The Things No One Saw

Where I came from

small armies of children

played safely on sidewalks

we were bent

and straight as posts

and singularly white.

A tiny few

seasoned old Jews

pursued by older world ghosts

worried that fate

rushed our way

unseen

and trembled

for the young

unescorted.

Some of the mothers

alone with their kids

bent low under burdens

and some men

gripped by secrets and anguish

beat children and wives

and one, maybe,

beat the boy with no name

who collapsed on the street.

Where I came from

small armies of children

played on the streets

unheeding and most of us

safe.

And the nightmares we knew,

and the ones we saw coming

were nothing

like the ones

we face now.

High Notes

As poets go,

I am no Sultan of Swat.

I’m more

sort of

pickin’ splinters

from my butt.

Then, again,

there was only one

Georgia Peach.

I’ve said it before,

the vast majority of us

are journeymen,

but we have glory in our hearts

and we still stretch

and stretch again

to hit the high notes.

And, between the stretches,

we hum a few bars

here at the end of the bench.

Best Case Scenario

or the silver lining at the end of the world

Stephen King says this:
at the end of all rationalism
the mass grave.
Science,

biology, physics, he says,
technology--
the deathtrip.
At the end of it all

the bomb, the plague--
something--
climate change
at the the end of it all.

The final genius
of our everloving, overstriding
brilliance.
He also holds this:

Technological collapse will reduce
the ambient noise that shrouds
our magic selves and
we will see

our dormant gifts awakened.
Manifest in all survivors
a certain wizardry more or less.
Hallelujah, anyway.

In Yet Another Moment

In this moment

I love you more

than ever I have

before

In this moment

I reach to you

to touch and

hug

In this moment

I want to make

love with tender

kisses

In this moment

I celebrate

your  fierce

resolve

I want to watch

you love your babies

soothe your children

excite your friends

and awe

the workers

by your side

in this moment

please laugh for me

and eat with me

and rest here

in this love

that is more

by far

than ever

before

while the delicate

irony of this moment

be handled gently

in the words written

in yet another moment

The Only Writing Advice I Have to Give

Work to the limits

of resolve

to strike away

the tiny flaws,

focus on fatal flaws,

familiar, resonant,

god, for instance,

or magic or mudslides

or death or tender feelings

or the girl on the roof

surveying the street,

contemplative and quiet,

or how it feels

to touch a pencil

to paper, watching shadows

grow

The Round Trip to There and Back

How many different ways

to do a thing

to do one thing

to take a walk

take a hike

follow the river

follow the nose

in front of your face

stride right

methodical

guileless

itinerated

high road and low

straight, narrow

and into the wind

along the ridge

and back

down trail

upstream

true north

through the pines

careless

around the hot zone

and toxic places

shouldering loads

swinging free

bent by cares

and shuffling slow

full of hope

full of vigor

near the end

on a new path

this far and no further

focused and driven and dreaming hard

lovelorn and anguished

how many different ways

to walk or live or love