On a higher plane

( Flight 59 )

The jet banked hard, almost sideways
almost upside down, over the Rocky Mountains

avoiding, the pilot said (he would know), a bank 
of clouds full of snow up ahead. Speaking of banks, 
the man across the aisle to the right looked like 
he ran one, or maybe a chain of them. 
He pointed out my window, and opened conversation. 

“Look at those mountains,” he said. “So majestic.” 

The jet leveled off a bit, and headed into western Kansas.

“Well, I guess what you’re gonna say next is that
that plain down there is fruited,” I said. 

“Are you cynical?” 

“No. But I am 59.”

The in-flight movie ended, and a row of soldiers 

rose, stretched, and single-filed back to the bathroom. 
The banker half-rose in his seat, said hello, saluted
and thanked them.

“You gotta hand it to them, don’t you? I take
my hat off to them,” he said, after they passed. 

“Yes. And I'm glad they're alive.” 

I got more interested in the weave of fabric 
on the seat back in front of me, than Kansas. 
I felt the banker looking at the side of my head;
he would say some more.

“They deserve our thanks. Our gratitude,” he said. 
“We need to honor their sacrifice.”

“Ok, I agree.”

“They are defending our freedoms.”

“Oh come on. You know better than that. Those guys 

never even met my mother.” 

The jet banked hard left, under the weight of the banker. 

bang bang boring 

MEN, guns
MEN, guns, in charge 

MEN, guns, in charge add money
( get in a ) LATHER, RINSE ( off the blood ), REPEAT.

Nothing’s gonna change. 

Unless; if just one of these guys would get a sense of humor. 

Add love.

On a higher plane 

(Red-eye flight, Brooklyn to Dharamsala)

I popped up suddenly in my seat on the jet

wide awake from a dream and though 

this isn’t confessional poetry

it was all true, what I’d just had a dream about. 

In the dream I saw it all again; 1980

I got married in the red and yellow countryside

in Fall, my favorite season 
surrounded by Her and her extended family, 
all these new people, my family now. 
Finally - my own wife, plus a mother, father, sister, and
brother - it felt like it would be forever … 

but then in 1984 I turned homeless in Boston

in the Fall again, still my favorite season
who knows what happened between these Falls, 
and then - there I was.

No wife, no family, no children, no house
I’d be the end of the line; it all went away 
so fast, and all those people, too!

I looked around the plane for comfort

I knew I wasn’t alone, and on my left

was THE Dalai Lama. On the right,

the window seat, was MAE WEST! 

They noticed me pop up, the Dalai asked 

what happened, I told him; I told him now 
I was the last of the line, no offspring off me,
and he started to laugh ... hahaha! 

So I turned to Mae, who winked at me then 

talked across me directly to His Holiness. 

“What’s so funny, Dalai Lama?” she asked. 

“I am last of line too,” he said. “When I go, 
no more Dalai Lamas. So much suffering in my life,”
he said, laughing again. “I feel like bull born, so to speak, 
in China shop, so of course I go to India, but now 
I take bull by the horns, meaning no more Dalais
but, SO WHAT?” Hahaha. 

“Yesss, well, I understand that a little,” Mae said, 
as they ping-ponged across me. “They were 
always trying to shut me up too, slow me down. 
But here I am. And you, Dalai - you’re lookin’ pretty
sentient. Then here you are,” she said, looking at me. 

“Excuse me, Mae West,” I said, “but if this really is 2015, 
didn’t you die 35 years ago? The very year I got married?”

“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, eh Dalai?” 

I looked left, back at him. His smile, her blonde hair 

lit up the whole back end of the jet. 

“Maybe, Mae,” he said. “Or maybe you are new 
Dalai Llama, and maybe I used to be - how you say - 
sexy blonde movie star!” 

Now they were both laughing, Dalia Lama's laughter 
sounding like Santa Claus down the chimney at high
speeds; Mae West's laughter like a cat purring in slow motion
under a hot red blanket. 

They both took one hand each from me, 

Dalai took my left and squeezed, Mae West took my right

hand and kissed it, leaving a wet red lipstick tattoo.

“All great mystery with no answer,” said Dalai Lama.
“Also - there is no end of any line. And no line. But,
nothing serious!” Hahahahahaha! 

“Say Dalai, you’re alright. Come up and 

see me sometime. And when you do, namaste awhile.” 

The wink she gave him was so electromagnetic 
it must have thrown off the pilot, the flight 
control tower, and the receding, twinkling Eastern Seaboard.

Meanwhile, I blew up a vomit bag and popped it

to wake myself up, in case I was dreaming again!

Whether I was or wasn’t didn't matter; I felt better. 

A writer's convention 

No, I wouldn’t go

if I was you; (I'd say, if it came up)

why, why NOT? she'd say, he'd say; 

I'd say: cuz (or cous, if she or he was) they breed

conformity, uniformity and deformity.

But the last one would be ok. 

After all, the deformed don’t get much

group coffee and donuts, wine cheese and comfort, but 

they sure give it. 

Still Life with American Work Ethic 
and Snooze Alarm 
(3 sheets on the wind)

The blue bedsheets 

drying on the line

swing loose

swing together

on a clean green breeze; 
they know the pine scent breezing
through their thread count 
is from real trees all around the house
and not from somebody's 
soap. 

They look up at that house

up to the second floor 

to the bedroom window
they remember all that, being flat; 

but these sheets are so relaxed on the line 
- drying, floating, snapping - 

the pillow case looks over at the top sheet

then over at the fitted sheet, on the other side, 
and says, 

        " … awww, it’s so good to get outside!  WAY outside … "

Irish Midnite 

Tonight

I'm on the end of the pier

watching every friend and relative

I have sail into the Atlantic.  

I don't know if I'll ever see them again. 

The ship sails smaller into a giant golden glow; 
the sun's spread, done, and going  down, 
into the sea. 

I can't see the ship anymore, only 

the overwhelming glow. 

I'm afraid to turn from the ship and the sea,  
but I turn around and walk down 
the pier, up the path, back to my hotel.

My room is up on the top floor, so when I

get up there, in a minute, I'll see far out over the sea,
and see the ship until it's gone over the edge. 

But from the forecourt I can see into my window
up on top of the hotel, and see that the golden glow

is all over the back wall of my hotel room, too. 

That wall will comfort me 

after the ship and the sun goes down. 

Sky, not falling; quite the opposite 

The chicken crossed the road 

and was immediately surrounded by the press. 

"Why?" they cried, in many languages. "Why

did you cross the road?" 

The chicken, who was smoking a suddenly 

legal cuban cigar, looked at all the members 

of the international press, then up; up 

at a fuzzy boom microphone 

hovering overhead. 

"Well, that reminds me of an old friend," he said. 

"The road, why the road?" The fever 

of the press was rising. "Por qué usted cruzar?"

The chicken smiled. He blew a smoke triangle,
because of the beak.

"Did you clear it with the Coop?"

"What co-op? You mean, like - a consortium?"
The chicken was trying to help clarify.

"No, the Coop! The Chicken Coop!" yelled
the press.

The chicken was looking over their heads
toward a misty thick green mystery of
pine trees. "Well," he said, "if that's what
you guys need, then go on, enjoy that, but no,
I'm not in a coop."

"Do you have citizenship?" Someone in uniform
asked, from the crowd. "This side of the road?"

The chicken smiled again, and started walking.
"Sure," he said. "Everywhere!" 

"But again, why?" asked the journalist in charge,
getting louder, standing with the uniformed one,
talking on a cell phone. "Why did you cross?"

"To get to the other side," said the chicken, softly
… getting farther and farther away.