Christmas in Absurdity.

Christmas Eve

came as a false spring

with sunshine and 59 degrees.

Last night

we walked around in sweatshirts

looking at lights.

This morning over coffee,

among the other tales of sports

and murder, I read that

one in three Ohioans

are now eligible for assistance

from state food banks.

Without irony,

the governor allocated $500,000

federal money to feed them.

Local press called him

Santa Claus, oblivious that the gov's policies

helped create this poverty.

An old man who delivers

hunger to little children,

inadequately remedies the issue,

and is praised for his efforts

is befitting a Christmas Eve

30 degrees warmer than normal.

Last Time.

I'd been working in the fall chill

clipping dead flowers from the yard

when I decided on a short ride

through our neighborhood,

grabbed a skateboard

from the basement,

and went.

Immediately,

in the physicality

of balance and velocity,

hum of wheels on pavement

like waves on a beach,

I headed west

as a burning sunset

dove into the woods

at East Rec,

gone, just as I

used to do 

in this same

oak forest

20 years ago,

just as I

may never

do again.

When a patronizing email awaits you first thing on a Monday morning, but something brilliant in the sunrise won't allow you to give it the sort of energy that might bring you down.

I nodded through your

patronization, and set

my coffee cup on the desk.

Sunshine was creeping west

through the house rows

as frost shone on rooftops

silver like something precious,

something rare, sagging shingles

an asymmetric work of art.

It wasn't winter yet, nor was it

problematic to be patronized.

I've been here before, I thought,

took another sip and smiled.

Cruise Ship Food Poisoning.

Got a call from an electronic woman

in Kissimmee, Florida tonight who assured me

I'd won a cruise for two.

Having not been born recently, being 

deathly afraid of cruise ship food poisoning,

not to mention my possession of

a general mistrust of all things Florida,

I hung up. Sometimes a robo-call

is just too good to be true.

Sweet Spot

There is a sweet spot

when the freight train

has just passed, and

conversation

has yet to resume -

Looking across

backyards,

belligerent dogs, and

chain link fences

into a rare moment

of utter silence.

Early Lesson in Real Estate

I used to know a place

along our property line

where grape vines curled

overhead in a tube

like a wave break.

The space had size enough

for a few kids secluded,

carpeted with pine needles.

It was a comfortable hideout 

when necessary.

This has become my only

measure of good real estate,

small, soft, fresh smelling,

and few unwanted guests.

I learned it at 8 years old.

Water Water Everywhere and All the Cats Did Sleep.

The rain persisted,

turned downpour.

Our streetlight

went dark.

Leaves in porchlight

cast shadows

like giant spiders.

Three cats

slept easy

as water shook

the downspout.

It rained. We listened.

A Short Poem Regarding Baseball and Saying Goodbye.

There is so much

in the letting go,

I thought to myself,

as a first pitch flew

a few feet above

the batters head.

Goldfinches

The goldfinches knew you'd gone

well before the For Sale sign hit the yard.

I knelt beneath their empty wire

as the shadows of dozens of praying mantis

flew across piles of cut peonies.

The sunflowers bowed their heads

like monks in silent prayer

before your statue of St. Jude,

patron saint of impossible causes.

Where have the goldfinches gone?

Preoccupied Sky.

I opened all of the blinds,

wide, to afford the greatest

view of mid-morning sky.

Clouds and confusion,

morning and afternoon,

summer and fall.

I just stood there,

watched it for awhile.

A kid I'd met once or twice 

came by to discuss philosophy.

I told him, See me next week.

Perhaps I'll have more time.

Besides, I'm preoccupied 

by this sky, split wide open.

First Sentence.

And that was the moment 

I found the first sentence 

of my next story 

on a beat ramp in a skatepark 

just outside of Boston.

Still Life in the Back of the Station Wagon in the Summer of My 44th Year.

Bookstore

I want a bookstore

cat, but I already have

three cats too many.

Commonwealth Books, 9 Spring Street, Boston. Go there if you find yourself in Boston.

Ours is a Love Story for the 3rd of July.

Bottle rockets burst a few blocks away,

then overhead. Our cats sleep uneasy,

ears shifting quick at each explosion.

It's awfully cool for the 3rd of July, 

I think, as a northwind blows across

sunset, into the front window.

My wife is in the next room.

Her fingers pound the computer 

keyboard like a fistfight.

I think about the day we met,

more than a decade ago

to the day. We were children

going out for a movie and 

some drinks. Perhaps, I will look back 

in a dozen years or so

at your attacks on the machine,

audible for miles around,

and think the same thing.

We were children then,

I'll say, as I sat and listened to you

beat hell out of your laptop.

Another blast startles a cat.

I consider how much your typing

sounds like a lit brick of firecrackers.

Drunk in the Afternoon

I sat on the lawn,

barefoot in sunshine.

My white cat visited

for a moment, then went

to eat a half dozen leaves

from the catnip plant

before passing out

underneath our car.

I nodded knowingly, then 

got up to head inside,

leaving him to enjoy

his afternoon inebriation.

An Olfactory Analysis.

In the hotel hall

a boy says, "smells like someone's

got a pet skunk."

Fog & Mist on the Pennsylvania Turnpike

a morning on which

mist obscured the interstate,

I lost my focus.

A Fenway Haiku

Yes, a fistfight five

feet from Pesky's Pole. Did he

root against the Sox?

This Braves fan didn't resort to fisticuffs. It happened later in the game when the beer count, and tempers, ran high.

However, the insects. (or Misery Loves Company)

Every morning that week in June

we woke to puddles, fog, and that

strange air that is somehow cool,

but then warm at the same time,

so, you find yourself wondering

if it's the air or you've succumbed 

to some feverish delirium.

We had an idea we weren't all sick,

and knew the rain was always going to be 

good for the garden. However, the insects

became a monstrance, plague-like, 

but at least they gave the neighbors

something to complain about

that wasn't one another.

Spring Speaks of Revolution

Daffodils arrived

like defiant yellow fists

thrust from cold ground.

Haiku Freight Train #11: In Her Vote on the State School Board (or Calling it Local Control Doesn't Make It Right.)

Unable to see

beyond her privilege, she

stole art from poor kids.

Haiku Freight Train #10: Process

First, sun, blinding, blue

sky. Then wind, suddenly cold,

rain drove us indoors.

Haiku Freight Train #9: Afternoon

Bare trees stand steady

against blue afternoon sky, 

cigarettes on the wind.

Haiku Freight Train #8: Lost

He walks his wet lawn

looking just beyond bare feet

for something he's lost.

Haiku Freight Train #7: Yesterday

Carrying Grandma's

armchair in afternoon rain.

She's left Homer Street.

Haiku Freight Train #6: Kaleidoscope Eye

Now and then my right

eye goes kaleidoscopic,

beautifully scary.

Haiku Freight Train #5: April

Rain barrel overflows

into shin-deep backyard pools.

This is my April.

Haiku Freight Train #4: Temperature

Today went warm to cold.

Our big black cat sneezes watching

gray clouds over rooftops.

Haiku Freight Train #3: Alright

I'm a sucker for

any song that sings to me,

It'll be Alright.

Haiku Freight Train #2: Lonesome

White cat sits alone,

middle of my dark driveway.

He watches me leave.

Haiku Freight Train #1: Engine

Sometimes ideas

like a freight train tearing through

melancholy spring.

The Awful Moment when Birds became Cell Phones and Nature Seemingly Ceased to Hold Relevance.

I was driving

my son to soccer practice

when I heard a high pitched song

which I mistook

for a cell phone ring tone.

He corrected me,

as is his habit, with attitude 

and middle school condescension,

That was a bird, Dad.

I thanked him and

wondered when

this subtle shift in perception

would render my river

unrecognizable.

Another Theory of Relativity (for Bryan Ashkettle, an idea man)

My back gave up on shoveling snow in the second week 

of February, right around the time my station wagon refused to start.

In a somewhat alarming discovery, I realize

my friend Bryan had my best recent ideas 10 years ago.

In other developments, 

I have a conversation with Jim in which we discuss 

the fact that nothing happened 10 years ago - it is now 15 - 20.

Everything is now relative to my advanced age.

My station wagon sits lonely in a snow-covered lot 

on Cleveland Street.  If you need a ride, don't call me,

likewise for shoveling. If you'd like an idea

of what I'll be doing in 10 years, call Bryan.

Eddie Graffiti

With two simple letters

hastily spray painted

on the back of a stop sign, 

Eddie had told the narrow minded 

hypocrites in his neighborhood 

just what he thought of them.

Matchless

Having sent him a copy of my new chapbook, "River", my friend, Elyria poet Alex Gildzen, sent me a matchbook from Nick's Place and the link. I am honored to be included in his latest mail project.

River

New chapbook coming together. Get ahold of me for a copy.

House Fire Snowstorm

I saw smoke

south on the horizon,

thought it was a factory,

but there's no industry

out there anymore.

This time of year

it's more likely a house fire.

I waited for sirens,

but none came

as dusty snow 

blew across Route 57

like so much ash.

As Loneliness Slips Into Obsolescence

I answer my messages

alone this afternoon

feeling social and

simultaneously anti-social,

but not the least bit

contradictory. 

One of my cats watches,

has a bath, waits for me.

With all this technology,

perhaps loneliness

will go the way 

of the rotary phone,

I say to the cat.

He looks up briefly, then goes 

back to licking his own feet.

When I set down my device

he jumps into my lap,

walks in two circles

and lays down. He is warm

and my friend, so I am happy.

We sit together as I think

about Ancient Egyptians

domesticating cats 

4000 years ago, 

wondering if they thought 

they'd rendered loneliness

obsolete.

Practical Cats Who Have Never Met T.S. Eliot

For our cats

the removal of our Christmas tree

is a practical matter.

It is not muddied

with nostalgia, nor sorrow

at holiday's end.

There's no dread

concerning January's

brutality, no

worry over

a lack of daylight,

the mental toll.

Our cats miss the tree

as a water source with

subtle pine undertones.

Concern over these 

tomorrows, the cruelty of winter,

is for the rest of us.

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