Dead Grandpa In Tomorrowland

Dead Grandpa is considering rebirth.

A china pig or Cleopatra’s nose

would do, but all his latest friends are here

and do not want to look like nematodes

in search of a savant, nor weeds and rocks.

He had a date tonight. If she would be

a pagan suckled in Tibetan hills,

maybe he’d go for gold. Or porphyry.

A statue of a statue in the rain,

at least until he’d smartened up a bit.

Great Expectations

 

Hoping for wild bird song,

All you hear are sparrows.

Wed to your own front lawn,

Expectation narrows.

Only Labor Day

Look at the falling leaves.

It's only Labor Day,
When crabgrass half believes
We've scarcely finished May.

The chickadee is demanding
Every surviving seed.
The hollyhock still is standing,
Old habit now, not need

To make the bees attend
And propagate.  We say,
Look at the leaves descend,
And then we look away.

The Dowager Biddy

The dowager biddy of our neighborhood

Uncovers evil everywhere: she mews

To voices lost in the wainscoting; she teems

With fled and ancient cats; she says the pith

Of the neighbors next door is spoiled, like fallen serfs

Exhausted by disaster. Debutantes

Are not what once they were: it’s in their eyes

And their tiaras. She sleeps in her car,

Parked out in front, to fool the foes and fiends

Who offer their casseroles in covered bowls

Shaped like the skulls of mayors she has known,

Domos and seneschals, now making light

Of all their troubles, there at Fairlawn, done with

The scene at Holy Family. She was there.

Measured Nautically

 

Nautical miles away, does that make me

closer or farther? I should look it up.
The dictionaries loom across the room,
as you lie over endless waters, measured
by any span, piratical or not.

If I could picture schools of kippers pushing
a v-shaped wedge of water on their way
to be your lunch, or hear the blue whale sing
Songs of the Psychedelic 60s, we
still would be stumped by distance. I am quite

as close as thought-waves. I could rig a gizmo
out of a curling-iron, colander,
extension cord, some rock salt, and my belt.
Where would you plug it in? Someone forbade
compatible power in our different lands.

I'll tie a message to a tuna, let him
slipstream currents, resting at fish stops. If
he pulls up lame, we're hopeless; watch for him
to greet your shore as tired as a dove,
bearing a stalk of salt-soaked celery.

The Maltese Sonnet

   This appeared in Lyric.

Having the frail, the dingus, and the gat,
My standfast scruples and a flask of rye,
I set her up, then I sat down and grat
Like any bairn. I spit in my partner's eye
And took a beating for him. I could draw
Honor from any gunsel gave the lie
Direct. A fat man and a slippery dame
Are markers on the pawnshop of the law.
A man should be remembered for his name;
And yet I drank to think of her forbye.

A character I am. I take no fall.
In black and white down these green streets I pass,
Errant and nicely suited. If you call,
Angel, I'll say you made a bonnie lass.

A Stock Response

You start with stocks or pillories, I forget,

Celery, carrots, adultery, and shame.

Noodles, of course, and breasts or bits of thigh,

Steeped and simmered, exposed and ridiculed

And made to represent healthy choice and sin

And dreams of crepuscular orange and azure strolls.

Have another, you look so thin, you have

Tomato on your forehead—someone’s aim

Was pretty good after all. Have you been thinking

About what your father said? You have to speak

After it’s done, you know: what separates

Us from the lower beasts is chat. And veg,

Plucked from their beds at pleasurable peaks,

Simmered and skimmed and pricey past all pearls.