Each morning he hears woodpeckers
pecking away in the neighborhood.
It’s like a wakeup call. He wonders
if woodpeckers ever get headaches
from all that pecking. He thinks about
the crows and blue jays cawing in his
backyard, presumably to scare away
other species so they might have the
arboretum/aviary all to themselves.
He wonders if they ever get headaches
from all the cawing. He’s wondering
because he has a four-day old head-
ache, something he only gets every six
months. That’s when his long, dead
mother visits in the six-month recitation
of items from the great catalogue of “You
Failed.” He no longer hears the other
voice. He only hears reverberating echoes
from the past brought into the present. In
Holy Communion that’s called anamnesis.
In the heavenly backyard it’s called hell
and he has a four-day old headache from
stupidly, repetitively, screaming no, no,
no since as a two-day-old he was brought
home from the hospital by his mother.

On any given weekend day there are one million
six hundred fifty people playing at the game
of golf; one hundred of them are golfers.

On any given day there are four million people
working at writing poetry; forty-five of them
are poets.

On any given day a man has one dead father-
in-law whom he encounters periodically
in his wife’s behavior.

On any given day the man thinks of the biblical
phrase, “Let the dead bury the dead,” and wishes
the living would bury the dead, too.

On any given day wannabe golfers, wannabe poets,
golfers and poets ask the question, “Are there
ghosts?” The man knows that to be rhetorical.

Two leaves from a heart of Romaine
lay next to each other and looked

up to the sky, well actually the ceiling.
It was like lying still in the aftermath

of lovemaking. They were relaxed.
Their heads were flush with green

blood. Farther down their bodies
the blood had been spent into white-

ness. They had tasted the sweetness
of life close to the center of the

heart and soon would drift off to
sleep before he would get the salt

shaker, sprinkle both and enjoy a
spare salad for breakfast. Sipping

his coffee, he thought it was a nice
image even if he and his wife weren’t

getting along.

Jim Harrison and Hemingway
started out that way.
When I told my English professor
that I wanted to write
and asked him what to do,
he said get a day job
and write at night.
I got lucky and had a
job where I could
write during the day
and sleep at night.
Now, in retirement, I still
write during the day
and sleep at night
unless I have an idea for
a poem just right
then I nap the next day.

You don’t know it
in the moment;
you just don’t know it;
you are immersed
in the water and you feel
like you need to breathe,
have to breathe,
can’t get your breath and
you push-off and ascend
hoping not to get the bends;
forty some years go by
and when you look back
you know that
you were in the sky
the whole time,
all forty years
as they have gone by.
You breathe a great sigh;
why
didn’t I
know it back then?
And then
Frank Sinatra whispers
in your ear, “That’s life!”

he said slap him down and
another comes in immediate-
ly to replace him. drones
strike like one strikes
invading ants with a flyswatter.
oh, it’s a new defense day.
no troops on the ground, hooray.
send in the troops?
okay, it’s time, it’s time, it’s time
to think of another way.
oh, maybe another day.
what is that
continuous knocking on the door?
is it really jesus, the buddha
and lao tzu but once more,
once more, once more?
open the door?
what, are you crazy? that’s
about personal faith and has
nothing whatsoever to do with
the realities of international
relations, so stop droning on
and on and on said the
realist to the pacifist
and the evangelicals all
cheered while waiting for
armageddon. jesus isn’t
going to turn the other
cheek when he comes on
the clouds the dental
hygienist said to the
captive audience. no
more mr. nice guy.

I look into his piercing, brown eyes.
He has more white showing than most,
making the eyes even richer. It’s
more than I remember in the eyes of
the others. I notice that one eye is
shaped like the Eye of Horus, seductive
and protective, and the other smaller
and doesn’t open as far. He looks sad;
he’s from the street, for how long I
don’t know; he’s certainly not saying,
but apparently too long. There is a
certain sadness in those magnificent
brown eyes and a peaceful quiet
signified in his slow, slow blink.
He moves his head back and forth,
his soft brown hair flies. I am re-
minded of a zephyr breeze moving
wheat in waves. He comes and sits
next to me and rests his head in my
lap and asks, begs, “Please stroke
my hair.” It is soft. We fall asleep.

the drilling is a symptom
of a fear that runs deep,
so deep, deep into the
marrow of the bones
(programmed to kill to
survive), of extinction
of a race, so keep the
big, bad, black gold flowing
and they will continue to
own the votes and their
oily thumbs will stamp
and hold down and drill
those trying to crawl up
to justice. the controllers
will control procreation,
yes, it’s all about pro-
creation for them, not
so much for everybody
else (oh, go ahead,
if you insist, you others
may have your abortions.
please do.). what they
don’t know, in their
frantic fear,
is that they will
disappear —
ghosts of white plumes
and the poisoned earth and sky
will be inherited by
rodents and roaches
that fly by and by.

I used to call you Sweetie,
all the time, from your birth
through childhood, adolescence,
into adulthood, then suddenly
you were without your mother.
For some years, honestly, I
don’t recall what I called you.
I was just calling myself a
bourbon on the rocks. Then
I recalled calling you Sweetie,
but by then you were a wife
and mother and living a
gazillion miles away and we
had grown apart, which is
perfectly natural, but doesn’t
help me in deciding what to
call you now that we are grow-
ing ever closer together. Maybe,
now that you are the adult I
was about when your mom died,
I should just ask you what you
want me to call you, Sweetie.

While majorly-involved-
in-getting-their-own-way-
members attended the meet-
ing, the majority stayed away,
weren’t heard from, didn’t
send regrets, and became
the silent majority for a day
sending the message which
didn’t get picked up by those
who attended that the group
can shove it and that the
passive protestors just
want whatever to go away
knowing that if they don’t
show up, two-thirds majority
could never be reached.
While the connivers connived
and a few who saw through
the shenanigans actually
called the others out,
the birds, just to name one,
and obviously the most observ-
able, all continued flying,
hiding, eating, washing, mating
(not observed) all around
the neighborhood oblivious to
the trivialities taken for
serious matters by those who
continued to push the issue
ad nauseam.