SOMETIMES SIMPLE IS BEST

SOMETIMES SIMPLE IS BEST

we all know about the road paved

with good intentions,

corporate meetings spouting

egotistic offerings that lack

practical sense, feet to stand upright

and carry the weight from theory to fact.

Sometimes simple is best:

a wheel, a pulley,

the simple machines of push and pull

waiting by the shed, in the rain,

unnoticed

except by the fearfully close-mouthed.

#

based on 

The Red Wheelbarrow 

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white 

chickens

FIVE 17-SYLLABLED MORE THAN BLUE POEMS

FIVE 17-SYLLABLED

MORE THAN BLUE POEMS

1

sky, sea,

the backdrop of fifty beaming stars—

true blue the lot of them!

2

If only I could swim

in the blue pools

of your eyes—

bask forever!

3

When hearts break,

victims say they are more than blue,

their pain beyond color.

4

Blue could sniff a rabbit

better than most.

He seldom barked;

he loved kids.

5

I pray I can far exceed the blue,

dazzling in my faith,

loving God.

#

THE LITTLE RED ROWBOAT

THE LITTLE RED ROWBOAT

Maybe not too often a red wagon

but a rowboat appears in poems of

idea-faring poets. I painted mine

vermilion-lipstick red to link with the eye

of the oppressive sun, a vexatious

goose-neck lamp beaming angst at the poet’s heart.

Poetic inspiration is an empty

milk bottle, the proverbial monkey wrench

that jimmies the cogs through which dust bunnies

transform smoke screens into poetry.

Sometimes the red rowboat spouts hairline leaks

to panic the jejune poet so he stands

wobbly-kneed, quasi-demented, afraid to create.

But all at once the clouds mask the sun and

the poet retrieves his pen from the floor.

#

Five 17-Syllable Leaves on Water Poems

Five 17-Syllable

Leaves on Water Poems

1

From a distance

Leaves resemble hands

Comforting bodies of water.

2

When winter comes to kill,

Straggling fall leaves

Dive to ride the lake’s currents.

3

Leaves on water—

What stories to tell!

Autumn cleanups?

Gretel leaf crumbs?

4

Jack leaves on water

The floating after-dinner plates.

Football’s calling.

5

In the storm’s aftermath,

Leaves coursing the waterways

Sing, “We’ll be back.”

#

WHO I AM

WHO I AM

On a slide, under the microscope,

tissue says I am bone and flesh and blood.

My swift life propelled by a pulsing heart,

legs to walk me down paths that lead somewhere;

two eyes that see and too long had been blind

to what really matters in this meantime world.

Both of my faces played out accordingly:

opportune smiles, the look of malcontent.

A seeker of truth rummaging the wrong

treasures, I sought silver and gold, bright stones,

all false measures that mislead pilgrim souls.

One day in prayer I heard His voice reveal

to me how to live a life a child of God,

repent of sin, amend the wrongs I’d done,

love the Creator, Redeemer, Giver of life,

wear the armor, battle the demons.

The new road I walk leads to Heaven.

One day I’ll lay aside this shell for glory.

#

I'VE SEEN THEM

I’VE SEEN THEM

“They live in the mirrors.”

My brother Justin and I looked at each other, made our eyes roll, lips curl the way bystanders do when they see or hear what hints of madness or at least a loose screw or two loose in the head.

“I know,” George went on. “I’ve seen them!”

Though both of us were linemen for Pensacola Light, we took on the role of psychiatrists as we repeated, “Continue, George. Describe what you saw.”

George Fillmore hesitated. His right hand visibly shook. A tic pulsed away in his left green eye. Had we not known him well, we would have said George was experiencing the DT’s, but Fillmore was a devotee of H2O. He never drank the bubbly sodas Justin and I lived on nor did he ever demonstrate the slightest leanings toward an imbalance in the upper story.

Then George waved his hand toward his bathroom and we led the way until we were standing before the mirror. “Look!” he said. “Those three men!”

"Those three men are us, Georgie Porgie,” said Justin, but when the three men in the mirror turned around to face us, we clearly saw they weren’t us at all. Their distorted bodies, their faces expressing features not our own. “George,” I said, like a man who finally sees the light, but is hard-pressed to know what to do with it.

Justin made the horrid mistake of touching the glass. The screams that followed were his as reluctantly he dove into the mirror. We saw now that he had transformed one of the three into himself. The screaming stopped. Justin seemed content inside the mirror, beckoning us to follow. “Just dive in,” he said.

I turned around toward George. He had left the bathroom and returned with a hammer. “It’s the devil’s work,” he said as he raised the hammer. “We need to destroy the mirror before it drags us both into whatever Hell is in there.”

“What about my brother?” I asked. “We destroy the mirror and Justin’s gone forever.”

But George was not going to reconsider. He swung the hammer. The mirror shattered into shards of glass.

The two of us heard Justin calling us from a sharp sliver of broken glass. George again raised the hammer and smashed the mirror jigsaw piece into shiny grains. Justin was gone.  

The investigation was brief. Without my brother’s body, there was no case. He was somewhere out there, which was true enough, but I was convinced there was no way I’d see him again.

After burning down his house, George disappeared as well.

I wrote all this down. Why I don’t know. Who would believe it?

They say if you break a mirror you’re in for seven bad-luck years. What is there to say about me? I destroyed the mirrors in my apartment. I avoid gazing into one, though I suspect one day, accidentally, I will. Justin, maybe even George, will stare back at me with that come-on look and I will succumb.  

#

NOT MY CUP OF TEA

NOT MY CUP OF TEA

Well, I didn’t want tea anyway.

I asked for Chianti wine,

but she shook her head and pointed

to the cup. “This will do just fine.”

I did not want to offend her,

she seemed the fragile kind,

so, I took the tea and drank some,

told her I did not mind.

Oh, the British tea was steaming,

it burned my upper lip.

I spit it out like a whale’s spout

spraying passing ships.

Well, I didn’t want tea anyway,

I ventured once again.

In Sicily, it’s Chianti wine

and we drink it quite plain:

No crumpets or flaky scones,

no biscuits dunked to swim.

Sicilian boys grow tough and brave

with glasses filled to brim.

And by the way, I said once more:

I didn’t want the tea.

#

DESPAIR AND HOPE WEAR DIFFERENT FACES

DESPAIR AND HOPE WEAR DIFFERENT FACES

She sat across from me in the hospital lobby, arms cradling a bloody young girl.

I was waiting for Marian’s visit to end. Since learning she was pregnant, her face had taken on a rosy glow, a smile I hadn’t seen in the five years of our marriage.

Meanwhile, across from me, a child cried in pain. Dark battered face, swollen black eyes. The mother audibly praying, “Dios, Ayúdame. God, help me!”

I walked to the desk. “Can somebody take care of her?”

“They’re waiting for an emergency doctor to free himself a little time,” the desk nurse said.

Down the hall, Marian headed toward me like one of those TV commercials where a woman floats through the air, smiling, beaming, over her choice of some new product discovery.  

When I turned, the mother and child were gone.

Sheltered from danger,

The fledgling hides behind wings--

Mother keeps her safe.

#

PUNCHINELLO: A Petrarchan Sonnet

PUNCHINELLO: A Petrarchan Sonnet

    [based on the art of Caras Ionut]

En route tonight attired in red-white suit

and mask, cycling fast to hide a lengthy nose,

Punchinello appears in classic pose.

Tonight, in gloved hand he will strum a lute

to thunderous applause. He’ll bow: a brute

who masquerades a gentleman whose foes

are few. They see facades, just what he shows,

not the tormented fool riddled with woes,

but friendly comic Mr. Punch whose break

elicits belly laughs, guffaws galore.

The stick with which he whacks those on the stage

is hardly humor. A second encore

brings him back. He bows and we say, “How sleek!”

as if Punch alone dons masks to hide deep rage.

                               #

FIVE 17TH SYLLABLE POT OF JAM POEMS

FIVE 17^TH SYLLABLE

POT OF JAM POEMS

1

Mama never called it jam

when she gathered berries

to make jelly.

2

I wondered as a boy

caught in mischief

how it got me in a jam.

3

You can catch more flies

with honey.

Wouldn’t sticky jam

work twice as well?

4

Music of colorful fruit

Mashed into mason jars:

a jam session?

5

Too much pot,

he jams his foot on the gas

and speeds down Strawberry Lane.

#

IN BORDEAUX NO ONE WAITS

IN BORDEAUX NO ONE WAITS

He sits in the Paris railway station

reading Le Monde, puffing on a Galois.

He checks his wristwatch and the station clock.

A half-hour before the train arrives

to take him to Bordeaux where a shared drink

of good Merlot will toast her dying,

gunshots shatter her goblet, wine and blood spilled.

He imagines her final regrets.

Did I mention this is pure fiction?

The man is missing from the railway?

He no longer smokes or drinks or harbors

The unexpected twist and turn of murder?

In Bordeaux, no one waits for this monsieur

To compliment the vineyard’s newest wine.

He sits at home in his sofa chair.

#

THE DYING OF SUMMER

THE DYING OF SUMMER

Fastening two red roses with a granny knot

will not secure their togetherness past summer.

As August sun mellows to a cooler yellow,

so too the pistil of the male and the stamen

of the female, pollen-free, deteriorate

in a last garden effort, clutching stems,

looping simmered petals in an arabesque pose.

If only life could skirt the dying of summer,

somehow reverse autumn or insist it dawdle

in the seasonal wings far from vibrant garden!   

#