Pink Apples

Pink Apples

Generally, as a man of descretion,
I don’t say things I ought not mention
  Like, when she leaves her laundry on the floor,
Collapsed stockings, bunched band underwear,
  And a sling like to slay two Goliaths

But her bikini top upon the beach
Left out upon the shell worn sand,
  And seeing no one but we each,
Leads me prurient to think
  Soft pink apples are in hand

The After Dinner Question

The After Dinner Question

It’s at parties with friends, if I’ve not before mentioned,
After dinner, I will pose this most impertinent question, stating; 

“May I presume to say, if politely permissable,
That giving cats food serves to make them invisible

“Before meals, our cat’s alarming, howling ‘Meow meow meow,’
As if he’s hungry enough he could eat a whole cow

“Pick a can, pull a tab, smells so good, fork’ in bowl,
Watching him gulp it down, ‘snack snack snack,’ -  never old

“Once he’s done, once it’s gone, once it’s all in his gut
He walks off, silently, watch his britches and butt

    “As he fades away below his tail, curved,
        a disapparating question mark above
           that final feline pink period dot

“For sure I don’t know, though I probably ought to,
It may be just because I don’t know where he’s got too

“He has shelves, secret caves, an assortment of boxes,
I’ve found fur, sealed in drawers, where I keep my clean socks in

“Not a hair nor a whisker, even under the mattress
For long hours not a trace, one would think we were catless

“Until that alarm all cats have in their stomachs chimes sublime,
  And he’s apparent again, and howling –
‘Yeowl!’
   Meaning ‘Kitty Supper-Time!’”

Chores (for Father’s Day)

Chores
  (for Father’s Day)

Like picking elderberries and 
  Mushing juice for summer wine,
Dad makes sure I’ve done my chores,
  And that they’re done on time


Then there’s taking out the garbage,
  Mowing grass or raking leaves,
Sundays it’s all laundry,
  Fold diagonally the sleeves


You might think it not at all fair
 Dad himself has got no chores,
Yet his all consuming task is
  Telling me he’s keeping score,
    ‘cause 

 That’s how I know he loves me,
  And is his never ending chore

Evanescence

Evanescence
 
I saw the tall mountain,
  Its bald pate adorned in a mist
That styled itself a colonial powder wig,
  Curls above the shoulders,
Trailing in the wind
  To a bow tied pony tail
That vanished, wasting away, to
  Clean clear air that left no trail

Do not ask me, I do not know
  Where it is to our old thoughts go,
Creations of the wind,
  Alighting on the mind,
Escaping grasp, so thin,
  Do not end or begin,
And when they fly away –
  Wherever it is to they’re bound, 
In that aether garden of repose
  No dew or mist is ever found

Ranger, Widow and Ghost

Ranger, Widow and Ghost

Ranger;
I saw him sitting
  On the top of the hill
In the area roped off
  For nesting great horned owls

I approached him,
  And as I walked
I blinked mid step as I encroached,
  And he was gone

Widow;
It was his wish,
  Set in his will,
To spread his ashes
  On the hill

Upon the agreed upon date
  We met and walked these solemn slopes
Silently as we were one again
  We slipped the ropes without reproach
Read one of his
  Old tanka poems
Unscrewed the urn
  And he was gone

Ghost;
Do not leave me long on a shelf
  Please set me free to be myself
I used to sit zazen up here
  And birdwatch too, when they came near
So let me go is all I ask,
  And thank you for this simple task
And now, I am here, so
  Grateful, I am here
Sit here with me
  For eternity

A Poem of the Waiting Idiom

A Poem of the Waiting Idiom

In a ritual from renaissance times
With organ bellows and heavenly rhymes
Service programs and hynmals hand-held out before us
We sing, after ascension, of the returning Christ
Who will descend as He ascended,
  Sins and failings amended
All upon a warm Spring morning Sunday

Scene: a leafless sapling tree
Enter: we High School Theater geeks,
Proceeding to rip and read ‘Waiting for Godot’ on stage
With scripts and asides hand-held out before us, where
Promised and sworn, tedium borne, sundowm to come,
  (Without quoting sans expressed written permission)
‘We are waiting for (G-Word) … to come,’

And too, leaving church after communion
I found, on the sidewalk, a milennial reunion
Each tapping zealously with woodpecker fingers
Upon Iphones and tablets, hand-held out before them,
“Are you waiting for a bus?” I asked the group,
  “No, pokemon,” said one, 
“We’ve been promised here ‘new pokemon’ will come”

Zen Mountain Dogs

Zen Mountain Dogs

We bow to the four directions,
Parents, Teachers, Spouse and Kin
The Sanga of the sky,
The Roots below we grow within
And that to others we are them
That is the crystal and
  clear gem

This temple, once a Christian camp,
The bell meant time for Christian Mass,
As Isaiah in the year King Uzziah died,
In a room filled with the hem of His robe
We are not cloven sheep, who bleat
Please treat us fairly,
  we entreat

When noon sun’s high the fire whistle blows
A wailing sound that all dogs know
As they run to the edge of the yard
In answer to their howling canine god,
Anubis, Cerberus, Akela !
We run with you, how-wool !
  How how how-wool - back at ‘cha !

Ode to the Lackadaisical Cat

Ode to the Lackadaisical Cat

We never had a mouse before you came, cat,
We having welcomed you in for love and good,
It’s all because of the leftover cat food
Remaining in your bowls, since you’ve grown fat

‘Cause that’s a buffet for a trespassing mouse,
Of course, one always did live in the garage
(Where swept I up the remnants of his forage)
But never had one once come in the house!

Whom I have just seen scuttle across the floor,
Which you feign not note or see while your eyes roll,
His cheeks full of kibbles, purloined from your bowl
And whom I know waits to return once more!

Yet I will conceed he looked cute there as he loomed
Like a kangaroo sitting up on his hind legs,
Reaching with two paws as if to kindly beg,
Then taking one and voom! Exits the room ---

It’s unnatural that you don’t pursue mice,
All those years of instict, predator and prey
Have in you, quisling cat, gone by the way
You really are the blind / deaf guard at the heist

Made you some dubious interspecies deal?
At midnight does he treat you with a bag
Of mousie tidbits he collected as swag,
By which he kicks-you-back from your own meals?

What is it that he pays you with, and that
Was not already yours, you lazy cat?!