in prayer

the first thing in the morning or was it late at night?
i opened a familiar door to my lost and found:
a red napkin with a woman's name fluttered to the ground
and the overhead light was dim.
i reached out for what i thought was a lollipop,
but instead grabbed a holiday magazine
inside of which was a black and white television, a TV tray,
and chubby checker all twisted up on a 60's dance floor.
at first, he looked like an old friend of mine.
i took a duffel bag, a two-person tent,
and dance lessons the very next day.
i wanted only a few more months to stay
in one place.
overnight i saw a face!
it looked like a little boy
and he ran into the thick woods
chasing a deer.
i could tell it was a doe
but what would happen soon i couldn't yet know.
the boy wore white sneakers and carried a map
which from my far distance seemed to be new.
thinking ahead,
i went to buy my ticket and the agent asked my name.
he also asked if i knew the magic word?
by his chair i saw a black cat on the floor who purred,
dreaming of fat mice and an oriental fish hat.
the rest of my dream was more of the same.
i opened a familiar door to my lost and found:
a red napkin with a woman's name fluttered to the ground
and the overhead light was dim.
wholeheartedly,
i paid a visit to my brother and his wife;
i ate on a brick patio and wore my pocket knife:
its' blade was folded in prayer.

Neptune's Inferno

Neptune's Inferno

proximate to the Admiralty Islands

the waters run deep 

the ships sunk

sailors drunk

on a weekend pass or out of fright

and the tattoo inks bleed on a young man's arm

scratching a short story between the lonely bicep and wide-eyed homesickness.

his Mother calls

Dad rises from his seat and sets the course of a radio dial

Rita Hayworth

Veronica Lake

something to be fighting for

in the South Pacific of the second world war

northwest of Guadalcanal

IronBottom Sound

the Japanese navy 

Rabaul

Bougainville

cursing Marines and young medical personnel busy on the beach

dreams of home cooking 

the smell of real gravy

night engagements between destroyers and those being destroyed

oil-slick foamy seas and USN guns firing smoky blasts.

Mother reads the morning paper and cries

Dad just shakes his head and adjusts his brown tie:

they look at each other and wonder why?

in the South Pacific of 1942

the ocean was blue.

i wanna make love to you

i wanna make love to you
before the backyard brawl
i want you in my hip pocket
down at the old pool hall:
i got me a new woman
she's my new number eight
when i call her to my room
she better not be late.
she comes in early,
never mind knocking on the door.
i ain't too proud to be asking,
she likes it down on the floor.
i wanna make love to you
before the backyard brawl
i want you in my hip pocket
down at the old pool hall:
i got me a new woman
she's my new number nine
when i'm too tight to be gentle
she says she likes it just fine.
she comes in early,
never mind knocking on the door.
i ain't too proud to be asking
she likes it down on the floor.
i got me a new woman
she's my new number ten
when i tell her i'm too tired
she wants to do it again.
i wanna make love to you
before the backyard brawl
i want you in my hip pocket
down at the old pool hall.

solace in her lap

one laundered sports bra draped over the leather chair,
a damp towel on the linoleum floor,
a gas fire lighting tempered glass,
jazz standards like a fine mist spraying the locked front door,
massaging my neck with slower notes...
a complete memory that simply won't sit still,
tumbling over and over again down an untamed hill.
i heard the 'Midnight Train to Georgia'
in an old El Paso bar;
i kept reaching for her shoulder
but her chair moved just too far.
there were avenues filled with watchers
when the marchers played their game;
i saw the bands approaching,
all the music seemed the same.
a deer skull nailed to a tree trunk
fell at night and broke in two
on a sharp stone in a wind storm.
i knew immediately what to do.
from a tall bridge in New Mexico
over a rift which tore a hole
down below i saw the children
and each one held a soul
and i jumped into their laughter
found the humor and took a nap
saw a woman like my mother
and found solace in her lap.            

Merhaba

a twenty three cent soldier
spoke his foreign tongue in Korea
with the taste of morning honey
still bright upon his goat cheese smile
so many miles from his native land
where olives calmly grew on ancient trees
and women sat talking on the second floor of the mosque
after working to make gozlemes in an oil-burning
cook pot for the men wearing knitted caps
and woolen jackets smelling of cheap cigarettes.
he saw the dead American bodies twisted in the broken mud
and thought of his mother sitting in another room
not too far from the Black Sea
in a country where Asia and Europe meet
where tradition and change have been at war
for longer than the fight he now found himself bought into
and he thought he might like to pray
but he didn't have the time.
for him, it was too expensive.

the Earth was rebuilt

on my land voyage to the center of a mature forest
where i once upon a time lost my beating heart
there was a feeling somewhere on the side of the road
and i stopped at the closet service plaza
where i reasoned to find it.
you might not know where to look
but i saw the sign warning of high wind gusts
and knew it was nearby and since
it was growing dark and i was tired
i scaled the adobe walls of the restored Alamo
and saw Colonel Travis who held aloft the lone star flag
and it reminded me of the wound i previously felt.
when Jim Bowie drank mission water from his old canteen,
a determined Mexican army grabbed his sharp long knife
which they used repeatedly to stab my back.
i subsequently awoke along the Rio Grande river with a
mountain lioness by my side, a beautiful feline,
and she wore a soft gray cap and gave me a new heart.
i placed the happy heart inside a bear-proof container before
the next days' hike around Emory Peak and knew
that i'd eventually return for a cup of hot coffee and my evening meal.
at night the stars above Texas are as thrilling as the brilliant stars
above the lakes of New Mexico and the sky was brutally dark.
under sunny skies green birds would sing "Oh, Susanna" and the land west of the Pecos
was mostly dry even though people still cried with the remembrance
of a lost band of fallen heroes or having eaten too many refried beans.
sitting in my captain chair i sipped white wine with the lioness who read me an article
from the New York Times and pointed her paw to the metal box where
my heart was still securely stored.
when my glass was finally emptied, i walked to a nearby ghost town,
and followed directions to the historic cemetery where the dead stayed dead
even underneath a blood red moon in the month of October.
i had carried my healthy heart in a camouflaged day pack along with a
tattered army blanket i brought back from the long-ago Vietnam War.
i went missing for a total of seven days and when i returned
the Earth was completely rebuilt, my heart was once again inside my chest,
and the lioness snuggled up against my side in a leaky tent.
i was still horny for life and so was she.

a big bear came and shook his head

seventy four black bears were sitting on the outside deck
twenty four were hiding behind the club house door
each one was patting a fat and happy belly
empty jars of ripe strawberry jelly
each one licked clean and sloppily spilled
appetites brought in were eagerly filled
when they stood up and walked away
the neighbors agreed to have a say
no more trash gets tossed around
no more garbage on the ground
two sly fox heard what they said
seventeen more were still in bed
they all had thoughts of stealing jam
a rental car and slice of ham
but a big bear came and shook his head
every fox turned a crimson red
the animals held a quick pow wow
they agreed to share the peoples' chow
but people cared about the wild
they told adults and every child
pack it in and pack it out
love the Earth and leave no doubt.
they left no food for the lazy bones
the forest heard and filled with groans
ninety eight black bears ate a perfectly normal meal
not a drop of fast food did they find to steal;
nineteen red fox admired the clean streets;
they looked high and low but found no sweet treats!

champagne corks

an illusion
a fantasy friend
all the way to the bitter end
we talk at night by candlelight
when i open my door
once i found a foreign war
a song played
i found you hiding in the rubber tree shade
and it was cool
we swam in the pool
life has never been the same
no longer the routine game
a helicopter ride went nowhere
the spinning rotors kept us suspended in air
you smiled and poured the wine
i walked the straight & narrow line
feeling completely alone
chilled to the bone
i was just a foreign guy
under a distant Asian sky
the popping sound
was more than champagne corks.