frogs along the shoreline

my dad kept brass knuckles in a bedroom dresser drawer
underneath my mother's white panties.

he had a temper, that's for sure.

he was a fist fighter, i was told.

once, during a baseball game he was catching for his Marietta
team, a local cop arrived to arrest the second baseman.

when the cop walked onto the field to get his man, my dad flipped
his mask and ran to get the cop.  And he did, so i was told.

and later, he got me, more than once.

but i don't want to talk about my childhood.

well, there is this:

my first 3 speed bike was too big for me,

but i rode it to elementary school anyway.

i watched a girl friend of my mother after she took a shower at our house,
peeking in from outside while she was drying herself.  those were the first
real female breasts i ever saw, and there was nothing special about them.

i was curious about a female body, but can't remember why.

i have a long very visible scar on my right forearm.

the scar has a history, but i can't remember what it was.

i was a good high school wrestler.

today, i continue to watch my weight.

i shot at frogs along the shoreline of a large pond, using
a BB rifle.

no frogs shot at me,

and i wondered why not. 

As Tears Go By

Marianne
be faithful to me
toss your extra money
deeply
into the sea
come with me
in a fur-skin rug
along with the rabbit
and his marching drug
near St. Anne's Court
the thick lines white and short
where the homesick blues
wear like rich kid's shoes

so fare thee well my little dove
a much harder love
is hiding underneath our talk
shall we continue our walk?
it's on a slippery slope
much longer than the longest rope
if you think our relationship has been mended
the time of day has probably ended

oh, what you've been through
not many at all
in fact only a precious few
have survived
when the gardens and all the pretty flowers died
when
nights and darker days
parted ways

i can still hear you speak in broken English
running from your hospital bed
one more breath
is all that's
keeping you from being declared dead

shall we continue our walk?
it's on a slippery slope
much longer than the longest rope
if you think our relationship has been mended
the time of day has probably ended.

Ho Chi Minh died in '69

And they all died!
Any further consideration would be postponed
Until tomorrow.
A total of twenty two hundred men lied!
One was big nosed Charles de Gaulle
Who was last seen sipping heaping teaspoons of arrogance along
With ripe strawberries which came from Dalat.
Who else?
The French legions at Dien Bien Phu.
That's who.
The Emperor, Bao Dai, constantly smiled 
But never went wild
when the sneaky Japanese sat eating his rice.
They weren't very nice.
Uncle Ho knew which way to go.
And millions of peasants soon followed.
The Buddhist Group went up in flames
Playing gasoline games
In the public square.
I wasn't there.
Ngo Diem was, however, along with his brother and the
Dragon lady, who wasn't very blue.
Who else knew?
In Saigon, Nguyen Van Thieu,
Continued to work on his resume.
Kennedy and the CIA
On the river's embankment,
Ordered the bogeymen into action.
And the rain might have stopped as suddenly
As it started, but the B-52s
Were just warming up on Guam,
Their cold bomb racks filled with misery for the
Vietnamese on the ground, without qualm.
It became very clear that death could drop from
Thirty thousand feet
And kill a thousand people as they sat down to eat.
Truman had no policy, Eisenhower none, but Johnson
Pulled his pants on like a true Texan.
Nixon was no Texan, but in 1972
He celebrated an early Christmas
With Henry who flew home from Paris
With a secret merry card.
On the cover it mentioned that Hanoi and Haiphong
Would not have a merry time
tonight or for the next several weeks and
Not a single word made a rhyme,
But the men acted as though one did.
Whom did they pretend to kid?
President Ho Chi Minh died in '69.
He was no friend of mine.
The US Embassy lost a sign.
It was carried away by a staffer, who jumped
On the last helicopter leaving for the coast.
Where is it now?
That's what I want to know the most. 

Sydney, Australia

Sydney, Australia

and the opera house
at dawn
was singing 'Good Day' to a
regatta of sailboats
which i saw and heard
while walking to the famous bridge
out of my way
but not too far
at the end of the summer of
1970.
for nearly a month
i waited for my flight from
Saigon;
in spite of everything,
i was able to board,
and on landing,
the Aussie girls were waiting
after i cleared Customs and
found my army duffle,
their big round eyes shining
brightly in fresh happy faces.
they waited to dine and dance,
to walk and talk,
to peek and probe,
to be close to me, to touch.
did i ever say how much
it meant?

war and peace, so close together.
and in the crisp springtime, future months away,
with the opera house filled with song,
the evening harbor aglow with lights, sails and stories,
i'd be dug in under a misty jungle canopy
far to the north,
listening for an encore.

Nixon and Mao

i've been thinking of the days

when cigarettes were 25 cents a pack from the dispensing machine

including a soft pack of matches

and soda was 5 cents a bottle

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

a fill-up at the gas station was typically less than 5 dollars which

included a complete window cleaning and an oil level check

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

the bikini was introduced for the young girls who had lithe, athletic bodies

and the nerve to wear one on a warm summer pool or beach day and

they sure looked delightful to the young boys

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

Jim Bunning of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a perfect game in 1964, on Father's Day,

and his team won which was not remarkable although helpful for their standing in

the league

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

In the early summer of 1969, in a muddy field near Woodstock, New York, there

was an amazing outdoor multi-day concert of stunning music attended by

hundreds of thousands of beautiful young people, 

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

Richard Nixon, in his role of President of the United States, reached out to the

People's Republic of China and it's leader, Mao Tse Tung, for a rapprochement between

their respective countries and it proved to be a welcome gesture

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

in 1989, the Iron Curtain separating east and west in Europe was dismantled by

freedom loving peoples tired of the mind control of the Soviet state and that empire

for the most part began to unravel stone by stone and brick by brick,

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

on September 11, 2001, there was a horrific attack by Islamic militants

against the United States centered on Manhattan, New York, at the World Trade Center,

with the use of two commercial American Airlines planes crashing into the twin towers,

and later, on May 2, 2011, the master mind of the attack, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi national

living in Pakistan, was killed by United States Navy SEALs during a secret raid on his compound,

but the nicest thing was nobody talked about Trump.

died of fright

no one came into my bedroom

yet the air was heavy with breathing

i imagined a masked man in uniform

he wouldn't give his name

but i signed all the papers

i accepted all the blame

and in the morning there was no one

i must have lost myself at night

my dying was never questioned:

they said i died of fright. 

Broken Arrow

it was once Saigon
but now it's all gone:
the muddy river slept and burned
and what have we learned?

painting it black won't get it back!

the body bags filled with Asian dirt
who said it wouldn't hurt
watching the helicopters at the embassy
the woman with her startled baby
grabbing the barbed wire wall
dodging shots before the fall
and all the President's men
in their white face
the conference table with expensive pens and fancy lace
and that perfect powder room
where the drunks sang delirious songs of doom

in the stone temples
the impassive gods sat hard and cold

watching fates bought and sold

in the parlors of the press
the readers were forced to guess
what in the streets of an American city
was real and what was simply witty

and on the television screens
cigarette smoke filled the air

while in Vietnam the midnight sparkle
was a phosphorescent flare
and young men lived and died there

while in the Pentagon
it was once Saigon
but now it's all gone
when the flesh gave way to marrow
the cry was 'Broken Arrow'

or was it in Orem, Utah?

remember what they said about Oswald?

how he planned it all and was such a

good Marine 

sharp-shooter

with his rifle

with nerves of steel 

with unlimited patience

being a convenient dupe of the mob

but it was all bullshit

meant to deceive and deflect

while driving the Irish Catholic crowd crazy

or crazier, if that was even possible,

by losing their first American man who

ascended to the Presidency. 

the Cuban Batista boys were furious, of course,

about the loss of their property

and the fast women

and the slow cars

and how they hated the cigar smoke from Castro

who blew it furiously up their asses

but never giving away his hand.

the cops did their best playing the field

sniffing the air for smells that didn't belong

conning the cons

wearing their suits into Broadway clubs

waiting for snitches and bitches

to order tall drinks

from a short bartender

who was a closet friend of J. Edgar Hoover,

famous top dog at the FBI.

of course it was Oswald, the pinko

solo player

a mastermind

a maestro

a genius,

simply another day in a plaza in Dallas,

or was in Orem, Utah? 

as some conspiracy theorists have suggested. 

the summit of Alpe d'Huez

Chemical Ali was not there
in the rarified air
at the summit of Alpe d'Huez
where a sign in French says
"Allez Armstrong"
go hard and long
he was often hung in the press
accused of doping i should guess
but never strung on the gallows as Ali
is soon to be
yet he seriously kicked ass
and would certainly out-class
most sports writers
playing pencil lovers dull as fighters
Chemical Ali will soon be dead
for what he did, not what he said
the ghastly gassing of the Kurds
an act of evil beyond mere words
innocent children and mothers
fathers sisters brothers
uncles aunts old middle young
poisonous clouds all far flung
by Iraqi Migs and French Mirages
no racing bicycle in those garages
thousands dead and homes razed
survivors stumbling in a toxic daze
while Saddam smoked his Cuban cigar
sipped bourbon inside his palace bar
holding perfect Kosta Boda crystal
and his famous Glock 18C pistol
Chemical Ali was not there

eaten by pigs

eaten by pigs

while wearing wigs

squealing naked and not yet infirm

watch them lie and squirm

down the dance hall and out the door

rolling in heaping piles of their own manure

wearing their disguise outside the public sewer

ICE

not tea but walking body lice

masked with military grade armor

a special operations charmer 

zip-tying children in the street

binding tiny shaking hands and tiny feet

screams for help answered with a sneer

ICE is there and now here

eaten by pigs

while wearing wigs

snort

contemptuous of American justice and Federal court

orders, they say, from a soul less pimp

squatting behind the Resolute desk like a deep fried orange shrimp 

bone spurs and fat reducing pills

challenges and chills

the brain worm eating its' way deep into the soul

finding a black heart and a blacker hole

what, one asks, is the end game?

SHAME

on all the cult followers and their tragic game

extinguishing the long-burning liberty flame 

while applauding hate

is their ultimate fate (to be)

eaten by pigs

while wearing wigs? 

on the dunce seat

when i attended school

i had to obey the golden rule:

no messes and everybody confesses

on the playground and in class

no holding hands or grabbing ass.

Mrs. Coleman was her name

and teaching was her game.

we had a small group of rowdy boys

who thought our penises were little toys

that needed attention

not to mention

flirting with the innocent girls

wearing bobby socks and shampooed curls.

the teacher was often stern

her temper simmered into a slow burn

and 

i ended up on the dunce seat

when i failed to meet

her expectation to be quiet and stay seated

she treated

me with her adult stare

i tried to care

but my friends would poke and joke around

no one could make a sound

when she looked our way

but we always had a lot to say

at recess:

hey, look up Nancy's small skirt

Francis is always wearing the same striped shirt

Joey farted, lit a match & shot the flame

i somehow got the blame

and 

ended up on the dunce seat.