It can haunt you

They say “Watch out, don’t let your past come back to haunt you.”

But what if the fact that it is past,

Is a thing that tantalizes,

And taunts your review?

Imagine a past that lingered like that,

Way later and far after the fact.

The creak of a voice and a shimmering of light off glass.

So much to remember that never came to pass.

Stacks of Stuff

Stacks of stuff inundate our lives,

Bags of things, pictures, posts,

Sharp as knives,

Reasons to hold on,

Thoughts to let go,

Flooded with detritus,

From the get go.

Sucked into the past by the way things look,

Anyone can read us like an open faced book.

Piles of acts both missed and mundane,

Stress the weight,

We carry in over loaded brains.

Stacks of stuff,

Enough to start a new civilization,

All over again.

Super Man

The lesson is lost somewhere in a sliver of smile,
a winking laugh beckoning towards
more than a cliff
less than a while.
I’m left here in a telephone booth
with one leg stuck in Superman’s blue coverall.
When Lois Lane and you reach me in time to ask eternally, “Can he help?”
I shout “Yes!” (more or less)
“If someone will get me out of this damn phone stall.”

And that’s when the fun starts. Lois fogs my glasses with quick kisses
and your … hand … on my thigh is beyond relief.
“Wait!” I cry, and then it’s too late. I burst into the air as you and
Lois operate the gate.

“It’s Christ in suspenders with nails in his knees.”
a chorus reveals.
My laughter just peals and peels.

Mars and the stars . . .

Men, like the spurm they are,
spurt and spume
themselves into the vast
vagina of the universe
which waits, hot upon entry,
Until relativity cools them down.

Yellow Ribbons . . .

On the trees,
Yellow ribbons on their sleeves

But red is the blood
You spill in war
And colors are what
Dead eyes can see
No more.

So yellow ribbons
Wrap the trees while
Bombs blast the sand
To its knees

     And


Countries begin to sew
Yellow ribbons to the body bags,

Let yellow ribbons become

Refugee rags,

And remember that dead yellow

Eyes can not see their
Own toe tags.


This poem grew out of the frustrating realization that ending Vietnam, which is what we libs liked to think, hadn't meant we wouldn't have to face the same idiocy over and over again.  But here we are, a second Gulf War later, Homeland Securitied and 1984ed, and supposedly scared to death.

Stress and Strain

Here's my first rewrite.  This poem's origin is in the poet's reaction the first War in Iraq.  I'll post the original later.

Stress and Stain

Killing my brain
Leaves my train of thoughts tangled as twelve people

Dead in a confusion of crashed railroad cars,

Cabooses up, engine ends down.

No, yes, I can or think I could, toot-toot.

Just empty sounds of parts falling, echoing away
        like oil fire dust clouds in arid lands or
Blownup up Twin Towers.

Glad Roses . . .

I can fix sad roses . . ., she says

And her smile confirms
Like rain on the earth
That indeed sad roses
Is familiar turf.

But it’s not so easy
This task in my mind
The world with its roses
Is definitely blind.

They’re scentless you see
And sad for that reason
These roses I give
No matter the season.

So it isn’t the wilt from
Stem to the hilt
Nor the mad range of
Colors that drives me so sad.

But the lack of a scent
And the image it recalls
That hammers at my heart,
Raises my walls.

I can fix sad roses

Her smile supposes . . .

As she arrays them in a vase
Then turns and pauses
At the frown she can see
Is still on my face.

So she takes my hand and
Pulls me in a way
That suggests dancing
As we begin to sway.

And it’s then that my senses
Pick up the scent
Of timeless embraces
And memories well spent.

I can fix sad roses.
I can here her voice murmur . . .

And her smile is my smile
As we waltz down the aisle

And the laughter we hear
Is from a child at play

Or a family gathered
At the end of the day.

And the roses are real
Red, white, and yellow
And the music is moving
And her touch smooth and mellow.


And its night on our porch swing
In a light breeze
And the roses are shadows . . .
With a backdrop of trees.

Space . . .

Robert Ardrey posed the question for the ages
When he offered up his treatise on rats in cages.
As space recedes, said he, the pace of life leaves us no
Time to breathe, crowds in, forces us to cross against
The yellow to red light, doesn’t wait nor hesitate.
While the breath of fresh air becomes the fetid exhale,
Heat, the result of speed,
Expands each encounter’s
Press
Sure as a cavein cuts off
Light
Turns day into night, begins the claustrophobic’s fright.
Crushed against each other, each instant seems longer and so the
Press
Sure grows – We move – Race against
The red light or even more (maddeningly)
Cruise through it at the end of the line obdurately refusing to look left or 

Right.
You know this truth even as you sit in denial waiting for the last car to 
Hurtle
Past and the cars behind you begin their honking cry
All ready to race to where the next lights lie. 

And even each recognition of this act of speed compressing,
Instead of giving us peace,
Becomes another form of the press
Sure to push us even faster.
Ever closer to the edge that’s despair. Consumed, subsumed . . .
Our terror turning ist.
And meanwhile, there it is blinking, the cursor light winking,
With it’s only eye – telling us
That it’s Pentium (TM) process can take us there,
Race us there out into inner space,
Our gameboys palmpiloted.
Our implanted synapses
Imploding at Warp 8.
Which seems great, until
We realize like the Star Trekkers we so wish we were,
"Beam me up Scotty"
That that is the speed at which our universe begins to disintegrate,
Begins to un relate.
And only Super (the person that is) man can reverse our fate,
Can retract the boarding gate,
Can reinvent the late great time when we all had a little 

SPACE . . .

We need . . .

the stress, the strain, the obstacle to breach, the winters and the rain, torrents of pain.  So maybe we're about to get what we need.

To Kiss and Tell . . .

rolls real well
along the seam
that seals my mind.
But instant thoughts
like kisses soft
and lips that loft
rush fools into kisses that tell far too well,
that instant thoughts can have lasting
effect
on those who’s minds let kisses dwell . . .

Like Cats

Intertwined
Or puppy dogs tumbled alltogether,

You and I
share cares (bare) on this bed.
In and Out
Your breath and mine,
Like thoughts laced with wine or
Sunlight through vines.

Just then, when I stood next to you,
It took all my pacifism
To not reach out and touch you.
Now I sit here on the edge
Of war wondering why I didn’t.

Wait.
I did.
I reached out and stroked your face.
Just my body
Stayed in place. Now, . . .

Night and I are dark inside.
The moon and you
A rising tide.
This life (and the rest) too light.
Night and I,
We must hold tight.

TAXES . . .

They say death and taxes are the only two things you can’t avoid.

There’s a finality there that is hard to ignore.

A sense of dying already let in the door.

But what if you want to deny this truth?

What if you wanted nothing, and needed less? Would governments be

Satisfied without redress?

Somewhere out there on the edge, where the sky meets the earth, where

Birds fly and the unknown still lies like a sea serpent looking for dinner,

We look to find our salvation.

An eternal spring, a new life form that when wedded with ours will create an

Everlasting, always young, new humankind.

And I wonder, could we do that without changing, rearranging our current

Universe. Or would this change like some domino exhibit collapse us all

Into

Some black hole that is worse than death and . . . taxes.

Making sense

is what we do
2 plus 2 and blue is blue.
Still, when I love you’s the deal
making sense is so untrue.
Human insight messed by love
Scrambles thought waves
like a ball struck dove.
Making sense don’t make me laugh.
To be alive is a constant thrash.
She says, I say
Come on Babe,

Trust me , I’m your slave.
Making sense don’t be a fool
All it does is leave you screwed.

Rethinking a poem

Every girl I ever knew
reminds me
of every girl I ever knew.
Same soft
Same light
Same waiting every night
Same body
               soul
Same end
               hole
and

Every man
            dancing eyes
            little boy sighs
           just one of the guys
           stroking the same
totem’s pole.

This poem came out of my brain some time in the early 80's I think.  And while I believe it's meaning perfectly clear some friends and poets suggested maybe I could further elucidate why a person in the 80's should feel so objectified.  So,


The Same . . .

He thinks,

Why is it that
Every girl I ever knew
Reminds  me of
Every girl I ever knew?
Same soft
Same light
Same waiting every night
Same body
          soul
Same end
          hole

And she thinks,

Why is it that every man
Reminds me of
Every man I've ever known,
   Same dancing eyes
   little boy sighs
   Same just one of the guys
   stroking his
   totem pole.

And then they both say
            at
The same time

the same words they always say . . .


Well, that doesn't make things clearer to me, it makes it a different poem.

Well

Well, well well well.  Here I sit in blogger hell no longer sure the mechanismismo is, well, working.
 But lurking in my own shadow
I see a shimmering glimmering of hope amidst a sea of doubt.

A life raft, a last straw not about to break.

Too late?  Hope       not the knot            it used to be.

Knuckle-headed

Noises jammed my scan
Static lightning mistakes
Messed my plan
Pit stopped, I smelled
This as another “I can”

Attempt at self reconciliation
Amidst the
Thought traffic jam.
“Ear-ran.”
I ran,
Feet heart beat fast
I reached at last
A place where thoughts
and acts
Cannot crash
Un back lash ash to ash.
Smash.

Thought . . .

Is constant,
Is clear like glass yet
Chiaroscuro in effect,
Is swift and yet
Turbulent as air in flight,
Is rough like a bare
backed, bucking bronc’s haunch,
Is wasted more often than
Not,
Is quick and dead
Before there’s time to think,
Is here and now and then gone
In a

Blink.

Making love to Watergate

Nixon and I and you
Sweating at a rapid rate.
Reprehensible
Utterly sensible
Lacking declensionable
Nouns
To possibly clarify the
Inter – relationships
Of we three making hate to Whitewatergate.
Clinton and you and I that is . . .

Have you . . .

ever thought
“A slice of you could
Grow a clone”
“Maybe two, . . .
Each with lives
They could grow
Alone?
you could sin
They atone.”
Have you ever thought . . .

Ah well, from here on in you’re on your own

Two Poems . . .

Time

. . . and applied ethics
measure out the daze
while I have amplified
both inner and outer gaze.

A Wish

There is nothing scary about a wish, except that sometimes
it comes true. It’s as though, by sheer will power, we’ve changed
the rules.

The future fraught with what we thought.

Getting our wish, we may have made someone else sad or angry or
count for naught.

Wishes are selfish and dangerous and a lot like hopes.
Hopes are what make us keep going.
Hopes are dreams brought into the
Light of day.
Hopes are games we need to play.
Hopes are humankind’s
Real way to pray.

I wish . . . ?