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06-23-22 Let Us Consider

6/10/2022

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Picture
let us consider blood and water  
                      

water is the blood
that lets our blood flow,
the blood of all life
the blood of the forest
and of the meadow
and of pastures
and bluebonnets,
and daisies and the
blood-red rose,
the blood that eases
drought, that allows
farmers to plant and sow,
that allows the cow and pig
and lamb to grow to fill
our stomach, the blood
that we rise at midnight
to lubricate our dry mouth,
the blood that washes
away desert dust at
a noon oasis, panacea
for both our hunger
and our thirst…

water is the blood that
flows between rivals
in dry times, blood is the
disputed creek or river,
the range war,
neighbor on neighbor,
water is the blood that
flows as aquifers are drained
for some at the expense
of others…

water is the blood
of wars coming, the blood
for which we will fight,
the blood to be shed in the
fighting, yours for mine, mine
for yours…

water is the blood of all
our future desires…

Picture
a Memorial Day poem of a sort, more a memoir expressed in short lines as if disguised as a poem. Whatever it is, it is a long one.


Marching behind the heroes (a Memorial Day rememberance)

the circumstances that led to my
military experience began
At the University of New Mexico
In the Fall of 1964…

Completing five months
Of Peace Corps training, then,
Not select for overseas assignment,
I returned to South Texas
To drive a taxicab for several
Months (from which several great
Stories came) then a move
To Southeast Texas to work
For a small-town newspaper,
Managing circulation, plus occasional
Stints as a news writer and photographer and,
Very rarely, help in the press room…

losing my draft deferment after leaving
Peace Corps training, I enrolled
In a junior college in a town
A few miles from the city where
I worked, then neglected to attend
Any classes, which, becoming known
To my draft board in South Texas,
Led to my receiving a draft notice
Two weeks before Christmas, 1965…

Not wishing to spend two years
Of my life pounding ground in the army,
I quickly enlisted in the Air Force,
Choosing four years over two
In the hope, at the relatively late age of 21,
of doing something more interesting
for the time spent…

Spending the requisite time in basic training,
where a tall, thin South Carolina drill sergeant,
named me, as the oldest by several years
of the other grunts, as "Big'un"
Then selected to serve
In the Air Force Security Service
As a Linguist, spending most
Of my next year of service at Indiana University
studying Russian,
Followed by several months
At Goodfellow Air Force Base
In San Angelo where we were introduced
To the radio equipment we would use
To eavesdrop on the Russian Air Force

I next was sent to Darmstadt, West Germany
(there being at that time, still, both an East and
A West Germany) where I spent a year in a
Unit that included Russian, German, Czech,
Polish and Hungarian linguists assigned
To monitor the air forces of all the Warsaw Pac
Countries…

It was a mostly routine job, there being
Little non-routine activity to monitor,
Until the day before I left to return
To the States for leave pending
Reassignment to West Pakistan…

That day began with a great rushing
Of activity throughout the Pac area,
Troops and aircraft units rushing from
Place to place, converging, late in the
Night as my flight home passed over
The Atlantic, in Czechoslovakia, the
Czech government overthrown, its
Leaders in exile and Warsaw Pac troops
Occupying the cities’ streets and countryside

The beginning of the invasion
Discounted the day before as annual routine
Exercises, the fact of the invasion not known
To me until I deplaned at Charleston Air Force Base

The next day…

My next assignment was In Peshawar, West Pakistan...

The original purpose of the post was to monitor
Russian response to the U-2 flights over their country,
This job ended when the Russians, almost by accident,
Shot down one of the high-flying U-2s, taking the pilot
Gary Powers, prisoner…

After that debacle, our mission was directed
At Russian missile and space rocket launches,
Including monitoring Cosmonaut communications
From space, though no such thing happened
On my watch, there were many stories
Of Russian loses kept secret, rockets exploding on launch
And upon returning from space
With cosmonauts inside, at least one
Cosmonaut marooned in space, left
To die in orbit…

But mostly I monitored crop dusters
Over the vast region that has become,
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union,
Several independent republics
Time passes and nothing is ever the same,
For better and for worse and sometimes
There is even a little fun, as when I monitored the Soviet Defense Minister
Flying through the Kabul air gate
On his way to Paris with his mistress…

During that assignment I was able
To fly to Kabul for a week of leave…
What I saw in that week was a country
On the cusp of leaving the 12th century
Behind for the creation of a more modern
State, particularly children I saw passing
Our quarters, walking together, singing,
On their way to school, a vision that
Haunts me as I consider what has happened
There since, the war lords, the bloody Russian
Invasion, The equally bloody Taliban, the deep
Sadness of possibilities lost…

I left Pakistan, in 1969, the end of my military
Career, as the government changed and we
Were ejected from the country...

Although I have suspicions…

Our presence there was top secret to begin with,
So, how do you tell when a secret is no more,
How does one get thrown out from a place
That supposedly was never there…

```````

And that was the end of my military service,
Never a hero, never in the company of heroes,
I did the job I was assigned to do and learned
To enjoy it, gaining from it memories, images I
Will never forget, and the GI Bill that funded
The last two years of my college education
And later a job in the early 70s helping
Young veterans returned from the jungle,
Needing assistance to reassert their civilian life,
Near children, leaving their service 3 or 4 years
Younger then I was when I went in, leaving me
unwilling on occasions like today to consider
myself as anything but a subsidiary to the
Band of Brothers….
​
Picture
let us consider dreams                                       

​sometimes
I dream I am the hero

flying on a white horse
across a purple waving prairie;

sometimes
I dream I am the prairie
ancient,
clean,
vibrant and fertile,
forever waving beneath
the sun and clouds slowly
drifting;

sometimes
I am the clouds
soft and billowy,
traveling continents
and oceans
beneath the warming sun,
beneath the cool, yellow moon;

sometimes
I am the sun and moon,
sisters in a sky on the edge
of stars gleaming,
stars afire in the black eternal
space of a god deeply
sleeping;

sometimes I am that sleeping god,
dreaming
that I am a white horse
flying across the purple waving pastures
of my forever spreading
home….

sometimes
I wake, sorry to be
still lonely among my kind, sorry
to be awake
again
in the world of
undreaming…

​

Picture
As I've told my story a couple of times before, I published my first couple of poems in the late 60s, while completing college after military service. Then I quit writing for nearly 30 years as family and profession took all my attention.

When I returned to writing I was mostly interested in stories I had collected over the years. That, and the fact that I am basically a primitive in my writing and in my art, causes some to question my claim as a poet and an artist. Bullshit I say! I consider nomenclature irrelevant. I label my stuff "poetry" and "art" because in our culture, nothing is acknowledged until it is labelled.

I labelled this piece "poetry" when I wrote it and when it was published in The Green Tricycle. It is the story of a portion of the experiences I had as a Peace Corp trainee in 1964. 

The piece tells the story of a three-day trek over the Monzana Mountains in the second week of December, 1964.



December Passage

Through the forested foothills we hiked,
through the evergree cust of mountain chill
and sun-warmed December desert,
following an uphill, twisting trail
cut by deer and bear and mountain cougar,
until the horizon stretched red relow us
and stars flickered bright overhead.
On a rough and rocky slope we slept,
amid the whisperine feral rustlle of wild nocturned life..
In the silent dawn we woke,
under dim, gloomy skies.
Lightly falling snow was soon a flurry,
then a pale storm, then a curtain of white,
finally a cloak wrapped tightly around us,
muffling the sights and sounds of our passage.
Through swirling white we trekked,
bucking our packs up a zigzag path, finaly, over the crest,
to a clearing covered in a mantle of snow,
protected from the frigid wind by encircling trees.
We rested for the night in this high refuge,
kindling a fire to warm our circled camp.
We turned our backs to the encroaching dark,
drawing close around the blaze and,
under a canopy of stars flickering in the black crystal night,
singing songs many of us learned on Civil Rights marches,
sharing the warm and radiant light of the jittering flames,
Later, secure in the glow of crackling embers,
we pulled dthe cold, clear night around us and slept.
We woke to blood-bracing cold
in the pink-tinged dark that signals the approach of sunrise.
Dawn broke, silent and still,
and the air was clean and clear, the storm over.
High, high overhead, the track of an invisible jet
sliced twine lines of white
across the deep, dark blue of the cold morning sky,
neatly thin lines at first, well-defined and stark,
then swelling into broad bands of gauzy white
that spread across the empyreal vault above us,
the dissapated and disapparaed.
Like the contrails of the jet above us,
we began to stretch out along the trail
on the downhill passage,
drifting apart again,
the mountains kinship fading,
dissipating
under the centrifugal force of journey's end
Picture
let us consider life and death      
​                      

white knight
at one end of the jousting field, resplendent
in white armor, horse draped in white armor as well,
brilliant in the noon sun,
Lancelot I think it was, the King’s champion,
the Queen’s lover...

and onto the field rides the mystery of the black knight,
a huge man on a huge horse, unknown,
as black as Lancelot was white,
a spoiler in the game…

and we all know, sitting in our theater seats,
that this is going to be a battle
between good and bad,
dark and light,
life and
death

and there it is…

the essence of the battle
we fight between birth and the end,
the life-light that is born with us, and that we carry
with us, the sunshine
of all the days allotted to us

and the inevitable everlasting dark
the black at the end of tunnel, the final mysterious
fall into the nothing and nowhere
of night so deep we lose our place
forever, lost to the dark
forever

the white, the shining light
of life, the brilliance of all possible good
wrapped around us, our cocoon of potential
protecting us from the black that always surrounds
us, the dark that daily tries to seduce us
into its cold embrace…

a fight we all know we will lose
in the end
for black
is the natural state all around us,
the natural state of us
and all our works as well,
broken
for a short spell
by the sun passing over us,
rising, then falling,
true to its end as must we be
to our own
Picture

Lord, could you at least do this one thing for me
​

it’s a bright, beautiful day outside
and the dog
waits
in the car for a walk but
three weeks into three weeks
of head cold and cedar fever allergy
miseries
I am so weak and disoriented
(in the sixties and seventies, people
would have paid good money
for a hit of this other-worldly inter-dimensionality,
this stepping over clouds beneath my
feet, this head-butting the late-setting moon,
this twisted lattice
of space and time and fear of flying and
just plain old reality-slippage, like sand
draining through my ears)
but then is then and now is now,
at least I think so,
and the fun is gone and I would really like
a hit of bed, instead pillow-plumping-covers-covering
sleep, days or at least long enough
for this damn minds-eye
muddle
to subside…

someone call in the developers,
strip the north hills of all cedar trees
right down to the limestone,
free me o lord of snifflers of thy
heavy hand of allergens

or, if that’s too much to ask,
o lord
you could at least
take fifteen minutes
from your celestial obligation
to keep the stars
burning and bright and
walk
my poor dog for
me
​
Picture
​let us consider magic    
​                                     

let us imagine
magic is
real

that a young man
with a trumpet can blow down
the walls of a mighty city;

that the dead
can rise;

that a man
can walk on water
and a boy can
fly;

let us imagine
that all we know not
can be learned
through the dim arts
of magic, that the truth of all
lies buried in Merlin’s secret cave;

that once there was a Camelot
that love and truth and beauty flowered there
under the rule of a sorcerer's
magic;

let us imagine a world
where the witches of west and north
and south and east rule all but the realm
of a counterfeit wizard;

let us imagine yellow brick roads
and loaves and fishes
and water to
wine

and the power of goodness
forever triumphant
over the bane of
evil;

let us imagine
love
everlasting;

let us imagine
life
unfettered
by anger and
fear;

let us live as we
imagine;
imagine
as we live all the better
lives that might live
within
us
Picture
discovery’s rapture

Sunday morning
at Barnes & Noble, where we are just about every Sunday morning,
coffee,
newspapers,
new books to see which ones I’ll steal on my Kindle as soon as we’re back outside…

a family, middle aged parents,
three children, ranging from 10 or so to 6 or so,
all well-dressed, maybe for church, not for one of the more elaborate, dress-up churches
like the Methodist or Presbyterian, you know the ones
where men wear suits and women wear hats, more like the Catholics
who’ll take anyone no matter how bad they smell, and one of the Pentecostals
where cleaning the tractor grease out from under your fingernails
constitutes dressing for church…

but, wait, I got off track…

what I meant to say is that this was just a very normal-looking twenty-first century
family, visiting a bookstore, the only thing unusual,
the wonder in which they seem to take in their surroundings, all of which
I think would seem very normal to most…

being mostly an observational poet, I watch people and pick up on small things,
sometimes imagining I have learned secrets about people, sometimes
just making stuff up based on three seconds of watching

this family first caught my attention when they walked past our table
and the oldest boy made a comment about
what a huge bookstore it was, seeming odd to me since it isn't so huge, and I don’t think
most ten-year-old boys would notice even if it was huge, and if they did notice wouldn’t comment on it,
but he was very excited, even more excited when he saw the escalators, and then, later,
when he saw the elevator, so struck that he blurted out in a near squeal how it was such a big bookstore
it even has its own
elevator

and finally, as I happened to be following the father into the men’s room, I almost ran into him
when he went to a dead stop, staring in palpable confusion,
if not outright disbelief, at the mens' room sign which included the helpful notice
that there was a baby changing station inside

I swear for a minute it seemed he was near deciding not to go in, apparently seeing something
very alien about a mens' room with a baby changing station inside, like, whatever was going on
in there it obviously could not be a real mens' room and he wasn’t sure about taking a chance
on what might happen to him and his manliness if he went inside…

~~~

now it might be that I’m more attuned to tiny irregularities in the normal flow of life
in the universe and it might seem that I’m over-reacting to such tiny blips,
but life, for me, is but a never-ending series of tiny blips that an acutely aware person
such as myself observe and sort, wheat blips here, chaff blips there, life as it normally passes
on this planet, so long home to me, here and life that can only be leakage from an alien
universe there...

that is a bigger question and not relevant to right here right now…

what is relevant to right here, right now, is how the whole confluence of observations reminds me
of when I was six or seven years old and I opened my Red Ryder lunchbox at school
and discovered that my mother had sliced my sandwich diagonally
instead of across the middle,
making my sandwich square into two sandwich triangles
instead of the normal two rectangular sandwiches…

it was the first time I had ever seen such a thing,
the first time my mother had ever done that, or at least,
the first she had done it in my presence - she may have done it many times before,
but she was quite a bit older than me, and maybe I just never knew about it…

I thought it was wonderful,
this crazy explosion of sandwich possibilities, so avant garde,
this diagonal sandwich slicing, and probably only something rich people did,
being, with all their riches, well past the point of humdrum rectangular sandwiches,
and on that first day of sandwich revelation, looking into my lunchbox,
looking at the little pointy-end sandwiches, just looking at their pointy little corners,
sent me soaring into a fancy-pants world I could have barely imagined before…

~~~

and I so hope the visit of that oh-so-regular-looking family brought to them
the same rapture of discovery as triangular sandwiches
brought to
me

Picture
The Spot
​
let us consider skin 
                                             

there is much to consider
in the matter
of skin…

at its most basic
a natural packaging,
keeping all the gooey parts
in;

for many years and for some
less enlightened still, a shortcut
for identifying social, moral and philosophical status
in shades of lightest white
to darkest black;

also for many years, protection
against the coldest winter day
and snuggly comfort
of a chilly night,
and even now for some, a status symbol,
social status determined by the kinds and number
of skins one can carry upon one’s
most stylish back;

all that I understand,
but for me the best of skin
is the pink skin of a kitten’s belly

and the soft skin
and scent of a freshly powdered baby

and, oh, that long slow glide
of skin upon skin in
my lovers bed
at midnight -

that’s the very best use of skin
I can think of…
Picture
a cowboy should be tough enough
​

did it again,
dressed for yesterday’s weather,
Hawaiian shirt, black with big red flowers
of probably Hawaiian origin,
looking,
it seemed to me as I studied it in the mirror this morning,
very much like a cowboy shirt
(except for the missing
fringe)

close enough to a cowboy shirt
to remind me that rodeo is just around the corner,
the first signs of it, the cowboy breakfast this morning (for the 45th year)
soft tacos and coffee for about 75,000 people, very few of whom
are actually cowboys, except this once a year when they get up at 4 a.m.
and put on their cowboy hat and cowboy boots and fight heavy cowboy traffic
to the big parking lot over by Freeman Coliseum, while, at the same time, approaching now
from all over South Texas and other cowboy lands to the west and north and even east
a few Cajun bayou cowboys, trail riders, bank clerks, school teachers, and insurance salesmen
and the grizzled fella from down the street and occasional actual cowboys and cowgirls,
all bundled up against the cold, moseying in on their horses from days and nights on the trail,
pots and kettles clattering on the sides of their chuckwagons, and sometime soon,
the cattle drive down Commerce Street through the middle of downtown,
which seems to have some kind of secret launching date because
I always want to take pictures of it but somehow never know about it until it’s over
and I’m thinking maybe this year I can find out where to go and get there ahead of time
and I’m thinking I ought to be doing that right now, right after I cross the last “t” and dot the last “I”
on this little ramble, all, like this ramble, another dodge my dog would say, to avoid
going for a walk in 50 degree weather in my Hawaiian, and I’m thinking, cause cowboys are supposed to
be tough and not deterred when I comes time to herd their herd, that maybe I should reorient
my thinking and based on the similarity of appearance, I should come to understand
that a cowboy shirt is just an Hawaiian shirt with fringe benefits
and conversely maybe I should think of this Hawaiian shirt as just a cowboy shirt de-fringed
and that should make me a cowboy tough enough, as befits my kind,
to go walk the dog
Picture
let us consider the best of times           
             

the little blond haired girl
riding her tricycle in front of your house
when you were three;

the ’49 Plymouth
you overhauled with your dad,
never went more than 45 miles-per-hour,
but, oh, that first drive so
sweet;

the first great afternoon
of sex on the beach,
never mind the sunburned ass
or the sand lodged
in delicate
places
for her name was Julie
and we loved each other for
at least three
weeks;

and later
the girl in the back seat,
not Julie, for that love gone,
but never forgotten,
she, with great billowy
breasts, lying back against soft cloth seats,
astride her
like riding hot waves
in a great sailing ship with white
billowing sails;

the wedding,
vows complete, the stately recessional
past guest standing, applauding,
your father in an pew by the aisle,
your father who disapproved of the venue
and said he would not come, in a pew by the aisle,
thumbs up as you and your bride pass;

the baby,
one month old, in your arms
for the first time, tiny, tiny crying thing
who will not stop for you or for his new mother,
silently sleeping within a minute
of being held by your mother, his new grandmother;

the look in the eyes of your child
when they ask you a question,
knowing,
that of all the moms and dads in the world
you are the one who will know
the answer;

the band,
your son’s first band,
first hearing, the blast of horns
and guitars and drums, realizing how good
they are…

the best times of a life…

===========

some hold the notion that the good times
lie still ahead; while the realist
with an accumulation of
years comes to accept best times of our lives
lie not in the future but in the past,
in the memories we hold
dear…

Picture
my iron cross
​

I have a cross made of two rough iron nails,
each about 4 inches long,
hanging over the door to my office, given
to me by a friend, a believer
who has affection for me and who wished to share with me
the peace she finds in her faith

though I am not a believer
I do have similar affection for my friend
and respect her unassuming and deeply held beliefs
and was honored by her gift
and the peace she hoped to bring to me

and pleased, also, because the cross is a beautiful piece
of rough-hewn art, the long iron spikes,
elemental truth in the integrity of their coarse construction,
as if the hands of their maker, the purpose and life of the iron worker artist
is imprinted on every ridge and groove of their irregular surface

and because it is an illustration of how art
can embody the essence of meanings, the iron nails,
old and heavy and sharp and crude as the nails belief says pierced
the hands and feet of Jesus Christ, relics, almost, placed on my wall,
a great story hanging over my head every time I pass through the door -
a reminder to the poet that, true or not, believed or not,
great stories have great power…

and that it is the poet’s job to find the stories that bring that power to all who read them

one does not have to believe the stories in order to respect and honor them
because they are a reflection of our human desires for a better place
and a better time, our search for a better self, a glimpse
of the divine…

some stories are bloody and cruel, but the need to believe, whatever the story,
reflects the human thrust to find a place beyond the restrictions
of our evolutionary heritage, to find a more human way
to be human..

it is the way, through one story or another, all of us find our way
Picture
let us  consider the random occurrence of good and bad poems

some poets
are determined to write wonderful poems

but since they don’t feel capable
of writing the wonderful poems they imagine
they write no poems at all;

some poets
are determined to write wonderful poems

and since the poems they write do not seem to them
as wonderful as they would like
they throw them away;

some poets
are determined to write wonderful poems

and since the first poem the write
is less than wonderful, they rewrite it
over and over and over again,
never writing another poem, concentrating
all their poetry strength and creativity
on making that unwonderful poem
wonderful;

and some poets
(like me),
born with no poetic shame,
just say what the hell with it and write
poems and poems and poems,
confident in the random distribution in the universe
of good and bad and certain as the bad poems accumulate,
there will be a good one coming any time,
maybe even
a wonderful one…

==========================================

and what about this poem, one might ask,,,

though I doubt it is wonderful, might it be good
or is it bad?

don’t answer that,
My Critic,
because whether it’s good or bad
I’m going to write another one
tomorrow
anyway…
Picture
let us consider the rot of progress                    

tomorrow
I will watch the sun
rise over gently stirring waters
of the Gulf of Mexico
as I have done many time in years passed

loading up a pick-up truck or beat-up station wagon
with friends and driving to the island,
where we gather driftwood and start a fire
that would burn all night as we watched
the bright stars that shine in the inky black gulf night,
with the whisper of the tides ever constant,
doing their dosey doe, In and out, with the turning world
until the sun rises from the sea, turns
the water orange and then the morning,
an orange, then yellow ball that
brings the sky to cloudless blue…

but that was then…

tomorrow
I will watch the sun rise over the gulf
from the ninth floor balcony
of my brother-in-law’s condominium,
buildings like this one either side, the days
when we would come in our pick-ups
and station wagons long passed, the
stubby low sand dunes that were
the island, covered now by a city of towers
and restaurants and grocery stores
and a fire station and a chamber of
commerce, all that makes a city
a city, planted, to grow forever…

but I know as many do not seem
to know, that the storm will come
because the storm will always come,
always on it’s own schedule, blowing across
the Gulf bringing tornado winds and rain
and a flood surge that will clean bare
the island, some will die, mostly new ones
who do not understand the storm
and it’s power and do not listen to those who know
and much pain will afflict the others
who built the glistening towers and
supermarkets and chamber of commerce

will feel sad for those who died by
their own ignorance and I will feel the pain
on those who bet fortunes against
the certainties of chance...

and when it is all done,
when the pearl colored sand
glistens bare again
on moonlit nights, and the
stars shine in the inky black sky
and the tides whisper in and out
all night…

I will return
and gather firewood
and build a fire to burn all night

celebrating earlier times
and never forgotten
nights…
Picture
better than the 3,438th rerun (unless Ginger gets naked)
​


I did a reading
last night

to a small (I prefer the word,
select) group

and I wore my reading
boots

because
while they add an inch

to my height, more important,
they add 6 to 8 inches to my ego

and ego’s pretty darn
important

if you’re going
to write something

and call it poetry
and expect people with more pressing

things
on their mind

to sit quietly
and maybe even listen

and be appropriately amazed
or at least decide it’s

what the heck
better than the 3,438th rerun

of Gilligan’s Island
and boy does that old Skipper

ever get mad at Gilligan
even though I don’t think

the Skipper is much of a skipper
and it’s probably his fault the Minnow

got lost even though he always blames
it on Gilligan

and I think everyone on the island
including that sweet Mary Jane understands

exactly how she got stuck on this island
with that horny professor

who mainly has the hots for Ginger
and couldn’t care less about

that sweet Mary Ann
but you know you have to have

some kind of drama
even on a previously deserted island

or you’ll never get to 3,438 reruns
unless Ginger takes off her clothes and swims

naked in Gilligan’s lagoon
but this is family TV from a time when

families didn’t have sex
and I’m glad of that because

if Ginger had gone swimming naked
in Gilligan’s lagoon

any chance I might have of even a small audience
(I prefer “select”) willing to sit and listen

to me reading my poetry
even in my reading boots

could be described in
just three words

"fat chance,
Skipper"

Picture
​let us consider those who dare                          

no man wishes
to be called a coward
yet there is a political movement
in our country day building
on waves of cowardice

how to explain
when in reality it costs little
to be brave, one person
in a city of millions stands up
to the fear, displaying
not bravery
but trust in the mathematical
certainty that there is safety
in numbers…

it being so easy to take
such a “brave” position
why are so many choosing
to hide under their beds…

disdaining such spineless behavior
I declare now that I am one
with the resistance, ready to stand firm
against the barbarian hordes…

standing stalwart at the shoulders
of the valiant defenders

but expect you will have to find me
in my one in a million cave
first…
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Let us consider our span of time
 
I was born
Before the bomb fell on Hiroshima
But lived under its cloud
For most of my youth
 
I weas young
When black men were beaten
For ordering coffee
And an all-white lunch counter
 
I was young
When a manmade object
Was sent high above
To circle our planet
 
I was young
When a human foot
First broke crusty surface
Of the moon
 
I was young
When a president
Was murdered
In Dallas
 
I was young
When a black man
(not the first)
Was murdered
On a motel balcony
 
I was young
When South Texas heat
Was inevitable
And unavoidable
Anywhere
But in the homes
Of the well-to-do



I was young
When years of foreign wars
Threatened my generation
And more who followed


I was young
When a president
Voided his oath
And his honor and was
Sent away in exile
 
Now I am old
And it seems no lessons
Of my life
Were learned by anyone
Who matters
 
Now I am old
And it seems
The only peace
Is
Still
The peace of the dead

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where do boys go to?
 
where do boys go to
these days
to see horned toads
and tarantulas, where are the red-ant beds
to piss on, and the dirt roads and arroyos to chase down
on tough, stripped-down bicycles (the bicycles they ride today
would fold their delicate little frames into a submissive
heap if ever introduced to a dirt road) where are the muddy fields
to play slip and slide and the thick brush where boys can hide
from the world and girls and grown-ups and smoke Parliament cigarettes, where
are the places where boys can be boys, where mischief can be
innocent and nothing is forever or and never means until tomorrow,

~~~

“I’m looking under
a dress of wonder
that I overlooked
before”


we sang with not a clue of what was “under” and free to make it up
as we went along, imagination we assumed made us experts

where do boys go today to capture such gift of innocent
ignorance…

is there a place safe for such
innocence, such
ignorance

as eased us into the harsher truth
of it all…


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    ​78 years old, three times retired, 2nd life poet, 3rd life artist

    Picture

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