Corona Senryu VI

Flights canceled, skies clear -
Humans curse the pandemic
While birds rejoice.

Corona Senryu V

Alone, overweight:
computer yoga class fails
to quell her hunger.

Corona Senryu IV

Having lived through wars,
Old man with no mask shopping:
Unafraid to die.

Corona Senryu III

The president said
He heard bleach kills the virus.
Deaths by poison rise.

Corona Senryu II

With beards and long hair,
Men protest the shutdowns, but
Later call doctors.

Corona Senryu I

Morning mirror grin:
Which friend will I lose today?
The old cynic asked.

Corona Haiku XII

Cold spring morning rain:

Neighbor in thick coat outside.

Markets must go on.

Corona Haiku XI

Calling hospitals
Until she found him and talked:
Agonizing farewell.

Corona Haiku X

In the pandemic,
A puppy chasing a ball -
Joy undiminished.

Corona Haiku IX

Social distancing:
The misanthrope, stepping out,
Feels free in the streets.

Corona Haiku VIII

Hell is The Others.
Coughs heard at the house party -
Sartre's words ring true.

Corona Haiku VII

Covered in plastic,
Workers wheel covered bodies -
Morgue as meat locker.

Corona Haiku VI

Worshippers chanting,
The pastor praising God's cure.
From the back pew: coughs.

Corona Haiku V

A nurse, exhausted,
Slouched and holding the cold hand
Of a grandmother.

Corona Haiku IV

The Stay Home Order -
No one told the homeless man
Dozing at the park.

Corona Haiku III

Cloudless sunset sky,
Suggesting hope and questions -
Alone on a walk.

Corona Haiku II

Pandemic evening,
Signs on restaurant doors: "closed" -
No rats in dumpsters.

Corona Haiku I

Pandemic morning,
Cherry petals in the breeze -
No one there to watch.

Thanksgiving 2017

The sidewalk receptacle stood undisturbed,

by passersby unperturbed,

in the cold evening.

The old man, face worn, brown coat torn,

pulled, from the trash,

a brown pizza box.

Box that yesterday held a large pizza:

tomato, pepperoni,

triple cheese and anchovy.

Box that yesterday passed round a room

with glee.

No way to un-see, attempt to forget,

pretend not to feel, or try not to cry,

though the old man tonight will not die.

The brown pizza box held a leftover slice.

Box that when opened seemed to ask why,

when gods among men play with dice,

do the poor and the weak pay the price.

Vegas Haiku III

Thundering gunfire,

Fireworks raining from the sky –

Your question cut short.

Vegas Haiku II

Thundering gunfire,

Fireworks raining from the sky –

Her chatter silenced.

Vegas Haiku I

Thundering gunfire,

Fireworks raining from the sky –

Run! He said, then fell. 

Dead Stars

No friendship can be safe 
From the destructive power of time,
From the curse of fading memory, 
From the poison of indifference. 

Our telephone line may bridge
The distance of the daunting miles.
But no bridge was built to cross
The distance of the daunting years.

To keep at bay deep fears
We pretend our friendship holds. 
But no denial can fill the loss
Of the trust we once held dear.

Courage it takes to see it clear:
The passion of youth does end,
That joy that we cherished -
That friendship won't perish - 
Lost when the road did wend
Far to the left and far to the right:
We walked our own paths,
Soon lost to sight.

If the child in you and the child in me
Should one day meet in your memory,
Tell them both to always sing
Of the joy and the excitement
In a future we held in awe;
Tell them both to always cling
To the vision of companionship 
In a future we thought we saw.

For across the sky the darkness falls:
On the sand alone I count my scars,
Your echo faint and then it stalls -
A friend like the light of long dead stars.

Republican Hell

All is not well.
The world has gone to hell
Because all we want to sell
Are guns that fire a shell
Faster than time can tell
The seconds when victims fell,
Bleeding enough to fill a well.
‎The leaders you elected smell
Like the sulfur they'll breathe in hell,
Foul odors we should expel
The next election by a groundswell
Of people, like me, compelled
‎To shake you by the lapels
And leave you with this bombshell:
Vote Republican and I foretell –
To all that's good just say farewell.

City Escape

City evening -

nightlife scents
in the summer wind:
cigarette smoke,
piss, sweat, and
garlic pizza.

The street lights
hide the stars.
Windows facing alleys
lined with bars
hide the silent little wars.

Revelers carousing,
crowds passing on the sidewalk -
their shouts drowned by the siren call -
while on the other side of the brick walls
shouts of another kind - 
disappointment finds
the tinder of alienation
and lights the fire of anger and regret.

We are a fretful nation
seeking always to forget
the home of broken dreams
in the safety of the city streets
where the heart ache always seems
to pass in a dance, a kiss.
A stranger's touch is easy bliss.

Insect

Today
I killed
A cockroach.
A subject we are loathe
To broach:
Is God the sidewalk
Or the shoe?

Is faith in an unseen future
The glue
That binds the suture
Tight,
That joins all things
In futile fight
For survival?

The image, primal,
Of the crushed insect -
I shall remember but soon forget.
We kill the small and worthless
Without regret.

Gilgamesh

Startled in the pre-dawn light
I awoke in time to see
My thoughts, my dreams,
Rush up the bedroom walls,
Leap in the quiet air
Through the windowpane
To God knows where.

The ceiling did not replenish dreams,
Not the closet, not the couch.
But the bookshelf held out hope.
In the gloom was tossed a rope.
To pull me from my bed
That grew or shrank
With the weight of joy, sadness,
Dread and madness.

At the other end of the rope
Gilgamesh stood and spoke:
Do not pine after dreams
Of storms and bulls and
Birds that breathe fire.
You have not lost your Enkidu,
Your innermost desire.
Your wildness sleeps
Without need of rest or dreams.

The good life is not lived
Building walls, fortifications
To keep your beloved safe and true.
Immortality is not given you,
Neither youth nor vitality
Outlast the adventure.
The monster in the mountain
Must be slain, though it bring
The rage of gods, the winds of war.
From unknown lands your dreams will spring.

Morning Mirror

In the gloom of dawn
Before the light of morning,
I am fully awake,
Staring at my face in the mirror,
The water running softly.
It has been running for some time.

I raise my hands to my face,
My fingers linger along and trace
The line of my cheekbones.
This skin will one day fall away,
The cheekbones turn to dust.

One finger runs down my nose,
A line slightly bent
By an experience that rent
My faith with hard cement.
This nose too will vanish.

The hair at my sides a bit grayish,
Showing how fast the days run.
They have been running for some time.
And though we run after our days,
Always we lag behind.

Ours is a fruitless race,
Death already shows on my face.
And my hair will fall into the sink
Sooner than I think.

In the growing light of morning
The birds begin to call,
Their cheerful sounds an invitation
To lay in bed once more
Until the sunlight is too bright
To sleep, perchance to dream.

The Morning After

I woke up at 4:00 am today, unable unable to sleep. Rain fell outside. Was God crying? Or urinating on us all? How could a compassionate, just God sanction this election?  Most Christian Evangelicals voted for Trump, a complete betrayal of their religious beliefs. In their hypocritical hearts, they know Trump's religious gestures are mere theater. Never has it been more tempting to boldly proclaim the virtue of atheism.

A panic attack kept me awake. Vaguely, I recall the fear constrict my chest and knew instinctively that it was the same fear Trump's supporters felt. They surrendered to this animalistic drive, irrational by nature, at the polls yesterday. It was an epiphany: understanding this fear was a key to penetrating the dark, unspeakable mystery of our national political climate. How each of us responds to this fear individually will affect the course of our country, and in turn, the world.

I dressed for work as if for a funeral, all in gray - gray suit, gray tie, gray shirt - gray like the cloudy day that was dawning and still I moved about as if in a bad dream, slowly.  To deny reality is human. Uneducated racists do not have a monopoly on denial. But my clock kept ticking. Because I could accept the possibility that I would be late for work, I admitted I was awake. I had lived through what history will record as our worst election for all its resemblance to 1932 Germany.

Stepping outside, the fear subsided but still lingered. It cast a small shadow in me, like the shadow of leaves on pavement after the rain.  What I did with this fear was my own burden. So I secured the fear, until I could regain my reason, by using a talisman.

I dressed in mourning because something died last night, a grand experiment on tolerance unique in history.  But I placed a small, white handkerchief in my breast jacket pocket. The Christians - the authentic ones - have a story about Jesus who survived death and will one day return. Only their hope sustains that story. The thin, white line in my breast pocket was my own talisman of hope. Perhaps America will return from death some day. And perhaps how we vanquish the animal fear will usher the resurrection. But for today I just need to touch the white fabric often, to navigate the sadness until I can again think.

Kanye

I resist

the commodification
of the struggle to define
the self;
I am not a brand -
from where I stand,
no man, no woman,
or rock,
or bird,
or tree,
can truly see
to understand
the struggle is not in blood,
not in riches or glamorous fame,
but in language, in memory,
in the past that never was
and forever will be.

She repeated the sentence three times
To herself in the morning, stopping
On each line for emphasis,
While breakfast was served on her balcony,
The fresh squeezed orange juice
Cooler than the wind from the sea.

Before her tea at three,
To the reporter,
To the photographer,
To the publisher,
To the maid:
The long sentence in every receptive ear
Seemed to steer clear of any risk
Of meaning.

The unknown safety of not thinking
Keeps us while we sleep
With eyes wide open:
Protection from the standing rock,
The bent, old tree,
The incomprehensible
Wind from the sea.

Hourglass

I grow tired
And the hour is getting late;
The time withers for youthful dreams
I hoped would make life great –

Too late to scale the highest peaks

Or swim the widest channel
Or other wondrous feats;
Too late to take a child in hand,
Raise a fine woman or a man.

If still left to me were one hundred years
I still would not find the courage or time
To conquer my fears -

Still the manuscript would lay in tatters,
Still I’d dwell on what doesn’t matter,
Still the trip to that distant land
Would be just talk with a drink in hand.

And as I drain my glass with somber face
In a clean, well-lighted place,
I know my love tonight will not appear.
Perhaps, if time should still remain,
I will find you here, this time, next year.

Dissent

If a nation
Founded on the ideal - the sublime appeal -
Of individual liberty, should shine and not
Vanish from the earth,
Then at its hour of birth, the nation should relent,
That seeds of liberty must also sprout dissent.

And, if in that shout of contradiction,
Should be raised a moral vision
To shake our institutions
At their innermost foundations,
Then should we recall
That dissent seeks to forestall the fall
Of those dear and cherished freedoms.

A far cry from the critic
Who would redesign our structures
Is the nihilist who furthers
A complete and utter rupture -
That ideological arsonist
Who would burn the entire edifice
Of our popular democracy.

Therefore let us pray we don't confuse,
Confound, misunderstand.
The dissenter who may take a stand
Against popular but harsh opinion
Is no demagogue's minion.
The nation cannot find its way
If dissenters face our wrath.
They struggle in their way to say
That we stray off our rightful path.

Spring Rain

After the rain
Of days and melancholy days,
When the wet sheen on all the world
Reflects a dull spring sky,
Still the swollen green of dripping plants,
With the shiniest indifference,
Demands your full attention.

By the sidewalk, the milky white of dogwood,
In a garden, the tender tone of roses,
And the lilies scatter on a lawn
In speckled yellow splendor:
All seek to draw the eye
From the pensive gray of sky.

To venture out at dawn
And hear the song of sparrows
Hiding in the great, green tops
Of sturdy oak and slender willow,
Branches swaying, dripping rain
Like green low-lying clouds -

Sight and scent and sound that calls -
The bustling of no crowd:
Nature's vigor, soon to die,
Its fleeting moment leaves no doubt,
Our blood is earth, our soul is sky.

Worldwide Web

You can project
Your content here:
Your hope, your fear. 

This space can be
Your preferred candidate,
Your Superman,
Your Jesus. 

What you want me to be, I cannot,
Because I already am. 

In my mind there is a land
Where we can walk together.
Flowers in a field gathered;
Like us, they sway and dance,
Sprung from seeds scattered
By the fickle winds of chance.

 

 

Greenwood

Greenwood
Was a cemetery for the colored,
A place where the pale-colored bones
Of black folk
Would not through ages rot
Near the pale-colored bones
Of white folk.

And the spirits of the dead
Linger and lament:
Wealth begets more wealth.
Want begets more want.

These days Greenwood
Is a haunt:
Weeds and ivy choke
The graves among the oak.

And the spirits of the dead
Linger and lament:
Wealth begets more wealth.
Want begets more want.

The white man’s marker taunts,
From its shining grave upon a hill,
That declaration of segregation
That was Greenwood,
Now fallen mute and still.

And the spirits of the dead
Linger and lament:
Wealth begets more wealth.
Want begets more want.

Why care for the plots of the dead
When we can scarcely tend the living?

To right the ancient wrongs
Among the living poor today
Would not undo the lynching.
In the well-kept tombs
Of the martyred dead
Is the silence of forgiving.