Poems
Jan 4
Hands like blocks of ice on my shoulders
A tremor of shivers and a pleasant numbness
A tingling to life as warm breath from deep inside
Caresses the sheets crisp with cold
Slowly stilling a quivering body
Bed on a chill winter’s night
Jan 5
Angry or hungry, the woodpecker slams his beak into the palm’s trunk
“Tak, tak, tak” echoes in the morning stillness
Stopping now and then as he twists his neck to and fro
As if waiting for some reaction to his industrious display
The palm won’t last long at this rate
Already sick from the heat rising from the concrete surrounds
It soon will join the three we lost last year
The desert too much even for a desert tree
Jan 6
She’s not interested in the ball when we go for a walk
It’s the smells that stop her in her tracks
Chest twitching, saliva dripping from her lips, she sniffs
Audible, like the last few strokes of the bellows on a newly blazing fire
So I kick the ball, playing a game of my own
Using the grassy banks for spin, kicking with my sandaled toe
Closest to the tree although it only counts when it hits
A new ball works best, but since it’s hers, it’s always chewed.
Jan 7
She was red with rage
And swore a blue streak when they called her yellow.
A golden parachute for brown-nosing all those years
Wasn’t enough to keep him from feeling blue.
No cloud with a silver lining puffed his way
And, green with envy, he sank in despair at how black his future appeared to be.
Although it was a grey area, he could whitewash his past
And run away to join the navy.
Jan 8
While the Copts and other Orthodox mark Christmas
We take down the tree
Ball by ball, handmade decorations, bells and the topmost angel
Back to the box where they will sit and recover until called upon again
Dry pine needles, still redolent, scatter across the floor
As we wind the strings of lights round and round
Thinking once again of the most efficient way to store them
Minimizing tangle
Strange how our ending is someone else’s new beginning
And how the distant hymns are dimmed by the roar of the crowd.
Jan 9
I used to love sneezing
It used to be a rare occurrence for me
So much so that I was often jealous of those who seemed to sneeze at will
It was like ejaculation through the nose, the whole body tensed
The moment before it explodes
Now I just want it to go away, leave me be
Perhaps it’s because I’m old and no longer need intensity of feeling
Or maybe it’s because it’s hard enough to see clearly without tears pouring from my eyes
Whatever the reason, three in a row was a record rarely achieved
Now three is simply the prelude to a symphony of sneeze
Jan 10
We’re trying to grow radishes in a winter garden
For ourselves, that is, not for some bug that’s having a feast
Every night on the leaves.
It’s moving from south to north mowing down the greens.
We thought it was birds, but covering the garden at night
Hasn’t seemed to help
Oh, and mushrooms have appeared around the garlic
So things aren’t going so well in Eden
Jan 11
What should true friendship survive
A lousy gift, a hallmark card
Anger, surely, ill-humor, sloth and even greed
Distance or boredom, ignorance and penis envy
Perhaps mistrust if over something insignificant
A hard truth, tough love, bitter wit, an early death
Most emotions that define our human nature
For sure a letting down, but never betrayal
A well-meant lie but never hate
Jan 12
Low grey sky heavy with rain
Chill breeze and the birds heading for cover
Winter mornings, draft around my feet while my hands
Stiffen on the keys
Stark contrast to the heavy heat of summer
Stifling then but warm in memory
Jan 13
How long does it take to stop noticing
The pictures on the wall?
And how long before boredom creeps into
Once responding eyes?
Leaves wither and fall, the bread in the box goes stale
As the ebb and flow of time
Wears away even the best intentions
Jan 14
Here, the suburban landscape simulates the desert
Colored rock, saguaro, palo verde, boulders tossed
Carelessly around the yard in stylized imitation
Of the arid waste stretching beyond the city limits.
Perhaps that’s why when on a walk
My mouth feels dry and the sun seems hotter
Than when I sit in the backyard
Surrounded by Koolcrete running to the edge of the pool.
Jan 16
Sometimes there’s nothing there
A grey day, cold, empty of feeling
Everything moving in slow motion or seeming to
Thoughts coming unbidden and only half formed
To disappear, shift, morph into something new
Emotional dog days when even brushing your teeth
Seems an effort not worth making.
Jan 17
Another mother died today
We’ll soon be out of them entirely
As the years take their toll and the orphans of our age
Mount up.
It has to be, of course. We’ll all face
The reaper one day.
What never dies are the memories
We hold of summer days and winter nights
Huddled in rooms doing something that we shouldn’t
Sneaking out, feeling that we’d pulled to wool
Over parent’s eyes.
Now, with roles reversed
We understand that while the wool may have kept them warm
It never kept them from seeing and accepting.
Jan 18
How do other people make it through the day
Without repeatedly asking why
Or do they do that too, but keep it hidden from me
Is our real purpose to keep busy
Keep doing something, anything to keep the sadness at bay?
Or am I ill and lacking in certain qualities
That inoculate one against
The crippling indecision and stifling boredom
That seems to populate my day
Jan 21
A checkmark hovering in a leaden sky
Clouds hustling from west to east
In a rush to get somewhere else
A blink and everything changes
From gray to white and back to gray
Sudden change is a tonic for an empty soul
Moving from high to low and back again
Never knowing whether to laugh or cry
Jan 23
Treading water and worrying about the sharks
Both the ones I can see and the ones I can’t
Knowing that keeping my legs moving slowly
Makes me like a worm on a hook.
How can you slip so easily
From the laughing creative heights
Into a cold and frothing sea where the nearest island
Shimmers like a mirage just beyond the horizon?
Jan 24
It’s not funny when funny isn’t funny anymore
When you have to remind yourself to laugh
When others do
When the distant past seems more distant still
And the beauty that overwhelmed me once
Has gone into hiding.
Is this the slow beginning to the slow slide
When memories’ distant horizon is shrouded
In confusion until it’s ultimately hidden in some dark night?
Jan 25
It’s never really quiet here
The twitter of birds rustling in the bougainvillea
The “yip, yip, yip” of a neighbor’s dog
And the low rumble of my own
Hearing sounds well outside my range
The low hum of heaters in winter and swamp coolers
In the humid heat of summer
Life is loud even in its quietest moments
Swinging lazily in the hammock
The snickering of a snore driving my partner crazy.
Jan 26
Sinister sits to the left
And you know where right sits
Not that language has anything to do with it
But don’t get me started on black and white.
Jan 27
An egg
The promise of a chicken
Perfectly designed to fit in the palm of your hand
Easily opened with no scissors needed
Tasty cooked any number of ways
Fried, boiled, poached, coddled, steamed, roasted
Or even uncooked and dropped into a beer
If there’s a more perfect food
I’ve yet to meet it
Jan 28
We play puzzles on Saturday, three friends and I
Nursing our beers like worry beads
Fretting over the English spelling of “ou” words
Racing against each other for the winner’s whiskey.
It’s the high point of the week says friend number one
Implying, I guess, the dismal quality of our lives
Where the routine drudgery of our day to day
Anaesthetizes our brains
But not on Saturday, when nimble minds hold sway
And curlew, or is it curfew, tolls the ending of the day
Jan 29
When the imagination atrophies
Then what?
Jan 30
Is it the beginnings that attract you
Or is it the endings?
Is the world a series of flattened toothpaste tubes
Or new spring buds opening, heedless of the season?
I often wonder how different the world might be
If rather than always ending
It was eternally new
Filled with the hope of what was to come
Not crusted over with what has already been.
Feb 1
Memories can sneak up on you
Leaping out of nowhere to grab you by the throat
And not let go until you finish surfing
A tidal wave of emotions.
Hearing a voice from ten thousand miles away
Carries me back ten years or more
To an older world that magically exists today
With long lost feelings surfacing like a sounding whale
And tears falling like a gentle rain.
Feb 3
Groundhog Day has once again come and gone
All the celebration has faded into memory
For another year
And even though there was a split decision
Winter will continue for a few more months
Until Spring arrives in March
Officially and regardless of what the rodents say
Feb 5
Lean ground beef quickly sautéed in the pot
Remove the beef and add onions and garlic
A little more than you might think
And sauté in some good olive oil until limp but not brown
Then, two big cans of diced tomatoes in their juice
One of sauce and two of paste, maybe some water to thin
Then the veggies: peppers green and red, carrots
Celery and what you will, including mushrooms
A handful of fresh basil, a little less oregano
And some chile pepper for the heat
Don’t forget the wine or the bay leaf
Or perhaps two
Feb 7
The dog’s nails scratching on the concrete
As she stretches in her sleep
The low rumble of traffic a mile away, the wind
Hushing the leaves of the tall pine.
An afternoon passed in reflection
On a past that now seems to have been lived
By someone else.
Feb 9
I had the lines last night
They came to me in those moments before sleep
But are gone today, they can’t be raised
From deep within that nether state
That isn’t dream but hovers
Somewhere above me
Let the mind wander where it will
And see if they don’t come back to somewhere
Near the mouth of consciousness
That plagues me day by day
Feb 11
On our morning walk
She strains to keep ahead
While sending messages at every
Fencepost and tree
Reading them, too
Sometimes for longer than seems appropriate
At least to me
Feb 20
The days roll on
One looking much like the next
Another too reminiscent of the last
Aging is supposed to bring wisdom
Or so they say
But it only seems to bring a host of memories
Sometimes of things done well
And sometimes of things not done at all
The aches and pains that daily visit my knees
Are nothing compared to those locked in memory.
Hands like blocks of ice on my shoulders
A tremor of shivers and a pleasant numbness
A tingling to life as warm breath from deep inside
Caresses the sheets crisp with cold
Slowly stilling a quivering body
Bed on a chill winter’s night
Jan 5
Angry or hungry, the woodpecker slams his beak into the palm’s trunk
“Tak, tak, tak” echoes in the morning stillness
Stopping now and then as he twists his neck to and fro
As if waiting for some reaction to his industrious display
The palm won’t last long at this rate
Already sick from the heat rising from the concrete surrounds
It soon will join the three we lost last year
The desert too much even for a desert tree
Jan 6
She’s not interested in the ball when we go for a walk
It’s the smells that stop her in her tracks
Chest twitching, saliva dripping from her lips, she sniffs
Audible, like the last few strokes of the bellows on a newly blazing fire
So I kick the ball, playing a game of my own
Using the grassy banks for spin, kicking with my sandaled toe
Closest to the tree although it only counts when it hits
A new ball works best, but since it’s hers, it’s always chewed.
Jan 7
She was red with rage
And swore a blue streak when they called her yellow.
A golden parachute for brown-nosing all those years
Wasn’t enough to keep him from feeling blue.
No cloud with a silver lining puffed his way
And, green with envy, he sank in despair at how black his future appeared to be.
Although it was a grey area, he could whitewash his past
And run away to join the navy.
Jan 8
While the Copts and other Orthodox mark Christmas
We take down the tree
Ball by ball, handmade decorations, bells and the topmost angel
Back to the box where they will sit and recover until called upon again
Dry pine needles, still redolent, scatter across the floor
As we wind the strings of lights round and round
Thinking once again of the most efficient way to store them
Minimizing tangle
Strange how our ending is someone else’s new beginning
And how the distant hymns are dimmed by the roar of the crowd.
Jan 9
I used to love sneezing
It used to be a rare occurrence for me
So much so that I was often jealous of those who seemed to sneeze at will
It was like ejaculation through the nose, the whole body tensed
The moment before it explodes
Now I just want it to go away, leave me be
Perhaps it’s because I’m old and no longer need intensity of feeling
Or maybe it’s because it’s hard enough to see clearly without tears pouring from my eyes
Whatever the reason, three in a row was a record rarely achieved
Now three is simply the prelude to a symphony of sneeze
Jan 10
We’re trying to grow radishes in a winter garden
For ourselves, that is, not for some bug that’s having a feast
Every night on the leaves.
It’s moving from south to north mowing down the greens.
We thought it was birds, but covering the garden at night
Hasn’t seemed to help
Oh, and mushrooms have appeared around the garlic
So things aren’t going so well in Eden
Jan 11
What should true friendship survive
A lousy gift, a hallmark card
Anger, surely, ill-humor, sloth and even greed
Distance or boredom, ignorance and penis envy
Perhaps mistrust if over something insignificant
A hard truth, tough love, bitter wit, an early death
Most emotions that define our human nature
For sure a letting down, but never betrayal
A well-meant lie but never hate
Jan 12
Low grey sky heavy with rain
Chill breeze and the birds heading for cover
Winter mornings, draft around my feet while my hands
Stiffen on the keys
Stark contrast to the heavy heat of summer
Stifling then but warm in memory
Jan 13
How long does it take to stop noticing
The pictures on the wall?
And how long before boredom creeps into
Once responding eyes?
Leaves wither and fall, the bread in the box goes stale
As the ebb and flow of time
Wears away even the best intentions
Jan 14
Here, the suburban landscape simulates the desert
Colored rock, saguaro, palo verde, boulders tossed
Carelessly around the yard in stylized imitation
Of the arid waste stretching beyond the city limits.
Perhaps that’s why when on a walk
My mouth feels dry and the sun seems hotter
Than when I sit in the backyard
Surrounded by Koolcrete running to the edge of the pool.
Jan 16
Sometimes there’s nothing there
A grey day, cold, empty of feeling
Everything moving in slow motion or seeming to
Thoughts coming unbidden and only half formed
To disappear, shift, morph into something new
Emotional dog days when even brushing your teeth
Seems an effort not worth making.
Jan 17
Another mother died today
We’ll soon be out of them entirely
As the years take their toll and the orphans of our age
Mount up.
It has to be, of course. We’ll all face
The reaper one day.
What never dies are the memories
We hold of summer days and winter nights
Huddled in rooms doing something that we shouldn’t
Sneaking out, feeling that we’d pulled to wool
Over parent’s eyes.
Now, with roles reversed
We understand that while the wool may have kept them warm
It never kept them from seeing and accepting.
Jan 18
How do other people make it through the day
Without repeatedly asking why
Or do they do that too, but keep it hidden from me
Is our real purpose to keep busy
Keep doing something, anything to keep the sadness at bay?
Or am I ill and lacking in certain qualities
That inoculate one against
The crippling indecision and stifling boredom
That seems to populate my day
Jan 21
A checkmark hovering in a leaden sky
Clouds hustling from west to east
In a rush to get somewhere else
A blink and everything changes
From gray to white and back to gray
Sudden change is a tonic for an empty soul
Moving from high to low and back again
Never knowing whether to laugh or cry
Jan 23
Treading water and worrying about the sharks
Both the ones I can see and the ones I can’t
Knowing that keeping my legs moving slowly
Makes me like a worm on a hook.
How can you slip so easily
From the laughing creative heights
Into a cold and frothing sea where the nearest island
Shimmers like a mirage just beyond the horizon?
Jan 24
It’s not funny when funny isn’t funny anymore
When you have to remind yourself to laugh
When others do
When the distant past seems more distant still
And the beauty that overwhelmed me once
Has gone into hiding.
Is this the slow beginning to the slow slide
When memories’ distant horizon is shrouded
In confusion until it’s ultimately hidden in some dark night?
Jan 25
It’s never really quiet here
The twitter of birds rustling in the bougainvillea
The “yip, yip, yip” of a neighbor’s dog
And the low rumble of my own
Hearing sounds well outside my range
The low hum of heaters in winter and swamp coolers
In the humid heat of summer
Life is loud even in its quietest moments
Swinging lazily in the hammock
The snickering of a snore driving my partner crazy.
Jan 26
Sinister sits to the left
And you know where right sits
Not that language has anything to do with it
But don’t get me started on black and white.
Jan 27
An egg
The promise of a chicken
Perfectly designed to fit in the palm of your hand
Easily opened with no scissors needed
Tasty cooked any number of ways
Fried, boiled, poached, coddled, steamed, roasted
Or even uncooked and dropped into a beer
If there’s a more perfect food
I’ve yet to meet it
Jan 28
We play puzzles on Saturday, three friends and I
Nursing our beers like worry beads
Fretting over the English spelling of “ou” words
Racing against each other for the winner’s whiskey.
It’s the high point of the week says friend number one
Implying, I guess, the dismal quality of our lives
Where the routine drudgery of our day to day
Anaesthetizes our brains
But not on Saturday, when nimble minds hold sway
And curlew, or is it curfew, tolls the ending of the day
Jan 29
When the imagination atrophies
Then what?
Jan 30
Is it the beginnings that attract you
Or is it the endings?
Is the world a series of flattened toothpaste tubes
Or new spring buds opening, heedless of the season?
I often wonder how different the world might be
If rather than always ending
It was eternally new
Filled with the hope of what was to come
Not crusted over with what has already been.
Feb 1
Memories can sneak up on you
Leaping out of nowhere to grab you by the throat
And not let go until you finish surfing
A tidal wave of emotions.
Hearing a voice from ten thousand miles away
Carries me back ten years or more
To an older world that magically exists today
With long lost feelings surfacing like a sounding whale
And tears falling like a gentle rain.
Feb 3
Groundhog Day has once again come and gone
All the celebration has faded into memory
For another year
And even though there was a split decision
Winter will continue for a few more months
Until Spring arrives in March
Officially and regardless of what the rodents say
Feb 5
Lean ground beef quickly sautéed in the pot
Remove the beef and add onions and garlic
A little more than you might think
And sauté in some good olive oil until limp but not brown
Then, two big cans of diced tomatoes in their juice
One of sauce and two of paste, maybe some water to thin
Then the veggies: peppers green and red, carrots
Celery and what you will, including mushrooms
A handful of fresh basil, a little less oregano
And some chile pepper for the heat
Don’t forget the wine or the bay leaf
Or perhaps two
Feb 7
The dog’s nails scratching on the concrete
As she stretches in her sleep
The low rumble of traffic a mile away, the wind
Hushing the leaves of the tall pine.
An afternoon passed in reflection
On a past that now seems to have been lived
By someone else.
Feb 9
I had the lines last night
They came to me in those moments before sleep
But are gone today, they can’t be raised
From deep within that nether state
That isn’t dream but hovers
Somewhere above me
Let the mind wander where it will
And see if they don’t come back to somewhere
Near the mouth of consciousness
That plagues me day by day
Feb 11
On our morning walk
She strains to keep ahead
While sending messages at every
Fencepost and tree
Reading them, too
Sometimes for longer than seems appropriate
At least to me
Feb 20
The days roll on
One looking much like the next
Another too reminiscent of the last
Aging is supposed to bring wisdom
Or so they say
But it only seems to bring a host of memories
Sometimes of things done well
And sometimes of things not done at all
The aches and pains that daily visit my knees
Are nothing compared to those locked in memory.