Rod Drought
Constant Companion
I tell her
You are always there
You will never leave
I try to comfort her
You rarely visit anymore
I learned to ignore your haunts
Beatings with small lead pipes
Aches from head to toe
How you fill my soul
With cold, black tar
I tell her
I walk past you on the street
Do not pull over
When you try to hitch a ride
I become a workhorse with blinders
Do what I need to do,
Leave you in the dust
I combat you
Work hard
Avoid routine
Get off the fucking couch
On hard days
I mine for joy
With a toothpick
I tell her
Some days you sneak in the back door
I give you a coffee cup
Worth of consideration
Send you on your way
A mere cloudburst
Rather than a deluge
I did not tell her
You leave a little behind
Like dropped pine needles
From last years’ Christmas tree
Like imperceptible scars
From minor cuts
You are weak now
I am stronger
I watched children grow
I tasted tears of happiness
And defeat
Know they taste the same
I am a grandfather
And can now recall
What life was
Before you numbed elation
With your Novocain
I have not told her
How you wither and pale
When I cup her face
In my hands
And take in her love
Like a new mother
Receives her child
I have not told her that
But I will
The Miracle Maker
Gone before sunrise
No resurrection
We called the relatives
Our young nurse
Left work early in tears
On the hottest day of the year
Spread the crochet blanket
You knitted
Across the foot of her bed
A miracle you lived this long
All the times you fell
You did get up
All the scary thoughts
When the meds were not right
Did not embitter you
A miracle you never stopped loving
Giving away trinkets and food
When you had so little
Outside your trailer home
Drinking iced coffee
You chatted up neighbors
Shared a smoke
Your smile, infectious laugh
Cut through barriers
A miracle one man loved you
For thirty years
Stayed by your side
Despite it all
You were a miracle
I could believe in
Turning water into Corona beer,
The slow-developing kind
Wandering the desert
Of your tortured soul
Better than Moses
Parting humanity’s drowning sea
In dogged perseverance
Relentless love
Your little bit of oil
Lit our world
No one can doubt
The miracle of you
Two by Two
Two Companions
Wait at the intersection
Walking figure on the post is red
She rolls, not walks
Bends over to calm
Her short haired,
Curled tail friend with
The panting laugh/smile
She stares into his eyes
Pats his head, one long
Stroke across his back
Walking figure flashes green
Leather clad hands
Dig deep into wheels
Springing four-legged romp
Through intersections
Traffic and emissions
Rubber and paws
Conquer all obstacles
Two Crows
Swooping flight
Against cerulean sky
The dull beat of large wings
Surge of passing air
Tucked in for speed, then
Flapping, darting in unison
Together
They beat the bum rap
Of their death metaphor
Black, strong beauties
With beating wings and hearts
Fearless of the coming night
Moment by Moment
Lately
I sense the stolen moments
Falling hair from scalp follicles
The dander of me returning to dust
I am deciduous
Those days of summer
Browning, inevitably tumbling
In life descent
And the doctors,
Well-meaning time savers,
Take samples and pieces of me
Hoping to stall the axe that will topple
A vain attempt to keep my roots viable
And everyday
I think about what I have done,
What I never did
While packing the remaining days
With commitments
And promises
Things that in the end
No one will remember
Then I am startled awake
By the early morning banter
Of my grandson
Five years old
He renders
Clocks and calendars
Into liquid absurdities
He sips from his juice cup
Shows me his Lego
Firefighter airplane
With the plastic tree
Plastic flames on plastic branches
He douses fires
Blue plastic water beads
Bounce off the coffee table
His beautiful blue eyes
Take me back
To the path I lost
Where
Nothing else mattered
But the bliss of now,
Where laughter and crying
Come and go
As effortlessly
As an autumn leaf
Gracefully twirling to earth
Carmel by the Sea
Sinuous Pacific Coast Highway
Skirting the shoreline
Surf thrashing craggy boulders
Sweeping white sand
Sheep grazing in a pasture
Stretches to the ocean
Sea mist veil dissipation
Bucolic restaurant patio scene
Crab cakes, iceberg salad wedge
Holy Water margaritas
The salt on the rim
The salt of our lives
Breaking through cloud sunlight
Hearing the history or you
Sharing our space and time
We flow with waves and tides
Learn our currents
Smiles foam wash shorelines
Fair winds and typhoon yarns
Rudderless and star driven voyages
You are never a doldrum
You are a pacific dream
There is peace,
Kindness in this land
Is it because of you?
Here, shadows politely recede
Yellow Brick Roads
Grown up Disney girls
Redwoods and cypress
Eucalyptus intoxicates
No prince needs to save you
Evil stepmothers do not exist
Fires, masks, lack of rain
Fault lines and traffic
You live with grace
Love as easily as you smile
Buttercup Days
Do you remember butter cup days?
The yellow reflection sunshine
Under your chin?
You made pinky promises
Saved your mother’s back
By not stepping on a crack
How simple it was to determine love
Plucking dandelion petals,
Love me, love me not
Blowing paratrooping seeds
To spread and create more
Do you remember?
That merry-go-rounds
And Ferris wheels
Go round and round
No beginning or end
That your dolls talked to you,
That baseball cards attached on bicycle frames,
Slapping spokes motored you
To endless adventures,
Do you remember?
Wishing upon a shooting star,
Blowing out all the birthday candles
Tapping your heels three times,
Believing in Tinker Bell
Do you remember
Keeping her alive,
Believing
Dreams and wishes came true,
There is no place like home,
Do you remember?
Good luck in four leaf clovers
Bad luck if you spilled salt,
Each grain a tear you will later spill
That there was a time
When skinned knees and being
Caught in a lie made you cry,
Do you remember?
How oaths and secrets
Could not be broken
Cross my heart
And hope to die
Your heart
Was big and full and red
As that Valentine
You drew for your mother
Do you remember?
Do you?
Do you?
Remember
Boy’s Club
While living at my daughter’s house
My grandson and I established a boy’s club
In my ten by twelve room
The tyranny of girls is not allowed
In our club we do manly things,
Watch YouTube, play MLB The Show,
Wrestle with Jurassic Park dinosaurs,
Read poetry or make forts under blankets
It is an exclusive club,
Strictly enforced with secret passwords
No exceptions but of course, mama is allowed
And Nora too, his best friend
But absolutely no Bennett, he pushes too much
And is too little to say the password for boys:
Jack Skellington, (Sally is the password for girls)
No one otherwise gets in
Unless you are Pikachu
Or Spirit the wild stallion
Or anyone who rings the front doorbell
And can say the secret passwords when prompted
Especially if they bring treats
Like a well-stocked Frozen Elsa Pez dispenser
Or beer
Crossing the Bridge
Our etheric bridge stretches
Above clear sky and clouds
Rarified and elastic
Permeating all space
The interstice of all matter
Like sunlight filtered
Through arching trees
It reaches over rivers
Slippery sloped embankments of youth
Where fluxes meandered
Or flooded in heavy weather
To later harbor
Far from mountain births
Nearer to the ocean
And we rose like morning vapor
From far facing shores
To absorb, assimilate
In ghost jelly connectivity
Waking/dreaming love making
Mediators of the living
What Gods only imagine
And I will walk this bridge
To be with you
A bridge I once thought too far
And we will cross
Above our vessels and cargo
Above our deep currents
On a vista where we will see
Beyond all harbors
The ocean’s majesty
Where we belong
Father's Garden
and the Rest of the World
His was a garden of promise
Chosen nurtured seeds
In rich, wet soil
Tomatoes splitting with flavor
Towering sunflower stalks
Sister and I were mere sprouts
Too small to till, break winter frost
We picked out loose stone
Haphazardly dropped seed
Uncovered a potato bug
Fat mandible, sickly pale
The grotesque horror of him
Looking at us with remorse
For he was exposed, and he was ugly
We grew in the soil of our parents
Rising in sun and rain realization
That our Mayberry neighborhood
Was not all fertile land
The cheap man
Called hot dogs, tube steaks
Harangued his wife, two boys and a girl
One boy was cruel
The other was called a retard
Possessed unrestrained, frightening strength
The sweet, pretty daughter, later killed herself
Down the road
The old German couple
At first kind to my sister and I
Until the day the husband lost his mind
Came by with a shotgun
Threatening to shoot us all
Thinking father was planning to sell
A parcel of land to build a Jewish Hospital
Or the gloomy Addams family house
Down the dirt road
With the elephant foot umbrella stand
Or the teacher
With the loose daughter
There were leeches in the lake
Snapping turtles in the pond
Copperheads in stone walls
Ghosts in our house
We saw beyond
The living color televisions
Of Disneyland America
In black and white
News broadcast education
Lessons in geography:
A place called Vietnam
Vocabulary: assassination
King and Kennedys
Science: atomic bombs
Gravity: blacks hung from trees
In elementary school
We learned how to hide under desks
Higher education taught us
The physics of bullets cutting through
Kent State protestors
We deduced
It is a small, small world after all
Without a magic kingdom
Just as the best gardens
Harbor potato bugs and root rot
And all our father ever wanted,
This amputee of World War Two,
Was for us to take root, flower
Spread our seeds to the wind
Or be like the fox we saw
After the harvest
Leaping from tall winter wheat
In constant, sardonic fox smile
Laughing, bounding effortlessly,
Safely
Out of sight
Vacant Spaces
In poetry
It is the space
That speaks volumes
People are the same
Every Sunday
He would climb out of his green Malibu
Sit in the now vacant back pew
To hear his nephew’s sermon
The husband who loved Oreo cookies
His recliner sits empty
His wife’s hand, nothing left to grasp
The dream of retiring
To a quaint Kentucky town
Now just a dream
The night worker
That fried eggs after his shift
While chatting up his daughter
In the dining room
As she did her bookkeeping job,
Conversations lost
Each rising sun now a vacancy sign
The silent and scentless frying pan
Now cold cast iron
Tucked away on a shelf
The Asian grandma
Her seats at mahjong, bridge and English class
Folded up and put away
Her home untouched
Holiday decorations still up
Cards lined on the mantle
The grandson thinks it still smells like her
It looks like she should be there
But she is not
500,000 vacancies in America
How can they ever be filled?
Ask the ones without masks
The conspiracy theorists
The hoax believers
Let them fill the vacant spaces
With their answers
Vacant Spaces
In poetry
It is the space
That speaks volumes
People are the same
Every Sunday
He would climb out of his green Malibu
Sit in the now vacant back pew
To hear his nephew’s sermon
The husband who loved Oreo cookies
His recliner sits empty
His wife’s hand, nothing left to grasp
The dream of retiring
To a quaint Kentucky town
Now just a dream
The night worker
That fried eggs after his shift
While chatting up his daughter
In the dining room
As she did her bookkeeping job,
Conversations lost
Each rising sun now a vacancy sign
The silent and scentless frying pan
Now cold cast iron
Tucked away on a shelf
The Asian grandma
Her seats at mahjong, bridge and English class
Folded up and put away
Her home untouched
Holiday decorations still up
Cards lined on the mantle
The grandson thinks it still smells like her
It looks like she should be there
But she is not
500,000 vacancies in America
How can they ever be filled?
Ask the ones without masks
The conspiracy theorists
The hoax believers
Let them fill the vacant spaces
With their answers
Status Quo
I appear content
To you,
I am satisfying as tepid milk
On a summer day
You ask what do I want?
I have no answer
I have no answer
To me and you,
About the choices on the menu
Dropped at our table
I choose the first dish I see
The way I picked you
And here we are
On a restaurant patio
By a babbling brook
Near a village green
Where an old cannon sits
That children hang and leap from
Wars seem far away
But one is right here
Raging within
It is a cold war
With entrenching tools
We are dug in
Trench footed and starving
Through this interminable war
Peace only comes at Christmas
Climb from our holes
Cross battlelines
To smoke cigarettes
Play a harmonica
Dream of the home we left behind
Then the waiter comes
Asks if we decided
You answer quick
Warm milk on a summer day
I am clueless
Here
Rain is a big deal
It arrived this morning
Hesitant and shy
Barely audible
Taps on the shoulder of
this red desert dusted land
Streaking the massive saguaro
Where generations of cactus wren
Carved out their homes
They and wandering quail
Make the rain a reason
To huddle and shelter
Just like the doused sun
Which is too often the guest
That stays after the party is over
Laughing at nothing
Burning his drunken presence
On your tired head
I make a second cup of coffee
Take in the sepia air
Earth and sky
Blend as one
As do my thoughts and breathing
Not caring about clocks or calendars
Taking in subdued nature
Caressing a hot cup
A moment of grace
Can seem eternal
This rain
Will do nothing to sooth
Withered brush
Fill the Colorado river
But it is rain
With its’ bashful peace
That transforms
Makes obsidian mountains shine
Makes the second cup
Taste all the better
Day Life
Birthing sun
Dispels dead of night
Pre-school morning
Children temperatures’ taken
Hug teacher’s knees
They scratch and peck
Like hatchlings from Easter eggs
Striped legging girl
Dark curls and eyes
Hops on one foot
Sees her little blue-eyed beau
She will draw
Crayon hearts for him
Mid-life day
No cover, no shade
Power lunch martini’s
Sharp attire professionals
At the five-star restaurant
But under tables
Matchbooks balance uneven legs
Band Aid bleeding heel of the Stiletto lady
The executive’s Italian leather shoes
Scuffed, the shine gone, soles worn thin
Old man sundown
Walks scruffy mini poodle
Crosses the intersection
Traffic paused red light
Breeze picks up
Billows light white jacket
He is a wrinkled sail
To the dog’s undercurrent pull
The tightwire taut leash
White beard stubble
Knotted brow
Senses the umbilical cord snap
Into indifferent night
Knows he could fall
No safety nets
With a dog at the helm
Sniffing for god