too much drink (Italy 2001)

There is a thing I must advise
for those who choose to drink
Avoid the ones ,unnaturally
That are bright yellow, orange and pink

Stick to wine or quaff your beer
But be careful what you do
Limoncella mixed with those
Will have you gagging in the loo.

Godzilla, where are you?

Written in Tokyo (2001)

Godzilla,
where are you?
I have searched everywhere.
Here I am in Tokyo
And there isn’t hide nor hair.
I’ve turned on every Tv set
To watch the evening news
Bit I never saw a camera crew
Videotape a rampage by you.

I looked around in several streets
Juts looking for a hint
Not a pothole, crevasse or spot
That looked like your footprint


The buildings here are all intact
The high tension wires are fine
I never saw a screaming woman
With your approach in mind

Godzilla
Where are you?
I don’t have that much time
I just want to see you once
As inspiration for this rhyme
Cause if I leave and don’t see you
I’ll assume that you just hid
When someone asks if I did see you
I’ll lie and say, “I DID!”

Chinese toilets

Chinese toilets

The hardest of trials that faces our group
Is finding an auspicious place we can poop
It’s done in a hole that is right in the floor
And often in stalls that don’t have a door

We used all the Kleenex, the soap and the wipes
Our bathroom anecdotes reach startling heights
As we travel around learning just how to be
Our form of enlightenment is spelled “W.C.”

Time Passes

written after visiting small farm towns in China

Time Passes
Does it pass here as well?
Framers toil
Planting as their father did
Digging the irrigation ditch
As grandfather did

Spreading the grain to dry
Raking, raking
As the ancestors did

Time crawls painfully on aching knees
While overhead
Microwave, radio wave and TV
Transmissions
Erode the old ways
Waves that relentlessly batter the shores

Where is the Buddha now?
Asks the Tao
The Buddha says, “It all makes sense.
It is impermanence.”

Observations on a spring day

Observations on a spring day

Along the curbs, trash bins
Appear like spring flowers
Waiting to be plucked
By burly men
In huge green trucks

Caribbean blue, pastel sky
Cotton tufts with Elmer’s Glue
Held precariously aloft
Fluttering
Softly wind tossed

Observations on a spring day

Observations on a spring day

Along the curbs, trash bins
Appear like spring flowers
Waiting to be plucked
By burly men
In huge green trucks

Caribbean blue, pastel sky
Cotton tufts with Elmer’s Glue
Held precariously aloft
Fluttering
Softly wind tossed

The most important things

The most important things
Are the hardest to say
So many things
We let get in our way

So,
We bumble through life
Wondering…..
What do they think
How do they feel?
Pondering…..
Did I do well?
Did they notice me?

The most important things
Seem to be left unspoken
We fear a laugh, a rejection
Our heart might be broken

So,
We bumble through life
Never showing….
Never knowing….

many books to read

Many Book to Read
Like fallen autumn leaves
They scatter about me
Words like lives
Awaiting rebirth

I am not their creator
But, I hold the power of life
Lazarus, come forth
I bring them to life
Again and again

Cradled in my hands
The spine crackles
The leaves whisper

The symbols spring to life
Speaking only to me
In words too soft
For others to hear

From beyond the grave
From a distant shore
I become them

You are what you eat
Therefore,
As I devour
Literary cannibalism

I am ink
I am paper
I am a spaceman, a knight
A villain, a King

For each thousand words
I speak
No sounds
Only pictures

Farewell Summer

Written upon redaing the 85 yr old ray Bradbury's latest novel "farewell Summer."

Farewell Summer



Giddy, I was

Like Christmas Day

Breath held in anticipation

At the Crackling

Reluctant yielding

Of a new binding as it opened



Red Martian dirt

Like rain from the pages

Nearly four-hundred-fifty-one degrees

In my flushed face

And the jack hammer thump

As my heart greets an old friend



And what is that smell?

Crisp October skies

Candlelit pumpkins and skulls

Green town Illinois

With it sweet, sweet summer

Captured I a bottle of dandelion wine



Anxious at page one

Elated at thirty-one

Like autumn leaves, windblown

Pages feed hunger

Turned to foreboding

Upon papyrus one-hundred-seventeen



At the last sentence

The last period

As we smile, breathe deep and part ways

My second father

Will he speak to me again?

Or, are these words carved in tombstone marble?



Can I, scheming

Ration, syllable by syllable

Our conversation, for years to come?

The Grim reaper

Held at bay, frustrated

By my ingenious, intentional procrastination?



Might I, by ignoring,

Hold back tides of time?

An ocean, by will, current less?

Might I, with one hand

Hold tight that merry-go-round

So time moves neither back or forth?



My hunger is deep

Metaphor for my meals

Like a starving man at Christmas dinner

Can I? Dare I?

Lick the plate clean

And devour every word?

Normal

Written on the 1 year anniversary of my dad;s death ( jan. 2008)

Normal



What is ‘Normal?’

They told me

“Things will return to Normal”



“Things?” What is that?

Is it where

I see the empty chair where you sat?



“return?” To come back?

Can “things” ever?

There is no returning, that is a fact.



So, we aimlessly

Walk around

The empty chair, carefully





Some other voice

Whispers your prayer

Sadly, not by our choice



Life goes on

Inching painfully

Through memory of moments gone



“Normal?’ At what cost?

Sorrowfully, I

Can only grieve for our loss



Weak to my core

Unable to hold

You here for a single moment more



Normal exists here no more

Terra Cotta

Silent in your vigil
Patient in your duty
Day after day
year upon year
The dust of centuries settles over your watch

One, ten, twenty
Faithfully, you watch
faithfully you stand
Stone aftre stone
Wind and rain
Cover you in the clay of forgotten past

Still,
your face is resolute
Still,
You armor protects
Still,
Your arms await action

Like an army of Lazarus
Arise!
Awakened to a foreign land and time
A blue sky and vapor trails
Strange tongues and a smell of gasoline
Reborn,
Piece by piece
Silent in your vigil
Patient in your duty
day after day
year upon year
The walls of a new era arch over your watch

complete serenity- 2001

Eyes lowered
Complete serenity
Chaos laps at the feet of the Buddha
Grain upon grain
Taken out to sea
Now a part fo something bigger
Something immeasurable
Undefinable

Grain after grain
Buddha erodes away
Slowly, slowly, the centuries inch by
He will disappear
As it should be
Seemingly solid and permanent
An illusion
Temporary still in his long existence
As it is with all things
Complete serenity

changinmg the guard at Maachu Pichu- 20005

The mountain towered above us
As we stood on ancient, sacred stone
Our quest, teenage sons and I
To ascend to cloud's heights unknown

Greying hair and the wear and tear of life
Far above, unsure of a physical goal
We climbed, sweating and grunting
A new chapter, accepting my new role

Sons like mountain goats
Bound from rock to rock to rock
While I pant, ache and pause
Fighting the urge to compromise and stop

"careful Dad," "Are you OK Dad?"
prod em on to be with them
until slowly, almost eternally
We stand at the top of our whim

Cool winds dried the sweat of my brow
As we stood, at the top of the world
High above the ancient stones
Shirts flapping as flags unfurled

There, I handed over the crown
As my star fades, their supernova sings
I see more in them than I could ever be
The King is dead. Long live the Kings.