When I die
I will not be put in a
box and lowered in the ground.
I know, I won’t know a thing, but
I know now and I even dread
having to submit
to a MRI,
and I think
when I die
perhaps I’ll hover
all claustrophobic over the
grave unable to breathe
as I look down at the body placed
in the box buried six feet
under in a real tight space.
So, just burn me up fast and
cast my ashes to the wind
in the sand dunes
where I have loved to run
with
Chocolate Labs
and where I have
breathed deeply of the
breeze off the Big Lake.
Toss the dogs’ ashes with mine
when I die
so all those ashes can
breathe deeply of
the breeze off the Big Lake
when I die.

The man saw the line in a poem:
“When fish are fools,” and
he thought that in his
experience he had never seen
a foolish fish.
He can’t remember the poem
and his wish
is that he could look it up
to read the reason the poet
had opined about when fish are
fools. Not even his son,
who catches four fish
to the man’s one,
thinks fish are fools,
especially Colorado fish,
where he gets to fish
his every wish.
His son is quite wise
and a wise
person wouldn’t wish
to spend time with fools
let alone foolish fish
and he spends every
free moment with
sly, smart, sneaky fish —
in rivers, ponds, lakes
and creeks —
full of fish any fish lover
would love to catch
and release.
And then he got it.
“The fish is a fool
when my son casts
a home-made fly
into the pool,
which the fish would spy
out the corner of its eye.
Even a riffle smart brookie,
who has fooled people
near and far
is not a trout
but an Artic Gar
and
becomes a rookie
before the magic
of my son’s cast
and that’s when a
fish is a fool.”
Then the man wondered,
does that poet know
my son?

It’s warming fast in the desert.
The bedroom window is open

and he listens to the spring
winds blowing through the

valley. The comforter is scrun-
ched in the middle, only the

sheet covering them. The sky
starts to lighten; he rests

his hand on her backside as
she lies in a fetal position

facing the window. Stirring,
she asks apologetically, “Was

I snoring?” “No,” he replies.
Giving her a pat, he turns

toward the door, assumes his
own fetal position, sighs and

thinks about the dream. Soon
the dog will lick his hand as

it hangs over the bed signaling
that is time to take him out.

I hear that
everything is
securely in place,
that all systems
are go and
there is security
in the space
that you occupy
and the space
upon which
you rely,
but the fact
of the matter
is that in
cyberspace
nothing is
safe.
Drone on.

My P.E. teacher
caught me in
a lie
in wrestling class
in high school.
I said I was
sorry and he
nailed me to
the mat.
Having done that,
he asked,
“Did you apologize
because you were
sincerely sorry
or just caught
in the act?”
And isn’t that
always the
question?

If I take umbrage
in anything more,
it’s that
I’m not the
police chief
in Ferguson, MO,
that’s
for sure,
or the city manager
and the few others,
when the whole
gang should have been
ex-communicated
by all the numbers.
The feds’ message is
clear:
clean house and
say emphatically, in
this country
racism is dead;
there is nothing
to fear.
Wouldn’t that
be nice?

Talking over, under,
around this side,
that side and
the backside,
shouting each other
down,
pols polling, huff-
ing and puffing,
preachers pon-
tificating from the
pulpit and up and
down the center
aisle
and all the while
I’m wondering
if anybody’s
listening. Is
anybody
simply
listening
to what
is being
said or
is everyone
simply
taking “selfies”
over again and
again?

When they started upon the journey
they made sure of five-year plans.
That far ahead they thought they could see,
but it went faster than hour-glass sand.
Then the glass shattered, every plan erased,
all minutiae from every conceivable place
in the life that they had so painstakingly planned.
He really had not known what pain meant
until that tragic, totally unplanned event.
For years he just took it day-to-day
and only now to the other does he say,
“Dearest, I think that’s a great five-year plan.

The adolescent asked,
“What does any
of this mean?”
having been keen-
eyed
to all that had gone
on in his universe —
the stumbling,
the bumbling,
the fumbling
of the gods.
The man-child
sighed
as he
took
his
next
step.

We watch the mayhem played
out on our streets
due to guns, guns, guns
and then we protest
the proliferation of guns on our
streets
and then we go home
to watch guns, guns, guns
on T.V. and in the
movies.
Where is the sanity here,
if you please?