Just when he started feeling sorry
for himself and the resentments
began to simmer before the
eventual boil,
two really wonderful, serendipitous,
seemingly synchronistic things
happened to make his knee-
jerk reaction recoil.
Once again, being caught by surprise,
he thought how much his life
is a life unwise not realizing
grace comes without toil.
It’s a gift, stupid, he said to himself
and in this case two. And then he
thought, grace is a gift of a
garden growing in fertile soil.

Why do some poets look so
bad? I mean have you checked
out the web images of Charles
Bukowski? I love the guy’s
poetry, but then I wonder
if life had to be so hard
as revealed in that face
in order to write really
good poetry. And Jim Har-
rison? Holy Cow! Looks like
ten generations of depressed
Swedes crammed into seventy-
eight years. Lots of smoking,
lots of drinking. They both
had lots of wrinkles and lots
of hair. The old question
goes, “Have you ever seen a
bald head at an AA meeting?”
Seems there’s a link between
alcoholism and keeping hair.
I wonder if there is a link
between drinking huge quan-
tities of alcohol and writ-
ing good poetry? I look in
the mirror — what little
hair is there is clipped down
to #1 and really not too many
wrinkles for a septuagenarian.
Maybe if I got a bottle of
Rogaine and a bottle of vodka
and a pack of Chesterfields,
like my dad used to smoke,
I could write poetry like
those two. Do they still make
Chesterfields?

He looked at his forty-two-year-old son
and said, “When you were a year old,
your mother went out and you started
crying and wouldn’t stop and I picked
you up and started to shake you. By
the grace of God, I realized what I was
doing and stopped and put you back in
your crib.” His son, a father, said, “It’s
alright, dad. I’ve come close myself.”
He looked at his thirty-seven-year-old
daughter, a mother, and told her about
what he did to her brother when her bro-
ther was a one-year-old. She said, “I
understand, dad. I’ve come close.” He
started to cry.

The politicians say
whatever they do
to win a vote or two,
Even Lincoln was not
immune
from pandering to
more than just a few,
but politicians would
stop in their tracks
if there was no one
to listen and cheer
but that’s the problem;
look at the attacks.
The brutish beast of a mob
is prime for a fight
in hopes
the scapegoats
will take flight.
A Christo-fascist female
hits an American-born Muslim
female in the face
with a beer bottle
for wearing a hijab;
was her action prompted
by booze and mob?
She might say it was Jesus
who put her up to it,
but clearly it was
the devil who scared her
into doing it.
Lord, have mercy.

when i struggle with
content, it is nice to have
form to fall back on.

it is then i see
the many ways through the trees,
and continue on.

sometimes routines help
put everything in context
so progress is made.

In mourning: Jim Harrison, 78 (Chronicler of Upper Lower and UP Michigan) poet, short story and novella writer, fly-fisher, gourmet, lover of liquor, died Holy Saturday at his winter home in Patagonia, Arizona, near the Mexico border.

Here’s a poem Jim just as well could have written Good Friday. It strikes me as a good way for the “Old Dog” to say goodbye.

Barking
BY JIM HARRISON

The moon comes up.
The moon goes down.
This is to inform you
that I didn’t die young.
Age swept past me
but I caught up.
Spring has begun here and each day
brings new birds up from Mexico.
Yesterday I got a call from the outside
world but I said no in thunder.
I was a dog on a short chain
and now there’s no chain.

Bob

He told her he thought
he might be two Tylenol;
then he thought he
might be a Tramadol;
but settled on Dr. Dahl,
the most potent love
drug of them all.
She just laughed,
“In your dreams, big boy.
Pride goeth before the fall.”

he faces the tabula rasa
and goes blank.

On Tuesdays, all day, intermittently,
the landscape company employees
crank up their gas-powered blowers
and blow the bejesus out of the ass-

ociation complex. Same thing on Fri-
day but only for half a day. The em-
ployees are all young Latinos and
don’t wear masks. They laugh and on

occasion to break the monotony of the
work they point the blowers at each
other like rifles, only instead of
bullets that could kill in a moment,

shrubbery debris and carbon monoxide
collide with the workers’ lungs —
the start of what would become a long,
slow, debilitating journey ending in

breath-gasping death. They laugh and
laugh. To protect his lungs, he wears
a surgical mask when leaving and enter-
ing the complex on those days. While

debris flies, people look at him like
he must be sick and they turn away not
wanting to be exposed to what they
assume could be that dread disease

caused by mosquito bites working its
way up from Uruguay or some such
place. The owner of the company, a
middle-age, white guy, smiles amiably

as he walks the complex inspecting
the work after the blowing is done.
The man, smiling amiably behind the
mask, envisions the owner standing

in a Haboob without a mask.

He watched a PBS program on race
and realized such shows
are all over the place
and that is so wrong
according to the
white race.

Worried about losing power
they have thought of
bullets that would
shower hate
on every other
race.

Well, wake up, white folks;
you’re becoming noth-
ing but bad jokes
among black and
brown and
yellow folks.

It’s time to get on board
that glory train;
just don’t strain
your lily-white brain;
just climb on board
the Jesus train

and get a brand new frame
of mind and spirit
and before you know it,
you will hear, “Well
done thou, good and
faithful
servant,
now so
with
it.”