Saturday, June 4, 2016

BIRD CLOCK
















My sleep is all wrong
even my dog can tell
when I walk her in the neighborhood twilight
she hurries me past the houses
and the birds hidden in the trees
trading their evening songs.
My dreams don't flow
except when I'm awake
and I see them as shadows on the lawns.

I slept too long to have a nap
but not enough for a night's sleep
and now it is near dark
it was the birds outside
hidden in the trees
that woke me
confused I did not hear their morning songs.
I wonder what will it take to fix my sleep
Maybe I need to tell time by the birds.

Monday, May 30, 2016

June Poems

Posting a wonderful crop of June poems. 


Free Information

Technologists say information wants to be free
Tyrants want information kept under lock and key
       
Information lives best in its natural habitat
running wild
in giant herds
like wildebeests
on the African Savannah

Who would want mass-produced
information from industrial information farms
rounded up and branded,
processed and packaged and
served with unknown ingredients?

We need free-range, organic information
allowed to grow and roam
unimpeded, uncorrupted.

That's the information for us.



Your Call Is Very Important to Us

I know they think
of little else but
my call.

So important
it can’t be
trusted to unreliable humans.    

Computer-generated
almost human
transmissions that deliver sincerity.

That’s the sound of
automated caring.


 

Growing Pains
 

Everything
is
smaller
screens
tweets
attention
except
information
now
unleashed.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

MONUMENT MAKERS





The monument makers
said they could match
the size and style
of my sister's tombstone
even though
it's been forty-five years since
they made the last one
for my grandmother.
But the hill in the back yard
of our old house shrank
to a slight gradient
Time can shrink
houses, trees and yards
but we can still
make our monuments the same size.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

CLOUDY DAYS




Because we cannot talk anymore
I send you a cloud
and in conversation
you send one back
Our talk could be anything
from sleek stratus in the morning
to a flotilla of billowing cumulous in the afternoon
My favorites
are on Saturdays
if the sky is blue
I like to start off with high-flying streaks of cirrus
and you answer at sunset
with impeccable timing
in red-orange nimbus
trimmed in gold.
I'm always watching the sky.

FLAT TIRE



 

FLAT TIRE

When your daughter gets a flat tire
at 10:30 on a Monday night
you get to grab a flashlight
and go out and press
your face into the pavement
into little pieces of gravel
and smell that cold pavement smell.

You thought you'd teach her to change
a flat but you never did
you send her home
with her mother in the other car
without the flat.

You fumble in the dark
with the untested jack
cranking your Japanese SUV into
the air by a few inches
pull the flat off the lugs
roll it onto the ground
and struggle
to align the good one
and twist the nuts on as tight
as possible with your hands
"Always use your hands before
you use a tool," your eighth grade Shop teacher
once said.

Two days later
you're still cleaning road grit
from the grooves of your fingers
which remind you
of the treads of tires.

Sunday, May 15, 2016

MOWING THE FIELDS OF THE REPUBLIC















I mow my lawn
 

in concentric squares 
shrinking green tufts

into a disappearing island
But no lawn is an island
why not past my boundaries
to the neighbor’s yard

I'll need to take time off from work

as I race up and down

suburban streets

connecting rivers of lawn
with the Capitol lawn,
New England town greens.
and Kentucky bluegrass
which requires a stately pace
 
to please pampered thoroughbreds.

In the midwest coliseums

100 yards are precisely coifed 

Is it any wonder artificial turf 
was abandoned 
and returned to grass and earth?
Where are the dreams in artificial turf?

My vast grid 
extends to summer lawns of memory
front yards of modest Ohio towns

and to graveyards of my grandparents.

I mow Little League fields
in diagonal textures
the kind you see on during the baseball highlights.

I'm left mowing in the dark

one giant island of the great republic

with rolling lawns
--from sea to shining sea.

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

TRASH DAY


Trash  Day


We know
it's trash day eve
when green and blue bins
picket the street
like sentries
posted curbside
to stand watch
through the night
until trash trucks
smash the dawn
and flip idiot lids
relieving us
of our discarded histories.

 

Sunday, January 31, 2016

New February Poems


 
A new batch of February poetry. Put in your nickle of attention pull the lever and see what whether you're rewarded with something you like... 
 
The Cost of Shadows

Even when we're not there
we leave lights on
like burning suns in space
because darkness
would dominate
better to fend off
mysteries
of Rembrandt shadows
and keep safe
with shinning sentries
until your father says
to an empty room
"what are we made of...money?!"
and flips the switch.

###
YELLOW BUBBLE MAILER


Picture 
 
Business yellow skin
lined with bubble guts 
on an international mission
of commerce to a customer in Berlin.

Special one-time emissary
proudly appended with postage and customs clearances
tossed on a belt
and dropped into a dark hold

Carried eastbound on a night time flight
arcing over the North Atlantic
intended for Deutsche Post's afternoon delivery
for a reader on Karl Krugger Street

Somewhere between here and there
an interception
yellow skin sliced length wise,
and contents emptied like a sturgeon gutted for roe

Months later
disgraced by pink and green stamps
a soiled yellow husk is returned
with a final message like a joke in bad taste

Received without Contents