Lilly Ledbetter,
with the wonderful Southern drawl,
loves fighting for equal pay.
She’s not a conservative
nor liberal; she just wants
equality in pay
this and every day
for women. “Do not stall
this incredibly
important law,”
states Lilly Ledbetter,
with
that distinctive
Southern drawl.
Let’s keep fighting,
you Southern, Eastern,
Western, Northern
women, y’all.

A rich, Republican enchilada, accompanied
by beans and rice and Ayn Rand,
walks into a bar and offers
everyone a glad hand.
The bartender says, “This enchilada is one
taco short of a combination plate.”
The Republicans are going for the Hispanic
vote this time even though they’re late,
because
they love Latinos e Latinas so much and
only want the very best that votes
will buy
before
deportation bye-bye.
Meanwhile the street tacos are registering
voters for the Democrats who always
promise a lot and deliver one
enchilada short of a combination plate, too.
But, Jesus (Hay-sus), Maria and Jesus (Geez-us),
who is neither Republican nor Democrat,
make a great combination plate
without all the political beans and
rice and
mucho gaseous freight.
Mucho gusto.

He wanted to write something
taut, concise, brief,
but then he, being old, repeated
himself and wrote it again
and it became a tautology,
the practice of briefly written
things repeated
in different words in the
same phrase.
Desiring so, he wanted to write something
taut, tight, concise, brief,
but then he, being old, repeated
himself again and again and wrote it again
and it became a tautology,
the practice of briefly written
things repeated
in some different words in
the very same phrase.
May I please get out of here?
May I please get out of here now?
Sure.
Surely.
Goodbye.
Goodbye then.
Am I repeating myself?
Am I repeating and saying the
same thing in a few different
words again?
Does this have something to
do with age?
Does this thing here have
to do with, is related to
age, getting older,
growing gray?
What do you say?
I wrote this myself.
Well, why didn’t I
say so in the beginning
when I first started
writing that all by
myself without any
help from anyone
else, meaning others?
Taut but not tight
is becoming every which
way but mostly loose
and not taut or tight
at all.
I could have said
that I wanted to
write something short
and do it, but it’s
spring and words
are like rabbits.

On lonely roads in Missouri
they drove slowly past redbuds
and dogwoods and blue flox.

This after the one-day-only
flowering cacti in the Arizona
spring. When they turned north

leaving Indiana behind, they
saw that the flowers had yet to
bloom. They are happy to wait.

Five, six, seven calls, I lose count
listening to an automated, computer
generated, monotone, female voice over
and over and over in order to get to a
human and this after two thousand miles
on the road and two calls days ago to
make sure the cable company turned on
the cable so we could watch the tail
end of day three at the Masters before
falling asleep in the chairs. I’m argu-
ing with a computer generated voice,
which says over and over, “I’m sorry,
I didn’t quite get that. Let’s try this
again.” and then, the heaven sent words,
“Please wait on the line for a represent-
ative.” Finally. Then sweet, sincere boys
and girls blame each other just like in
the garden: tech says billing got it wrong;
billing says tech doesn’t understand what
is going on, but only in this one particular
instance, just this one time which never,
ever happened before. My situation is so
unique. My voice rises. I’m not following
Jesus; I don’t love Jesus anymore; I’m
following my heroes Lenin, Stalin, Idi
Amin and the Gestapo and yell into the
phone to prove it. We talk over each
other. I’m the weasely, little guy who
stands over Cool Hand Luke and says in
a lousy, Texas drawl, “What we have
here is a failure to communicate.” I
shout it at the kids with those ob-
noxiously, unflappable, angelic voices
who say all the right things without mean-
ing any of them and who just want to shoot
the weasel with the silly, southern drawl
but who continue to say ad nauseam, “I
understand; no problem; yes, perfect, of
course; this will only take a minute; we
appreciate your business; is it all right
to put you on hold for a few minutes while
I talk with my supervisor? I think this
should fix the problem.” Finally, after
infinity on the phone, one simple little
reboot boots up Phil Mickelson making a
birdie putt on sixteen. I have found Jesus
again and walk the sawdust trail. I
repent and give the last sweet-voiced,
billing person five on a scale of one
to five to question after question
after question, over and over and over
in the post phone call survey that comes
close to umpteen verses of “Just As I Am”
as penance for having idolized and imitated
Attila the Hun just a few minutes ago.

cruisin’ through the dust,
bouncin’ off the wild,
west wind,
slicin’ through west
texas,
the far west okie
panhandle,
passin’ the cattle corrals
of kansas, blue flox hills
east of wichita,
walnut trees, small
lakes, creeks with water,
the creamy missouri
running through it all
not to
mention the mighty mississippi
takin’ minnesota
mud to the gulf,
fields waiting for corn,
corn, corn, corn,
big, green
john deere all over
the back roads and
some of the main
roads, no explanation
needed,
old abe’s well worn
nose, gov’s in the
hooscow,
black soil, tornadoes
roaring through one
day in advance, lives
changed forever while
the road runs on,
snowy rain
blowin’ in the wind
over the
big lake, sand
whippin’ up along
the shore
peltin’
cars
goin’ north,
spring in the air
in the fair
northern midwest —
goin’ home,
goin’ home,
Lord, we’re
goin home, sweet home.

having had a wonderful winter in the wild
and wooly west they wanted to fly out of
phoenix like the bird rising, but they had
to grit their teeth, clinch their jaws and
crawl out of town like a turkey in traffic
(which they actually saw later in Santa Rosa)
during rush hour with about five hundred
miles to go before they slept. finally, they
glided up 87 perching in payson, stopping
for a pit-stop at mcdonald’s and noticing
a lot of really, old people limping to and
from their cars — snow-headed snow-birds,
slow, low flying cranes heading home, clogg-
ing lanes, and making drivers pray passionate-
ly for passing zones. locals bowed in gratitude.
the mountain air cleared the ashes like ozone
from valley lungs. they moved so slow through
show low behind minnesota and south dakota
they thought they might drift back down into
the soon to-be furnace below but hit their
stride on 60 through new mexico. the road
leveled, the traffic thinned like an anorexic
valley girl and they drove east peacefully on
their own lonesome road as the sun set serenely
on their wings — nirvana, valhalla, a heavenly
airborne load.

Detested suburb, cleared barren clay-earth for post-war housing builds
For eight years prior, my sky was canopied with trees
Each spring neighbors whitewashed the trunks, puzzling painting for some
Unknown protective reason. But at the park trees remain unpainted,
A mere block away, it is stunning in its surround of trees,
Planned, it was said, by the landscape architect who–after designing
Lake Shore Drive’s matchless miles of beauty along Lake Michigan–
Dictated the design of all Chicago neighborhood parks.
Trees were all I saw in walks to the bus past established neighborhoods
From trains to the Loop and car and bus rides,
Later peering at treetop blankets beneath planes uplifting from Midway Airport then O’Hare.
 
Then, continuing to circumvent Lake Michigan, college where “The Pine Grove” provided a
Verdant outdoor study spot interrupted only by 60s gatherings to protest one injustice or another.
Lastly, my Secret Garden home, bought for its gardening potential and tree borders, not the house
Far behind the triple cordon guarding us from street noise
Until the bike path–where no cyclist ever rode–demanded the first line of infantree be cut
Including the corner lot tree, so large that three peoples’ arms couldn’t encircle its trunk:
It challenged three sawing for half a day before it bowed to earth.
 
When my life dramatically changed in the way of fairy tales,
I unexpectedly came to dwell and delight among trees randomly
Self-seeded or bird-borne decades ago in rolling top-of-the-lake dunes
Where only grasses invade the sand and prevail against strong winds
Some trees are pruned by Mother Nature’s wind or lightning push to the ground. Then we
Startle to new views of the inland sea measured in land and added sunlight. Yet for most of
Winter-fall-spring, we cannot approach the lake through snowdrifts strong winds off our lake and
Lake Superior to our north mold into impassable mounds on the boardwalk
Dictated by Department of Environmental Quality–dread DEQ–dedicated to preserving pristine dunes.
 
Trees around our home may bear strange carbuncles, cankers of unknown earlier diseases;
Big as watermelons, they shamelessly create a beauty in their ugly imposition.
Tall tree trunks we’ve stuck in a sand line marking a transition from steps to shore are dubbed
“Stags”, not for similarity to deer who roam daily as if they own the woods (which, in fact, they do)
Smelling trails their primogenitors marked, creating new ones judging by hoof prints on our
 
Long front porch, unused in winter, seldom used in summer as our eyes look lake-wards
Where often omnipresent clouds disconnect permitting a glance of sunbeams, so I follow my passion
Picking up driftwood–in the tradition of Michelangelo I seek faces in the wash-ups, and
Spend some of the eight-month inclement wintry seasons bringing angels to the surface,
Where, from my ground-level Diva Den windows, I survey evergreens filled with chickadees,
Squirrel jousts, an occasional fox crossing, chipmunks,and deer at whom I ulalate if they approach
They stare in jaded boredom now, move away in sophisticated precision from
Carefully planted rock-and-shrub gardens, as we sigh for spring-summers four months,
Known to us year-round residents as “bugs” and to cottagers and returning snowbirds as
“Company” as they welcome–or not–the predictable encampments of visiting family, friends,
Possibly strangers, as we did years ago after a 50th reunion…someone just passing through:
 
We live at the tip-of-the-top of the lake…drop in.

Some, due to personal tragedy,
remain Holy Saturday Christians
for a long time — like in Dante’s
purgatory.

The sun doesn’t rise
and the colors don’t shine,
down in the dark night
of the soul’s own coal mine.

But by the grace of God,
and that Good Friday,
Holy Saturday eventually
passes into Easter’s new day.

It’s all geared to take what is in your
wallet and put it in theirs.
So the Principalities and The-Powers-That-Be
bombard us
with advertising and messages
that begin to seem simply as what’s fair.
We are conditioned to move
from couch to car to store after store
and buy more and more and a whole
lot more.
It has to be that way the elected lackeys
to The-Powers-That-Be say.
It is the patriotic, American Way.
Their pockets are so lined,
The-Powers-That-Be achieve
a state that’s seemingly divine
while it’s not hard to tell
that 99 percent are going straight to
economic hell.
What’s the antidote to such dis-ease?
Revolution, guerrilla war, suicide and
homicide?
More and more bloodshed is seen
more and more
with blow-back on the rise — just
more dis-ease, more dis-ease.
Peaceful protest, please!
the prophets cry.
Justice, self-sacrifice,
mindfulness, the life of Jesus,
the Buddha, Lao Tsu
and other guides to the eternal, too,
if you please, if you please,
if you please,
please.