their veins,
Then, as they reached the middle of the park, the blowing suddenly slowed down a bit after bit, until there was no wind at all.
The people gathered where they thought that they had seen a giant something, but whatever it was, it was now gone.
The people were mystified, a little angry, they knew that something had pulled them out of their homes and their cars and, in a sense, dragged them like lambs to the slaughter.
No slaughter here…Nothing, but then, they saw words etched into side of the large rock outcropping.
“We have given the truth by having you learn and know the power of your breath, and it is your breath alone that makes life,
From that moment on, the people stopped a lot just to listen to each other breathe. People stopped driving cars so much, and learned to listen better.
For years and years, the mad dash a human existence was changed throughout the world.
Listening for each other’s breath brought an end to so much hatred, scorn and poverty.
And when they had passed their last breaths, they knew that they had been protected all of their lives.
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The end of a day that was great

The end of a day that was great.
Yes, much has been done, and work has
Been accomplished.
This old fellow did all the work needed, and
Then I have to wait to get paid my hundred dollars.
Funny idea in a poem,
No real content or feelings or truths,
and little or nothing to rhyme or chime!
Nope, just another day when my work is done.
They handed me two hundred and fifty dollars cash.
I know that this may not be much to anyone reading this,
But for this guy, it was manna from heaven.
An appreciation of what I worked at today–
Yes, a modern day miracle in this rat-race where I live.

_I wonder sometimes who I am

I wonder sometimes who I am
No, I mean it, because, the magic of life,
It’s that, I am sure I am not here all of the time
You see, when we all started, we were babies.
What did we know about magic, or truth, or yes or no.
Those were the great walls between us and growing up!
The magic, is of course, something we learn to!
When we hear the truth, we listen and think.
When we learn yes, we are happy, and we are a happy person.
Then when we learn no, we have our angry time,
And we become angry persons.
The magic is that each feeling makes us different.
Get up, feel good. Ordered to bed. Angry time.
The great magic is that every minute we slide through of these feelings all the time.
The thing to do is to talk to each of the you, that
You have inside.
Then you will know for most, almost all your life,
You will never change those feelings that you learned,
You child is forever in charge forever.
That is the joy and tragedy of life.

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Let us admit it, we live in moments, not days

Let us admit it, we live in moments, not days
Not years, not decades.
Not all moments are the same, of course.
Some are quick, and others linger and linger.
We remember all sorts of moments
The graduations, the babies being born, the weddings,
the birthdays that really meant something
Maybe waiting between moments is all we really have,
We live on a horizontal line, going day to day from one day
To the next, looking down
The long lines of days ahead of us.
Then there is that once in lifetime moment that
Stands vertically straight up and straight down.
If it were in a painting, that vertical line would cut the
painting in half.
Everything on the left would be old, and everything on the right would be gold, jewels, diamonds, and all the riches of the world that you will ever need, ever want, or ever ever ask for again.
She wanted her picture taken with Santa and her friend.
I was happy to oblige.
Then there was her hand on my back, I assume to steady herself, I am not sure.
When a person meets the love of his life to have and to hold,
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health
To love and cherish
To love and cherish
To love and cherish
To love and cherish
till death……makes you know that we will never part.
No, never, and I will remember my Santa moment with her forever

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What are we going to do about snowstorms?

My goodness, what are we going to do about snowstorms?
We can watch them and try to count them.
We feel the deep pains of having our world die and freeze,
The loss of sunshine, singing birds, and rapturous walks around ponds and lakes.
We might even think that the falling snow is just plain boring.
But that is because you have not heard of Snowflake Bentley.
A hundred years ago, he figured how to photograph snowflakes.
And along the way he discovered an incredible truth,
One that touches all of us every minute we are alive.
He noticed without a doubt that none of the snowflakes looked the same….
The Buffalo Museum of Science has over six thousand of his photographs,
And they are all different….
And while we humans take hundreds of years and decades  to..
Find the right tribe to join, you know,
The one where we will be the most appreciated…
Is wrong,
No human is the same as another just like snowflakes, and
it is that search for tribes that will destroy humanity.

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Getting old is the theme for all the ages

Spenser sonnet form
ABABBCBCCDCDEE

Getting old is the theme for all the ages
In days like this, you’ll learn what to expect
In most advice that you will hear from sages
There are some words that you must neglect.
For now please hear the words you won’t respect
“My age gives me the right to say I’m right”
“There are new things that you must now deflect”
They are so wrong, you’ll have to find new sight
For all my life t’was Bach played, you see.
Today it felt like it was all new to me.

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Crying hard is not good

Crying hard is not good
I can get lost in what I was doing
The tears drip over my clothes
And tears feel like streams running down my face.
I have never cried this hard before,
but it may be just the beginning
Three months dead and buried in the cemetery
down the street
I can visit her every day, so why does this crazy pain crying
take over.and will not subside?
Some say that I want to prove how much I loved her
But I know she knew and knows how much I care.
I do not even have a best guess.
The ritual of grieving is different for everyone,
I will make one guess.
I have loved and been loved, and made love’
Relied on love, prepared to love, so it filled my day.
And now the well shaken bottle of the best champagne ever made
does not want to mourn.
It is exploding.

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A Sonnet

A Spenserian Sonnet for a performance of 4′33″ (pronounced “four minutes, thirty-three seconds” or just “four thirty-three”) by John Cage  The piece has three movements, and none of the players make a sound!!

And once there was a time so fine and pure
That we in fear did not see it as real.
We stood in dark and oft could not endure
The art that comes suddenly and shall appear
If we can take the time to see or hear
Then why oh why are the keys not touched
Tell me how Cage can call this show real art
It’s now something that leaves us hushed.
We hear the trucks and cars which is not smart
John Cage is one for whom we have a grievance.
Because his notes were gone we had silence

John Cage wrote silent pieces so the audience would discover the miracle of the sounds in the world.

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Poems May not Always be Poems 

 In Elaine, Arkansas, at least two hundred and seventy died    In Tulsa, Oklahoma, over three hundred died.                                                                                                         Three Tulsa cemeteries have clear a
Tulsa Race Massacre: Exhumation of Oaklawn mass grave expected to begin in June

Poems may not always be poems,

They might be prayers.

And where have I been?

The  words written over the years did nothing,

 just adding to the avalanche of truth that does nothingWhere did I go so wrong

I have concluded that there is no  American truth.

We outlawed slavery, but corporations have slaves work all over the world.

American prisons turn profits for American corporations

My father, who has died, stopped a young person from

joining our Scout troop, because the boy’s father worked nights.

No, they were black.

I have taken people of color to banks for loans, and what was said would not pass anyone’s definition of courtesy.
More than three thousand people attended the burning of Sam Hose in Eighteen ninety nine.
Have we changed?
Our Father, wherever thou are be honored by thy name.
When will your kingdom and your will be done
On earth as it is claimed in heaven?
Find a way to give the world their daily bread,
And forgive our many, many sins, selfish acts, arrogance, and crimes
And we will try to forgive those who have sinned against, our brothers and sisters,
And stop the endless bedlam of modern media hypnotism,
And please release us from complacency, procrastination, and our ignoring the truth which is the source of the power of the evil ones here on earth.
For the kingdom and the power and the glory are yours forever,
And bring us to know how we can create a new world for all humans on earth.

Amen.

This poem was inspired by another part of Wendell Berry’s poem, How to Write a Poem.  Here is the link to the whole poem:
“…Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places….” 

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What can I write with these small words?

“….Make the best you can of  it.

Of the little word that come

out of the silence, like prayers

prayed back to the one who prays

make a poem that does not disturb

the silence from which it came…”:

Closing stanza from HOW TO BE A POET  (to remind myself)

By Wendell Berry “https://www.poetryfoundation.org/p  oetrymagazine/poems/41087/how-to-be  -a-poet”>

What shall I write about with these small

What shall I write about with these small words
coming out of the silence?

Maybe there is no silence because the trucks and

cars that go by have their own rhythm of coming and going.

Here and gone in seconds, and then silence again.
Oh, there are the hushed clicks of the clock
and the hum of the refrigerator—not really sounds,
but they do break the silence.
We know that silence can be deafening

when a person breathes their last breath
which I could not really hear, or when my car stopped skidding against the wall.
Silence is the golden slice of nothing around things that
come before and after the things which can be so large,
like the act of dying, or the surviving a crash, or, as

in this case, the writing of a poem prayed well

enough to go back to the one who prayed first.

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You cannot capture the miracles in our lives.

You cannot capture the miracles in our lives.
They are there, and sometimes we see and feel them.
Then, there are those miracles that happen to us
And through us and have a life of their own.
They are the miracles over which we have no control.
I met the girl one year, and fell for her faster than a train.
She had the shape of the lady meant to send ships into the sea,
The cheeks of a child, the lips that opened just the way that an eloquent queen opens theirs.
Her voice was like the pouring ice water over a dehydrated man, maybe me, and would just make me explode.
I should have called her. I should have found her phone number,
I could have followed her anywhere she walked.
But she was gone.
One year, another year, and the third, and my capricious desires
Had lives of their own.
The miracle was that I found her again, and after all the years,
I asked her out. She said yes.
She and I are together in every way possible, and it’s been sixteen years.
Who says that miracles cannot be captured?
I hope you find all of your miracles as well.

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A Survivor Tries to Grow up

Things do not have to be personal.
Losing something like a wallet or a coat proves that we are not perfect.
And when we find them, our worlds return to being whole.
Completed for the moment.
All gaps are closed.
For the moment,
Then, there is the problem of those memories,
The ride in that old car, the bringing us to a hitch-hiker’s rest area….empty except for us.
It took a while, but soon she would be dead, buried, and wrapped in a white blanket tied with a yellow cord.
Someone remembered reading about a body being found in Tonica Illinois in nineteen fifty four.
Still, so many memories.

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Title: The Vows for a New World I

Inspired by The Desiderate by Max Ehrmann

I take thee, earnest reader, to be my muse for now.
You are my human for seconds, and can hold these

words from this day forward for better, and better and better.
They will travel with you in sickness and in health and richer in

spirit and comprehension.
Love and cherish these words, because they will change you forever.
For your death will not end these words or change them in any way.

After death, these words will be with you, your children and their children,

and their children.  These words are the words that wish you trust, loyalty, kindness,

and bravery that you can take to your heart.
There is no continuity for humans in this world.

Every day is more than just a new day, it is a new beginning,

and so enter each day with the bravery to believe in yourself and your dreams.
We humans are the only creatures on earth who can make symbols for their world.

Pick good ones, make dreams, and make them come true.

Be loyal to yourself and others. Love is the core of the world.

Winning does not exist.

We are walking talking mammals, and that requires,

demands, kindness for every human.
For every human, rich, poor, healthy, unhealthy, and all races.

Listen not to the rages of contemporary life.

Nothing is so right as you, and your loyalty to the truth.
Stay close to your kindness side,

your self-side and not be swept away by false words.
I pledge to thee my faith in you and your humanity.
Love first, ask questions later.

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Divine Treasure Youth Poem

 “…Youth, divine treasure,
you are leaving now to never return!
When I want to cry, I don’t cry
and sometimes I cry without wanting to…”
– by Ruben Dario\

Ruben Dario was wrong in big ways.
The nights came with anticipation, love,
Carnal attractions and actions

This was the treasure of youth.
To have, to lose, to build, to destroy
To run and not be caught.
To run and be caught often and painfully.
To cry with or without a reason
Who cared?
I didn’t.
I was the little king, the loved prince, the conqueror.
And sometimes the idiot, the careless one.
The big boss of my child’s world one minute
And then the crushed leaf under footsteps.
Yes, it was all a divine treasure, and I loved and hated every minute of it.
The years pass by, and there is a little secret that no one will tell you.

The exquisite joys, the hours in pleasure as an adult.
The births, the deaths, Paul at fourteen, Great Uncle Rudolph at eighty-nine,
And my mom at eighty-nine and dad at seventy eight.
Lost, gone, and missed, and missed, missed.
But there is this.

Ruben cries out for his lost treasure,

His lost loves, his missing satisfaction with his life,
His past and his determined future.

I know that I have reached that place of regret

On a scale that you cannot comprehend.
But there is a secret.

My rage is no different from a tantrum that
I had in those treasured youthful days.

Tantrums have been and will always be in the content and character of youth

The secret is

My tantrums prove that I never grew up.
Most of my rage through all of my life or the pains

I have felt they prove I am a child.
That the divine treasure lives within us every day of our lives.
Our ability to get away from it is impossible.
Youth, the divine treasure, is with us every minute.
And that makes it a curse and a gift.

A poem lives or dies on comprehension

A poem lives or dies on comprehension
Even though Sylvia Plath’s poems are incomprehensible
And miracle of miracles, that makes her great.
Sorry but the edges of comprehension can be muddled.
Maybe we should tell the truth
Poems live or die just like people.
The dead poem and the dead person have a lot in common
Neither are ever truly comprehended as planned
But then there is a chance that the poem might live forever.

Knowing things can be good,

Knowing things can be good,
And it’s good knowing things that can make the world stand on its head.
My Grandfather, Uncle Fred, and me were sitting on chairs in the little yard and driveway.
Knowing what you see might not always be reliable,
.Uncle Fred called it a day even though it was as bright as summer day can get.
He started to go into the garage to get up the second floor,
And Grandfather suggested that he hold up and wait,
He should wait for what might happen.
My Uncle loved my grandfather, but he did not take him seriously,
So, off he went,
I loved talking with Grandpa, and when night came he told us to “make with the lights” with a German accent.
He told me to sit on my chair about fifteen feet from where he was sitting
We sat, saying nothing.  It lasted a long time,
A bird fell out of the tree between us.  It sat, moved his wings, and then shot off like a rocket,
“That’s good one, Marc.” Later, not seconds, another bird fell or jumped and landed.  He then shook his wings, and he shot off like a rocket.
“Whoops, there goes another one!” Grandpa was ecstatic.
How did he know that the birds were going to fly today?
How could he know?
“There goes another one!”  I heard six times!  “There goes another one” as they jumped just like clockwork.
I have never seen anything like it, and Grandpa was just as delighted as that little boy that I was then.
The falling birds stopped falling or jumping! I was amazed.
My grandfather had planted a garden there every summer since he moved into that house fifty years ago.
Had he watched the birds every summer?

Does that explain it?
I think not, for he knew what he knew because he knew it.
Knowing things can make the world stand on its head.

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My little son did not come into this world easily

My son did not come into this world easily.
And there was nothing that we could do about it.
Delivering him on the first day of September seemed beautiful.
Mom had had some deep pains, first son had almost no pain.
Second sons should definitely be easier.
We went through the labor, and we moved in the operating room
And I felt like I was floating next to a giant canoe, with
Mom on board.
In the old days, husbands, partners, or even close friends were not allowed to be in the delivery room…..nope, gotta sit outside.
Now that had changed.
Contractions were coming on a regular basis, and we were all happy and carefree.
We thought that we would be through this event quite quickly,
Then, he could not get his head through the birth canal.
His little head was in a bad place or was just too large,
This was not going to easy. They would have to cut.
I knew that it was bad as they took me by the arms and escorted out of the room.
My God, My God, My God, My God, My God, My God
My God
The nurse said something about cardinal movements of labor
And, then, as I made it to the door, the forceps were raised about her body.
Not small ones, either.
The minutes passed like a great stone pendulum was swinging over my head.
Why was it taking so long?
“You can come in now” the nurse said, and after what seemed like ages.
Our little fellow was not very little after all.
Alive, breathing, and I think some small screams, and they
Moved him into a box with blankets and heat lamps to keep
Him warm.
He’s thirty-five now, and a fine man he is, and does not
Need his mom or his dad.
We never made a point of explaining to him that he came close to dying when he was born, and we never will.

The Spring Picnic

They heard about it from their neighbors, and they were excited.
The minister at the church let it be known to his parishioners about the big event.
Moms made lunches, Dads got their carts ready, and over a thousand people would come by train.
And every one wanted to make sure that there would be a whole day of fun.
Some dressed up, and others just came, and they all wanted to look their finest for the newspaper photographers
That Sunday morning, the churches were stuffed because they all wanted to get blessed before the big event.
At about noon, the fires had started, and every family could cook what they brought.
Later, there would be games, races, and foolish folderol.
As the afternoon came on, there was in intensity in the air that was palpable,
Maybe a few judges and mayors would be there to make it all seem official.
Which, if you think about, it was, at least in the minds of the over two thousand people who arrived that day.
In time, and after the marksmanship contests, the star of the event arrived, riding on Mr. Crawford’s new wagon.
.Everything had come together, and there were only a few details to go through.
First, the star had to be relieved of his “rocks”, and that always took some time. His fingers and ears were displaced
Then, the man hung and his body was covered with kerosene, and
They lit him on fire.

Love is the Every Only God ee cummings

…love is the every only god who spoke this earth so glad and big
even a thing all small and sad man, may his mighty briefness dig
for love…       by  ee cummings

I never knew that it would be a good idea to dig for love.
It was something that I never had to do, and two
weddings, flew by.
Never had to dig for love, ‘cause everything was easy
Then the silence comes, and the wondering and dreaming
And hoping but not really digging.
Then I met her.  She came up, and rested her hand on my back for a photograph, and her boots were great,
Yes, my digging started on the spot.
No lollygagging here.
Odd, but we met at the next yearly event, but I was still scared.  It was that third year, when I asked her if we could have coffee after the event!\
She said yes,
Love is the every only god
Sixteen years went by in seconds, and she got sick, and passed away.
I had returned to my work of silence, things happen.
One morning, while in bed,. I heard her say that I had to get up.
This was not a quiet quiver.  No, it was her voice just as I had always heard it.
I actually stood up and walked around the room.
Then, I thought I could see her, but it was always something else or someone else.
I was shocked, and then it happened again, and again and again, and I learned that love makes a permanent bridge in our hearts,
And no matter what happened she was with me, and I was with her.

Thanks to Brett Whitmore for his help in writing this poem.  He is here on Allpoetry.com ______________________________________________________

This will be a putting of my metaphorical toe into the water.

This will be a putting of my metaphorical toe into the water.
Not fair not to give it a thought.
Toe first, and my god is that water cold.
You can do it they screamed thinking that he really could.
He had never swam in a high Sierra lake, but this
Made everybody happy, especially his father,
The Scoutmaster.
Here was his chance to get his second very odd son
To prove that he was just as good as all the other boys.
He would spend his time acting in plays, doing magic shows, doing puppet shows, play bad piano, and sing out of key all of the time,
This second son, though, lived every day with fear that would rise and  fall.
He coughed a lot, too, with no diagnosis except,
Maybe pressure from school and Scout achievements,
And his shows, and jokes, and he’s a great emcee.
You know that he is very bright
But not bright enough to change his dad’s vision of him.
No doubt a fool and trouble maker, always.
We should honor him with the name of Fast Talker,
They did and laughed a lot at him, lots of chuckles.
And puppets, and anything that would keep him on the stage…
no matter where that stage was…..worked for years.
The metaphorical toe is no longer here.
Neither is the lake.
He stood, and stood, and stood, and then he turned around and walked
Away from the shore.
When men reach their late forties, memories of abuse can come.
Men have nervous breakdowns, and get very depressed.
This Scoutmaster had abused that odd second son, who had watched him    abuse and kill children,
And all his adult life he had lived with fear.

____________________________________________________

Listening is much harder than we want to admit

Listening is much harder than we want to admit,
Because the subtle nuances of language get lost.
Unless, of course, the instinctive need for protection
Blocks our ears, and then all we hear is the mess.
He would have one or two Manhattans every night,
And then he would have cheap wine with dinner,
And if we reached that point, his aperitif would be brandy
We did not get to the brandy often.
Because I would say something that made him mad,
And that made my mother defend me, and then
He would scream as if he was ready to kill someone.
Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t.
“Janet!” at the top of his unquenchable rage.
She would leave the table, and leave him, me and my brother
Alone.
Yes, if you can protect yourself from those nuanced words,
Do it.

Why can we not know the facts of our lives?

Why can we not know the facts of our lives?
Yes, we learned some facts, but
We forgot them.
We all heard the warnings, and we should
Have remembered them.
Are we forgetful, or are we forgotten?
Are we in doubt when no one wants to know
What we think?
Are we out of love when our loved ones die?
No, we just need to learn a new set of the facts of life.
__________________________________________________________

The speed of light makes us see ourselves twice.

The speed of light makes us see ourselves twice.
Twice and maybe more, as long as we can fly
In front of the light.
Funny, too, we never actually see anything.
No, we sense the reflected light that is there
It is coming from somewhere else.
Funny, too, that we do not hear anything                                                          cause all that sound is just vibrations.
And when we touch, there is no touching, those atoms are “fuzzy quantum probability clouds”
Taste, is just the collision of atoms in our palettes.
Smell is just another complex collision of atoms.
No light, we see nothing, and no vibrations, we hear nothing, no stimulus we taste nothing, smell nothing.
We are the most complex and successful mechanical delight.
With all these nothings, we sure do a lot.
No patent on us. We are that creature who surpasses all who have come before us.
We are that miracle that makes our own heat, electricity, and much, much more.
So the next you see a homeless person, know that this one great treasure of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell is being squandered.
And the value of our humanity drops every second.

https://wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2013/04/16/do-atoms-ever-actually-touch-each-other.

___________________________________________________________________________________________

No words can make the nothing said here make sense

There are diners that serve great food
at great prices and with lots and lots of care.
Chuck, Kim, Scott, and all who work there know
our names, and know what we like to order.
No one would ever argue or fight at the Liberty Lunch
No ruckus, please, and we all keep our seats,
Make sure that the next customer will enjoy eating here
As much as we do. The wieners are famous.
The coffee is terrific. the service is great.
The omelets are the best.
The smiles that you get from that Liberty Lunch crew
Will stay with you for the rest of the day.
And maybe, just maybe, there is something that we
all know about, but you may not have heard:
To sit in liberty with friends without the crush of life
To be free to share and pass the time of day
With that fellow next to you,
Has a much greater wallop than anything you think.
For us, the liberty of Liberty Lunch means that
We are with familyNo, silence is just the consequence of not being here
But you are, because your speaking and my listening
Should not be over.
Then why do I hear you say that  it’s time to get up,
Or why do I think that you are just in  our bedroom, having gone to bed early, and I will be with you soon.
Yes, they say, speaking for themselves, that you are in a better place, and that I will be with you soon.
But  this silence of not speaking or hearing you  speaking unless its from that  disembodied  you, the angel that you were and now you are.
And in the silence of no words there are the crashing waves, the tsunami of terror that crushes me and I cry.
Sleep well, my princess forever and forever.

I asked if I could hold her in my arms

I asked if I could hold her in my arms.
The nurse came back and said no.
I asked the chaplain if she could get a cold compress for Fran.
I put it on her forehead.
They say that the last sense to go is hearing
So, I sang and talked to her and held her hand
And thought so much about what treasure the world was losing.
They were checking to see if she still had a pulse.
Yes, there was one, and after waiting
There was another.
Then, exactly any eleven fifteen, they said
That she had had no more pulses.
She had had no more pulse.

——————————————————————————

For Fran

She lived in my heart for nineteen years
And I lived in her heart for sixteen years, for it me took three years to have the courage to ask her out.
In age, we were twenty-two years apart.
Nineteen, twenty-two, sixteen years, only seconds in our time.
When she went to sleep, she would put her head on my chest.
When she went to sleep, she would put her head on my stomach.
When she went to sleep, she would put her head on my hip.
If I turned over, she would put her head in the gap between
my hip and my shoulder.
Then she would drop her head down to my back.
Then, she would snuggle, and slowly push me out of our bed.

I cannot sleep when someone or anyone is touching me.
Touch aversion.  Yes, from something long ago,
so very long ago.
I was hurt, and I carry that hurt with me every day.
She told me that I was her wolf coming out of the forest,
And I was that scruffy, confused, and dazed wolf.
She mended my wounds, brushed my fur, and I was safe in  her grasp.
She was a miracle worker, an angel, and a forever light in my life.
And I made sure that she could sleep with her head anywhere she wanted to.
She had earned the right to sleep anywhere.
She slept mostly on my chest in those years that were seconds      going by like lightning.
I will hold her forever and ever.
I will make sure that she can sleep with her head anywhere she wants.
The seconds of our life together are gone now, and I can only hold    her in my thoughts.
I still can talk to her, to love her, and rest on my folding chair next to where she lies now.
She will live in my heart forever and ever.

You cannot capture the miracles in our lives.

You cannot capture the miracles in our lives.
They are there, and sometimes we see and feel them.
Then, there are those miracles that happen to us
And through us and have a life of their own.
They are the miracles over which we have no control.
I met the girl one year, and fell for her faster than a train.
She had the shape of the lady meant to send ships into the sea,
The cheeks of a child, the lips that opened just the way that an eloquent queen opens theirs.
Her voice was like the pouring ice water over a dehydrated man, maybe me, and would just make me explode.
I should have called her. I should have found her phone number,
I could have followed her anywhere she walked.
But she was gone.
One year, another year, and the third, and my capricious desires
Had lives of their own.
The miracle was that I found her again, and after all the years,
I asked her out. She said yes.
She and I are together in every way possible, and it’s been sixteen years.
Who says that miracles cannot be captured?
I hope you find all of your miracles as well.

____________________________________________________________________________

Words upon a  Page        for Anne R.

Words upon a page
Sweeping left to right
Can only suggest that heaven
Is in sight.
It’s not somewhere after.
It’s not somewhere not seen.
It’s the world that was made
When YOU came upon the scene.
I know that it’s audacious,
I know that it could be heresy,
But your Birthday shall
Be a saint’s day
And shouted without shame
By anyone who knows you
But most of all by those of us
Blessed to know you well,
And gifts we will need no more
Knowing you are there.
For heaven opened it gates one time
To let you run amongst us here
Where Angels seldom tread.

William Blake is Dead
Mr. Blake is dead, and so is his tiger.
At least the one he saw in that forest.
‘Cause the one burning in the forests is eternal
For he burns, and burns, and burns everywhere.
He burns if you see him or not.
He burns inside and out and up and down.
His sinews, tendons, bones and muscles burn
Eternally
You may not believe it but they do
Just like that lamb, that man there, and that woman
Like all that were made by the eternal and inexplicable
Hands of the inexplicable Master created by the
Imagination of old Bill, the now very dead Bill Blake.
Like truth…..like freedom…like equality…like justice
To come from the desolate new world,
The new world that Bill held in the highest esteem
The highest hopes and dreams and prayers
Possible for his and our future.
But Bill is really dead, and so are his dreams and his words,
His very excellent ideas about what we tigers need.
What we deserve and what we have lost.
No, that new world is dead, and Bill feels lucky that
You have left his truths out of our world,
And his words have become pulverized dust.

The Suicides Completed their Suicides
The suicides completed their suicides
With a belt around their neck
With a rope in a closet in Europe
With a jacket tied to a tree
With whatever would meet their needs
To end, to stop, to cease, to put to rest
All those screaming meanies of self hatred
Errors and failures and the endless guilt
From the abuse that someone intended,
The injuries that made our lives worthless.
There were those thousands of days when we knew that
Today would be a good day to die
Just like the indomitable Worf, who
Always knew when death was close, said.
Not by his own hand but by the enemies’ phaser.
Where and when we complete this thing will vary
Very much, but thousands of us will complete this
Step this year.
Not me.
No, not me.
No, I cannot let my father win.

COMMENT: Suicidal ideation is a burden and a battle worth fighting.

The Sheet
She said that I had put the sheet over my face.
I was asleep, so I did not actually put the sheet over my face
Though my face was covered while I laid on my back.
A sheet covered my face, and I had put it there without
Knowing it, nor why, nor when, nor to what purpose.
There will be a time when someone will put a sheet
Over my face.
I might try to do it, but I am sure in my denial of the coming event,
I would never pull the sheet over my face.
I would let someone else do it when that time comes.
Today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next year? a decade hence?
We do not think about it.
Yet, it is the one thing that we deny always and forever.
Why else would we watch the same movie six times?
Play fantasy sports? Stay on our phones for hours?
That way, we deny, we deny, we deny, we deny the coming
Sheet over our faces.
death…the sheet over our faces

Walking Passed the Dead and Dying
Walking passed the dead and dying
I wonder where I am.
Nothing seems to move, but the cries are loud.
The moans have a life of their own.
Pitch is not a problem, for bedlam must be near.
The wire fences drip with children’s blood.
The worshippers have not even finished their prayers.
“Let’s all shop at Walmart” some of them said
Before the white man shot and shot and shot.
Walking passed the dead and dying
And far away I hear movies play or maybe televisions.
I hear the massive cheers from the arena where
The almost dying have not found the truth.
I could not see, but I could hear the laughter of the
Moneyed enjoying themselves, such protected lives.
My god, my god, my god…….no, no, no, no….
That’s the top of the statue of liberty
That I see while walking past the dead and dying.

Cyrano loved Roxanne, too
Cyrano loved Roxanne, too
Much more than the soldier,
But his nose, his proboscis, his
Pinocchio projection, his embarrassing
Emblem of being an unacceptable man,
a buffoon, a loquacious living joke
was all that he could see….was all that he could see.
I, too, loved you when we were young.
I was too ashamed, too scared, too much in awe
To even ask you out.
Cyrano recites a poem when near death,
And Roxanne learns that she has loved one man
And lost him twice….lost him twice…
I have met you again, decades later, and my
Dear Roxanne, my dream and untouchable beauty,
Know that I do not want to lose you again.
Meeting a friend from fifty years ago.

The Dark Fist
The dark fist is not seen, nor is it understood
Nor is it obvious, downright damn invisible.
With all the people marching
Though we do not march as much as before
Though we do not march as much as before
The marching is in our memories our  imaginations
The marching is near the gun in the synagogue.
Nothing there, nothing there, nothing that means anything
to us, no, no, no, no
Then the three thousand children stolen from their parents
Crying out in silence from chain linked cribs.
The fist don’t care, never will, never.
and when the time comes to America,
we will know it is here, always,
for the decades that we denied,
No, nothing here, nothing here

The Lightning
He said “You are the lightning rod with the
power, peace, glory, love, and passion that
surpasses all understanding:”
He was looking through the large window
placed above the minister’s podium.

Heresy

I am the lightning rod for the power,
peace, glory, love, and passion that
surpasses all understanding.

“Heretic”, he said

The world needs more lightning rods with
power, peace, glory, love, and passion
that surpasses all understanding.

Leave, or I will call the police
Leave, or I will call the policE

 There is One Last Note          In memoriam of Eugene Grace, May 2003

There is one last note
At the close of any day
In the darkness or twilight
Of just any day.
There is the toast, the ending toast
By the hearth, and by the fire
In the ending of our day.

Farewell, and goodnight

We say them often and
Understand them little
And feel them even less,
And yet we say them
Still we repeat them
Until we are hoarse.

They are the last notes
And we dearly love them, too,
Though not sure why,
No more or less than the love
We bear those who have passed our way.

May the goodness of good and
The safety of safe hands
Caress you wherever you are,
May the twilight shine in you and through you
And in standing or lying
In living or dying
May this light be the reflection
Of eternity in you.

Good night, my love.
My sweet, sweet love.

The Four O’Clocks by My House 

The four o’clocks by my house
Bloomed late today
Late today, they bloomed.
Where are the flowers today?
She asks as only daughters can.
They are sleeping, they are resting
They will bloom at four o’clock
At four o’clock they will bloom

But why Daddy, why only at four o’clock?

I do not know, and that is the truth
Four o’clocks bloom at four
Sometimes three
Sometimes earlier,
And sometimes later.
They bloom, though, they bloom,

And have bloomed for the past twenty years
At this time like all time
Like no time special
And no time noticed

But bloom just the same
They do.
I depend on the four o’clocks
To bloom every year
I trust that they will bloom
That they will bloom.

The Green Leaf in Winter 2003                          

The green leaf in winter is not hard to find                                                                                  They are all over the evergreens everywhere you look                                                                No, those are not leaves, those are needles                                                                              Then what about all the plants living inside our                                                                   Beautifully decorated homes?                                                                                                        They have leaves of green                                                                                                                 Yes, yes they do.                                                                                                                                    So, why is the Green Leaf in Winter such a big deal?                                                                  ‘Cause in this bushman’s land where lottman                                                                           Was king Where sinking hopes are the hallmark of the day                                                                  This winter’s day                                                                                                                             This Holy Day‘Cause in this the land of the born-again nazis                                                                                                                                                                                                                You are the one and only Green leaf of Winter

You are the only Green Leaf In Winter                                                                                                    You, yes you, and no one else                                                                                                 Are and forever shall be theThe Green Leaf in Winter                                                                   The one green leaf that can endure                                                                                              The flames of race hatred                                                                                                             The flames of Jesus is my hero                                                                                                  And I will kick their butt                                                                                                          Flames that have burned and burned and burned                                                                          And burned and burned                                                                                                                     But shall burn no more                                                                                                               They shall not burn                                                                                                                               The fresh, the bright                                                                                                                                    The unburnable Green Leaf of Winter                                                                                          And you, you precious organically                                                                                            Grown leaf, will make America America again

I am the White-Faced Clown

Jamestown Bridge, Jamestown, RI Site of many suicides

A 23rd Psalm An interpretation

The Lord is my Shepherd,
He gives me EVERYTHING that I need
Though I do not always know it,
Nor am I always aware of his many blessings
He forces me to sleep every night
In the green pastures of memory and dreams.
He leads my life next to the
Deep and still waters of His love,
And I shall follow His lead.
He restores my soul to health.
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
And love that He has shown me in His name.
While I know that I walk in the shadow of death every day,
I will fear nothing, for He is with me, around me, below me,
And within me.
His sword, His shield, His rod, and His staff will
Protect me and comfort me even when I feel no comfort.
He has given me my life, my banquet, to be lived
Amongst all people—my enemies and my friends
He has poured the oil of His love over my body,
And it pours and pours and pours
Even if I cannot feel it all of the time.
Surely, goodness and love and mercy follow me
Every day, every moment, every second of my life,
And I live in His house, in His love, now and long before now
And tomorrow and tomorrow, and forever, and forever.

Amen

As I lay down with the three thousand

As I lay down with the three thousand,

I am lost in a sea of hands and arms

Waving from their prone positioned bodies

As if we are one large floor aerobic class

All of us straining to reach, to hold, to reach

And grab the sky that we can never reach.

As I lay down with the three thousand

My heart breaks a million times

My tears fill the oceans, and the pain is unbearable.

But I have not died

I have not given the last full measure of devotion

I have not consecrated this ground

The zero ground where

What was is nothing and everything now

This zero ground muted in silence

In what could have been and would have been

And definitely what should have been

For the children the wives the husbands

The lovers the friends the acquaintances

The fellow-workers the grandparents 

The grandchildren the cousins the aunts 

The brothers and the sisters the

Two hundred and eighty million

Fellow following Americans

Fellow confused and lost

Two hundred and eighty million

If we are not lying down with the three thousand,

Then where are we?

I do not know,

But I lie down with the three thousand

And I cannot be anywhere else

Anywhere where to be there is wrong

Where being what you are is wrong

Where someone has decided my fate

By my address

My skin color

My language

My religion

My land

My crops

My rubber plants

Where someone decided that my tribe

Was expendable, so “Exterminate the brutes”

And ninety million die with me.

Be Manchurian, Korean or Chinese

And another Thirty million die.

Be Jewish, Gypsy, Christian, Slav, 

Democrat, or “different”

And ten million of us die….

I lie down with the three thousand

And my tears fill the oceans January 2003

Take Your Time                                                           This is from a school shooting in                                                                                                 in Jonesboro, Arkansas in 1998

Take your time reading this opening
(At least twenty seconds)
Good luck
One, two, three, four, five, six,
Seven, eight, nine, ten,
Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen,
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
Eighteen, nineteen, twenty—

Twenty seconds, more or less.
Time for forty shots
Maybe more, maybe less
Twenty-seven hits
Five dead, ten wounded

Two shooters, one a trained killer with an
Error-free deer rifle.
The other a sexually confused bully.
Both babies—both babies
Ambulances
Police cars
Lives ended
Lives altered
Lives changed

Am I one of the dead?
Am I one of the shooters?
Where are we in this picture?
This scene?

Nowhere?  Everywhere?

Someone of us was hurt, always hurt.
Some people died, and we will forget them
Now like so many before
But for one time, for this time
Or my time, and your time,
This time, and time and again and again.

Take your time
(Yes, take your sweet time)

To Remember
Natalie Brooks, Paige Ann Herring,
Stephanie Johnson, Brittany Varner,
Shannon Wright

Who hurts so much that they must hurt?

The pedophile, the rapist, the baby-faced killers.
This is a day that ends all days
This is a day that ends all time
For some, for many,
You be the chooser.

In this sand we call time
Where there is no real sand, no real grains
I want to draw a line
I want a line drawn in this sand.
No, it’s not the Millennium that counts
No, it’s not the first or second coming either

It’s five corpses
In just another day in March

A Consuming Passion

I don’t remember the last time

I ate my television

Then again, my microwave

Does not have any bites taken out of it,

And I wonder what kind of

Indigestion my washer, dryer or refrigerator

Might give me.

Oh my God

What a consumer am I!

I consume books, and rugs

And shoes and socks and stuff

And stuff and stuff and stuff

But the only stuff that satisfies me is food, 

‘cause that’s the only stuff I consume

Yeah, that’s right.

I cannot consume a television or a microwave

Or a car or a pair of pants or a hat.

No, I can only and this is the point

I can only buy them, damn it.

Why consume?  Why consumer?

Where did that shit come from?

Easy, easy, easy it’s easy

If you’re consuming, then you ain’t buying.

We need to consume, but we don’t need to buy.

If you’re consuming, then you ain’t spending.

And spending, my lads and lassies,

Takes money, dough, scratch, jack,

Bucks, cash, simoleons, whatever you call it!

So, if we are consumers, then we are not spenders.

If we are not spenders, then we ain’t buyers.

We are and forever shall be the needers,

The Jones chasers, the marks, the catch,

The prey, the trapped, abused and injured.

The misled unwise materially minded

Snafu sons and daughters of America.

We are what they say we are

And we don’t know it

And won’t accept it

And we are high and mightily free of sin

Why, we are just consumers

We never sold out

We get our stuff at the best prices

The best stuff at the best prices.

No, we are and forever shall be

The gasoline in the American engine– 

The American Way of Life–

The great crowd of needers

And keepers and consumers

And we never will sell out!

We don’t buy toys made by slave

Laborers from China

No cee dee ever entered my house

On the labor of ten cents an hour

No, never knew about it.

Never noticed it.

Never heard about it.

Never cared and never will.

I will forever be a consumer

She works fourteen hours a day.

She is only fourteen years old.

She makes, if you can use that word,

Twenty-five cents a day.

She will never go to school

Or find a life in this lifetime

And, yes, her flesh is in my child’s toys

And, yes, it will be consumed.

The Landlord Blows His Horn 

The landlord blows his horn

And triples my rent with a smile,

And I quiver and shake inside

Rage and fear and terror

And despair and regret and loathing

And confusion and resolve

Resolve?

The times they are a’changing

And this time is no different from

All the other times

All the other horn blowers

All the other I’ll-be-there-if-you-need-me’s

All the other bad luckers, dumb luckers,

Cursed, and malicious hucksters.

Hucksters of my heart and of my soul

Sellers of all that is dear to me 

Ruthless coin changers of my reality

Resolve?

Yes, the blessings are here.

I can see them, and no

Hornblowing bastard is going to 

Take them away from me.

For Martin 

I have been to the mountain top.

I have been to the mountain top,

And I have seen the promised land

I have been to the mountain top, 

and I have seen the promised land

I have been to the mountain top

And I have stood alone 

And I have seen the promised land

I have been to the mountain top alone

Alone

And alone again

And the promised land sits

Spread out before me

A vast forest beyond where my eyes can see

More verdant than the richest spring

Filled with light

And mist and the most 

Beautiful flotsam and jetsam

Mine eyes have ever seen.

I stand and I see the promised land

And I am alone.

I am alone

But for you.

For Angela in November

There is no time like this time
But we always remember the last time
And looking forward to the next time
Without being in this time because
This time is so slim, so out of whack.
It has no dimension, no depth, no sense
Until it is no longer this time, but becomes
The last time
Watching out for the next time

When in the depth

Of wherever we really live 

We know that this time
Was the right time
Was the fine time
Was the best time
Was the bright light
Juxtaposed to nothing

But only in and of itself
In its whole time
Precious beyond words
Soft beyond touch
And gone before words
Can capture it in time.

The Clasps on the Clasped Box                                                                                 …………………………………………..For the newborn darling Alice B.Bilodeau

The clasps on the clasped box,

Clasp hard and fast, clasp smooth

So invisible so clean, invisible

The red velvet hides their tenacious hold

On the top of the clasped box.

On its runners racing through the night

Racing through the winter forest of life

And you and I hide

Hide inside the clasped silent box 

Racing through the snow drifts and 

Angular winter trees of the dark forest of life,

And inside we are safe and naked and together,

And touching and safe and never touched

Never touched by the outside winter

Of the forest of life

We are safe and return again and again to our clasped 

Box on its fine runners racing through the

Dark Night of the Winter of the Forest of life

Racing seamlessly and silently and 

We sit inside safe and safe and safe

Then the clasped box with its invisible clasps

Slows suddenly down

It hurtles out of the winter of the forest of life

And out of the snowdrifts and the silent dead trees

And suddenly

As if in slow motion 

We—

We are tossed into the verdant meadow of

The new sun, and the new brightness

And the fresh smells of spring and

The ground thawing all around our clasped box

And the clasps are no more

And the silence is broken by some bird’s call

And we are scared yet

Safe

We are scared and yet curious

We look to see what made the clasps break

We look to find why the clasps,

The invisible clasps vanished.

Why the velvet box is now open

And upturned

And sitting in that new meadow

And we see 

And we know

And her name is Alice

The Greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

The greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Went to jail today.

The man who was the greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Went to jail today

A short fellow in jeans and a denim shirt went to jail today

And so many, so many cheered and cheered and cheered

But I do not cheer

I do not dedicate myself to hatred or suffering,

And I wonder why he went alone

He was the greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Without a doubt without question without a quibble.

He took what was the armpit that lay

Between New York and Boston

And made it into the Renaissance City,

Made into the city that we love and value

And love and praise and adore.

The man who was the greatest Mayor of the City

Of Providence made his city, our city, adorable.

And I adore him for it.

And I wonder why he went alone.

Maybe, he forced people to buy his good will

Maybe, he got uncontrollably angry when the

Snoots on the east side would not let him into their club

Maybe just maybe, he showed his arrogance

His ego his imperial nature more often than not.

When his people went out to speak for him,

His first question was “How often did they say my name?”

Evil, right?

Evil, right?

Evil, no, not evil

Just small-minded and lonely and cut off

From who he was as a man

You see, this man who was the greatest

Mayor of the City of Providence

Was Providence.

There never was and there never could be

Any separation.

There is and was not a good side and an evil 

Side to this short man who was the greatest

Mayor of the City of Providence

There was just him, the wizard of words and dreams.

He was, and forever shall be, our buddy.

When he called you forth, and asked you

To pay one hundred twenty five dollars

Four times a year, so you could keep your job, 

Get that contract, get that bid, you did it

Along with a thousand others

Who complained then?  

Were people fired who did not buy tickets?

Maybe.

Did you get a contract if you bought tickets?

Sure

But those who did not, got contracts too.

So, we bought those tickets

We drank that wine

And toasted 

The greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Over and over and over again

But, he went to jail with just one friend,

And he is alone today.

Alone

Being alone for the greatest Mayor of the

City of Providence

Must be very hard.

Our buddy, who was also the greatest impromptu

Speaker we ever heard

Whose wit, wisdom, and speed of thought

Was electric and electrifying.

The man we toasted as the 

Greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Still went alone to jail today.

And I wonder where those thousand are now?

Those who paid and paid and benefited

And benefited and benefited.

Where are those thousands?

No, I know that laws were violated

Yes, I know a criminal must be caught

And sent to jail

But if I could I would drive down

And plant myself in his cell to serve a day for him

To serve a week or a month or a year

For him

Because he was the Greatest Mayor of the City of Providence

Who knew long before any of us that

We could have and be such a great City

He was our visionary whose eyes saw our future

And made it real.

And, for that,

My heart is broken

For the man who went to jail today

For the short man with the jeans and denim shirt

Who went to jail today.

February 2003

For Angela in December

She is no one that I know well
And no one that I think I will know,
But somewhere between here and there
And from never will I write
To I will only write for you

I found her

I only know and in knowing I am safe
I am safe in knowing that I found her
I will not ask why because that is too obvious

To write

She will wonder and wander amongst
The idea of being so important
And never suggesting for one second that
It was possible or was anything that she wanted

To write or be written to

But there are people in my life who have
Shaped me and made me and taught me
And warned me and hated me and loved me
But none, not, and this is the odd thing,
The tremendously odd thing,
The thing that makes no sense,

Not one has set me free
To be free and to be safe.

She is no one that I know well
And no one that I think I will know

For Angela in January

They asked me why I wrote
Or why I could write
Or where did I find it in me to write,
And the answer is not easy, nor
Is it that difficult.

You see, I was lucky to be at the door
Not knowing that I was banging to get in
Not knowing that out was where I did not want to be
Not knowing anything but the day ahead
And the frightening night behind
The sleep filled depressed days
And the sleep deprived sweat tossed nights
The frightening dreams of what was to be
Or what had to be or what had been.

Not knowing that I was pounding on the door.
Not knowing that I could ever trust again
Or that feelings have lives of their own.

Till time brought me my muse 

Who brought me out of the dark
Emailed me through the wires

Called it forth

Called me forth

So that telling her made the difference
Between silence and life itself
Telling her was what let me in

Telling her made sense 

In a senseless world.

To feel and write and be
And become to trust
Are risks worth taking.

Feel greatly, then write
Love greatly, then write
Let the words just be
Bumps on the road.

Pebbles beneath your feet

Left behind while you fly January 2003

She Asks Why I Have To Fight

She asks why I have to fight

And she means it

As if it makes sense to ignore

That which cannot be ignored,

And how many times must we ignore

That which cannot be ignored.

But why, why me?

She really wants to know

She really does not understand

Why one person with one placard

Stands alone in front of a massive

School building

While everyone else is getting ready to 

Celebrate the New Year

Celebrate the New Year

Stop embarrassing your son

He will never talk to you again

He will be lost to you forever

No, she does not want to know 

Why I fight

She just wants me to stop

She wants me to stop

For his sake

For the damage that I do to him

For the growing gulf and chasm between us.

Kumbaya is no joke

We shall overcome is no cliché

I was bashed and beaten, and I fought back

And I will fight back for anyone anywhere

Who, bashed and beaten, deserves a better road

A better path

A safer way

So, no I am not fighting,

I am just carrying a lantern

That has been carried for centuries before me

And most of all I carry it for my son.

I Never Had to Shoot My Dog 

I never had to shoot my dog

I never had to look into his crazed face

Knowing that he no longer knew who I was.

Never had to do what was right

When it was wrong and someone else 

Should have done it

I never had to wonder why my Mother

Told me to do it, because she could have called 

Animal rescue, the police, or anyone else

Who had experience to shoot my dog.

Maybe they would not have shot him.

Maybe, just maybe, they would have taken

Him somewhere where I would not have 

Known and I would have been told that

He was dead.

No, for sure, I never had to shoot my dog

And I hope I never will.

I hope that the child who had to

Do this thing 

In the swing of life

Which brought death where

Life was new and fresh and sweet

And bright.

When being twelve meant something.

No, anyone could have shot their dog

And I guess anyone has shot their dog

But that anyone was too young

And someone else should have shot his dog

I would love to have shot his dog for him.

I would gladly have done that

For I am older and wiser

And, yes, I would have shot my dog.

I Grabbed Life by the Scruff of His Neck

I grabbed life by the scruff of his neck

And threw him out of the front door onto the porch.

From there I laid into to him with a full kick

Launching him out onto the grass

And left him rolling towards the sidewalk.

I slammed the door shut 

And shouted let the party begin.

That bastard won’t bother me anymore

And my thousand friends cheered and cackled

Laughed and guffawed and whimpered and wailed

And life appeared at the back door

Disguised as a homeless man begging for food.

Have no fear, self-doubt and self-recrimination

Toe kicked him in the groin doubling him over,

So you could hear the crack of the oak kitchen door 

On his head like an ax splitting firewood.

He tried to come down the chimney with presents,

But I bricked up the fireplace.

He tried to jump in through a window with his

Eight candles ablaze,

But my windows are sealed tight

With ice cold steel plate two inches thick.

No one was going to ruin this party

My throne sat on a three-foot high dais

Covered with blood red roses

Over rich red carpet.

Whores were brought for me

Just for me

They were safety and security and fear

And terror and rage and vengeance

But I could not perform

I could not perform

So a noose was thrown around my neck

Dropped from the high ceiling above

And before I knew why, I was leaving the ground

Strangling and swinging and strangling

And grabbing

But my hands were not strong enough

My hands were not strong enough

The demon green envy shoved my legs

So now my swinging was a full pendulum

A god damned dialectic of death

At my own party

At my own celebration.

Metaphors suck.

For surely I would discover a knife

No, a sword to cut myself free

To leap to bound to blast my way free

From there I would with grenades

Blast the window and doors open

Blast all the darkness from the room

Blast until the light and life itself return!

But that’s the problem

With metaphors;

They are just metaphors

Crazy Lady 

My mother croaks like a frog, but

Her voice is much higher, much less confident.

Given the right circumstance, she cries 

Voluminous tears spilling down

Her face onto her blouse soaking every bit of cloth.

Her eyes, half opened or half closed,

Struggling to see what isn’t here or there—

Her voice not finding the words that used to come so easily.

Suddenly “Greenwich Village” is lost in a desperate

Searching for syllables, for memories

For words to say, to croak, to grab 

And I cry inside 

Since her Corvallis, her Palo Alto, her Greenwich Village

Are gone, dust over some wasted stretch of Oregonian soil 

Gentrified into a suburban gold mine

Made safe by Giuliani’s goons.

Paris Texas, without the reunion

Without the tension, without the passion or interest.

She is lost, and I cannot find her

I am lost and she cannot find me

Pity

I would be dead without her

I would have crashed my car at 120 miles per hour.

Fell from some giant ladder

Or just hung from the rafters of my basement.

I should be dead some will say

And just make my Mommy croak and cry 

There is nothing there, really,

Chemicals, electricity, a beating heart

That saved my life from him.

Him who made the heaven and earth shake with rage

And damnation and hell fire and loathing

And touching and grabbing 

And killing…yes, and killing…

Now three thousand miles keep me away from the 

One who made me safe when no safety was possible

And she

Cries voluminous tears spilling down

Her face and onto her blouse

Soaking her to the bone. 

To Karen, With Love

I am the wealthiest man in the world, and you should know it.

I have nine dollars in the bank and six dollars in my pocket.

They turned off my gas.

They turned off my telephone.

They turned off my electricity.

And still

I am the wealthiest man in the world, And you know it.

The glass is not half empty, nor half full.

Maybe it is full, but the milk is sour.

Maybe it’s empty because someone drank it dry.

Maybe it’s full but wet on the outside,

So when I go to drink it,

It snaps out of my hand into the floor

Smashing into a thousand pieces.

A catastrophe!

A calamity

A tragedy!

An ungodly mess and a half!

DON’T WALK INTO THIS KITCHEN

IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!

Still

I am the wealthiest man in the world, 

And you know it.

It started on a July morning in 1953.

He was over six feet tall.

He liked girls,

And he liked boys, too.

I mean, he liked to have sex with them…

Sex doesn’t really cover it, though.

It’s more like a blood-vessel-popping body-arousing

Mind-blowing auto-pilot groping machinery-in-sync

Ecstasy

That isn’t sex, though it looks like it…

An indescribably delicious and addictive Nirvana

Ripping through his body at twice the speed of light.

Compulsive, degenerative, over-powering

Evil

With a soul-bursting climax like none other 

If men like that still possess souls.

You were five.

You had blond hair.

You had been through it before.

You were bored and pissed.

He did me, too, remember?

Then something changed.

Guilt took over.

Guilt like a movie-alien-insect ripping at his jugular—

Pulling his chest apart—

Blood and pain so real he could taste it and touch it,

Screaming an endless scream into his head.

A palpable monster.

Kill the monster

Kill the guilt

Kill the monster

Kill the guilt

He picked you up by your neck.

Your arms spun around like a windmill.

Your legs kicked uselessly.

You screamed.

You knew something had gone horribly wrong.

Then silence… a deafening maddening silence.

He told me not to tell anyone, and I obeyed.

He buried you wrapped in a blanket, tied with a yellow cord.

Still

I am the wealthiest man in the world,

And you know it.

I can survive on water,

Bread and maple syrup sandwiches.

I can go five weeks without milk.

Still

I am the wealthiest man in the world

And you know it

And you made it so.

I survived.

I am alive,

And you are safe, so safe inside of me, now.

You will never have to suffer again.

You will never be raped again,

And you will live long past my death.

Because     now      they      know   you

and a million more.

Now, they have been there.

They have heard, and they have seen

What I only am escaped to tell them.

And I will tell them and tell them 

And tell them and tell them 

Until they are sick of hearing it.

For I am the wealthiest man in the world. 

And they know it.

I survived

And I will remember you, Karen,

I will remember you in the day when driving

When I would rather be dead than to have to remember.

I will remember you at night when the demons are loose.

Still

I am the wealthiest man in the world,

And you know it

Because I survived.  

And now

So shall your memory, your innocence,

Your pricelessness,

Your never-ending joy and bright eyes.

I don’t give a crap about some 30 million dollar priceless                               Dead man’s painting stolen to aggrandize some rich man’s name.

There was and will forever be only one you, Karen, 

One beloved precious child.

And that’s why

I am the wealthiest man in the world 

And we know it. May

Today is a Day for a Poem About Iraq

Suddenly Saddam is everywhere

But which one is Saddam?

They say there are at least eight

Surgically altered and surgically renewed

Men made

In the image of Saddam the Brute,

Saddam the Monster,

Saddam the King of all tyrants,

The Father of all wars,

The enemy among all enemies,

Walking around Iraq

At this very moment.

He and his eight look-alikes

Will be dead soon, though.

We will kill them, and

Many thousands of Iraqis.

You know it, and I know it.

I oppose the war

Because wars are

(As the high and mighty Frenchman

Says) no longer needed in the 

Modern world.

Innocents will die

Money will be wasted

Lives will be lost

And anyway, the American Anti-War Movement

Needs a good swift kick in the ass.

Now, we can all stand up,

Wave our banners

And decide that we are the good guys

The right guys

The so alive guys and gals

While those other people in other places

With different values will kill and be killed.

And I can go home with a clear, clean,

Holier-than-Thou sanctity of being

A peace marcher, nay, a peacemaker.

I can stand on my own high horse

And blow my trumpet

Since I am and was a pacifist

Years and years and lifetimes ago.

In the Palestinian refugee camps, 

If your son or daughter 

Wears explosives, and sets them

Off in Jerusalem very near to 

A large store, or a bus, or pizza parlor,

Saddam Hussein will give you twenty-five

Thousand American dollars—

A vast fortune in the refugee camps.

He dropped thirty-nine scud missiles 

On Israel ten years ago, 

And we stopped at the Kuwaiti border.

We stopped at the Kuwaiti border.

Today, what will he drop on Israel?

How many twenty-five K rewards will

He give out before we come crashing

Through his doors?

The born-again Christians know that

The end times are coming,

And the blood will flow in Israel

Many feet deep.

Any Jews that survive will convert

To Christianity.

A war with Iraq is a Win-win 

For these folks.

Many Jews die, and we win land and oil!

Yes, no, I do not know

War is an evil excuse for dominating the

Land that has the oil,

But Venezuela is in trouble

And it’s getting late.

SUVs are the American answer

To conservation,

And it is still getting late.

Where was everyone in November

Of two thousand and two?

We replaced a lecher with a walking

Talking hell razing fascist.

So, don’t talk about Iraq,

Tell me what has happened here in 

My land

My lovely land, my America, America!

Where were we then?

And, so many thousands will die.

Many thousands and thousands and thousands 

Will die and die, and it’s just high and mighty

To think that it will stop at Iraq.

American Idol is a Lynching in Disguise

American Idol is a lynching in disguise

It is the glorification of the individual candidate

The one hopeful enough to risk it all

At night with thousands watching

Naked among the contented and the smug 

The untested, the untried, the hangers-on

The viewers, the lookers, the neer-do-wells

And the most holy blessed the rich and poor

Alike.

Oh, you may think that the differences are many.

Lynchings were held during the day

Only one candidate, maybe two,

Picked so much at random but always

For a crime committed or not committed 

A thought thought, or not thought

Made up or not made up

To satisfy the powers that be

The powers that be

They made a lynching a Sunday picnic

With drinking’ and jokin’ and wearin’ the Sunday best

And the flirtin’ and the playin’ and the downright love-makin’

Of a country fair gone strangely weird

Lasting hours and hours

But still delightful and entertaining

Including the necessary disemboweling—not always done

And they laughed to see such a sight

And they knew their world was in order

They knew their place in the world

Dem black folks was at the bottom of the hill

Children not much higher

And ladies, well, days got no power at ‘tal

Otherwise how would we get away with dat ol’

Lynching anyway?

Kill blacks, hate blacks, and everybody else will
Know their place, love their place,

Defend their place, find comfort in their place

And remain in their place for decades, for generations

For eons……

American Idol is a lynching is disguise,

And now we vote the losers off.

I was Eighteen                                                           For Judy Collins

I was eighteen

She wore green velvet

Long green velvet

I was alone in the front row

I carried in my art supplies

My paint and my brushes

In a paper bag

For my puppets

She wore green velvet

And sang like green velvet

And climbed into my head

There to sit like a queen,

A goddess,

A raven-haired beauty. 

Of all that I wanted for the world.

I was alone

I was in the front row

I was only feet away from her

From what has been called

Her sweet blue eyes

Her crying eyes

Her pleading eyes

Her steadfast and resolute eyes

Art is not art unless it cuts you and makes you bleed

It makes you jump and sit up

Or makes you pledge your life to that

Which is the best of the best and the purest

Of the pure

And the holiest and the most sacred 

of what we are as humans.

I sat in the front row, 

and I saw the world in her

Sweet, sweet blue eyes.

Be Diligent If You Must

Be diligent if you must

Be hopeful when you can

Be beautiful when the mood sets

Be careful in danger

Be bold in pursuit of freedom

Know that all that you are

Is nothing to what you will become

And what you will become is

The serendipity of our lives

The bountiful chaos of chance and love

And loss and finding and leaving

And way taking

And trail making

Be loving if you can

Be Happy if you can

And always

Be diligent when you must

People Think the Ten Flags Outside My House are for Decoration

People think the ten flags outside my house are for decoration.

They think that I must love life enough to

Put bright blues and greens and yellows

Hanging from my house

That I must be some kind of audacious

Flamboyant individual

With a sense of abandon or bad taste

Since they are all plastic sewn together

So both sides are the same, and the words

Can only be read from one side.

They are wrong of course.

The flags came from discount stores closing

The poles from Christmas Tree Shops

And the holders from a large discount drug

Chain that decided on one night in March

Of two thousand to toss their

Holders in a bin in California

When I was there to wait for

My mother to die from pneumonia

And I bought flag holders, and art supplies

And templates, and pads, a ruler, and 

Some pencils and pens.

She said she wanted to draw,

So that’s why I got that stuff. 

I got my nephew two oversize statues

From Planet of the Apes,

And I got my niece a Rolling Stone picture book.

I got myself a new set of face paints, 

A pair of pants, a few used hats,

A new camera, and overdrew my 

Account

And I waited for my mother to die.

Fourteen days in intensive care

And god knows how old

Maybe eighty-three

Were we going to keep the apartment for

Another month or not?

Then it was over

She survived.

I went to the convalescent center

At two one morning because she would

Not take her pills or go to sleep

She definitely had no idea where she was,

But I did.

So, I got home.

I hung up the flags.

And there is not a moment that

Goes by that I am not aware that something

Is moving outside my windows.

From the edge of my eyes 

To the turn of my head,

I know something is moving out there.

So they are not and never were

And never will be decorations.

For Your Guest Book

For your guest book

I would not have guessed that a 

little poem
would sneak in,

But here it is big as life
light as a dove
To wish all things to you
that words cannot describe
But we find them and hold them
and mold them and are shaped by them
in love.

Thank God for Turtles

With flowers shaped on their backs,

Their four feet on the floor.

The Turtles move slowly

Always looking for more.

More sights, and more hope

More wind, sound, and scope.

They seem like lost aliens

Like they can’t even cope.

But look at their shells

And count every leaf,

In order to realize the prize

That they keep.

Year in and year out,

They out last us threefold

Like reptilian redwoods

They possess more life than we know.

And one fine Turtle

Known as Yertle, you see,

Taught us that freedom can 

Come with a sneeze.

So, no matter what troubles, toils, or stew

You encounter in life,

The turtle’s been there, too.

Walk slowly among the flowers

And gardens that life has for you.

Do things in your own time,

That’s what makes you you.

Steady and kindly you move through this life

And remember that God has given you 

A shell for all of your life:

His protection and care and love through and through.

And no matter how slow or how painful we move,

We have learned from the turtles, that slow is so true. 

The Wicked Witch of the East is not Dead

The wicked witch of the East is not dead.

She says she will divorce him

If he does not stop doing this and that.

She says she will divorce him

If he does not start doing this, that, and the other.

She says this once.

She says this twenty times

Over an eight month period.

Always my husband this

My husband that

My husband…my husband.

Then she invites me to their house.

She let’s me see him in action.

Over the telephone, she never 

Mentions “my husband” again, because

Now he has a name and the game is engaged.

I will not be allowed to make my own conclusions

About this that, the other, and the other

The lying

The boastful empty brained remarks,

The lies

The gratuitous claiming credit

For things he could never do

The ridiculous dances over suicides 

Of other deaths 

Of other’s failures 

Of the many shortcomings of others.

To add fuel to the fire, she has

Me work directly with him.

So, that is how I found myself

At my favorite supplier

Wondering why He, my husband, or

Any name you choose chose not

To phone in his card number.

Too busy?

Too important?

Too narcissistic?

Too stupid?

Heck, he never finished his senior year

At that fancy ivy league school.

Standing there, with just barely enough 

Cash to cover HIS purchase–

Left to hang out like a bum,

Because of him, my husband,

Made my nemesis by his master

Game playing wife,

The queen of the triangle

The witch of he said, she said.

I told you that because

I thought you were my friend.

Shouldn’t you be HIS friend first?

Leading me by my nose into

Obvious and permanent disaster,

It becomes clear that I am not alone

The road behind this couple is littered

With the bodies of those of who reached out to help

To be good listeners,

And then became wheat for their

Personal and malicious threshing machine.

Some alien said live long and prosper,

I say, I will bring a quick and immediate

End to your game playing business

Of combined lying deceit and arrogance.

Queen, your reign of terror is over,

Maybe I should sue.

Please release him, and me, and all

The others who have fallen under your sway.

The wicked witch of the East

Is definitely not dead

When Lies Become Truth and America Slumbers

We shall overcome

We shall overcome

We shall over come some day

Deep in my heart, I do believe

That we shall overcome some day

Folk Song

Resurrection Circus was the title of 

Peter Schumann’s Bread and Puppet

 Theater puppet plays

When lies become truth and America slumbers,

We are lost and bereft of truth.

Truth that stopped on a November afternoon,

That April morning, and that June evening.

Three shots, ten shots, twenty shots

God only knows, and they died.

They died, they died, and they died.

They were killed by marksman of the first quality,

The best of the best trained by the best

Centrally intelligent and

Federally investigative.

They were the ringers, the slouchers,

The greedy, and the well paid.

They killed them. 

They killed them, and

They maimed the truth as well.

They sent hope into hibernation

They killed our dreams,

And we have stood by and done nothing

For forty years.

Regain the past, they cried

Hover back to the old ways,

The wrong ways, the dead ways.

The rose felt crushed and expunged.

Collective good is now a dirty word.

Liberally taken choices may never be made again.

…And we sleep

We rest, and wait…

Truth is a packaged spun set of words

Like cotton candy spun and spun.

Lies, lies, and more lies.

And we sleep, and we rest.

We watch the woman stabbed to death.

We watch our young shoot each other

Drug each other and much, much worse…

And we rest…

There is and there has always been

A creeping lion coming to America…

A beast of grand dimensions

Maybe he is here all ready..

Maybe he, and his pride are here,

And we sleep with them…

Lies become truth and America slumbers, 

But know here and now that while we sleep

We rest…

We build…

We recover, and…

We resurrect…

We plan our resurrection circus.

America, America, America

Wake, wake, my child, my love

Our destiny, 

Wake, my love.

HE HOLDS ME IN HIS ARMS, AND I SLEEP 

“….You could pack up your sorrows.                                              And give them all to me.                                                                       You would lose them.                                                                           I know how to use them.                                                                     Give them all to me…”                                                                  Pack up your Sorrows by Richard Farina

He holds me in His arms, and I sleep.

I sleep and I rest and I am safe

I find the comfort that has escaped me for decades

I sleep and rest awake.

I am aware of what is and what is not.

There is a pebble, nay, a rock in my head.

It has been resting there for years, 

And now it has grown into something

Of which I must take notice

Take notice of a pebble, nay, a stone

Though not as hard as a stone

Not as heavy as a stone.

I wish I could pack up this

Stone and send it back to Him

Who holds me and makes me safe,

But He has given it to me,

And I actually thank Him for it,

Or Her or It or Them or They

Or maybe gravity and electricity—

Whatever that greater power is in my world.

He sat among the ribbons, and the lettered jacket

Nineteen, maybe twenty. No stone in is head

Just black, just dead and ignored.

Pebble, rock, stone, glob

Welcome to my world, or should I say

I now have been welcomed to your world.

Who or what is control here?

Why should I not be?

Why should you determine my future or lack of it?

Guess that’s the way the soul crumbles,

Like a pebble under the chariot’s wheel

Like the flower under the volcano’s ash

Burned, cindered, asunder, and crushed.

Fragmented, obliterated.

Not new, no not new

No, what did anybody expect?

Nobody lives forever.

The black boy in his coffin

Deceitfully sleeping peacefully

Should have lived till eighty 

If we had cared.

Nobody that visits this world

Gets a permanent visa

No, no, no, no

I didn’t, and I’m sure that it matters

And does not matter at the same time.

We are the expression of god in all of His

Or Her wonder.

We are but the spark of seventy years

If we are average,

Twenty years if we are black and grow up in the ghetto.

Maybe more, maybe less.

No one has a guarantee.

The only guarantee is to leave your mark

Leave you children

Leave your best effort

Know that three generations will pass 

Before anyone really knows why we walked here.

It takes three generations to make a person a person.

We are not living for ourselves.  

We are not living for our loved ones,

Though loved or hated we may be.

We are living in our terrible moments

For our futures.

To lose our futures is the real death.

To lose our past is the real sin.

To have a pebble in my brain

Is to wake up to a day 

That I have never seen before.

To wake up.

To see that morning has broken

Like the old hymn says,

And I say it, and say it, and say it.

In the glory of the universe there is you and me

There is right and wrong

There is living for the world

And living for our egos

There is always and shall always be 

The need to overcome.

Life is no light utterance.

It is no tale told by idiots.

We are great tragedians and great comedians.

We stand up, and we tell our jokes.

We live our dreams as best we can,

And all of this is good and holy.

The pebble in my brain is a gift of reality.

Reality greater than your laws and rules

Greater than the real fraud game shows.

A reality which I embrace,

I adore,

And I love.

To end, to leave, perchance to 

Leave a trail in this sandscape,

This hopeless and hapless world of

Power and death and killing

The pebble is in me

But 

We shall overcome

Hearts may break and be sacrificed

On the altars of our political shame

But 

We shall overcome

And me and Terrance will

Speak again like we shared,

Like we always shared,

And know that we shared 

Always the same coffin.

———————————————–

Mastery

Mastery

Confidence

Why does one get it and

Another does not?

Why does it take forty years to get it?

Do you know what you will

Get in forty years?

Are you ready to wait?

Are you incapable of waiting?

Do you want to be done fast?

Finished

Cooked, stewed

Served, and consumed.

Eaten by life alive.

So whence comest evil is not the question. 

Whence comest goodness and competence

and trustworthiness

And where in the world does it come from?

God?

Allah?
Jehovah?

Your sinews, your brain your muscle?

But I retired long ago

Retired from what, a job?

Guess life, too.

So you get the golf course

The three hours deciding what you 

Want to order at that fancy restaurant 

Which is owned by Coke or Marriott

Managed like a Disney Land site.

Mastery

Confidence

When, where and ultimately what is it?

Spending money

Buying stuff

Decorating your castle endlessly.

Playing the horses, the dogs, or the spread

Playing at being alive

Playing at being real

Held up by the crutch of excess

The crutch of too much money.

This is the curse of rich Americans

In the Amazon, a young boy

Can tell you how fall away the parrot

Is by listening to his call.

The members of the tribe know at an early

Age the names for all the trees, the plants, and the ferns.

What is to be trusted and what is to be avoided.

They have nothing–‘not even houses–

They are the victims of the sun and the rain

The wind and the beasts

The lack of water or too much water–

They can do nothing that we can do

No matter at what age

And yet, they buy nothing.

Mastery.  Confidence.  No doubt.

Afterward:

If you have any questions about these poems or would like to see new poems, send your email to me or please contact me.  I am new at this, and any and all comments are appreciated.

Marc Kohler

P.O. Box 16095

Rumford, RI 02916

401-286-2221

Email: marcwkohler@aol.com

Peace, Love and Freedom come first!

A Green Leaf in Winter

Poems by

Marc Kohler