War is hell

And so redundant 
that even God fell asleep
woke up, somewhere else;
stars and stars away.
I think I'll stay home.

Firing squad 

No apologies 

for what I did in the deep;

pain of loneliness.

Jesus winked 

The dark street was like a black thread 
through black pants in a dark room. 
It was dark. 
No streetlights, and it began to rain. 

But up ahead was a yellow light 
in the rain and fog, 
floating fuzzy and warm

like an electric blanket in the air. 

When I got there, the light was a sign, 

in front of a church, it said

OUR SIN IS GREAT

Come Worship tonite

Slamming on the brakes in the rain 
the car skidded so I was like Jesus 

walking on water, but I got inside;

I couldn’t wait! 

Obedience training 

I was walking my gang of white terriers down 
a long pine-lined street when far away down 

at it’s vanishing point 

there was a loud, burly man walking his. 
He was yelling HEEL! and STAY! 

and other sounds that reminded me of 

the military or high school football.

When he got closer he did look like 

the high school football coach who cut 

me from the team, thank god, for drinking 

6 or 7 7-Eleven (or maybe 12) beers before practice. 

HEEL! and STAY! he kept yelling,

red in the face, walking his dogs
their eyes 

like kids eyes 
below a Christmas family argument. 

I wasn’t yelling any of that

so my little white dogs were walking happy, 

like spring-loaded cotton balls!

“You oughta try some commands,” 

he commanded, father figure 

or dutch uncle or football coach-style. 

“What for?” I said. 

He was surprised by this question. You could hear 
the wind through the tops of the pine trees, 
like water. 

“Discipline. They expect it. They're wired for it.” 

He looked me over, up and down,

my winter ensemble, a bit raggedy, my
Keith Richards for President t-shirt. 

I said, “Do any of us really know that, for sure? 

I don’t want to scare the shit out of my dogs, 
upset their serenity and their spirit, just so 
I can feel like The Man! In control!”

“You wanna step outside, young man?”

(Young man? After all, I was 58. Or 7. Or maybe 12.)

A postal jeep going by, kept going by.

“We are outside,” I said. 

It went on like that. 

But my dogs were still running around like French Revolutionaries!  

Merry Christmas, they said

Dec 24. 

Half hour to closing time. 

The setting sun crosses the produce section. 

My shopping cart full of turkeys and potatoes

Christmas-colored light bulbs, pies and tomatoes

okra, calamari, Ding Dongs and Ho Hos,

I celebrate; I am finished shopping. 

I kick the front of the cart, it spins 

in a perfect circle; I twirl likewise, 

bow to the fruit and vegetable stands, 

and snap my fingers over my head.

“Wow, what flair!” says someone behind me, with a little boy. 

“I used to be a bullfighter.” I say. The boy’s eyes pop. 

“I see!” says the woman. She holds a bottle of wine, 

bananas, bread, cold cuts, one Twinkie, and 

a Thomas the Tank Engine DVD 

in a basket in her hand. 

She says, “ … well, bye ... ”  and starts off, 

bus schedules in her other hand.  

I spin again, and say, “Wanna come over? To our house?”

The boy’s eyes pop again!

One Seagull over Christmas

Circling high, a hundred miles offshore,

banking, hovering, probably hearing 

the grinding of cars 

and Christmas carols

from the planned-out world below. 

So there he goes, banking away

from the shopping center

gliding even higher, over the wild pines

the shopping center didn’t get,

away, toward the unplanned sea. 

Small talk on a jet 

The jet wakes up, points up, takes off. 

We wake up, sit up, turn on our computers. 

But me and the woman next to me 

still like the old black and white paper

news, rustling crispy in our hands. 

Coffee comes, then reading. Then, I say - 

“There was a school massacre in Pakistan this morning.” 

“Mmm, I know,” she says, behind sunglasses. “200 dead kids.”

“When are these people going to stop killing each other? And when I say these people I don’t mean those people.” 

Rain rolls back on the windows, and the sun rolls out. 

“I mean everybody.”