Amongst the rubble
of an apartment complex,
half the second floor
room gone, sits a man,
legs crossed in the one
lone chair, his arm hanging
listlessly off the arm of
the green chair against all
the gray wreckage as he
stares at a charcoal scribbled
T.V. on the wall, drawings
of end tables and flower
pots on either side of the
imaginary television.

The bird soared…above, about, across,
against, along, among, around,
at, before, behind, below, beneath,
beside, between, beyond, by, down,
during, except, for, from, in,
inside, into, like, near, of, off,
on, since, to, toward, through,
under, until, up, upon, with,
within…it.

*written after reading a poem by
a poet who had been told by a
writing teacher that the poet didn’t
know how to use prepositions.
I thought she did just fine.
Here’s the link to the poem with comment:
http://academyofamericanpoets.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/y/36DA3C56C835B701/79828698057565E0A0F01D70678E0DEE.

She spoke almost dispassionately
of female genital mutilation, which

she had suffered as a seven-year-old,
nipping it in the bud so her mother said.

As he listened and cringed, his week-old,
umbilical hernia surgery ached as it

hadn’t for five days, but he knew hers
was the opposite of his circumcision;

her deep pain was permanent in its
numbness. He felt sick to his stomach.

He wonders as he wanders 
		out under 
	the mushroom cloud 
of a cold war
			turned really hot 

in an ever and always
			anxiety 

of something bad happening 
						
              just around the corner from where 

Gene Kelly dances in the rain and 
			hums a happy tune.

He stands on the edge staring
down into the red, copper, blue
canyon,

across the dirt road from the
brightly dressed African women
balancing loads on their heads,

on a tour of a Phoenix neighbor-
hood of 1940’s bungalows restored
and updated,

sauntering along the aged aqueduct
in the Italian valley of deep blues
and greens and distant water,

and he hasn’t left his chair.

Around the peninsula of Michigan
where you might journey
the surf meets sand
and you will always find an attorney
with a finger-pointing and a beggar’s hand;
“It’s ours not yours
so keep on movin’,”
is the territorial cry
and you won’t even
get a wave goodbye.

Across the border in Canada
along the beautiful shores
you will hear, “The sand and surf
aren’t ours or yours
so make yourself at home,
and enjoy every inch of beach
wherever you do roam
and think of every place within your reach
as your home away from home.

It was Chicago in the early 60’s
and the teen was running for
president of the student council
and had a poster party at his
home in an all white neighbor-
hood and he felt a need to tell
his father that he had invited
a black friend from school to
the party. His dad said no; the
boy said Jesus. The dad said
nothing; the boy, his friend
and others had a great time.
The boy, in a totally non-
flippant way said, Thank you,
Jesus.

He looked at the water-

		color, which looked just

like a mandala and he

		decided to go inside the

mandala and walk around

		and around until he got

to the center in the hope

		that he then would be

centered and he did all

		that but not wanting to

retrace all his steps, he

		just jumped back to the

recliner in which he had sat

		and that was that.

They fly up and down 51,
all the huge trucks, SUVs,
reincarnations of seventies’
muscle cars, lots of Germans
— big, ugly, and some sleek
predators dangerous to life
and limb — right through
God’s big, brown acres,
missing coyotes, javelinas,
really hungry rattlesnakes
in March and April, really
tiny Bark scorpions in the
summer not to mention
the flowering cacti and
poppies of spring, which
easily could be seen from
the highway if the animals
weren’t so thirsty for beer
or single batch Bourbon
and hungry for wild wings
and chips and dip while
watching mindlessly the
never ending wasteland
in blue.

He wrote a poem about memories
of fishing with his son and when
he went to select all, copy and save,
he did something wrong and it
wasn’t saved and he couldn’t undo
the typing of that which was copied
previously and it showed up instead
and the poem was lost, so he saved
all the poems from April from his
blog to a word document for safe-
keeping and he did that right away
and right and then he went to
bed with the memories of fishing
with his son and thought about
those for awhile before he opened
the mystery. Then he thought, It’s
okay. He thought about an author
about whom it was said, “He never
had an unpublished thought,” and
it wasn’t necessarily a compliment
as he went back to the computer.
At least they can’t say, “He never
had an unblogged thought,” he
thought. Well, they may say that,
he thought, but he knows better. He
would like it if they said that he is
prolific. Prolific…that sounds nice, he
thought to himself as he hit select
all, copy and save before he shut
down the computer, went back to
bed and returned to the mystery.