Getting Away

When I was five

I took every book I had

And two pair of clean underwear

And tried to run away from home

But I couldn’t drag the big black suitcase

Past the bottom of the stairs

And it took 43 years

For me to get strong enough

To go

Drip, Drip, Drip

Have you ever noticed a little leak?

Finding a steady drip drip drip 

Of colorless droplets

Reflecting your upside down world

Right in front of your eyes?

One drop and a moment after, another

You see each drop in perfect clarity

A mote of tiny wetness

Amounting to nothing in the eye

But even unobserved

The steady drip drip drip

Of unwatched drops trickles, flows, floods

While you are asleep or in the car

Or at a wedding or deciding between Ritz and Cheeze-Its

The drops keep coming rotting structure

And wearing away stone

And before you know it

The great ocean is passed

And time is up.

Good Boy for the Ages

Back in the veiled darkness of time

The dog, beaten by the ways of the world

And the savage fight for place

In the evolutionary tree

Crept up to man’s fire

Looking for shelter, warmth, and food

The dog gave up his wild crown

Descended from his apex position

To wait at the feet of men

Curled up, good boy

Bravely trying to earn his keep

Guarding the home with vicious bark

By hunting, by tracking, by herding

Anything to keep his home

And stay out of the dog-eat -dogness of it all.

But unknown to the good boy

All his efforts mean very little to man

For man’s real reason for keeping the dog around

And not sending him the way of the horse or the cow

For the dog serves best

When man is beaten, tired, worn down by his fellow man

As a place to project loyalty, unconditional love,

Faithfulness, obedience, and unlimited joy

All the qualities man

Cannot find in other men.

New Year’s With Echo and Narcissus

The ball drops

I kiss her passionately

And we watch snuggled and sober

The tradition in Times Square

But no one there is kissing

Lips almost touch, their heads turned

Facing the image of the one they really love

Everyone who is there

Isn’t there

Showing the world

Where they really aren’t

Colors of Days

Strange how days go

How a word, a sentence, an incident

Even just ambient music

Can change the color of the day

A bright solar yellow, bouncing in tune

A washed out green, colored by rain and sadness

Brown hard as broken earth and steel guitars

One fleeting moment stains the day

And leaves its color in memory

Until memory is gone.

Decay

There is no longer any poetry in America

Fear without nobility

Speculation without wonder

Eyes down without humility

I forget the rest

But it’s ugly.

Record Bin

Does an old record feel anything

When it gets played after many years of silence?

Does it feel itself finally sing after so many years lost

Its voice finally heard after many years of darkness?

Did it wonder if it would ever get the chance again

To see the light and share its sound

Or would it sit tossed out in the bin

Forever silenced?

Jellyfish

I wonder what it would be like to be a jellyfish.

I would be randomly drifting all day long

No fins, no legs, no hands to propel me

Just wafting in any direction life takes me

I’d be so dumb I’d never have to think about death

Or know the dreadful fear of getting older

If anything came too near me I’d just sting it

And whatever it was would go away

I’d have no name, no one could call me or look for me

Or ever talk about me behind my back

I wouldn’t even have a back

Just tentacles and a little hole where the food goes in

And not enough of a nervous sytem

To know when half of me had been ripped away by a mackerel

Jellyfish don’t have to show up first thing in the morning for jobs

Spending daylight making plastic ferns or lunchboxes or adding figures

Just waving in the sunshine

Never having to think about

Evolution’s mean and nasty tricks.

Magic Words

Anyway

One of the things I love about you

Is how fast you can say

Just the right thing

In any situation

To bill collectors or neighbors

To my sisters or our insurance agent

——anyone——

No one can leave you speechless

Your words always hit their target

I not only love it but it compliments

How often I stand there speechless

Do you know what I feel

In those painful moments where

I don’t know what to say to you?

How sorry I am, how much I love you

And how helpless I feel

Looking into your eyes

While you wait for my response?

Days later

I can scratch out my few words

Long past the moment they should have lived

When I Was Little

When I was little
There was a miniseries on TV called “V”
In which humans valiantly fought against aliens
Who were determined to consume all of planet earth
to satisfy their hungers
All the people, all the air, all the water
They wanted everything for themselves

They were, according to this show, the ultimate evil

And now I am older and my eyesight is bad
And I can’t tell the difference between corporations
And those damn aliens.