Post-Solstice Haiku #1

These blue ice crystals
Growing on my grizzled beard—
Obvious omens.

Senza Titolo

I see the bright birds
Arise from your mouth
Feathered in motley,
Gliding and singing
Between the day’s teeth,
Beaking, twittering
Staccato sonnets
Through the languaged air
Of our mortgaged cage.

December 28, 2009

This damned year lurches
Toward, finally,
Closure, cessation,
An end to counting
The days piling up,
Unopened letters
In an ignored box,
Key lost long ago
On the road to now.

Fable

Once within a withered time
There somewhat lived a tired man
Who counted his little losses
By piling up the lonely leaves
Clumped around the roots
Of some very rude old trees
Still growing despite all odds
Deep in the deep green heart
Of an odd and ancient wood.
When his losses grew too deep
The wild west wind rushed in
And scattered them to itself
Leaving only roots and silence.

To an Abused Wife, Almost Saved

And suddenly you just knew,
You knew how to save yourself,
What you’d need to do, the steps
You’d take. The process appeared
Before your sweet, swollen eyes
And you wept, just a little,
A trickle really, as you
Visualized a free life,
Devoid of complications.
You lay in your narrow bed
And smiled, then put it away.
You needed him more than you.

Christmas 2009

‘T’is the time of Capricorn—
A goat, like the Nordic goat
That frightened Finnish children

In the days of pagan dark.
The Swedish Gävle goat burned
Prematurely Tuesday night,

Black straw smoke lifting into
Cold Scandinavian skies.
Prank or ancient sacrifice—

Only Thor and Yahweh know,
And They don’t speak anymore,
Snug in Asgard and Heaven

Floating on myth and on faith.
Here in Oklahoma, snow
Freezes on the rural roads

And very few can get through
To the places they long for—
fir fires blazing in huge hearths

while luckier firs, adorned
in all festive finery,
stand tall, already dying.

Blizzard Conditions

blowing snow
all day long
obscuring
lonely roads
reminisce
all you want
this winter
will always
trump truant
memories
your blank face
in morning’s
bright sunlight
is reason
enough for
winter joy

meteorology

orange snow
sky hanging
low overhead
some say
eight inches
by morning
the wind
says nothing
no forecast
no expectations
only motion
the sole
logical response

Three Days Before Christmas

According to the legend,
A Mexican peasant girl
Too poor to leave Christ a gift
One long-ago Christmas eve
Prayed to the Holy Virgin,
Then on the altar left weeds
Which blossomed into beauty—
These glossy leaves, red and green—
The colors of the season.
I’m no peasant, but I’m poor.
I stretch myself on the floor
And pray for a miracle.

Gnostic #3

This solstice
Dark meets dark--
Slice of day
Like the wink
Of an eye.
The young think
They won’t die.

December 20

Orange crescent low in the sky
This last night before solstice—
And all thoughts are on Christmas,
Now less than a week away.
I’d love to offer the world
The gift of this orange moon,
But it’s busy with dying,
Called business-as-usual,
And none of that has a thing
To do with your shining eyes,
This eve before the shortest
Night of the rest of our lives.

Gnostic #2

Alone with
Disbelief,
The acrid,
Sulfur smell—
Protestant,
Postmodern,
Damned hipness.

Gnostic #1

We behold
Sky’s darkness,
Distant stars
Familiar
From childhood—
The last time
We saw them.

Winter Haiku #2

Old man sycamore
White against the winter sky:
Rising into dark.

Mao Mao Mao

A real, random possibility does exist
That the people will one day soon seize the power.
And then, they’ll scratch their scraggly, cold collective head,
Lacking a clue what it is that they want to do.
More than a few will round up someone new to shoot,
Cheering as their bloody, bloated corpses collapse
Into the dust of the glorious brave new world.
Others will immediately start to revolt—
After all, that’s what revolutionaries do.
Most will shrug and go on about their dire business,
Wondering just what that damned fuss was all about.
Me? I’ll be over in the corner—taking notes.

The Daylight Donut Shop in Tonkawa, Oklahoma

The old men cluster and cluck
On politics and weather
At an hour when I’m sleeping

And dreaming—always—of trains.
They’ve solved all of the world’s woes
By the time I’ve had coffee.

So when I stumble into
Their brightly-lit lair of talk,
All of the donuts are sold.

They stare in contempt at me,
Shifty village liberal
With my long hair, beard, earrings,

And the ones who know me smile
The toothy grin of the shark
As I take my coffee, beat

A harried, hasty retreat
Away from their rugged world
Of tractors, combines, and guns

Back to my books, my old books,
Waiting patiently for me
To load them aboard those trains.

On the First Monday of Winter Break

A dead starling lay
On the yellow grass
Just outside my door,
One fragile foot hooked
Toward the empty sky.

The unbroken glass
Feigned indifference,
Stuck with its steady
Task: solidity.
The cold wind blew on.

Beware clarity,
Eschew certainty—
A hard lesson, bird.

The Slow Slide into Melancholia

Nothing to say.
So, Beckett-like,
I fall silent,
And simply wait.
The sky remains.

12:01

Ceramic teapots, chickens, pigs--
knick-knacks on the shelf—
glitter in the midnight glow
from the refrigerator light:
spouts, beaks, snouted bacon
chilling on the China cabinet
containing no cups or plates.
Wineglass in your wan hand,
you ease the door closed,
watch that bright wedge
leap across the kitchen wall
one subtle, waltzing step
ahead of sweeping darkness.

Camouflage

No one important has come by today.
In fact, no one has come by at all.
The shadows in the desolate hall
Have been my lonely, only friends.
They fold themselves into memories
That lengthen with the falling dusk,
Fade moment by moment to nothing.

Which shadow, which memory
Would you presume to be?
Stand tall against the darkening wall—
Stretch your long limbs to their limits,
And slowly fold yourself well into me.

On the Paucity of Great Leaders

In those days giants walked the Earth—
So says the Good Book.
We see only their fading footprints.

These days, most of us seem small,
Shrunken, and cold.
We wander our worried minds

Like survivors of a disaster,
Huddling, grateful,
Yet filled with guilt and shame.

We hoard all save our money.
Love, compassion—
These we guard most jealously.

Let’s go find us some giants!
Grab a shovel,
A lantern, the list of ancient sites—

They must be somewhere near,
Long-buried,
Awaiting the appointed hour.

Who You?

Unmade clown face
Foggy in the mirror,
Bags sagging under
The weight of your eyes—
You have stories to tell,
But why, why dwell
On maimed memory’s lies
Always involving plunder,
Sex or death or fear or
The keeping in our place.

Another Celebratory Birthday Poem

And somehow the years crept across the screen
Without me noticing, despite the birthdays,
The anniversaries, the birthings and buryings,
The small and large losses tossed my way,
The undeserved progress, pitifully slow.
I awake in my fifty-first year an old man,
A cold man, snakes in place of my veins.

And none can know the time that’s left
For me, for you, for any of us. . .
The fat black bus accelerates
And we lunge for the lashing straps,
Reflexes dulled from repetition,
Arms moving as if underwater
Or six feet underground.

Lazy-Ass Father Confesses

I don’t know
What to give
Those I love
Save myself,
A poor, sad,
Meager gift.
I long to lift
The box lid
For them all
Christmas morn
And listen
For their breaths
Disappearing
Into awe.
I know them all
And love them all,
Yet I know not
What they want,
Nor how to grant
Their desires.
I offer only love,
My frail failure,
Wrapped with
A ragged bow.

Leaving San Francisco

Back to the real world,
Where everyone is white
And Baptist or Catholic
And fervently sure
Ronald Reagan was
another name for Jesus,
where the land’s as flat
as the people’s lives,
where marijuana’s not medicine
but crank and beer are,
where gay men and lesbians
stay in their places
and don’t shove their sex
into straight faces,
where those with certain eyes
are automatically Chinese
and work in restaurants
with rice and sweet-n-sour,
where those with brown skin
are automatically Mexicans
and dig ditches or make tacos
and somehow take away jobs
while also on welfare and
selling drugs and making babies
who’ll do the same damn same,
and God Bless the U.S.A.
as it bombs and kills the world
for not being Americans
and anyone who doesn’t like that
can just Love It or Leave It,
and everyone’s waiting
for the Rapture
but never experiencing it
when it’s all around,
like people occasionally do
in a few other places
which aren’t all San Francisco,
but, hey, you know, it’s One.

On the BART

The high morning blue
Plays peek-a-boo
Behind low gray clouds—
Just another day
On San Francisco bay.
Train rumbles underground
And all fades away,
And I might be in NYC,
But no one’s wearing black.
The stoned stare
Of the Hispanic kid
Across from me,
The Asian mother
With her triplets,
The hippie vagabond
In his broad-brimmed hat:
This is where it’s at
This cold December morn—
Another world waiting
To be born,
Just barely visible, playing
Gaily behind obscuring clouds.

The Photography Exhibit

In some, faces flicker
Like candle flames
When doors close.

In others—you know
Which ones—the doors
Are already closed.

You’ve never seen
These images before,
And yet you have.

They crawl like bugs
On the inside
Of your eyelids.

You badly want
To open the door
And let them out.

But you can’t
Take your eyes
Off of that one:

How did he know
You were coming
To see your life?

Pathetic Fallacy Tanka

No fog, only sun—
Shining San Francisco bay.
The water sparkles,
And my soul spins, pirouettes.
Some days the outward matters.

Winter Haiku #1

Summer’s forgotten,
A dim, distant memory—
Chill frost fills our lungs.

Statement of Fancy #2

Deep in a dream
Last night I knew
I was asleep.
My eyes rustled
Under the sheets,
Restless voyeurs.
From far upstream
I heard murmurs—
Monotone gods.