Have you ever read
a poem by Gertrude Stein?
I think she
lost her mind.
It is said
never say anything negative
about the dead.
Just read someone else’s
poetry instead.
Or perhaps,
Stein’s mind
was fine
and she just
played with her
literary and artistic
friends’ minds.

A wise theologian with a
knack for mixing metaphors
wrote that finding God within
is like diving into a well
with debris all around
and casting the debris
out-of-the-way and pealing
the layers of the onion
back. The man got the gist.
Yesterday, the man cleaned
the skimmer and pump of the
pond and waterfall, he
rinsed the net and washed
the brushes. He dug deeply
at the bottom of the housing
finding all kinds of debris.
He scooped out the debris
and tossed it to the side of
the pond. Finally, he reached
the pump — the god of the
pond — at the center of every-
thing and pulled debris stuck
to the pump’s intake area so
the water would flow more
freely up to the waterfall
creating a beautiful cascade
of clear water down to the
pond and around and around
and up and down revealing
more clearly the beautiful
goldfish in the pond. But
he didn’t find any peeled
back layers of onion stuck
to the pump.

The well worn, wooden floors creaked;
the worn, wooden stairway steps creaked;
those were the only sounds allowed
in the library of my youth. I loved

those sounds; I hear them now when I
walk across floors at my local library
where sounds are of feet slapping hard,
cold linoleum and people chitchatting

except in the reading room where only
coughing and throat clearing are allowed.
I loved fingering and flipping the cards
in the Dewey Decimal System card catalogue,

writing down the number of where to find
the book and then embarking on the hunt.
I’m glad for my local library, but I loved
the library of my youth built in the 19th

century, a red brick building down the hill
from Michigan Avenue and 111th Street
turning left at a street the name of which
I can’t remember (maybe Edbrooke Ave.)

and north toward 109th part of the Pullman
neighborhood. I would run up the cement
stairway to the front door and pull with
all my strength the heavy, wooden door

that creaked as it opened. As I entered
the librarian would frown and put her
finger to her lips in the anticipation
that I would start talking to my buddies,

who entered with me, which, of course,
I would have but didn’t dare. Come to
think of it, she never looked at Russ,
Terry or Dennis. She knew the loudmouth.

She walks through the big city
staring upward, walking a few
paces and stopping, looking

at the faces of the people
not looking back but looking
down not at what is around.

She can’t believe it. Look
around at it all — the mag-
nificent architecture. How do

they build buildings that tall
especially on pilings under
water? Last night she stayed

out after dark to walk through
the park and she looked back
at the skyline and everything

was lit like a Christmas tree,
white lights twinkling in all the
buildings. Who is in charge of

all that electricity? She stood
by the big fountain and watched
the geysers rhythmically shooting

to the sky and falling back to
earth. She heard the water
slapping the shore and wondered

how they grew the land into the
lake for the planetarium and
aquarium. She just couldn’t

believe how it all worked. And
then she wondered, how does it
all work? Who is in charge? Is

anyone in charge? It can’t just
happen. She felt a chill and
went back to her hotel,

her head spinning. She isn’t
the only one to have wondered
that.

she wished time
would slide and elide
down and bounce
back up just like
at a playground
trampoline and slide.

draw it all together
put it on a tether
and spin it around
the maypole —

except it is october
and for a few days
everyone is beyond sober
at the state
of affairs
of the state
of late.

she’s trying
not to hate

but innocence to retrieve
and once again believe.

maybe next may.

He has been depressed with the news — Supreme Court,
scientific shout-out about the environmental
burgeoning catastrophe, Congress, especially Devon
“Bad News” Nunes (See, now even he is assigning
negative nicknames.), Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham,
Jeff Flake and Susan Collins and the (p)-resident
(as always).

He’s been desultory about ubiquitous rudeness —
drivers running up on his car’s rear end, people
butting into lines, people two, three, four abreast
on sidewalks unwilling to move over for him and
his wife walking single file.

As if that’s not enough, he’s so dejected,
disconsolate, downhearted, downcast, despondent,
dispirited, dismal, desolate and just plain
down about everything that he decided not
to pay any attention to the news on TV
or on-line.

He came across a sponsored site showing photos
of famous grandparents and grandchildren.
The photo shown was of Sean Connery. Being a
Connery fan, he wanted to see what his grandchild
looked like. At first it was fun, the most fun
he has had in weeks, but 450 photos later,
still no Sean Connery and it was three in the
morning after starting the photos at eight p.m.
He gave up and went to bed.

But he couldn’t sleep. He’s so despondent
about not being able to see Sean Connery’s
grandchild.

The good news in his life these days is
the ad blocker he downloaded onto his computer.
Wow, he thought, it takes an ad blocker to give
meaning to his life.

It’s that bad.

The boy lingered by the Big Lake one day.
He listened to what the waves would say.

They spoke with such incredible strength.
Startled, he almost forgot what to think.

They crashed upon the sandy shore.
Scared, he asked them not to speak anymore.

But they just kept calling his name
and he realized they were playing a game.

They didn’t want to scare him this day.
Really all they wanted to do was play.

So he ran up to the edge of the shore
and dared those waves to crash some more.

He wasn’t scared of all their bluster.
He stood with all the courage he could muster.

Then they laughed and doused him with spray.
And as they left he decided, a while, to stay.

He stood his ground daring them to return.
He knew they would when it was their turn.

And so they came back with great gusto.
To which the boy said, “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”

The waves then begged the boy to stay.
They just wanted to play all day.

I wanted a guidon
to guide me on
to victory.
But it only led
to misery —
violence in
the name of
The Great God —
Guidon,
blowing in
the wind.

Coat hangers became a hot item — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Back alleys became highways — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Buckets of blood covered dirty, back room floors — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Airline tickets to Europe sold out — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v.Wade.
Women were barefoot and pregnant — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Women’s bodies were abducted — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Women were criminalized — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade
Babies were born into a society that
couldn’t care less about them out of the womb — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
Time turned back fifty-years — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.
The music died again — the day
the Supreme Court reversed
Roe v. Wade.

Yes, Don McLean, you sang
that the music died
between 1957 and 1969,
but the music of justice
died Saturday, October 6, 2018
at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time,
on the floor of the US Senate
when old, white women and men
in a last gasp power grab
with their era to rule passing away
elected a severely flawed,
privileged white man on this dark day
to do their bidding
and to judge with unlimited
authority you and me
each and every day
and for years and years to come.