Taking It One Step at a Time

“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” 
—Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon 

It’s in the stars 
From the word go— 
Spend your life mooning 
Over where you’re going and never 
Once looking back, you’ll never know 
If you’re one step ahead of there 
Where you used to be or 
Simply backtracking, taking off 
On a wrong tack once more. 

Expendable Human Resources

I know 
It’s a long story full 
Of blood, toil, tears and sweat— 

But just stop and think—back 
Then we never knew how 
Much of us was spent— 

What say we 
Take it easy, after all, 
We’re almost there. 

Theater of the Absurd

Always on cue                 light is 

                         a dark angel 

fluttering 

                  in the wings for you. 

Amatorious

no apparitions

                            
                            sprightly

following a long

                         

                            spring

           drizzle, a pair of spar-

rows lightly spar-

ring on

a wet green bough.

Living with the Muse

Looks akin to having a virago 
For a wife, always berating 
You to stop wasting 
Precious time writing 
Trash, verbally 
Thrashing you with her 
God, why can’t you write off 
What you’re doing and do something 
Constructive for a change, 
Like take out the garbage 
Tout de suite, anything 
Anything to show me how 
Much you value your fleeting, 
Stinking life. 

Symbiosis Fated to Be Inevitable

Don’t be selfish, Janus-face—share 
Everything with your other if you must, 

Just so long as you’re aware 
It has to be 

Something you both need and trust. 

Breakfast for Two in the Garden of the Milk and Honey House

Waiting for pie 

In the sky cobbled apricot clouds 
Mourning doves' cooing 

Breaking apart what brings us together 
Piecemeal 

Our lives fly by. 

Classical Landscape with Homeric Allusions

That perpetual 
Refugee from darkness, 
Our old friend 
Rosy-fingered dawn— 
Let us greet her 
With splendiferous sips 
Of angelic light served 
On flower-bedecked verandas 
Overlooking the wine- 
Dark sea and not—by Zeus— 
With panoramic views 
Of an odoriferous Aegean 
Aflower with corpses 
Taking our breath away. 

Feeling Left Out

I’m taking all the time 
I need to read 
Between the lines 
To find out what’s missing 
And why nothing’s there— 

I know 

I need all the help I can get 
But something tells me 
I’m not going to find it 
Till I feel it leaving 
Me all by myself there. 

Zen Bucolic

At a loss with how to 
Jog your mind? 

Look at it this way— 
There’s a stream 

Of fresh asphalt sheep 
Droppings steaming 

In the sun, wide-eyed
Drop everything, watch 

Out where you run. 

Serial Killer

Oh dear, it looks like 
Your next poem’s well 
On its way to turning in
To your latest nightmare— 
What to do? For crying 
Out loud, choke it— 
You wouldn’t want it 
To end up stalking 
You too, would you? 

Skeleton Keys

Hard by 

There’s a door behind 
Which everything hides 

And where 

Everyone’s trying hard 
To get out 

Of going in. 

Lazarus Redux

April’s no fool— 
To come up smelling 
Like a rose 

In this waste land, 
You’ll have to dig deeper 
To revive 

Whatever remains 
Alive in you. 

Facing the Prompter

Friend, awake you pretend 
You’re sharp, alive and kicking, acting 
Up, one step ahead of the world again— 
Asleep, five will get you ten you see 
Someone tripping over his lines, 
A ham actor falling perfectly on end, 
Flat on his face again and again. 

After Attending the Funeral of a Centenarian, Phaedra (Approaching Four) Muses on the Subject of Mortality

Papa, 

I know Granny Sophy died 
Yesterday because I saw her dead, 

But I’m going to read as much poetry 
As I can and then try 

To write it so I don’t. 

Empathy of a Third Kind

Each village with a madman—might it be 
The work of the wind blowing in 

One ear and out 
The other 

Inconsolable as can be? 

Greek Occupation

Before the war, my father worked 
His small, patchy wheat fields
Wearing rough sandals 
Made of used tire treads, 
But he still put bread on our table. 

When the German boot came, 
He walked barefoot with no
Bread to be found anywhere— 
Another story altogether, 
But the kernel remains the same.