A Wide River to Cross

Her ship pulled away from shore
Spelling disaster

Hail! I see her come full bore
Navigate  faster

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is a Coin Poem, which has two stanzas, 24 syllables, a rhyme-scheme, and considers an issue from two sides--hence, a coin poem!

Really

The nursery magic had happened to him,
and he was a toy no longer.
He was Real.
The Boy himself had said it.

Ford had learned how to change the baby’s diaper,
swing him like a football during the witching hour
and check the bathwater temp with his elbow.
He loved the boy’s mother who he had married
before full disclosure. Thus he certainly wasn’t
the father. Their April wedding happened on a whim.
He questioned his own wisdom. 

They’d been married ten months now;
the only lullaby Ford sang were hymns
for the nursery magic had happened to him.

Zebadiah, limbs akimbo in Ford’s arms, crying his throat raw
but Ford kept pacing the screened-in porch
hoping the neighbors wouldn’t mind too much.
He wished he could call his own mother
and ask for advice or a remedy or even a hand
but Ford’s single-mother had taken the dive
into her own hell-hole; he was the stronger
of the two. With Zebadiah’s mama at work, Ford needed to
rely on his own inner-fortitude.  The tonic, he’d conjure,
for he was a toy no longer.

It’s not that Ford didn’t feel for the boy, feel
pity and maybe a bit of kinship; they were both
bastards after all. That kind of talk was his mother’s
mouth running, sharp on the tongue and piercing
Zeb didn’t take after his mama and he’d never
match Ford. Someone looked like a third wheel
but no one could tell who was the spare
Ford was sure the neighbors gossiped
Now Ginny was showing, could no longer conceal
Ford was certain this next kid would make him feel Real.

Ginny climbed in the car, “Zeb will have a new
brother or sister soon,” she breathed, waving
goodbye as Zebadiah stood with Mrs. Paulsen
next door. Ford touched the shoulder of his pseudo-son,
offered a quick squeeze before the drive
to the hospital would finally acquit
Ford’s notion that he was a papa ad hoc; he wanted to
feel like he’d done all the work. Zeb’s arms locked around
Ford’s knees, “Daddy, I love you, don’t forget,”
breaking his heart, Ford was already Real. The Boy himself had said it.

--some lines from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

Telling the Truth

If I were dry instead of spilling over

A stemmed rummer: Chardonnay or port

If I were bare instead of drunk with clover

Wisteria madly climbing o’er my fort

If I were fair instead of robust swart

My limbs each a shaded branch

If I were willowy, but nay, I am short

Burning thoughts the world will stanch

If I were a vicar, not stuck on this ranch

Prayers launched unto the Promised Land

To face the Almighty, I’d surely blanch

My intractable ship by Him be manned

If I were willing, I’d spread my arms and die

But my arms stay folded; I bow and sigh

Canis Lupus

Mimi’s waiting patiently for a blood-red
moon, an eclipse that starts past
midnight, that starts with a wolf’s
muzzle pointed skyward, its lips
making a howling lament, a rumbling
moan until it’s joined by a rough pack

Fellow canines, sister bitch, form a pack
friendly to none but the other, their red
focused eyes wait until a train rumbles
far down cold, steel tracks, past
farmhouses where prayers on lips
form, children breathing like a pack of wolves

Tangled like a litter of whelps-to-wolves
Tussling for their place in the pack
Tough and snarling, their bristled hair, lips
turned back in a sneer, yet their red
tender hearts bleed of memories past
today and tomorrow with the past rumble

By 1926, the last wolves were rumbled
back to their graves in Yellowstone, No Wolves
became the mantra, this shameful past
beholden to government control. Yet a pack
beneath the radar, sheltered on a red
bed of secrets, grew in Minnesota, on the lip

of Lake Superior—those wolves’ curled lips,
open teeth, and crouched haunches, rumble
outside where they sleep, no predators with red
objectives will attack them. The alpha wolf,
only betrayed by man, runs in tight packs
or strikes out solo in search of a mate. In the past,

no wailing wolf could be found. “That’s in the past,”
newspapers claimed, but Mimi still believed, her lips
not opening, not even mouthing the truth. A wolf’s pack
need not fear, Mimi’s tongue will not wag, nor words rumble
nilly-willy. Mimi sets salt-licks for the deer, knowing a wolf
nearby will soon down one for its dinner, under the moon, blood-red.

Wolf-packs survive despite past histories of scourge
Mimi, so unlike Little Red Cap, licks her own lips
As thunder rumbles and her wolves wake for the night

Telling the Truth

If I were dry instead of spilling over
A stemmed rummer: Chardonnay or port
If I were bare instead of drunk with clover
Wisteria madly climbing o’er my fort

If I were fair instead of robust swart
My limbs each a shaded branch
If I were willowy, but nay, I am short
Burning thoughts the world will stanch

If I were a vicar, not stuck on this ranch
Prayers launched unto the Promised Land
To face the Almighty, I’d surely blanch
My intractable ship by Him be manned

If I were willing, I’d spread my arms and die
But my arms stay folded; I bow and sigh

She Looked Pale

At first, she only looked pale
But didn’t we all, it was the middle
of winter with less than eight hours
of sunlight to toast our cheeks
Tanning beds were verboten

Unless one was Glamour-Gal
At first, she only looked pale
Not even as  wan as her sister
who lived in Memphis,
which was two zones warmer

But then we noticed her baggy jeans
and the belt notched to the limit
At first, she only looked pale
We thought nothing of it, we all
looked like ghosts coming out

Of the winter solstice, the tepid sun
making a show in the western sky
but unable to make a dent in degrees
At first, she only looked pale
So when the light finally shined

Brightly enough for the truth
Our hearts sank for there could be
no other reason for her meek demeanor
her listless pallor and papered hands
At first, she only looked pale

Two Bird Poems to Consider

Birds in History

I am a feathered dinosaur
A partridge in a pear tree
My hollow bones account for
My life as a feathered dinosaur
My thrust and lift, my drive to soar
Breaking free of gravity
I am a feathered dinosaur
A partridge in a pear tree

Flight of the Boastful Bird

You could fly if you wore feathers
And cannular bones
In all nature of weather
You could fly if you wore feathers
To live a life untethered
Around your neck, no stones
You could fly if you wore feathers
And cannular bones

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Which one strikes you more?

Hearing Voices

If I'd followed his advice
When he learned there was a baby
He didn't flinch, think twice
To keep it, he thought crazy

When he learned there was a baby
"Snuff it out," he blithely said
To keep it, he thought crazy
"We'll be better when it's dead"

"Snuff it out," he blithely said
His words came as a shock
"We'll be better when it's dead"
A hard place and a rock

His words came as a shock
Then I heard her lusty cry
A hard place and a rock
With love, I said goodbye

Then I heard her lusty cry
And yet I set her free
With love, I said goodbye
Her new parents, they make three

And yet I set her free
My desires, I deferred
Her new parents, they make three
I listened to God's word

My desires, I deferred
I didn't flinch, think twice
I listened to God's word
And I followed His advice

Memphis, Anyway

“I’m not concerned about that now”
said the mountain that spoke with his face,
down from the edge of an unsheltered sky,
and King went to Memphis anyway. Excerpt from Memphis Anyway by Dan Collins


When he was born in 1929, he was named Michael like his father
But concern for the great religious activist compelled his dad
To change both father and son names to Martin,
Martin Luther. Sometimes I wonder if I would accomplish
More if I changed my name, too. Maybe I could be
Eudora Welty or Sally Struthers, but somehow
I don’t think that would make a difference. What compels
A person to rise above their earthly bondage, to lash
Their focus onto ethereal goals, onto Life’s prow
“I’m not concerned about that now”

King made that speech in 1963, the year I was born
And yet in my mind, I can hear his voice pealing out the words
Oh, the wonders of YouTube and a good memory
I still have one, you know. I’ve not lost my mind’s
Facility. Mount Rushmore. I’ve been there twice,
Have you? Once when I was two years old, that place
Was captured on film and I can watch my small, blond
Self holding a snake in Reptile Gardens; it must have
Been along the route. Back then, life was all grace
said the mountain that spoke with his face

Martin was assassinated in 1968, when he was 39 years old
I remember being five then. I owned a dog named Trixie
I had a birthday party with my friends Cheryl and Carol Wold
And Dan Matthews and Jeanne. But I don’t remember any-
Thing about Martin. I wasn’t too young to recall that time in
My life, my grandparents’ farm, my old Aunt Prisca, so why
can’t I remember Martin’s death? Did anyone die when I
was five? I was still living in grace. God still hid in the church
rafters and sang the incantation during High Mass, way up high
down from the edge of an unsheltered sky

The first murder I genuinely remember happened on West 72^nd street.
John Lennon was old then, I was seventeen, he was forty. He was old, right?
Did you know, at the moment he was pronounced dead at Roosevelt Hospital
The song, All My Loving, by the Beatles began playing over the sound system
When I die, I wonder what song will be playing, what song do I want?
I like music from Godspell, the musical. Somehow I’d arrange for Day
By Day to be playing if only in my mind. “To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly, Follow thee more nearly, day by day…”
King knew what his future foretold, but there was a voice he had to obey
and King went to Memphis anyway

Tupelo Diner

Wait till you hear what Ruby Perlman did last night.
What in tarnation she be thinkin’, I do not know.

We was working the second shift
at Woolworth's and that girl,
she stands behind the lunch counter
serving the whole Crider family dessert.
I think it was them little lemon custards
with a dollop of whipped cream on top
and a dustin’ of cinnamon.
Looked just like what Miss Margaret served
on TV last Sunday night.

So's anyway, Miss Ruby
she pours coffee for the Mister and Missus
gives ‘em cream, sugar lumps, whatever blessed thing they ask for.
One of them Crider twins spilt his milk and
the baby emptied a salt shaker on the floor,
but that ain't what set Ruby off.

Mr. Crider, he stands up

and the whole family
they leave. 

Eunice, that oughta be Miz Crider,
now don't you be telling her I using her Christian name,
she asks Mr. Crider to leave a tip or sumptin,
seeing as they left a mess,
what with creamed ‘taters slopped
down the high chair and that bratty Betty
shoving perfectly good black-eyed peas
in all them clean straws.

So's anyway, Mr. Crider, he looks at Ruby
and grunts,
then he gives his oldest boy a penny and
tells him to go leave it on the counter.

Avis, that boy,

He ain't got the sense he ‘uz born with.
He walks back to th’ counter
And drops the coin in a glass of water
sayin’ wit’ snakes in his eyes,
"here ya go, nigger."

Ruby--
she jes stands there looking at Avis,
then she grabs the water glass and
hustles over to the front door

squeezin' her body past the Mister
and filling up the doorframe, so's Miz Crider can't get round her.

Ruby's bosom was a heavin'.  She looking

hotter than a two-buck pistol.
She be panting, with sweat
shaking off ‘er head like a dog.

Then she says,
jes’ like that, she says,
"Mr. Crider, if'n you cain't leave me more tip than one piddlin’ cent,
then I don't want your money or your business!"

‘n she takes that glass of water
an pours it over Mr. Crider's head.
‘n she takes that coin,
pressing it on his greasy brow
so's the picture of Abra’m Lincoln
purt near branded on his forehead like he a bawlin' calf.
Not that it'll do any good, but still,
she done it.
She did. 

I swear, when they drug Miss Ruby off
all 'cuffed 'n bound
them cops prob’ly reckon
ol' Ruby gone dug her own grave.

But you mark my words, now,
that Miss Ruby,

Someday...
She gonna fly.

Interview with Lee Harvey Oswald

Let me ask you one more question
Had you ever shot a man before?
I take your silence as implied confession

Carved in my mind: your Byzantine expression
Found on your face ere you hit the floor
Let me ask you one more question

Was killing John your sole obsession?
A President we could all adore
I take your silence as implied confession

You maintained your sight on the grand procession
Then pulled the trigger, not once, but four
Let me ask you one more question

Did you act alone or in succession
with others who formed a conspiracy corps?
I take your silence as implied confession

May God forgive you your transgression
As you knock with hope at Heaven's door
Let me ask you one more question
I take your silence as implied confession

Dead at 39

I am no longer of myself, but of a communal picture, living at large. When I place my hands on the lectern, I feel voltage where none was before. The throng loosens its voices though the well of my soul sinks deeper. I once stood at the foot of this mountain, but now climb to the pinnacle; its peak is within reach.


Metamorphosis
From colored boy to icon
The fruits of my thoughts

I am no longer fearful, though you fear me, fear my credo. I am not here to change you, but to reshape your world view, as did my namesake four hundred years ago. I also can list ninety-five reasons: One, I am a human being. Two, my rights are equally guaranteed by the Constitution. Three, my wife gives birth to babies just as yours does. Four, I am not defined by the color of my skin. Five...

No longer deny
My selfsame humanity
I am your brother

Memphis has become my Jerusalem; hidden amongst the crowd lies a snake, which my heel cannot crush. This weight works itself into my face, trying to contort my message, but the weight will turn to buoyancy, my words will become golden. I stand now on the balcony listening to a song in my mind: Take My Hand, Precious Lord. I see the snake.

Vict'ry flashes
Sending me to the mountain top
My dream is at hand

Good Counsel Home, 1963

The first time I saw Tula,
she was cracking an egg over
a yellow bowl the Housemother and I
had found at Goodwill that morning.

The trick is to beat it until it’s good and foamy,
she said, a matchstick dangling
off the edge of her lip, nearly falling
into our uncooked lunch.

We sat at the counter, balancing on bar stools
still funky from bleach and ammonia, slurping egg-dumpling soup,
taking reluctant bites out of apples
we’d picked up with our AFDC checks.

Tula was ready to pop, though she never complained
about the silver ribbons snaking across her gut or the
bowling ball sitting on her bladder. I saw her once, scratching her
backside, working her index finger like her ass was made outta Playdoh.

Two weeks later, Tula was on kitchen duty again.
She stood there with her deflated belly and eyes like a basset hound.
I asked if she knew who got her kid.
Sneering, she took two brown eggs, and raising

her arms high over head, she smashed
them together, the yellow yolks sliding
down her wrists, shells falling in her hair,
whispering, who the hell cares.

Once Upon a Bed

Tracey and Lou owned a PosturePedic mattress
You’d never know, to look at them, they weren’t married
Most telling was Lou loving Tracey with a light caress

They shared two children, a dog, with great success
Between day-care, school, and work, they often ferried
Tracey and Lou owned a PosturePedic mattress

A trip to Dr. Bahrain, lymph nodes he did access
At that precise moment, they began to feel harried
Most telling was Lou loving Tracey with a light caress

Where does one go when one seeks to convalesce
With family? Alone? The choices were varied
Tracey and Lou owned a PosturePedic mattress

Lou said to Tracey, “Back to your mother’s, I would guess.”
But, “Tsk, tsk, tsk, it’s a shame you never married.”
Most telling was Lou loving Tracey with a light caress

Two rings turned up on that last day along with fancy dress
Into the crypt went mother’s tears; the rings regretfully they buried
Tracey and Lou owned a PosturePedic mattress
Most telling was Lou loving Tracey with a light caress

Our Bliss

The requiem of our bliss begins
as I unlock the birdcage of my heart,
freeing all kept promises, cleaning out
the spent seeds and stale water.
You know my gestures intimately;

you’ve watched me dozens of years.
The requiem of our bliss begins
as I open my mouth to mourn,
recalling the chariot of our wedded life.
See how it trundles along, broken and squeaking.

So, too, has our love passed from ecstatic trills
to shrill whines—a dismal threnody.
The requiem of our bliss begins
as I unclench my hand, releasing our love
to find its resting chamber.

Our certificate of vows must slip through
bent spindles that once bound us together.
Let it pass.
The requiem of our bliss begins
as our bands fall onto shredded newspaper.

I lay our photo upon the flame;
the edges curl and blacken.
Your face furrows as I snuff out our attachment.
I am burning you out of my heart.
The requiem of our bliss begins.

The Last Fugue

That’s the way it sounds to me
My hand dragging in the water
As you bow her violin in key
We laugh and drink Vichy water

My hand dragging in the water
The contrails in the sky
We laugh and drink Vichy water
You say her name, but I don’t cry

The contrails in the sky
Hang like my heart in stasis
You say her name, but I don’t cry
I give you my last quarter with two faces

Hang like my heart in stasis
Until it bursts into a fistful of coins
I give you my last quarter with two faces
Throw it in her grave, I enjoin

Until it bursts into a fistful of coins
As you bow her violin in key
Throw it in her grave, I enjoin
That’s the way it sounds to me

Flying

Tu ne seras pas oublié.

You were not ready when you flew from earth,
snatched, like a bird in a storm.

Now I sit at your desk writing the last words in your journal.
I pour out your shampoo, sudsing my hair twice a day
until there is nothing left.
I paint my nails while emptying your imported bottles
of Le Rouge Foncé and Rose Scintillant.

Birds feast on your half-eaten bag of Cheetos I shake,
salting the wind.
I burn your cinnamon candle down to a nub,
leave on your night-light until the bulb burns out,
open to your bookmark, finishing Baudelaire’s final verses.

Then I lay my head on your pillow,
inhaling your lilac memory,
pull up the yellow cotton sheet,
and dream your last dream.

My aching heart hears you whisper
Allez à Paris.

When I land at Charles de Gaulle
every face I see is yours—
blue-gray eyes
chestnut hair
fair face dotted with freckles.

And then I see him:
the Frenchman in your dream.

He smiles at me, steps forward.
His cheeks press mine,
right and left.
I feel the rasp of his peppered beard.
But I know you want more.

Standing on tiptoe, my arms wrapped around his neck,
I look into his brown eyes, pleading
“Une fois plus pour Jacqueline?”
I hold my breath.
“Avec plaisir,” he replies.

And we kiss like old lovers,
lingering on
until the taste of his lips cannot be forgotten.

What Happens on Sycamore Street

She waits in a house at 743 Sycamore Street
where the sun shines so brightly on the sidewalk
it looks iridescent and pink morning glories bloom
all day long in shadows, where a cat prowls silently
between houses, terrifying song birds, and at last
she admits she is waiting to die.

“My sweet potatoes, planted this spring, didn’t die
even though we suffered drought, but up the street
Mrs. Hoover’s fall-bearing raspberries didn’t last
the summer,” she says as she looks down the walk.
What she doesn’t say, what remains silent,
is how she wonders about her own fading bloom.

Her groom holds her hand, a mottled bloom
on his cheeks. “Nineteen years and…” but his voice dies
away as he thinks ‘til death us do part silently.
The cat chases a squirrel across the street
just as a Honda drives by. Squeals, then driver walks
around the front of his car, looking at the last

chase Fresko will ever enjoy. With effort, at last
he leans over and picks up the body, lays it in blooming
asters growing in the boulevard, wipes his hands on the sidewalk
as if the roughness will cleanse his palms. His is a die-
hard attitude, no need to find its owners; cat was in the street,
what can they expect. In 743 Sycamore, they watch silently.

“Do you think,” she asks, breaking the silence,
“that our neighbors will come to the funeral, my last
big show,” she adds with a tepid smile. “I’ll throw a street
party,” he says, “but I am a madcap, my love, my blooming
rose. Let’s us a party today, tonight before evening dies!”
Outside a small girl cries, kneeling on the concrete sidewalk

skinning her bare knees. Her father lifts her up and walks
down the road, crossing Sycamore, while mother silently
trails behind holding a blanketed ball of cat, now dead.
“Wrap me in a shroud like that cat when I die,”
she claps a hand on her mouth, shocked by her last
comment. He wraps his arms around her, sniffs the bloom
of her hair, freshly washed. “Tonight, babe, we party in the street.”

All things living will die, but how long we walk
on this Earth, how many streets we silently
traverse until our last is a bloom that cannot open until it drops.

Reclaiming My Poetic Muse

I am ashamed to admit, I have lost my muse
I suspect my muse—I shall call her Trix--
wandered into the forest, lured by a wreath
of myrtle and roses, a laurel upon Erato,
but a noose on the neck of Trix. What
am I to do? My patience wears thin

I have called out loud, I have whispered thin,
“Trixie, dear, you are my voice, my only muse;
without you I am an oiled chair, dampened firewood. What
else can I say? When you return, my trixiest
Trix, we will eat dictionaries and tattoo ‘Erato’
on our breasts. I will weave snapdragons in a wreath

circling your head a dozen times with wreaths
of lavender and jasmine. On your tongue, thin
slices of crystalized ginger and we’ll watch Erato’s
favorite movie six times in a row. Trix, my muse,
my dear, come back to me.” In agony, I wait for Trix,
but not even a bird’s twittering…I hear silence…what?

Someone dares toy with me? Baits my heart? What
beast are you to fool me! To wrap my mouth in a wreath
of thorns! I implore, I beg like a leper. Do not trick
me with illusion! Trix, could that be you: a murmur thinly
slid under my tongue? Unscale my eyes, unloose my muse,
step out from the darkness and face me. Is that you, Erato?

My confusion soars. I see my Trix kneading bread with Erato.
Trix turns to me and asks, “Did you bring yeast? What
else would make this wheat rise into words?” My muse
stands there, askance, hands on hips. A wreath
of questions she asks me, but waits for no reply. My thin
hand holds no answers, but a pinch of leavening. “Trix,”

I say in my smallest voice, “Come home, my Trixie
lover.” “I am only on loan, you know, from Erato,”
she tells me sadly. “But what must I do to gain you?” I thinly
whisper. Trix smiles then, spreads her arms wide. “What
must you do? Only this: write an epic, write a wreath,
write a mountain and an ocean. Then I will be your Muse.”

And so with my thin pen and a pocket of tricks culled from Rogets,
I write daily. My trixiest muse shares her secrets, out of Erato’s earshot,
and together, come what may, we write words to wreathe our fates forever.

The Gift of Waiting

We are waiting for the end of advent,
but are we expecting the Christ child?
Or are our thoughts on ribbons and gifts
circling the tree like an electric train?
Christ is with us now, and yet we wait;
we hold our breath in anticipation.

Half the pleasure, you know, is anticipation.
The third candle, lit on the wreath of advent
burns joy—we are closer than half way—but wait!
Just wait a little longer. It is hard to be a child
waiting, not knowing, but the waiting trains
us to bide our time, hold still for the Gift.

We tell our children about the donkey carrying a gift,
wrapped in Mary’s womb. We smile at their anticipation,
watching them fidget, tiptoe, and whisper. Their train
of thought headed in one direction: the eve of Advent.
A ceramic nativity scene high on the mantle, a child
can only look, not touch. Like a spinster, we make them wait

for Christmas Eve, for the Bible lesson read aloud. Wait,
wait, wait. When all they want is to tear open the gifts
and shout, “Look what I got!” I was a once a child,
I remember. After the wrappings are undone, anticipation
fades. But here is another mystery, Advent
is not over. Epiphany comes like the twelve-fifteen train

down the tracks. We count down to twelve: the train
the days, the leaping lords. We watch and wait
for Epiphany, the bookend of a month-long advent.
Three Kings’ Day marks the twelfth night, marks with gifts,
the climax of Christmas. The waiting, the anticipation,
the longing are over. Now we celebrate the birth of our Christ-child

Somehow, compressed though it is, we watch this Jesus-child
grow up to be a miracle-man who calls his disciples and trains
them to wait. To wait and to watch with holy anticipation,
while he washes feet and feeds the hordes that also wait
for the time when the three wise men’s gifts
will be used to anoint and prepare the body of the King of Advent.

This anticipation we feel, like a child, eager and open,
leads us through the days of Advent and trains our hearts
to wait for the kismet of Jesus as he becomes our greatest gift.