Kind of nerdy looking guys,
highly intelligent looking guys
with inquisitive eyes,

investigative reporters
working stories
most without glory

are breaking the news
that the biggest, most
powerful are about to
be taken down.

It’s all a matter of time
but they are willing to
wait to reveal the clown.

There are those who espouse
speaking truth to power
while they cower.

Well, folks, nerdy
looking guys
with highly intelligent,
inquisitive eyes

are doggedly following
the leads however funny
and with this presidentially
powerful guy that means
the money

and they narrowed it
down from the big three —
power, sex and money

venturing a guess
that this guy actually
doesn’t like power
with accountability
and who knows if
he’s interested in
sex with responsibility

but for sure his interest
is perked
when he thinks
money is being jerked

from him and his family.

So they followed the leads
doggedly
and found his
extended family to be
the Russian autocratic
plutocracy.

So now the president
may face being dumped

because of the work
of nerdy looking guys
with highly intelligent,
inquisitive eyes

and that’s what speaking
truth to power means —
being Trumped.

Last fall he glanced out the
window of the plane and saw

the desert and wondered why
it was so brown. A week ago,

while driving through his
neighborhood in the upper

Midwest he wondered why
people continued to have

grass yards when they should
have desert landscaping to

save on the water. Sometimes he
has to push his brain like push-

ing a wheelbarrow with a soft
tire and full of mulch for

accenting the yard up a hill
into the present: desert brown

winter/upper Midwest grass green
spring/ desert dry/big lake big

water/desert blue sky/upper
Midwest gray skies bye-bye.

On this Mother’s Day, he
Read a Mother’s Day poem,
Looked up the biography of
The poet and clicked on another
Of her poems only to note 1996
As the year of the issue of
The magazine in which the poem
Appeared. How long ago he thought
And then 1993 came to mind and
He imagined that wasn’t very
Long ago for his children since
Their mother died. He’s sure
They hold their mother close
And he is grateful that on this
Day they will find a way to
Let their step-mom know that
She is thought of and loved,
Too.

As he stood at the magazine
stand in his local grocery store
and flipped through the pages

of the magazine of the latest in
men’s fashions, he looked down
at his hand and he saw his stain-

less steel ring with the beautiful
native American etching and then
he looked at his sports watch with

the several different functions
and added the cost of both at ten
dollars (the watch on sale from

twenty-five to five and the ring
at five from a discount store).
The ring leaves no mark on his

finger and the watch records the
time of his jogs and tells him the
time of day along with the date

of the month and several other
features. He looked at the page
and saw an attractive watch which

tells the time of day for only thirty-
four thousand dollars. What a deal,
he thought, to find out what time

it is. Maybe a guy who can afford
such a watch doesn’t really need to
keep track of time (he has others to

do that for him) except when he
wants to time his runs, which if
that be the case, there is a guy

who has a five buck watch to
do exactly that for him in ad-
dition to several other functions.

My passing desktop photo was of a beautiful
lake, an island, pines, sun stars sparkling
on the water,
and there on the lake, a giant
crab, arms outstretched, pincers
pointing, chasing a Canadian Goose.
Stunned at the violence and in disbelief,
I looked back at the crab
just in time before the photo changed
and saw that it was a goose with its
reflection in the water’s stillness.
There were two beautiful geese
sailing in serenity.

The Standing Rock Lakota Tribe spilled
the sacred beads and beans
before the Dakota Access Pipeline
broke at the seams,
which it did before even going on-line.
So what will be the company and
White House line – that all is fine?
The tribe said something ever so strange –
that the pipeline was about greed
and corporate pocket change.
Really? How could that be?
Aren’t all corporations’ actions
to improve life’s quality.
Well, maybe not along the Standing Rock path.
It appears the corporation got the mine
And once again the Indians got the shaft.

My wife and I would take our chocolate lab with us on home and nursing home visits in the community I last served as an interim minister. My wife had never done this before.

Widowed, we married when I was an interim and she was an executive in the corporate world. She retired in 2008 emotionally tired of laying off employees during the recession. She embarked on a new vocation, that of being an artist and she gladly accompanied me on those pastoral visits.

With the marriage, I inherited the first of what would become four chocolate labs. The following is about a nursing home visit with the third lab, Boomer.  I had intended to write a poem, but it came out a short story:

Holding Boomer Firmly By the Leash

When the elevator opened, she was waiting for me and my wife, quickly greeted the two of us and then bent down to pet the lab profusely.

Before I could ask if we should go to her room she said, “Let’s go over here around the corner, so we won’t be bothered by anyone.” She meant that she wanted the dog to herself. Boomer complied by sitting on her feet.

An elderly gentleman came around the corner and my parishioner told us to ignore him. He stopped and wanted to pet the dog. She told him that what was the friendliest dog in the world wasn’t friendly at all and that he shouldn’t attempt to pet him and that he should just move right along.

After some silence, she said that when she was a child, her dog broke away from her…. She began to cry and didn’t finish the story. Recovering, she wiggled her toes, Boomer wagged his tail and the three of us gossiped a bit about parishioners departed having long ago received their heavenly reward.  She knew that one should never speak ill of the dead, but she didn’t mean any harm and thought that the dearly departed probably were getting a kick listening in on the conversation.

When it was time to leave, we accompanied my parishioner back to her room. On the way, we quickly (at her instruction) passed residents in wheelchairs along the walls. She, holding dearly onto the lab by his leash, said proudly and emphatically that Boomer had come to visit her.

In the parking lot, Boomer hopped in the backseat and we headed to one of our favorite restaurants for “Happy Hour.”

He stood in the pulpit
About to begin a memorial
Service for a kid who
Went berserk and shot and
Killed six students on a
College campus. As strange
As it seemed to be, where
Else was he going to be
As a stand-in for Jesus
Who stood and sat there
And everywhere?

Pine grove needles held
green, bristly tentacles —
weeds with white flowers.

Even Heckle and Jeckle
looked at what
Trump and Sessions did
in firing the head of the FBI,
a controversial but competent guy,
and squawked, “Heaven forbid.
Donald and Beauregard colluded
with each other to deflect
how Vladimir is included
in winning Trump the
election
thinking that
the US is ready for
the fascism option.”
Even for Heckle and Jeckle
this is way beyond
the poption option,
which, for them, is
so very much
about what they politically love —
corn, corn, corn.
This is truly a
constitutional storm
to save the democratic norm
so Heckle, a democrat,
and Jeckle, a republican,
walked in from the limb
joining together to
save the union.