Dumbstricken By A Line From Malebranche*

Playing our latest “smart” 
Game with my six-year-old 
Granddaughter to sharpen 
Our powers of observation, 
We watch patiently 

The dense overhanging jasmine vine 
Above and in front of us 
As it jettisons 
Its white, five-petaled 
Flowers one-by-one, 

Anxious to see who’s going 
To be the first to shout 
There it goes! as each star falls 
Dumbly to the oh so equally
Dumb and patient ground. 


*Attention is the natural prayer of the soul.

Red Herrings Made In America

On top of so much 
Devastating news 

Concerning the Earth 
(about which too few 

Of us are concerned 
And even fewer willing 

To digest), lately 
From the hinterland 

Comes disturbing talk 
Of giant invasive hammer- 

Headed earthworms over- 
Taking the homeland 

By the millions, 
Swallowing 

Our much smaller 
Native fry 

For breakfast, lunch, 
Dinner AND midnight 

Munchies—I don’t know 
About you but for those 

Concerned, I think 
It’s time to come to 

Our senses and hope 
It isn’t just 

Idle table talk.

Read Your Fortune, Sir?

Murky—like the poem you were so 
Intent on finishing you missed

Seeing that fly buzz by only to end 
Up a black dot flailing 

The dregs of your coffee cup.

Tangerine

“The commune of Poetry becomes so real that [the poet] sounds each
particle in relation to parts of a great story he knows will never be completed.” 
--Robert Duncan, Bending the Bow 

The dynasty 

Of Song, tangible as 
The word sounds— 

In this instance 
Joyous, a small 

Round, reddish-orange 
Object plucked 

From a mandarin’s 
Bough. 

Existentialist Angst Is No Laughing Matter

With the world
Exploding

In bloody stitches, you keep 
Laughing at yourself because 

You think laughing is good 
For you, you must be 

Joking. 

Late Deep Sleeper

lux in tenebris lucet

 
What’s with you, trouper? 
On stage

You made many a move 
To draw the curtains,

But the sun’s still 
Waiting in the wings. 

Trickle-down Economics Broken Down By One Of The Haves

It’s this way you see 
His ledger rife with minuses, 
Two plus two never making four, 
This good-for-nothing no-account 
Too poor to know the score he 
Put a double-barrel up his sinuses, 
Nothing made sense anymore.