Squirrel Zen

Grey squirrel drinking from
The copper birdbath
Both front feet in the water

KILL KILL KILL!

Kill, kill, kill and keep on killing until you run out of people to kill

and then kill, kill, kill animals and keep on killing until you run out of animals to kill

and then kill, kill, kill plants and keep on killing until you run out of plants to kill

and then kill, kill, kill the environment and keep on killing until you run out of air to breathe and water to drink

and then find another planet to kill, kill, kill and keep on killing!

Kill, kill, kill.

Kill, kill, kill.

KILL!

Poem #1-2016 Paddling the Cobbosseecontee

With thanks to Gary Snyder for
Four Poems for Robin/Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw Forest

We moved along the calm water

Sunlight dropping hard

Sweating in our life jackets

Hands glued to their work

Feet firmly planted

No thought but forward

Our first time was like this

Paddling together on the Cobbosseecontee

We met late in life

Both of us almost half a century

Now we're 10 years older

You're retired and I'm not

But that's the way of things

Our stream calls us

We don't move so fast anymore

But we remember when we could

Poem #1-2015 The Only Poem

So much depends -- sorry, WCW -- on the upshot
the downdraft
the uptake
the downtrodden
the uprising
the downcast
the upstarts
the downplays
the uplands
the downwinds

And so much depends - sorry again, Walt -- on
yin
and
yang
both of them, not one or the other

No life without death, light without dark...
blah blah blah we get it, Mr. Watts,
but only in our heads and that's the wrong place for it

It needs to be written on our hearts
but now I sound Biblical
and this was supposed to be spontaneous

Crapshine toodle-oo pisspot Mother Macree alien
invasive species rag-a-muffin carol Dickens
peacepipe terrorist free-for-all Seminole
aging ratter-tatter resistance underground

Words are easy
It's the living of  'em that's hard

And you don't need to be a red wheelbarrow to figure that one out

Poem #7-2013 Less Can Be More?

It's      all     vibration,
            and relation,
and avoiding castration

 Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #108

Poem #6-2013 Mortality

On waking this morning:
a hintergedanken
Something, slippery ... unspoken
Looming just out of consciousness

Drove to the nearest cemetery
Lay down in the grass atop John Siemens
Never heard of him before
He was mortal like me

Climbed up and sat on his headstone
My feet dangled
Heels bounced on the etched dates:
1945 - 2004

His entire life unfolded in that one-inch dash
Didn't even make sixty years
Wonder if I will
John said it was unlikely

Other dead spoke to me
Mothers and fathers
Gone angels spinning
Around my disbelief

Jumping down
I left two footprints
Dug into the grave
A defiant act not contained in John's dash

Bought an ice cream cone on the way home







                                      Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #97

Poem #5-2013 Forest Haiku

Symptom of nature
I walk through the piney woods
Through myself darkly












                                   Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #96

Poem #4-2013 Saying No to Death

Saying no to death is not enough

one must also say yes to life

else living becomes a

timid pursuit of breath

shallow triumph of mediocrity

joyless bite of the apple

listless step on someone else's journey

I am a cadaver, walking

among those who haven't

seen the darkness

who revel in the blinding light

darkening the darkness

for those who said

no to death

but forgot to say yes to life

                                         Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #95

Poem #3-2013 Rosemary's Hike

Rocky promontory
Natural seating
Whittier pond 700 feet below
The white dots? Ducks
Great and Long Pond in the distance
...and mountain peaks
Turkey vulture soaring gracefully -- eye level
(buzzard is a vulgar term)
Fragrance of new buds
Titmouse crying cheerfully
Calming hum of a passing plane
Whispering branches
All this . . .
ALL OF THIS!

And you had to go and die this morning



                                               Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #94

Poem #2-2013 A Spring Day in Academe

With thanks to Gary Snyder for
Four Poems for Robin/A spring night in Shokoko-ji

Last year at this time
I was a whole human being
Teaching (or trying to) at university.
All I knew at that time
Seems lost to me now, except feelings.
Sitting here in class
In my "professor's chair"
I hear voices telling me I can't
And I think about what it's like
To be incomplete.





                                    Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #91

Poem #1-2013 The Boundless Blackness of Heart

Until you've planned your own demise
Until you've been locked away
Until you've been "checked on" every 15 minutes 24 hours a day for a week
Until you're not allowed to have shoelaces or a belt or a pen
Until you're told what you can and cannot watch on TV
Until you've seen insanity firsthand
Until you've had your brain chemistry fucked with by doctors who are, at best, "experimenting"
Until you've looked into the boundless blackness of your own heart

Until all of that . . . and more (unmentionably dark more)
Do not expect to understand my suffering

Submitted to dversepoets.com for Open Link Night #90

Poem #20-2012 Empty dreams

Help me lose my way
Layer me with marble
I'm on my last shakes
and the police don't care
Can you tell?
My dreams are empty
     as a miscarried womb
--misery bloodworm canker cancer rotten meat --
Feel it in your deep down!
Anesthesia
Tangled up in blood
Shit-filled fantasies
Wheelbound and
hellbent
Dark headspace
     spins me out of orbit
Black thighs
  squeezing my brain
     instead of my soul
Scorched in sin
swollen to bursting
Eat with me
Sleep with me
Be with me
           Tristessa

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #19-2012 Falling Thoughts

She fell hard

hard like steel

hard like real

and she never made excuses

or completely lost her way

and she never got the blues

Hell, she was the blues:

Horn-splayed

drum-scattered

liquid thighed

vibrato-laden . . .

God! What a woman,

rain-soaked

Saturday afternoon

delight, tight

right up to dangerous --

fall off a cliff

headlong travesty

juicy wet lips beckoning --

(He fell, too,

hard as a rock

deepening vee

"You can't get pregnant

on top, baby")

How fast can you go

when the end is assured?

Pubic sore

Neither one ready to 

say "no more"

There was nothing more

than this falling fucking feeling

Falling!

Like a rock

Like a cock

"There's got to be more,"

she thought

And he licked her

where thought became

impossible

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #18 Not today

Today I shall not
use the word "like"
to introduce a metaphor
in a poem

I shall not
mention Jack Kerouac
more than 5 times
(zero seemed too lofty)

Today I shall not
forget to be thankful
for something,
no matter how small

I shall not
forget to buy
flowers on the way home
(for no reason than to
brighten her day)

Today I shall not
be a deliberate
obstacle to change

I shall not
get drunk
except on ideas

Today I shall not
should on myself
excessively

I shall not
foist my views
on others

Today I shall not
assume the worst
about others

I shall not
overburden myself
with "rules"

It's kind of like
a forced march
with no destination

...oops

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #17-2012 Pittsburgh

We're in Pittsburgh

We stop at a restaurant

The waitress says,

"What'll yinz have?"

We are definitely in Pittsburgh

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #16-2012 Nature Lessons

A raven
(which is a crow but not vice versa)
will chase a chipmunk

I've seen it happen

An argument over the pile of seed I leave
under the maple tree
(I guess - ravens don't kill for meat, do they?)

Here we go 'round the mulberry bush,
the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush....

Round the trunk twice
Raven hop-running
Chipmunk scurrying
Then, a bee-line for cover

The raven takes wing
chasing the competitor clear over
to my brush pile

and safety

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #15-2012 Fire Danger Today

Hearth visitors
drown in the miracle
of my fire

It lures them close
before
turning them to instant ash

Neither fire nor victim
aware of the danger
until survival
is out of the question

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #14-2012 Jack Attack

Jack, Jack, Jack

Ti Jean

Kerouac

Ti Pousse

Mickey, Michael, Leo

Francis, Peter

Zagg, Wesley

Sal, Ray

Mike, Robert

Richard

Maggie Cassidy, Tristessa, Satori in Paris, Doctor Sax, Visions of Cody, Desolation Angels, Big Sur, Visions of Gerard,The Town and the City, Orpheus Emerged, The Subterraneans,
Atop an Underwood, Book of Dreams, Vanity of Duluoz, The Sea is My Brother, On the Road,
The Dharma Bums, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks

Richard

Mike, Robert

Sal, Ray

Zagg, Wesley

Francis, Peter

Mickey, Michael, Leo

Ti Pousse

Kerouac

Ti Jean

Jack, Jack, Jack

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

This is a slam poem meant to be recited aloud from memory. It's a riff on all the characters that Jack Kerouac used for himself in his books (the latter in italics). I plan to perform it at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac this October. Wish me luck - memorization ain't easy at my age.

Poem #13-2012 Cut-Up Journal

I hope your fickle uterus disappears in a rage without explanation
Every dream dies
Good enough
A season full of lessons
Listen with the possibility of being changed
The language of deficits
Every human being is of incalculable value
Education is not neutral
What did I do today?
Maybe it's time
Destiny henceforth
You made your bed
But how short?
It's kind of a clamor
Soup sounds better
I censored myself at least 40%
Drinking bad beer is out
Sometimes nothing makes sense
Writers write
All dead as are their husbands
More is welcome -- what's been is sufficient
The Buddha was the first one to see it
Cake for everyone
Jack wrote at least 1,500 words/day
I need to stop that
The blank page
A Child's Garden of Verses
The best unknown poet alive
I am no good on my feet
I assume I'll be alone
More impressive in person
What the elders said is true
Does this help or hurt the future?
The muse comes from any direction
Poetry ought to be a refuge
Infucking competent
Wrongs I committed out of selfishness
The mindset of discovery
Generating ideas
Because of a fucking meeting
There is a poem that will save you
A psychic toll, indeed
"Order up!"
Sometimes it is all one can do
A second look
Trust me
When am I happy?
Should we get a convertible?
Timing
Creative thought is dead to me
"Who are you to ask me such a thing?"
What makes something "fun"?
Naked Lunch
In my wildest dreams
PARADOX!
For an undetermined period of time
I have been the betrayer
Sparkling sin
Hovering death
Tribes
It's not. You know that.
Something needs a poem written about it today
Quit whining and do your work
Nothing matters
Tighten up
Make me believe your corvette skin
Needs too much work
No problems identified
Trust me, you are not that important
"What would you like to dip your chicken tenders in?"
I have a whole new appreciation of Cake
Beats the shit out of me
Death transcends such things
Close your trunk using a bungee cord
Waiting for the tab

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night

Poem #12-2012 Death From Above

Hovering
black-and-white death
a few false drops
teasing the watery prey
then, head first, at
bullet speed
Spaaaa-looossssh (talons first)
Wet pause
airborne again -
one quick hover and shake

Look -  a flying fish !

Contributed to dVersePoets.com

Open Link Night