The condo is up for sale. Two properties
two-thousand miles apart are a lot to

manage. We’re thinking of letting the
bicycles go even though they are 1980’s

vintage, European racing bikes with
glorious, chrome-moly, lugged frames,

a plush geometrical configuration for com-
fort and Campagnolo Record components.

They carry all the things from years past
— relationships, loves won and lost,

sorrows, successes, superficial ideas,
deep thoughts, regrets, gratitude, small

selves, big, achy-breaky hearts — on
vintage Brooks leather saddles, broken

in over many years to just the right
combination of softness and stiffness

to carry all that, as the bikes race up
and down the streets and bike paths.

Is there hope for an eleventh hour reprieve —
a chance that votes of conscience would be received
on the December day of the Presidential election?
There’s mounting evidence of foreign
tampering to sway
the election a particular way,
any way but an honest, legal way.
Has there been an unholy collusion
to create confusion
masquerading as the clarion call
to make America great again
when it is probably only for one family’s
and a few foreign countries’ personal gain?
Scared, white people have been duped, again;
racial tensions rise
and increased hate crimes
are no surprise
in the wake
of an election as fake
as the slogan to make America great —
again,
which is simply code for
let’s take America back again
to a time when whites securely were in control
and women and minorities
were given a subservient role
and LGBT’s were told to crawl back in their hole.
Pray for an eleventh hour reprieve
before the great nation of America
goes back and back on human rights
and the great, inclusive American rainbow coalition
proves an experience so brief
and the country is plunged into deep grief.

A rash of poems that had to be written
crossed my desk today
of death, burial and decay,
all from different sources
but perhaps from similar forces —
artistic responses to immediate courses
of human folly
ushering in a deep,
profound melancholy
penned with hope that things
at some point might ameliorate
but with knowledge that courses
often end in destruction and hate.
It isn’t fate, write the poets,
though such courses recur and persist.
Poets’ words will keep pointing
in spite of often being dismissed.
It is the vocation they cannot resist,
and so, a rash of poems was written
and crossed my desk today.

He sat in the silence
looking across the divide.
He listened to his breathing.
He saw the person on
the other side of the divide
who sat in the silence
looking across at him.
He heard the other person’s
breathing
as the other person heard
his breathing
and in the silence, they
smiled.

The post truth seems, oh, so strong.
Post truths are told all day long.
Some say people lie a hundred times a day.
“No. They are just post truths,” others say,
especially those who would rob us blind.
Thank goodness, Lincoln said,
“You can’t fool all the people all the time.”

He stood in the driveway
looking at all the white
feathers on the ground
wondering what animal
got the poor little bird
when a downy feather
floated down in front of
him. He looked up into
the olive tree, squinted
and saw a peregrine
falcon staring down at
him with a Cheshire
grin on his face — er
beak, er beaks don’t
smile, but the man
could see a downy,
white feather fluttering
in the beak and he was
sure the falcon was
smiling inside along
with peregrine pride.

In times of great stress
I find I wish to regress
to the pomp and circumstance
of things including
clerical dress.
The clerical collar
always made me feel calmer
and gave me an identity
to relieve my lack of serenity.
While now I’m retired
and think I’m quite tired
of things disconcerting,
it wouldn’t take long
for me to do some rehearsing
and stand before the congregation
and signal my elation
at my fear’s cessation.
But that would be all for me
and not for the Lord of Eternity,
so I suppose I shall remain retired
in my state of existential uncertainty.

Dystopia is the way
we will find our way
today and everyday
for the next four years
confirming all the fears.

However, we might get lucky
sooner than later one day
realizing the Hollow Man
will not let his businesses
go and he will be impeached
along the way.

Hopefully, before fascism
can really take hold
and he becomes even more bold.

And America is
on the chopping block
while the Hollow Man
continues to mock
via twitter every single one
who bothers to question —
whatever the Hollow Man
wants done,

hopefully before the epitaph —
“There once was a nation that
strived to be the beacon of
light for everyone.”

In the sandbox all day,
come what may,
the Hollow Boy would play
with his bright, plastic toys
and an erector set so gay.
Other children came to play
and he instructed
each and every one of them
to go or stay
and he could because
he was big for his age
and no one would challenge
his dominion and authority
each and every day —
otherwise. Otherwise, he would
make them stay away
until they came
and told him to his face
that the sandbox was his place,
his very own space
alone and a palace of grace,
otherwise he would
throw sand in his or her face.
And so the Hollow Boy
grew into the Hollow Man
who continued to throw sand
at anyone who challenged
his every plan
and he has so many fans
who said, “I’ll vote for
the Hollow Man.”
And so, it came to pass
that the Hollow Man
became the king of the land
deciding who could come
and visit him
in his land
with the very slippery slope
leading to quick sand.

I read a poem by a Native
American and then I read
her personal statement
about the poem. As I read,
I re-membered the dignified,
tall, slender, black-haired,
brown-eyed, statuesque,
beautiful dancers dressed in
their regalia for the Pow-wow
on the Lakota reservation.
And there she was — all the
things I had re-membered and
imagined she would be and
her people are with two things
I had forgotten — the look of
pride in herself and her people
and a hint of defiance — the
wonderful hint of defiance
of a proud Indian.