Month: May 2020

May 31, 2020

WYNWOOD

They leap from the walls,
they are in your face as you approach.
You don’t know what to expect
and that is precisely how they wish it.
Still, you don’t tire of them, and you
don’t recoil, but stare more intently.
They engage you, defy you and welcome
in the same moment, and you
only want to follow them deep
within the cinder block, the plaster,
and take up residence alongside them,
and from afar, the mural artists smile.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 30, 2020

MESA MORNING

Out here, he warned,
you should always be on the lookout
for snakes by day, not that they
will go out of their way to attack you,
but stray into their territory
and the Western Diamondback
will give you a quick lesson in awareness.
They hide among the scrub sage
and in the arroyos, but you still
walk for this kind of beauty
demands your attention regardless.
And at night, he added,
don’t stray too far for the coyotes
wander freely looking for rabbits
and small game, and though you
would be too large a meal,
you’d still be worth a taste.
You are in their home, after all.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 29, 2020

DEMENTIA

He can remember it as though it was just yesterday. Actually it was just yesterday, but for him that had little to do with memory. Bits of his childhood would come flooding back: the city, the cousins who took him in for the few dollars his mother could offer. But his grandsons are a vague shadow, sometimes present, sometimes faded into the background. He ex-wife is ever present, and he clings to her, despite her death, wondering if they will get back together. I don’t want to tell him that his wish will require a firm belief by them both in a hereafter, and that neither of them was very good at directions in any event, so who knows where they will end up.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 28, 2020

KIKE

Third grade, religious school
kikes, us, then a backhand
raised, drawn, quickly dropped,
below a reddened face,
sleeve pulled up
145233 in black
between elbow and wrist
and a tear, perched
fearing to fall.
Never again, and nothing more,
later, same arm
ruffling hair, smoke
clinging to aging skin,
no older when he walked
in her arms into
infernos then smoke
rising slowly as he
labored, no more free
than on cattlecars
shivering in winter.
No hell to come,
never again, not Juden.
Mahogany doors
opened on oiled hinges
ancient scroll to be touched,
here is you, me, us, always
on Massada, in Vilnius.
Never again kikes,
dying only once.

First published in SNReview Vol. 9, No. 2  (2007)

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:

Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 27, 2020

FINALS

It was approaching the end
of another too long semester
and the sign-up sheet for office hours
was getting fuller with names
I didn’t recognize, or did and not
in a way that would please the student.
It was always like this, the two weeks
after it was too late to do anything,
when the pleading would begin.
I remember being in that position
almost fifty years ago, making my
supplication for relief of some kind
to a professor I had ignored all term,
and he, genial and gentle, taking out
pictures of the rice paddies
and saying to me, you stand
a far better chance in the Air Force.
There are no wars now that I can offer,
and so I tell them the bad news,
but add that Starbucks can
be a career of sorts, with benefits.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 26, 2020

SCRIVEN

“You know,” she said with a smile,
“that you are going straight
to the infernal regions when this
is over and done with, no doubt.”
“I can’t imagine,” he replied, “that
He who is all knowing and all powerful
would ever let that happen to me.”
“Be serious,” she added, “you know that
the nether world is replete
with scriveners of doggerel, it is
their natural home when they are done here.”
“But I’m a mere bard, a weaver of tales,”
he cried, “nothing more, nothing less.”
“Ah, yes,” she smirked, “but the road
to everlasting fire is paved
with cliches and euphemisms.”

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 25, 2020

WHERE WISDOM CANNOT REACH 正法眼蔵 語十七

The wealthy man
has an ornate cup,
the working man
a very simple one.
The poor farmer,
nurturing the tea plants,
has no cup and all,
but for each of them
the tea is the same.
What is it
that you taste?

A reflection on Case 57 of the Shobogenzo (Dogen’s True Dhama Eye)

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:

Bird-of-the-day.com 

 

May 24, 2020

CALLER

It’s Sunday, so I know, before long
I will have the nagging thought
that I should call my mother.
I’ve had this thought for years,
once acted upon it with regularity,
listened patiently for her weekly
list of things I needed to help her with,
since I never visited to do the work
with her standing over my shoulder.
I stopped the calls four years ago
because the dead make few demands,
and she didn’t bother to answer
except in the darkest hour
of my dreams.

May 23, 2020

WAITING GAME

He had been there for days
although he’d stopped counting
since it didn’t ultimately matter.
He would leave when
the time was right although
he had no idea how he would know
when that moment arrived.
Some things you do on faith
he assumed, and this
had to be one of those things.
He wasn’t sure why he came
but he knew he had to be there,
And he knew that the cave
provided him shelter and there
was an allegory hiding deeper in.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com 

May 22, 2020

PERSONIFICATION

The black cat walked by
the patio again today.
He won’t stop and engage
no matter how hard
I try to talk to him.
Some cats are haughty
and this one
clearly isn’t deaf.
Some say it is feral,
but it’s too well
groomed for that.
More likely it has spent
too much time with people.
The sort of arrogance
it shows has only one
source and, though we
hate to admit it, we
know that source all too well.

For Something Different, a new bird photo each day, visit my other blog:
Bird-of-the-day.com