Too, Too Rash Crash Diet

Oh, poor plump cat-mangled mouse spread- 
Eagled out in my orchard too, too dead— 

You fell hard for tart, fallen apples—better 
You’d gone with Mousse à la Pantry instead! 

Solemn Procession Approaching Uppermost Limits Of The Absurd

On corner 
Of cemetery 
Chapel, a lone 
Mourning dove 

Cooing on ash- 
Grey lantern 
Eyes coffin followed 
By black-clad widow 

And bereaved 
Ones passing below
On way to where 
Nothing follows. 

On The Death Of A Friend

i.m. George Tsiros, 1954-2017 


Blot it out of your mind, 
You cannot--it remains 

There, in that hollow left 
Of your brain--where 

That quivering candle was 
Snuffed out by a blast 

Of hard, hard rain. 

B/W Photo With Young Dummy In Shop Window, Raymond, Washington, 1972

You might not see him 
At first but he’s there 

Alright—on the left— 
Wearing a striped 
Long-sleeved shirt 
And dark pants, looking 
Smart as a tack as he gazes 
North onto a long gray 
Street stretching south 
Under an endless canopy 
Of low gray clouds— 

Three cars are parked 
With their noses pointing 
North, too—it looks 
Like it’s early spring, 
For the lone 
Leafless sapling 
On the sidewalk shows 
Signs of coming 
To life again. 


NB:photo courtesy of Tom Mattson, Administrator for FB page "You Know You Grew Up In Raymond When. . ." for which I thank him.

Physical

My eighty-year old 
Mother-in-law, now 

Well past recalling 
Anything that transpires 

Over a minute after 
It flashes before her, 

And so 

Thin and frail you can see her 
Bones pressing against 

Her flimsy night- 
Gown still remains 

Sharp enough to tell 
The young 

Doctor feeling her 
Body for any 

Tell-tale signs of 
Imminent danger 

To go to hell the moment 
He brushes what now passes 

As her breasts. 

Transient Harvest Moon

The sky was ever so moving last night— 
A surfeit of broken, moonlit pie crusts, 
So I thought to hesitate a while, take

My fill of it, or if not all, as much as 
I could, when I heard a voice I swear 
Coming from the dark side of the moon:

“Move on, you light-headed fool, 
Indulge as you will, what makes you 
Think you’ll ever get your fill?” 

Outside A Railroad Station Coffeehouse Where Trains No Longer Run

Early autumn late afternoon 
In a light northerly breeze 
Under the centenarian 
Plane trees, we pass 
The time sipping 
Coffee and keeping 
An eye out 
For the next crumpled, 
Crablike leaf to fall 
And scuttle past us when 
Just across the other 
Side of the rusted derelict 
Tracks, we catch sight of 
The black-garbed village priest 
Slowly making his way, pushing 
His paraplegic son along. 

Practicing What You Preach

Yes, indeedy— 
No particular place to go was his motto 

And he always doubled back 
To where he’d started 

Particularly 
To make doubly sure 

He knew precisely where 
He wanted to go. 

Curmudgeon's Epitaph

Never a slacker, his life was marked 
By a stoic refusal to follow any lackluster tack, 
And steer that lonely, steady course he did— 

Till he found himself a haven where
No groveling lackey missed his absence,
And nothing ever lacked.

Out Of This World: 5th Century B.C. Attic White-Ground Lekythos

The Ancient Greeks used to think 
The soul was a moth, a small 
Bird or butterfly that escaped 
From the body once 
A mortal had left his mortal 
Existence behind; as such it was 
A favorite motif of many 
An Attic white-ground painter— 
Take this piece for example, 
Where we see the little winged one 
In question has just made his exit 
And is now perched upon the head 
Of the upright dearly departed 
Prior to taking off, presumably
To somewhere where no doubt it won’t be 
So easy for the artist to capture him again.

 

Suspension of Disbelief

All told, 
When they finally fall

To earth and rot,
It’s not as if all that

Hanging on was 
Definitely not 

For naught. 

Archipelago of the Aegean

of that jasmine 

from first light 
of day to night 
winding through 

narrow passage 
ways smelling 
of sea- 

girded white washed 
limestone still 
blinding white. 

Janus-Faced Plumb Cuckoo's Cogito Ergo Sum

Of all the nutty 
Scenarios that keep flashing 

Through his double’s dealing 
Mind’s eye, the one that sticks 

Out from the others like 
A sore thumb is the one where 

His alter ego’s little 
Jack Horner jamming 

A humungous middle 
Finger up the other’s 

Piebald bum, all the while 
Trumpeting “I’m the greatest 

Tweeter of all, I am, I am, 
Oh, what a titillating prize 

Plum of a cornucopian 
Fruitcake I am!” 

Curmudgeon Closing in on the Summation

In the end, 
He who is continually 
At odds with himself is close 
To knowing who his chief adversary is, 
Though never close enough 
To make a difference. 

Phantom Undertaking

Let him who is beyond 
A doubt devoid of substance 
Be the first to show us how 

Soul-cleansing the act 
Of casting shadows on white 
Washed walls can really be. 

Drawing A Blank: Returning To The Motherland, 1959

"They enter the new world naked, 
cold, uncertain of all 
save that they enter.” 
—W.C. Williams, Spring and All 

I imagined 
The village welcoming 
Ceremony would be 
Like the farewell 
Eleven years before 
When I was all of four, 
But who knows what 
That was like when 
I remembered nothing 
Of what had come before, 
Let alone my mother 
And the midwife bringing 
Me into a new world naked 
In the middle of March 
On a hard-packed earthen floor.

Pushing Renewable Energy To Its Uppermost Limits

It was green as all 
Get out up there 
On Resting Place Ridge 
And it was going 
To keep on 
Getting greener, 

A real going concern 
As they say, something 
A live wire could die for, 
Even the daisies out doing 
Pushups could be seen 
Turning green with envy. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor On The Difficulty Inherent In Finding Your True North

Like a compass gone 
Haywire, the why 
Of where you may be 
At any given point 
Has nothing to do 
With where you think 
You are going. 


Moderator’s comments: OK, Cinquor—you just keep throwing your soul-searching lines out—sooner or later, some lost soul will take the bait and follow you straight to wherever it is you think you’re going.

Vagrant

urchin’s 

small sky- 
blue bouncing 

ball bouncing 
from one vacant 

lot to another 

Her Mama Done Told Her

The quickest way to his heart 
Was through his stomach 

But she garbled the message, 
Peeled, and sliced his 

Adam’s apple instead. 

Bankrupt Wordsmith Soon To Be Back In Business

Out of the thick dark- 
Green blackness of vegetable 
Life smothering the derelict 
Study of the late obscure 
Minor underground poet, 
There comes the fevered 
Munching of eager beaver 
Ghost writers rabidly attacking 
A bolted, worm-eaten door. 

The Squint-eyed Kid Strikes (Out) Again

Sun, it’s time you stopped 
Playing with me—how 
On earth am I 

To reflect on all 
That’s under the heavens 
When you’re always on the run?