AUGUST 2014

Brain damage
splashing daily matter
one thin dime at a time
resting on the dirty floor
a company of strangers in need of a broom and more.
Solzhenitsyn
sitting on his closet shelf
collecting August dust in 2014
one hundred steps from the actual front
his combat weary grunt
counting each passing year with metal slivers of seconds
careful not to get too close
or drift away too far
remembering The Bell Jar
and other useful tunes in the box.
more empty bladders on yet another battlefield
with one soiled, impassioned STOP sign and a frantic YIELD;
the child resting on wild meadow grass
shielding her eyes from the burning sun,
looking for the wisdom of a neighbor and finding none.
a fanciful dancer
touching each nose peering from the trench;
a quiet bus waiting near the public bench.
a mother boards every twenty minutes
for a village either north or south,
as the narrow valley runs directly in either direction.

Robin, a little bird

He was only a man
The oddest to appear on stage
Since Pluto played an orange dog
Chasing a conversant, busy mouse.
In front of an audience of aliens
Visiting from the planet Loneliness,
He often spilled his bottled water
And his random insights
Like small polished pearls taken from a necklace
Once worn by a reclusive lady stylishly living in
her post-modern home in fashionable Marin.
His crowd was mostly vocal
In their laughter and in pain
Wearing their softest bras or wire rimmed glasses
or nothing at all with beards and high foreheads
they would sit or stand and famously cat call
or lion roar and roll on the well-lit studio floor.
He seemed to enjoy talking with his pet
Mister Happy in front of their paying eyes
Often expressing delight and constantly surprised
by an instant erection or a hearty applause.
He was only a man
who found one door which opened when he needed it to.