Meeoow, high school girls

are catty and nasty

and their locker rooms

smell nasty, too.

Grrrr, high school boys

are dopey and messy

and their locker rooms

smell like doggie poo.

Meeoow, grown-up girls

are still catty and nasty

and they are shallow

through and through.

Grrrr, grown-up boys

are still dopey and messy,

but they bite the juggler

through and through.

Meeoow, elderly women

are musty and stodgy

but they have learned

how to survive.

Grrrr, elderly men

are musty but instead

of surviving, most have

burned out and died.

In the middle of the summer he froze

in the pulpit just as he was expounding

on the play “The Effect of Gamma Rays

on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” and its

relation to the lectionary Gospel reading

for the day in common time.  It was any-

thing but common for him or for the con-

gregation. Concerned elders escorted the

catatonic preacher from the pulpit to the

hospital. He was a man consumed with

preaching the Realm of God with all its

social justice implications.  He was a

prophet, but he was also a priest who

ached for his people and held their hands

and shed tears with them over the years.

Many in the pews had looked daggers at

him for his courage and one day after many,

many Sundays of seeing those faces from

the pulpit, he felt zapped like a marigold

and just froze. Months later he re-entered

the pulpit and finished the meaning of the

illustration of  “The Effect of Gamma Rays

on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds” in relation

to the lectionary Gospel reading of a few

months before. He veered off the lection-

ary course, but he had something to finish

for that particular day about the value and

endurance of Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds.

In Mexico marigolds are the flower of choice for

El Dia De Los Muertos because they bloom in

November.  In this particular November, it was

for a resurrection not a celebration of the dead.

When he said amen and sat down, the choir

stood and sang before the offering was taken,

as usual.

Sunday, late afternoon, he hit a golf ball over the green

after hitting a ball into the water, the caddie, so green,

after the flub was asked accusingly,  “So, that was the club?”

The commentator said into the mike,  “You hit it, Bub,”

for the sake of the audience  and it’s a lesson for us all,

after all advice, we have to hit it ourselves and let the chips fall.

We met the viper along the trail

but never did we think we would

meet him again on the landing of

our condo. He sweet-talked his way

into our home and spun a tale; the

rattling behind him should have been

a give away, but, on face value, he

was such a charming snake with

such a pretty tail.  We gave him the

keys to our kingdom, left for the

summer and waited and waited to

hear from him about his end of the

bargain, but that end just rattled and

rattled.  How do you shake hands

with a snake? I felt the firm grip,

but now I rub my fingers together

and feel only slippery skin.The

snake in the grass sleeps in our

bed with quiet tail curled around

the post. Now, it’s in the hands of

the sheriff to uncoil the tail of the

teller of tales while we, Adam and

Eve, look back from somewhere east

of Eden.

The two little boys were weighted down

with really big, camouflaged, external

frame backpacks.  They looked like little

turtles balancing on their hind legs

with heavy shells tipping them

backward. A grizzled, bowed older man,

maybe the kids’ grandfather, wore a small

daypack. He looked like a hunchback.

And a younger man, maybe dad, had

no backpack or daypack but tattoos

which looked about as heavy to carry.

“Hey, getting your backpacking legs,

huh?” the man asked from the car’s

passenger seat window before pulling

out of the parking lot of the county park

after jogging with his Chocolate Lab.

“Nope. Don’t backpack,” said the grizzled

Grizzly Adams with a bald head. “The

packs sit on the back porch just in case.”

The man started to ask, “In case of what?”

But then thought better of it.  He was

encountering the scared, wild

animals known as survivalists. The

paunchy, old grand-dad looked really

out of shape and the man understood

the really small daypack.  He man smiled,

raised the window and drove off.

As he pulled away he heard his

Lab slurping water and thought of

baby turtles tipping backward —

their very vulnerable, still soft

bellies exposed.

Women squatting and sitting

with their butts on hot dirt in

Afghanistan wearing thick,

dark, scratchy cloth that

covers everything

but their eyes;

women working ungodly hours

in a squalid textile factory

in Bangladesh only to

be burned alive by the

thousands when the

factory catches fire;

women fighting for equal

pay with males for equal

work done from the

factory floor to the

executive suites

across America;

women protecting their

privates from duly but

dumbly elected legis-

lators who want ultra-

sounds up pregnant

women’s vaginas;

are men so threatened by

the “fairer” sex that they

have to do all that

indignity, humiliation,

subjugation and mis-

ogination to them;

are men so insecure and

so frightened by the

feminine mystique that

they must wrap women,

entrap women, slap

women down, down —

almost always in the

God-forsaken name of

their tribal, male “Father”

god to hide their fear

that the female can

castrate them,

in one way or another and cut

off their future and all their

future little legislators,

and maybe that’s what

women know and what

gives them patience?

Not perfectly

but perfidy as

in purr-fidd-ee,

an onomatopoeia

twirling rrrr’s

sweet as a sweet

Calico cat who

purrs from a perch

for Alice and

her and our wonder-

land

then pounces

like a lion or 

a Bengal tiger

upon its prey –

puurrr-fidd-eee,

a cunning,

cagey cat –

treacherous,

deceitful, un-

trustworthy – and

so the treasonous

one was named by

the whistleblower,

career defender of the

people and the fourth

amendment who

helped develop the

vehicle to help

defend the nation

and protect

the rights of the

people from un-

constitutional, il-

legal invasion, but

whose work was

bypassed in the

name of national

security, risked it

all and

named the Bad Guy,

paid the price,

and, once again,

we have met

the enemy and the

“perfidy that is actually

on the inside of the

secret side of govern-

ment,” is that for whom

we voted. And, probably,

this is being monitored.

Hey, Y’all. Come back,

hear?

Writing is dangerous work writes

the novelist, toxic even.

Toxins rise to the surface of the

psyche while the writer

sits at the writing desk, pen to

paper. It is hazardous duty –

this novel writing he writes, but

alluring he seemingly

concedes – tantalizing and tasty

to flirt with the dirt

deep in one’s own soul. A bit of

a poet, he writes that the

tastiest place of the fugu fish is

nearest the poison.

Novelists sit close to the poison.

Sometimes novelists

fondle the fish dish too long, inhale too

deeply and taste the poisonous

flesh of the fish. This novelist is a

marathon runner who

sweats out the toxins after sitting at

his desk flirting with those

poisons for hours at a time. Do poets

know the danger and cozy

up only in spurts to the poisons and

then sprint away to cozy

up another day like a track athlete

running a hundred,

two hundred or four hundred

meters at a time at

most?

My wife went to see our family physician

About a clogged up nose, sinus and throat condition.

He poked and prodded and looked deep in her eye

And said, “It’s off to the allergist you must fly.”

So appointment was kept and flow meter my wife blows,

And the allergist says, “It’s off to doctor of ears, throat and nose.

Well, he prescribed Mucinex D in loads full on a boat,

And wouldn’t you know it, it cleared up her ears, nose and throat.

But now the N.S.A. sees a person of interest not her nose

And wants to know if she’s cooking up meth on our stoves.

And now my wife breathes through her nose much fresher

But the thought of the N.S.A. has raised her blood pressure.

So it was off to see our family physician

About my wife’s elevated blood pressure condition,

But as we drove into the physician’s parking lot

Two men in blue suits approached and thickened the plot.

My wife looked at me and said, “Let’s get out of this spot.

They need to legalize medical weed; I could use a few puffs of pot.”

And so we drove off into the sunset without a clue

And thankfully this saga is almost through,

Until, on down the line, the N.S.A. in future years

Concocts a meth story and ignites my wife’s fears.

Hopefully, by the future (Who knows what time?)

Possessing and smoking dope in Mich.will be just fine

As it is in sunny Colorado’s present time

With a Rocky Mountain High without a fine.

If you wish to find love, a true love, just listen

To the voice, one that comes suddenly then hasten

To the heart, to the place, trusted least, but most true,

The one place, a small space, where one finds, riches through

And through — the center, of the heart, to the nerves.

If you just, give me pause, I have limited reserves.

An old man, I have limitations, boundaries,

But you see, I’m still aiming  — to please.