Fall of a Harrier

Fall of a Harrier


On the wing in sea-breeze
  Without a flap he glides on,
For a hawk he’s not mean,
  He’s an amiable one

As he comes to the edge
  Of the dune, suddenly,
He has dropped, pulled a wing,
  Fell in there, can you see?

As if shot he fell in,
  But with no sound of guns,
As if scared into hiding,
  But I can’t see no one

For a held breath quiet moment we stare

Then above the dune grass
  He climbs back in the sun,
Was no Harrier killed,
  Though a small crab is done

A Poem of Petals and Dew

A Poem of Petals and Dew


I wished I could share it with you,
The Lily that I picked today,
It blooms for only just this day,
But you made plans, what could I do?

The goldfinch on the thistle knew,
The wasp this morning timely showed,
His pollen back so thick it glowed,
As Lily shed her teardrop dew

By daylight my calendar burns,
These collapsed petals on the ground,
When you come back, will not be found,
Our days once passed have no return

And I am no centurion pine,
It’s just a thing, seems so silly,
What crime, to miss a day lily?

I die each day you are not mine

The Green P’tater

The Green P’tater

I saw a wasp carry
  an inchworm around,
And fed it into
  a hole in the ground,

She stung it with
  her waspy venom,
Not enough to kill,
  just enough to benumb

She laid her egg
  within its heart, and
Then she crawled out
  and did depart

She planted that worm
  like a green p’tater
For her grub to eat up
  when he hatches a bit later

Parishioner

Parishioner


Posted signs read ‘No Loitering, Police Take Notice,’
  No police take notice

His head upon a duffel bag,
He’s sleeping rough on the foundation stone, rough cut,
  At the foot of the fieldstone steeple,
The stone laid wide in lieu of tower gutters
  To run rain to ground away from the foundation

Fetal curled on his side, he holds his hands
  Under his head, as with prayer hands,
To turn him vertical (from his current lay)
  And he’d look the whispering child, kneeling in his pew

Year ago, we had the first cardboards in the alley,
  Down by the basement fire door, soon accompanied
With the trash bags of clothes, maybe
  Really big Church mice?
We’d had no break ins, no vandals,
  I didn’t want to be the rat

But last week it was a bottle of pear brandy,
  Half drunk, in the window ledge above him now,
I took the bottle to the bus stop trash,
  Where two transient men said they’d seen it (on the window ledge),
I wondered was the bottle theirs, telling them
 “If you know whose this is,
  Tell him I left it here for him”

  I don’t think it theirs now,
Those old bags of clothes under the handicap ramp
  Have filled the space, they’re spilling out,
Watching him sleep, one shoe off,
  An earworm whispers me a gospel:
“Then he began … and dried them with the towel that girded him”

Adding new Parishioners
  Is not something that’s new,
Learning Jesus teaching, times,
  An awkward thing to do

Touching Van Gogh

Touching Van Gogh


Do as I say and not as I do,
Touching old masters is no good for you

Summer day at MoMA,
Wandering air-conditioned rooms,
We had drifted apart,
  When I found myself wandering into
Van Gogh’s Starry Night, its
  Vanity bonfire raking high a sky divine
With its off center green flames,
  Mimicking French cypress or yew

Flat photos do it no justice,
  It’s 3D, like a stucco wall,
Licks of paint rise to the eye, blue points
  Of windswept waves draw the sea so high

I was tempted,
There’s a security guard in the doorway!
  He just walked by, he’s gone now

With a shot of adrenaline I pointed my finger at the stars
  And reaching,tentative as Michelangelo’s Adam, poked it,
A rising triangle of Van Gogh’s brushstroke,
  It was Sharp!  It hurt!
I recoiled, inspecting the finger, found no blood,
Yet alert as from being lanced at a doctors office
  I hadn’t known I’d visited,
It had bit me! And next, would it want to chew my ear off?
  None in the room bore witness

So there I stood, as close to Van Gogh as he to his work,
  Sharing that goose of stimulant and ennui,
Pre-dawn cold anxious depression shakes,
  Such as I hadn’t had since before McLean,
We both, standing as one red headed Dutchman, sculpting wee sailboats
  As the pixel points of space,
  Far out, far out of town

He shared his view through his asylum window,
His roiling mistral vision, enlarging the stars in its clarity,
White rolling waves over the breakwater of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence,
  Which, by any name, we’ve come to know, as
That last starlit light, of the artist’s angry night  

Gyroscope

Gyroscope

Despite her many modern toys,
  In her hand, my little goddess girl
Holds a gyroscope,
  Or, perhaps, does not hold it, as it stands,
Its string since pulled,
  Upon her finger print, stem of her hand,
Which may as well be Atlas’ back,
  Or those Hindu turtles, turtles, all the way down

This gyroscope, it is her world,
  She is its Lord,
Its space station center, axis point bearings
  In its chrome plated pole to pole celestial arcs,
Spins at her command, creating gravity,
  Spins at her command, creating time,
Spins on, on its own. defiant of our old world laws,
  Renewing new, new Natures laws anew,
A Bold New World upon the old,
  Einstein upon Ptolemy

Her childhood toy guides bombs in flight,
  Her toy spins copper wires to light,
Could Great God bare us in such delight,
  He to stave our fearing the dark,
Fear of eternal an endless night?

She does, on every time, anticipate,
  Whether the fanning of the air, or
Friction on its axis pointed poles,
  Her gyro always sometime slows,
To topple, tumble, in her hand

When entropy grinds our Earth to stop,
  Where is it writ God Great has wrote
‘Catch’ in his final plan,
  As she has for this simple toy,
     In lithe and loving hands?

Summer Ghost

Summer Ghost


A moth upon the window screen,
Mistakes for the moon my lamp to glean,
  until a Ghost - flash – white and bright,
Plucks him away to the formless night

Soon too next a June bug appears,
Who proceeds to buzz loud in my ears,
  ‘til Ex Nihilo from the black night air,
A ghost claw takes him far from here

And so marks time through night’s routine,
I reading books, they on my screen,
  ‘til Quick - they’re gone – they knew no dread,
Until blue morning scatters light

  And time for bats (and I) to bed

Red Eye

Red Eye


Whole town done gone in alarm
  About all these brown rabbits,
Their numbers, and their nibblins’,
Their cotton tail lopin’ habits

Some are thinkin’ they’re infestin’,
  Sure there’s more this year than last,
I’ve see ‘em, and I’ve noticed,
Just I remember ‘bout years past

Comes a red tail hawk, about summertide,
  Perches on a roof top, or a bough real high,
Got a bloodshot stare, a real evil red eye,
Like, don’t ask why,
  He’s all pissed off at the blue sky

Last year, he snatched up all our rabbits,
  Then come again back for our yard’s little chipmunks,
By labor day, all four legged critters he’d expunged,
Excepting for late night ‘possums and skunks

And this year I’ve already seen him,
  With a clutched rabbit flying on the sly,
I think September’s comin’ early,
Now we got rabbits flyin’ by
 

The Poets Lawn

The Poets Lawn

This Poet’s Lawn’s mostly crabgrass,
Shattered old dafs, sprig sassafras,
I mow the lawn each month or two,
I’m not concerned much by the view

My neighbors fear their home’s values
Will fall, caused by my diligence due,
They’ve sent me letters, wrote me notes,
Of late I’m contemplating goats

For my garden’s not the outdoor kind,
The flowers I plant bloom in one’s mind,
Which I write and send to my publishing crew,
Much like this one I wrote for you

Which if you don’t like,   Go Screw!