Nihon Gaki No Halloween

Nihon Gaki No Halloween
  ( にほん がき おｆ はっぉうぇえん)

Japanese Gaki know Halloween,
The night we give, in ritual,
  Food for hungry ghosts

Gaki haunt, unheard, unseen,
Skinny arms, needle necks,
Breath that smells of rot, or turd,
Thank God they can’t be seen or heard,
  Yet they are there

So hungry, they cannot eat,
Food burns - hot flames - leap in their mouths,
So thirsty, they cannot drink,
Tiny throats to narrow even to let drip,
  Their pain is real

Building good karma,
  We can help,
The Buddha made one magic act,
  By his generosity,
We shall give them ritual leftovers,
  Thanksgiving seconds,
  Christmas dinner on boxing day,
  Communion wafers after mass
 
Our children will dress up and play,
Go tricks or treats at dusk today,
For the Gaki’ sake we feed them too,
Tonight, adorable childhood mayhem
 
And when that’s done,
After midnight,
  When the last horror movie’s run,
We think of you,
  So tragic the death,
  The horrible injustice,
  Endless roaming without rest

And Halloween is a ritual feast,
Look, I’ve some leftover treats!
  For all the good that it can do,
With prayers and hopes, this ritual food,
  I place out on the stoop for you

Foilage

Foilage


It starts a far off buzz,
  Louder than any hive or wasp nest,
Yesterday it was down the road,
  Sounds today as it comes from up

It isn’t something we need fear, 
  It‘s a normal noise this time of year,
It’s an orange box pulled by a truck,
  The city sends to take loose leaves

Oh, but first you gotta pronounce it properly,
Here in New England, its called foilage,
  Not foliage, ‘cause
"Guy, you sound like you ah really quee-a,
  Learn how to tawk like yer from hee-a"

I have a poet writer’s physique,
  (Meaning raking leaves takes me two weeks)
And once I’ve brought all to the curb,
  The wind blows more in, “Just Su-perb!”

Now the truck comes humming down our road,
  Shit! This last tarp load - to the street!

Wearing ear protectors big as headphones
  He yells at me,
“You know, we won’t back by again this year!”
  So I yell back over the unholy orange din,
“I know, (between breaths)
  That’s why, (between breaths)
  I’m dragging these here!”

I watch as his elephantine hose sucks,
  In but a few short moments, up
My weeks of work,
  Into this voracious orange box

Great! Now I have to stuff all the rest in tall leaf bags!

Our cat reclines on his sunny porch chair,
  His new coat repels the cool the autumn air,
He deigns to watch me as I rake,
  Gold headlight eyes, so brightly wide, he stares,
My autumn leaves? He does not care,
  He licks his butt, that he rakes clean

Amateur Poets

Amateur Poets


Time came I’d writ about a dozen poems,
Some comical, some dire tomes,
And I thought they’d want to publish me,
If even only just for free

So I showed my poems to
A writing group friend,
  Named Owen, who said,

“I could help submit them for you,
   I know some people,
 I’ve been at it longer than you,
 I know a few things about this”

I’d thought he’d give a friend’s review,
I hadn’t thought this’d be what he’d do,
I thought about it for a sec,
  Then hedged and took my poems back

“Well, there certainly are better agents out there
   Than me, but will they take you?
 That’s the thing, poets, agents, publishers,
 They’re known conveniently not to have
   A lot of extra time, when asked”

So I sent my poems to magazines,
Waited some weeks, what will be seen?
  I collected rejection letters,
Compared to my work, each written better,
  Nice, but no

So I took my poems back to Owen,

“Naw, I don’t have time for this”   

Qui Gong

Qui Gong


I can see why cat likes his porch chair twilight,
The moon has painted his whiskers silver,
  And above the tenor crickets
The wind makes wind chimes rhyme in time
  With the purpling evening breeze

  Qui Gong,
  Qui Gong – ley
       
So we sit and open mind
  Not contemplating koan,
Waiting while star-lit wind marks time,
Waiting on the wind, our doan

  Qui Gong,
  Qui Gong – ley

Two Poems of Love and Trees

Lovers Leaves

Upon the moss one leaf
  Seemed split in two

You can see the spines,
  The top leaves

Was two, both curved over,
  Warm oak taco shells

Once cleaved as one,
  Both stems

Still one at the twig,
  Holding hands in the branch

Two fallen leaves,
  A gap to see

So seems my sleeping love
  To me

Naked Elm 

In a distraction, 

  The elm lets fly her yellow leaves. 

Each burst of chaff to draw my eye away

  From her nakedness

Though it only leaves her more so, 

  This dance of the veils to maintain her innocence, 

How coy she is, a mistress, to undress so before

  The chapped raw winds of winter’s lust 

My Girl and I, we add on blankets, 

  Then den ourselves as bears do in a cave, 

Sharing lover’s loins before only God, 

  Who Himself has promised not to peek, 

And nightly visits welcome from 

  Our own warm pussy-cat

But the elm, she stands out, naked, 

  All her innocent leaves taken,

Over frigid months, her apetalous buds blue, shaken,

  Until warming spring winds return, 

    And staminate

Scene Unseen with Magazine

Scene Unseen with Magazine
  (a poem of living with MS)


Her hand holds up her magazine,
  Its page turned back along its seam,
Her eyes focus upon a line,
  Which sends her back to sleep in time,
Her magazine falls on her face,
  She wakes and re-reads the same place

Dialogue;
  “I want to hold your hand,”
  “Your warm paw,”
Thinking;
  “Heal woman, heal”

She reads she says to fall asleep,
Though what she reads won’t let her keep
  resting,
    so it falls,
      and then,
She wakes to read once more again 

Dialogue:
  “What time is it?”
  “Quarter after, thirteen,”
  “I should get up”

Her hand holds up her magazine,
  Its page turned back along its seam,
Her eyes focus upon a line,
  Which sends her back to sleep in time,
Her magazine falls on her face,
  She wakes and re-reads the same place

Indian Summer at the Mown Lawn Arcade

Indian Summer at the Mown Lawn Arcade

Since we’ve mown the lawn,
  Last ‘back ‘n sides’ before the leaves,
Brown tails are seen
  -  dash scurry -  ‘cross the green

One running from stump to drain,
Another zipping opposite,
  Ten yards on but much the same

Our neighbor’s tomatoes have taken a wilt,
Season’s frost brought that result

Watching the tails, I feel I’m at a Harvest Carnival,
  -  the shooting gallery –
Perhaps if I pop some off with a BB gun,
  The barker will give my girl a pink elephant

But seventy degrees today,
  (and I’ve got no gun)
Let chipmunks hoard acorns away

A red tail hawk I've also seen,
  No doubt his eyes too spy the scene,
This time last year he’d caught them all,
   Must not be too hungry this fall