the pond is so clear;
the fish swim so very near;
it’s what we hold dear.

I want him to leave me alone.
He tweets constantly when
he is not swinging a golf
club. The media report his

tweetstorms. Before he was
the temporary occupant he
would appear on shows like
the View which I never watch.

He didn’t invade my life. For
the past four years he has.
He tweets and says ridicu-
lous, ignorant, dangerous

things. All of his corruption,
and it is his constant com-
panion, aside, his lunacy is
driving me nuts and there

are at least sixty-three mill-
ion Americans who think the
sun rises and sets on his
enormous behind. He’s like

a bad case of Shingles and
speaking of a virus, we are
told to think that everyone
we meet has COVID-19 as a

way of staying away from
people and safe and the same
goes for thinking that every-
one we meet has the Trumpster

disease so we will be quiet
keep our distance and leave
them alone because otherwise
we might get a bullet between

the eyes and I don’t even
live on Fifth Ave.

He was raised with the notion
that in order to have a book
published, one had to climb
the literary equivalent of Mt.

Everest and, with oxygen
in hand, hike through the icy
and treacherous terrain of
established editors and pub-

lishers, the giants of literature
and then he discovered some-
thing of which was not, for
a long-time, spoken or written

— that there have been and are
ways to express oneself without
having to brave the publishing
cabal. Whitman scrounged up

enough to have his Leaves unfurl
before the world. Ezra did the
same instead of pounding away
at the locked doors and soon,

the publishers were knocking on
his door. And then there were
poets who saw the dead-end street
blocking their way to the publish-

ing highway and started little
bitty presses of publication for
them and their friends and now
everyone is catching on and self-

publishing to the tune of seventy-
five percent of all books. So,
my friend, significant writer,
someone who has something to

say and say it beautifully, as in
the words of the Nike commercial —
Just Do It and then let the pro-
verbial chips of literary criticism

fall all the while your work does
rise. And even as a friend says,
“Gee, how nice for the grandkids,”
your baby appears on the shelf of

the local bookstore eager to grow
up and have children of her own.

In the evening I chew a medicinal gummy;
after an hour it makes me giggle.
It isn’t particularly yummy
but a giggle is far better than an evening’s niggle.

I laugh at the TV;
I laugh at Trump;
I laugh when he swings off the tee;
his golf shorts filled with his great big rump.

My wife says I’m more agreeable
after I chew a gummy
than when drinking folks under the table.
My gummy makes me a lot more chummy.

So let’s have a medicinal gummy;
at the offer do not snivel.
It may not taste so yummy,
but who cares as you sit and giggle?

Novelist and memoirist Robert Stone said, “Writing is lonely. […] But most of the time you are in a room by yourself, you know. Writers spend more time in rooms, staying awake in quiet rooms, than they do hunting lions in Africa. So, it’s a bad life for a person because it’s so lonely and because it consists of such highs and lows, and there’s not always anywhere to take these emotional states. […] It’s a life that’s tough to sustain without falling prey to some kind of beguiling diversion that’s not good for you.”

That, in part, is why I write poetry. I don’t spend all day in rooms writing nor, on the other hand, have I ever hunted lions in Africa (as does Donald Trump, Jr.). I have a relatively short attention span. I’m an extravert leaning toward introversion. Jogging, anyone? For 50 years, it has been meditatively, physically, spiritually, emotionally good for me. And the lion sleeps tonight. 😇

And poet Ellen Hinsey wrote, “Contrary to a generally held view, poetry is a very powerful tool because poetry is the conscience of a society. […] No individual poem can stop a war — that’s what diplomacy is supposed to do. But poetry is an independent ambassador for conscience: It answers to no one, it crosses borders without a passport, and it speaks the truth. That’s why … it is one of the most powerful of the arts.”

Well, I’ll clap for that…. 👏

*quotes from The Writer’s Almanac, August 21, 2020

Twenty-seven years ago today
her brain drowned in the blood
of the lamb. Her organs went

to save lives. She is in Ayin —
no-thing-ness, in O, O, O. She
is perceived in a flash of light.

The eye has seen her beauty.
The mouth praises her name.
She is named in the flow of

breath — Om — lover, com-
panion, wife, mother, sister,
daughter, friend, artist, Beloved

Child of God. And she is known
by the name that El gave her,
known only between her and El

and she knows as she has been
known from eternity to
eternity.

*some images from a meditation by Matthew Fox

He held the mammon tightly
in his clenched fists. It was
all his. He had earned it.
He possessed it. It gave
him power and influence
over others. He held up his
fists like a pugilist saying
to himself, Who wants to
fight me for what’s in my
fists. Who would dare?
And then a voice asked,
“May I see what’s in your
fists? You will have to open
your fists with palms up-
turned so what is in them
won’t fall out.” The man
hesitated. He trusted his
fists. “Please, may I see
what is in your hands?”
The man thought to him-
self, It’s only a still, small
voice. It can’t steal my
mammon. And so the man
gradually opened his fists
revealing two fists full of
dust. And the voice turned
to wind and blew the dust
away. The man stood with
hands open, palms upturned
and he began to cry, not from
the loss, but for what he found.

*idea from a meditation by Henri Nouwen

1. There was a man on the way.
They saw him and asked if
he would like to join them on
their journey. They would like
the company if for nothing
more than a distraction from
their grief at the death of their
loved one. And as they sat
breaking bread and hearing
familiar words and recalling
what their loved one said
about being with them again,
they looked at each other and
then at the fellow traveler
through their Jesus’ eyes of
enlightenment and their eyes
were opened to the presence
of their loved one among
them.

2. There was a man standing on
the shore. The fishers weren’t
having any luck. The man said
to put the net on the other side.
Maybe that was a hint. Jesus
had kept asking them to look
at things from a different per-
spective. A net full of fish follow-
ed. The man stood by the fire and
invited the fishers to join him for
breakfast. They broke the fast
of life without Jesus as with
grief-stricken eyes transformed
to the enlightened eyes of Jesus,
they saw Jesus in the man before
them.

3. The man sat in the silence,
breathing in slowly, breathing
out slowly — over and over
and over and when he looked up
he began to see life differently.
He saw the fearful, the angry,
those who were one step away
from violence and in the silence
he heard the words, “Lo, I am
with you always till the close
of the age,” and he thought
perhaps he was seeing Jesus in
all those he saw in his mind’s
eye, everyone. And then he
squinted and rubbed his eyes
and he just shook his head, “Not
quite there, yet,” and then he
heard, “Well, life’s a journey
and we are breaking the fast
of grief.”

One day it arose as if its construction
had been imperceptible. He only no-
ticed it at night when the light from

the sign invaded his home, more
specifically, the kitchen and the bed-
room. The shades couldn’t keep out

the penetrating yellow light. The man
determined to stop the invasion so he
went to the yellow light the next day

and asked for the manager. The man
told the manager about the invasive
light on the serenity of the man’s life

and how that sign blocks the man’s
view of the night sky to which the
manager replied that the sign is

necessary so hungry travelers on
the Interstate could see it and that
the man should take it up with corp-

orate. With that, the manager said to
the man, “Welcome to Waffle House.”
The man bought thicker shades for

the windows and when his wife asks
if he would like a waffle for breakfast,
he always responds, “No thank you.”

an achy elbow,
a catch in the back.
what seeds do I sow?
why am I concerned about facts?
let it all go;
too soon, it will all be back.
so sow seeds of breaths in a row —
the repetition of volitional acts.
deeply in and out so slow,
over and over, there and back,
to be here now and know
that this is the right track.
the seeds will grow
the lotus blossoms unfurl and unpack
germination’s flow, germination’s glow —
now here, now here, now here, now —
there is nowhere else
but to be here now —
erehwon.

*in a previous poem I used the word
erehwon which was the name of an
outdoor adventure store. It is the
reverse of nowhere, thus meaning “everywhere.”
To be everywhere is to be present in the “now.”