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?!

Flanders Field Revisited

Flanders Field Revisited
   (for the Armistice Centenray, Nov 11, 2018)

On Flanders field the poet saw 
  Crimson sunspots flashing in his shell-shocked awe
Over the shallow graves of no-man’s land,
  Flowers grown by death’s own hand,
Plowed and tilled by the Kaiser’s huns,
  Batteries of allied guns, 
Up they rose from the blood churned ground,
  Poppies red as bullet wounds

Before the advancing fronts of Spring
  Above the fire steps there cling, poppies,
Outnumbering the dead who’s tally
  Too few big push Generals knew,
That we may lay lost soldiers
  Dead to sleep,
Come poppies, lay torn lads
  To sleep

For all war weary, who abide,
  From Eden’s garden is supplied, the 
Modern balm from Gilead,
  A respite for beloveds who grieve 
For soldiers of all wars,
  The same,
We offer poppies
  In their name

Nikki

Nikki

Nikki was a cat in love
With every Valentine’s flower,
It simply mattered not to her
If they were yours or lovely ours

We stood them first on the table,
Then moved them high upon a shelf,
As she sniffed the perfumed fragrant wind,
Convinced that they were for herself

“Nikki, nooooo! Those flowers aren’t for you…”

And sighing, though She loved her flowers
Nikki could wait, have you no doubt,
Until our restaurant reservations,
Or went to bed, all lights turned out

Then she’d brush her face upon them,
Until she smelled the same as they,
When, no matter if in dirt or vase,
She’s toss them all over the place!

When they were spread out on the floor
She’d playful pounce and claw and bite,
Until our pretty ones, once bright,
Were draggled, ragged, quit the fight

 “Nikki, what have you done?”
  Is what I’d say, as

Sometime later I’d find her
Curled, content in sweet repose,
With a purr smiling so happily,
Smelling innocent as a rose

Gabby Goes to Work

Gabby Goes to Work

I have a great grey parrot
The most intelligent of birds
As mimids they can imitate
And love to learn useful new words

Each day I teach her something new
Repeating phrases that are nice
Which she readily understands
And uses tangibly precise

Like “Please,” and “Thank you, how are you?”
“Time for dinner,” and “Good night,” too
It’s my joy to teach her every day,
And after work that’s what we do

But in the morning I’m off to work
Drive to the depot, the office garage
Truck with the crew to the construction site
It’s a job I don’t choose to disparage

Today it’s a sewer pipe job
And just a half block from my house!
We spent all day digging up roads
On local streets and thereabouts

Sweating out at work all day
Reducing once fine roads to bray
Dump trucks back up going “Beep Beep Beep,”
The back hoe claws earth “Chunk – kerchunk,”
While a jack hammer breaks up cement cracks,
  “Ber-er-er-er-er-er-ap!”

Too much noise! Harsh unnatural drones!
  Despite ineffective noise reducing headphones,
But I find solace in knowing
That Gabby waits for me,
  When I get home
We’ll practice new words,
  When I get home

Our shift ends, truck back to the lot
Back in my car, which the sun has made hot
It’s horns and brake squeaks all the way home
Echo work noises,
  Won’t leave me alone

“I’ll teach her new words
  When I get home …”
“Teach Gabby new words
  When I get home …”

I arrive home, Great Gabby’s there!,
I saw no reason for despair,, and said
  “Hello Gabby, what shall we learn today?”

And that’s when
  She walked backwards squawking “Beep Beep Beep,”
Scratched at a flower pot while clucking  “Chunk - chunk - kerchunk,”
Pecked at the table top, while rolling
  “Ber-er-er-er-er-er-ap!”

Then all night long kept up that crap

Requiem for a Dead Cell Phone

Requiem for a Dead Cell Phone

My old phone’s obsolete and lost its light
My MSP won’t fix it, though polite 
“Beep Beep Beep” without recharging all the night

My new phone is prepaid, unlimited,
Cell service and free data, ‘salesman said,
My old phone’s obsolete and lost its light

Why plug it in when there is no more use?
It has no resale value, it’s refuse
“Beep Beep Beep” without recharging all the night

Its manual boasts of things ‘new phone’ can do
Like call waiting, ring tones, messaging too
My old phone’s obsolete and lost its light

It’s beeping drives me mental, what to do?
I shove it in a drawer and out of view
“Beep Beep Beep” without recharging all the night

It ghosted on three days pleading its plight
Alone, no extreme unction kaddish rites
My old phone’s obsolete and lost its light
“Beep Beep Beep” without recharging all the night

An Old Poult

An Old Poult

He walks into the backyard
  On two legs
His red head, bald as vultures’
  Bobs with his pigeon tread

He neither cackles
  Nor warbles now
Silently stepping, looking down
  Pecking at the grit

Proud Tom,
  Only last week,
Through this self same yard
  Did you strut, the grand rooster
Cacking, cackling for your three
  Under-impressed turkey brides
Who ignored you,
  As they’d seen it all before
As you took a stand
  Enlarging in a ruffle and
Commenced to shaking as brown leaves
  On trees in wind
Fuss of an indian war bonnet
  With your fan tail display and stomping about

“No matter,” they clucked
  as they pecked about the dirt

And where are your harem hens now?

Somewhere a dozen eggs
  Hidden in some brush upon a scrape
Are silently attended
  Waiting for their new lives to escape
   
And some will meet cars
  Others, coyote-dogs
The hardy scrapping on
  To be young turks

For life is of the species
  Not the soul, as
Tomorrows croaking Tom
  Is todays poult