Poems                 

Skydiving

Not for the lonesome eagle’s sake do we make    our way above the clouds. 

Nor to evade the time traps made

To press us into crowds.

For when wildly soaring high

We pass the earthbound eagle by

And cry our own new notions

    to the sun. 

                  1976

The Old Road

A long drive through dry country. 

I've been here before. 

Yonder, my boy, the two-lane 

 we took in 1963, 

      and the bridge where

Starkweather and Fugate felled their last victim. 

We looked for blood in the grass.

We shot at rabbits and hunted agates.

I see my father's fair pink face in the sun,

Thrust there by his relentless realim.

Roadside deer dead, legs up like sticks,

Bellies bloated without dignity

     gave a sharp smell of death.

There is the farmhouse where we dreamed 

           of living with horses 

and dogs in the yard. 

Where do smiling faces go? 

  Another smell of death.

I turn to my son 

  and all i can say is, "I've been here before," 

     and struggle to say more.

He looks at me with blank incomprehension.   I talk to my boy,

He talks to his toy.           

Will he notice, will he remember

       or feel gouged by a bore?

More coffee and ice cream 

      together toward home, 

      to country we both know,  

      up a driveway we own, 

And there             is the door

      i still have a key for. 

#1 

Curious of form 

   is the word fuck;

It starts like fun,

   ends like yuck. 

#3

The penis is a 

   sometime bone; 

Held as dubious 

   by woman,

Joy to man alone. 

Poem to Age

Let it go, leave it alone.

Sit back and feel 

    the sweet sun on your face, 

Feel the cool wind 

    in your hair; 

   if you still have any. 

Once you become geriatrical

 No need to be  theatrical.  

                              2015

Hunger is the Only Truth

How do we get along 

With all the people of the earth;

the people of the trees,

      the people of the seas

and those who stare from crannies with eyes 

full of hope, fear and action?

Have you ever noticed that everyone is edible?

We are all food. 

                           2018

The Word That

Makes small minded bigots feel bigger,

Makes drunk frat boys bark and swigger,

Makes me love more

the broken children. 

Go figger. 

                  2020