Dig It
Destined to climb
cliffs, walls, grottos,
towers, trees, and poles.
Discovering, exploring
hidey hole caves,
abandoned mines; hunters of
excitement and danger.
Excavators, trail blazers;
spelunker boys still alive want
to climb the stairs.
Come closer to me.
Look both ways.
Explore the Universe while you can.
Mind the gaps in the grottos for hidden treasure: the mysteries of the past.
Ginny-Ginny is Forever
I wish we were again
She, her; I, me, when
Somehow two were one,
All days and nights were special
When bedtime was large
with Daddy’s love.
I kissed her neck, repeating
Goodnight, g’night so fast, ginny-ginny
became our special time,
She’d laugh, then sleep.
Look both ways at special bonds of love,
for wanting to be better than we were,
for past moments that will never be forgotten.
Mind the gaps of imperfection in humanity.
***
“A daughter is the happy memories of the past, the joyful moments of the present, and the hope and promise of the future.” ~ Unknown
“Watching your daughter being collected by her date feels like handing over a million-dollar Stradivarius to a gorilla.” ~ Jim Bishop
Happy New Year, Dewey (Julie). ~ Me
shameful silence
early morning sounds
soft, in silent darkness
distracted by clichéd neon din
imprisoned without art,
terrified by evil’s truth.
Look both ways to see and to say.
Mind the gaps of paranoia while seeking better days.
Inspired by S&G’s hymn to resistance, The Sound of Silence.
An Old Dog Bit Me
My Dog was a big, ugly, fat fucker (BUFF),
boasting an un-pavonine but prominent
forty-eight-foot-tall tail
painted a horrid unreflective tar-black; likewise,
his underside, from empennage guns to radome nose.
Chemical odors inside mixed with piss and puke
fouled the air; noise enough to deafen,
disaster and destruction filled his big ebony belly.
On command, my camouflaged killer would ‘Cry Havoc;’
wreaking horrible death and terror onto the earth below.
Now, we haunt display grounds at air museums across the country.
Look both ways.
What you don’t see can kill.
Mind the gaps and don’t be a target.
Note: Allusion is to “Cry ‘Havoc!’, and let slip the dogs of war,” spoken by Mark Antony in Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of Shakespeare’s history play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar.
Egregiously Absurd
Smugglers
of humans seeking better lives, liberty, to taste
freedom, asking only workman’s wages.
They flee to us with wicked problems,
bringing constantly changing confusion,
due to undefinable inequalities of states.
By coercion or consent, trusting snakeheads,
coyotes, or polleros; at great cost and risk,
begging asylum from worse.
We pick them up, send them back;
our failed fences, blank walls.
WTF is beautiful about that?
Look both ways and “Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too.”
Mind the gaps on the high road of morality.
A Poet’s Niche at Night
I sit alone,
here in my nook
surrounded by dark night’s midst,
awakened by who knows what.
It’s not gloomy to me
in my shadowless gray nest,
with familiar walls tinted sepia
by computer screens,
And light from my
black plastic, ergonomic keyboard.
I like it dark without sounds
I couldn’t hear anyway, just midnight feels.
I like them, too.
As I think,
I write
this poem thingy
cuz that’s what poets do,
in the middle of the night.
Look both ways when you sit alone in the darkness.
Mind the gaps,
the things you hear,
the things you feel,
and especially those you don’t.
Over The Susquehanna River
From New York it winds
nine hundred mudlarkable shoreline miles
through the Chesapeake Bay to the Atlantic.
Unlike Billy Collins, I fished it,
caught carp, sucker, catfish, perch; swam
polluted waters; climbed and walked
bridges and trestles. I grubbed its mud.
Remember disasters. Before mountains rose.
The Susquehanna is in my blood.
Look both ways when the river flows.
Here it comes, there it goes.
Mind the gaps, the pits, the whirlpools, and vermin.
***
Poetic license: The Susquehanna River is 444 miles long from New York, flowing through the State of Pennsylvania (where I knew it) into the Chesapeake Bay. That’s 888 miles of shoreline. I rounded up. Disasters include the Knox Mine crime, Three Mile Island, pollution and environmental catastrophe on an epic scale, and many devastating floods.
A man named Hugh,
someone I thought I knew.
So, Hugh felt very blue
saddest man I ever knew.
He hated the Sioux, and he hated the Jew.
Hugh was a poo to be left in the loo.
Look both ways for you know who.
Mind the gaps in the view, they spoil the brew.
Timeless Reflections
For twenty-seven thousand days and nights
what you have seen is not all that ever was.
You see in me today’s truth, one perpetual now.
With one look I never judged anyone.
I reflected an eternal present
without darkness, forgiving the past,
each glimmer gone, days and nights
numbered and stacked
upon your tired shoulders.
Like ashes from wood burned
in past fires, days forgotten, names confused,
adjusted appearances, time
carefully dealt from fate’s shuffled deck,
one at a time until there was none.
Lines of life get clearer, youth
forgotten there, inside grandfather’s mirror.
Mirrors can’t look both ways.
The reflection they cast is only today.
Mind the gaps and fix the cracks, everyone has history.
Yearning for Old Broadway
The Empire State’s
wonderful people
of the city that never sleeps.
Coney Island, Manhattan,
Central Park, and the Brooklyn Bridge.
That tall building, George M!,
Lady Liberty, the Bronx,
‘the city so nice
they named it twice,’
Gotham,
Broadway Joe, the fucking Yankees
in the Big Apple.
Herald Square, Times Square.
How I want to be there.
Sadly, the day of many hearts
broken by hate.
I love New York!
Look both ways.
Take the Staten Island Ferry and the NYC Subway.
Mind the gap, as in watch your step in the City of Five Boroughs.
Our Literary Journey 