Don’t worry about this terrorist
or that; they are small potatoes;
they are just symptoms of that
which is scared and striking back,
blowing back against that of which
we should all be worried — Pluto
relentlessly accumulating, Pluto
grabbing the strings of the three
marionettes who used to make the
rules, interpret the rules, judge
the rules and administer the rules
but who are ruled and who now
dance deliriously through the once
hallowed halls. We watch what Pluto
decides to show; read what Pluto
wants us to read; we stay in our
homes while Pluto prowls the streets
keeping us “safe” and passive;
and we cheer the boys and girls
as Pluto decides when and where
and how the kiddies will fight the
boogeyman way over there so he
won’t come over here, and we stare
at our devises, take photos of our-
selves, look out our blinds and fear
that those who hate us for no good
reason, except that we are “except-
ional,” are coming to terrorize us,
torture us, hack our heads off our
necks with dull knives, pour propel-
lants on our pets, drench us in
flammables and strike a match first
on our children so we have to watch
them writhe in unbelievable anguish
and then watch each other incinerate
and vanish in a puff of smoke. And
Pluto, the downgraded planet, is a
rising star while everyone else flies
into Pluto’s black hole of poverty
and fear, but with no one there
for Pluto to pawn his wares, will
his rising star become a shooting
star burning up in the acrid atmos-
phere of his own flatulence
rising from deep in the earth?

He looks at the skin on the top of his hand,
parched, translucent leather with blue streams running beneath.
He looks at the hair on his forearms,
dry, palo verde branches planted in a bumpy, desert sheath.
He looks at his legs crossed at his feet
and recalls mounds of muscle bulging beneath
the now bony Saguaros flat on their side.
Time to put on a long-sleeved shirt and long pants;
dying desert plants need to hide
from the fierce desert sun.

It was so easy to be brave
playing cowboys and Indians, or
G.I. Joe to the Nazis.
You got shot; you got up.
Your mother called you home
for dinner.
You waved goodbye
looking forward to the next day
when all the previous day’s
cowboys and Indians,
G.I.Joes and Nazis would
build a fort in the
vacant lot generously called
a prairie
and maybe you
would run home to
sneak a swig of bourbon
from the
bottle in the cabinet
by the sink
and a couple of
cigarettes from the pack of
Chesterfields on the end table
to smoke in the fort
as a reward for
a good day’s effort.
Back when everyone was ten,
it was easy to be brave.
Now, those kids
have given up smoking
and drinking on doctor’s orders,
watch the nightly news,
lock the doors,
go to bed and pray
not to have bad dreams.

She hardly could hobble across the stage into the limelight at the seniors’ variety show.

She was so short they had to put the microphone down about as far as it would go. She walked with a three-pronged cane, which she held with a misshapen hand at the end of a short, misshapen arm — birth defects and rheumatoid arthritis. Her legs were bowed so badly she rocked when she walked.

Then she opened her misshapen mouth and they were off to the standup comedy races — self-deprecating, dark, death, gallows humor, side-splitting, slap-your-hand-on-your-knee humor.

She said that the IRS and Social Security had determined that she had died in 1985.

It was then she realized that while she thought she had arthritis, she really had rigor mortis.

She had even died before her husband died and she never knew it. She could have spent fewer years missing him; in fact, she needn’t have missed him at all and could have avoided all that unnecessary suffering. She emphasized how he should have missed her.

She said people keep telling her how good she looks, just like what people exclaim when they look into a casket, “My, doesn’t she look good!”

Then staring beyond the light into the darkness she closed by telling everyone how good they looked.

It brought the house down.

As she hobbled off stage, the old folks roared their approval.

She had great timing and knew her audience well and the audience was glad to be alive to have heard her. She gifted them that evening. For a few moments, they all stopped complaining about their aches and pains.

Her monologue was titled “Misery Loves Company.”

He sits in the hot tub
looking up
at the tall, palm trees
swaying in the breeze.

As the trees
sway in the breeze,
he can see Piestewa Peak
behind them,
across Route 51.

What fun!

It’s a beautiful sight —
trees, mountain and
desert birds in flight.

Soon he will be back
in Michigan where he
saw a short, plastic palm tree
in a yard with plastic, pink
flamingoes numbering three.

He’s sure they have a few
of those in Phoenix, too.

The real palms in Arizona,
though not native, have adapted
just right
and all are just the right height,

Just like all the living
trees
in Michigan,
at least according to a politician
who wanted to be
president but lost.
Was it time three?

No one seems to know why
he said that, but he was right.
The trees in Michigan
are just the right height.

But they are in Arizona, too.
I think everywhere, don’t you?

The trees are just the right
height — even the plastic
palm. But who knows
about those flamingoes?
Right height or no,
I think they have to go.

This St. Patrick’s Day I wish
to offer you a greeting, my love.
It is that you have constant bliss
and of all things good never to miss
nor the descent of the heavenly dove.

This St. Patrick’s Day I offer
my love to you, with any luck,
and all my heart do proffer
none but riches for thy coffer;
now get out there and kick some butt.

As a kid in the fifties, my
faith was informed by the
powerbrokers reeling from
Roosevelt’s form of faith
informed, perhaps, by com-
passion or, at least, an
understanding of the preamble
where it mentions the common
welfare — the seemingly lost
half to the much more popular
“common defense.” But the
beasty boys cunningly appeal-
ed to the vanity of politicians
and preachers who yearned for
recognition, fame and power
and so, were seduced by the
god of mammon and the gospel
of prosperity kicked into
high gear. In our tribal
god we trusted and under our
tribal God we lived our bless-
ed, capitalist lives. My dad
thought they were twins
and, for a time, I did, too.
Everybody in my lily-white
suburb did. I think back then
only blacks got Jesus. But
I had a really good Sunday
School teacher, who, surely
unbeknownst to herself, taught
revolution — the Sermon on the
Mount, and Jesus, the swarthy-
skinned, kinky-haired, short
guy eventually entered my “lily-
white” heart and I’ve been at
odds with most of my relatives
ever since.

I am here with you, loving you,
praying for you. You need not speak at all.
If it’s alright to put my hand on yours,
just nod and I will gently let hand fall

on top of your still hand resting on sheets
ever so white, ironed ever so straight.
I touch your dry, cold hand unlike the heat
of your brow with a fever so great.

Your eyes are closed and so I, too, close mine
and offer silent prayer unto the sky
that Christ will visit you with love divine
and bring you the peace that passes closely by.

The fever breaks; you open your eyes and grin
seeing the tears of joy running down my chin.

We both laugh; your wink is understood.
Our laughter joins with Jesus in gratitude.

The classical radio station fades in and out
no matter what she does with the tuner and
antennae after the two-year old grandson
played with all the dials the previous even-
ing. She nibbles an oatmeal cookie and
sips the coffee as the Chocolate Lab sits
in front of her drooling from both sides
of his mouth onto the throw rug which
covers the new carpet. The fan moves counter-
clockwise to push air downward to help cool
the woman and the dog. The spring days are
warming quickly in the desert — above average
for this time of year, boding an even hotter
summer. People ask her when she will be leav-
ing for the cool, spring days of home. She
hadn’t thought about the remaining three
weeks until she listened to the dog’s in-
creased panting even in the morning. It’s
ten a.m. She gets ready to head to church.
She knows it will be too hot in the car
and there will be no shade in the parking
lot of the church, so she says, “You have to
stay home, Bud.” He drops his head and
heads to his bed in the bedroom. She closes
the door feeling a twinge of guilt. He made
his point. She trusts he will jump for joy
when she returns. As she walks down the
stairs, the dog goes to the window and
watches for her to pass. He will be
awaiting eagerly when she returns.
She knows she can count on that.

The oil painting bought at a
second-hand store to be used
in decorating the condo was

full of desert colors and the
blue of shallow water brightly
reflecting the ever present sun.

Someone said it looked like
Page. He didn’t know if he
would ever get to Page so he

walked into the painting wear-
ing his old hiking boots. At
the water’s edge, he removed

his boots and socks and walked
in up to his knees. The water
was clear and cold. Feeling

the tingle before numbness he
walked back out, picked up his
boots and socks and left Page

behind. His wife asked him if
he wanted a cup of freshly
brewed, morning coffee. Won-

dering why he had his boots
and socks in his hand, she
asked him if he were going

for a hike. “No. Been there,
done that,” he said as he
sat at the table.