Déjà Vu, My Son

Long ago, too far back for me 
To know when for sure, I think 
Your grandfather—who was old 
Enough to be my grandfather— 
Said something to me like 

You’ll know how far you’ve come 
Only if you keep your eye 
On where you came from— 

So what do you make of that? 
Ten years younger than my father was 
When he left this life, here I am now 
Looking to see how much 
We’ve left behind and how far 
Both of us have come. 

Inscrutable Procrastinating Pedestrian Vicious Circle

Much younger, 

You were always 
Asking what 
To do next 
With yourself 

To stave off 
The haunting 
Feeling of wasting 
Precious time,

And never received
An answer that did not 
Generate another time- 
Worn question—so good so far 
And so full of youthful wit but this 

Time around, when 
Obituaries and life 
Celebrations 
Of close friends 
And relatives keep 

After you wherever 
You turn, what do you think 
The next question is 
Going to be 
Making the rounds? 

Time to go helter-skelter 
Back to square one 
While you still have enough 
Time and your threadbare wits all 
In one piece about you—

Who knows? You just might 
Make it this time around.

Muse On A Poem Relatively Speaking

Just 

Between the two 
Of us, it all comes 

Down to this one thing— 
No matter how or what 

You have to say, 
If you don’t 

Come clean with yourself 
From the beginning, 

In the end don’t 
Be surprised to find 

You mean absolutely 
Nothing to me. 

Devil's Advocate

Well, I’ll tell you this 
Much has to be 
Said before we can 
Even begin 
To explore the depths 

Of our depravity— 
For a starter, let’s ask 
Ourselves just how 
Strong the rope is 
That’s taking us down. 

Muse On A Deathless Grecian Memento

Not hard enough 
And clearly not 

Indestructible this 
Heart you burnt 

To its foundations 
And then ground 

To ashes—give it back 
To me resurrected 

Forever in an urn. 

Abandoned Spoils Of War

The few stone houses 
Of the village still 

Standing, up 
To their waists 

In stinging nettles, 
Doorways eternally wide- 

Open, windows that were 
Once their eyes one 

By one plucked out, home now 
To mythic hoot owls mooting over 

The specter of tatterdemalion 
Orphans playing nonstop 

War on wind buffeted marble 
Threshing floors. 

Absconding With The Goods

No real damage done 
And no caveat, save that 

Of coming clean 

With the poem, the spoils 
Intact. 

"And Beautiful Times We Had"*

—*Sappho, from poem #94 


We were young and not 
Yet old enough to know 

When black wolves start 
Descending 

The white mountain 
Slopes in early spring, 

It’s too late to lie 
In wait, low 

In the valley still 
Acting like sheep.

All That Jazz, And Slam Poetry, Too

Hey, man— 

You be cool now and don’t 
Be such a drag—I tell you this 

Ain’t no waste of our time—no way— 
You just take another toke and look back

At what all those wiped out long gone 
Hepcats that came before us done 

Drug in. 

Four-eyed Doppelgänger Before The Treacherous Looking Glass

The last time 
You looked, you looked 
Twice and kept 
Rubbing your eyes 
At the spectacle 
Of seeing

For the first time 
An aging 
Sold out poet
Seeing his 
Younger double
Crossing double.

Metallic Elephantine Yarn Full Of Medallions

The verdict’s out
At last, you fools—

The moon’s ravishing
Green cheesecake

Now belongs fully
To those bright yellow

Jawing dervishes who keep
Insisting they live on

A glorious whirling
Silver platter replete

With leftover wishbones
Riven from the heads

Of bloody adjudicating asses.

Cerberus Redux, Neighborhood Hellhound

Oh, I know what you’re thinking 
That was eons ago and a myth at that 
But let your fancy stray a bit 
And he’s still there, this time 
Serving time in a postcard-sized yard 
And chained to a post just outside 

The entrance to his derelict doghouse, 
Barking what sounds like 
All his three heads off 
Day and night and fated to 
Never leave his post, not even 
To stretch his cramped muscles 
Or take a well-deserved doggy dump 

Or piss somewhere save right 
By his stinking house, all the while 
Giving us the grotesque but not so 
Far-fetched impression he’s not 
Guarding the premises after all, 
Just making sure the subhuman 
Residents of this pit of a hellhole stay 
Put forever there.

The All For Naught Brief: An Airtight Case For And Against Impeaching A Fantasy World

I hear that 

Something is definitely in 
The air out 

Of the ordinary 
And is not 

What you think 
It is. 

Below Zero Calisthenics

O 

little 
winged 
chirping 
critter 
lightly 
flitting 

from bare branch 
to bare branch calling 
out your defrosting
morning workout— 

glory be to all those
huffs and puffs of heart- 
warming breath pulsing through 

your twiggy breast straining 
to melt this 

all too frigid air! 

A Poem Should Be (19)

Like that almost 
Imperceptible small white 
Thorn in 

Your palm’s life- 
Line that stirs now 
And then and keeps 

Needling you when 
You think it has gone 
To sleep. 

Point Nowhere Man

Wandering this way and that 
For who knows how long, 
You’re finally at the point 
Where nothing points the way 
To nothing anymore. Where 

Does this leave us, you’re tempted 
To say; no doubt those 
Closest behind you now jostling 
For pole position will soon be 
Wondering that as well one day. 

Haiku: Weeping Low Hanging Tree

willow plunging limbs 
in too polluted thickly 
choking slick black creek. 

Cur Dead To The World Of Love

Wake up and hold that cowardly 
Peace of yours no longer, Corazón— 

I’ve eavesdropped on you 
All these years and never once 

Did I hear you skip a beat? 

That Same Old Song And Dance Coming Soon To Your Neighborhood Theater!

Where each new spectacular 
Episode of sunset presents 

Something different for everybody 
In attendance and all end promising just

Another twilight zone. 

Classical Greek Winter Sun With Figures Of Speech

Moving lazily across 
A seemingly endless cloudless sky, 
Its welcomed teeth biting deep in-

To meet the warm, torpid under- 
Belly of the corpulent body, it seeks 
To cut to the bone and flesh 

Out all those lolling 
Do-nothings who love 
To slip in and out 

Of ancient daydreams and sleep. 

Down In The Dumps And In Need Of A Pick-me-up, I Stumble Upon A Famous Last Line Of A Poem By James Wright

Like so many things 
I’ve sheepishly forgotten, I don’t remember 

Talking to myself when I was too young 
To go to school, like a lot of kids did or still 

Do, like our granddaughter did 
And still does 

When she thinks she's alone and begins 
Reeling off adventure after adventure 

Full of unreal characters known 
Only to her, and me 

Eavesdropping in on the hope 
I can pick up on that priceless, 

Uplifting gem of a germ 
She’s so infected with, 

Though I suspect all too well 
It’s no longer catching— 

Have I wasted my life?


 

Cogito, Ergo Cogito Sum

Just when you think 
You’ve thought 

Everything through 
And left—as they say— 

No stone unturned
Behind you, guess who 

Turns up unannounced 
And incognito, affecting 

A pronounced stony silence 
And turns everything upside 

Down on his return.