The big, bad cop took the student
and flipped her out of her chair,
slammed her to the floor,
maybe grabbed her by the hair,
spun her into a somersault
and somersaulted
her into the hall
and hands on his hips, one on
his gun
he stood so tall,
like an old West sheriff
another election just won,
and with a swagger and a
drawl
he looked at the scared kids
and asked, “Is that all?
Anyone else want to
cross my will and test
your luck?”
What! Was the girl
wielding a gun
or a knife
or machete or did she
just have a stupid
teenage tongue
saying something like,
“Go f…k!”?
Or maybe she just said no.
I guess he showed
all those students
who could give a
kid a violent twirl.
Yeah, a psycho
cop who beat up
a little, black girl.

Three big boxes were left sitting
in the garage after their daughter
had moved to Phoenix ten years
previously. She only returned once
for a wedding party — hers — but
couldn’t take the boxes back because
the newlyweds were flying home. And
so they sat until her dad emptied the
boxes took photos of the contents and
e-mailed her asking what she wanted
to keep while hoping she didn’t want
to keep everything. She didn’t, but
it was a sentimental journey for
both dad and daughter because of
the items related to her mom, his
late wife. He was glad when the
inventory was done. She wanted
everything concerning her mom and
some other things. Most of the books
went to the library, lightening the
load. He would pack what she wanted,
put it in the trunk of the car and
deliver it when he and his wife travel-
ed to Phoenix for the winter. It will
then be like their forty-three-year-
old daughter has really, actually, de-
finitely moved out. One kid to go.

She used the word pusillanimous
in a poem of a generation long gone,
and he thought that is exactly the word
for the generation to which he belongs.

Is it surprising concerning timidity,
that we’ve been down this way before,
and at every turn do outdo temerity —
finger-pointing more and more and more?

The poet asks all to take heart
and to note that courage finds a way
and that life is worth a fresh start
with every new generation’s day.

Community leaders, business lead-
ers, philanthropists, the movers
and shakers all call for changes
in the educational models to be
imposed (“imposed” being the norm-
ative word), on the American edu-
cational system to create excell-
ence and one after another fails,
fails, fails. What about forgett-
ing excellence for the moment and
fostering compassion, compassion
and more compassion in the class-
room? Might excellence follow? An-
ecdotally, tough love sure helped
someone very close to me. Oh, my,
I must be beside myself. Thank you,
Mrs. Allen, wherever you are. “Child,
when are you going to learn proper
hyphenation?”

There was an angelic couple so nice.
Their smiles could simply melt ice.
They appealed to fear and caused quite a stir.
They got their way with a knife’s clean slice.

Sometimes he wonders why he
writes poetry, and then he re-
members all the laborious re-
search papers he had to write and

then it’s a no brainer. People,
who don’t write poetry, tell him
it is so hard to write poetry and
poetry is so hard to understand

and so they don’t bother with
poetry. While he would love to
wallow in that comment about
the difficulty of writing poetry,

the fact is that it is like one
of his favorite professors who
said he teaches English because,
while he has tried all kinds of

things to do, teaching English
is the easiest and most enjoyable
thing his teacher has ever done.
And he was so good at it — a

born teacher with a calling to
teach, a vocare. A born poet with
a vocare? Oh, how he would wallow
for a while in that and, of course,

let people think it is so really
hard to do and so deep and so
hard to understand, but then he
thinks about Billy Collins and how

much fun writing poetry obviously
is for Collins and how his poems
are so approachable and enjoyable
to read and so understandable

and therefore according to popular
thought, for those afore-mentioned
reasons, actually they are comp-
licated, deeply existential, phil-

osophical, psychological, with
obscure spiritual meaning under-
stood only by the gnostic few.
Nah.

He didn’t hike in the woods today,
too many errands to run anyway.

But, in spite of all the chores,
he saw a myriad of colors

in oaks, maples, vibrant sumacs,
so tomorrow he will retrace his tracks.

Only this time jogging on the trail
he will also revel in fall without fail.

When Jesus said to turn the other cheek
he wasn’t asking us to cave ever so weak.

He meant to help others stand up to Empire
in non-violence showing violence will expire

when Empire realizes a trick has been played
for in turning the other cheek, violence is staid.

Empire would then have to strike with an open hand
conceding that the one to humiliate is an equal man.

Empire could never do that he would understand,
so off he would go from the non-violent now upper hand.

“We don’t perceive objects as they are but as we are,”
said the scientist of the brain.
The student asked, “Are my perceptions only my own
or if I share them then are they what others perceive
in their own ways in their own brains?
Are our perceptions only personal or, even experienced
uniquely, of a common strain?
Is their something in our heads that is part of the great
collective experience that when we hear a song or read
a poem or see the celestial dance
we utter a collective refrain?
What is plain
is that somehow, in some way, connections are made between
heads and hearts both in the human soul —
the great collective experience,
the past, present and future in the
human brain.

They started putting the lawn furniture
away. The leaves fell rapidly into the
pond so they put the netting across it.
The bubbler is there to be plugged in
later so the fish will live through the
winter. The wind chimes, protected
under the eaves, sing in the fall breeze
and will sing in the dead of winter.
The couple won’t hear the chimes for
the couple, Lord willin’ and the creek
don’t rise, will be hiking in the Arizona
desert. Possible openings around the
foundation of the cottage where mice
might enter have been plugged with
steel wool. The mice will just have
to fend for themselves. Hospitality
extends only so far.