SEOUL SUNSET
Watercolor sky
boats islands and water too
sunset landing Seoul
Category: Travel
I GO WHERE THE WILD GOOSE GOES
I GO WHERE THE WILD GOOSE GOES
Smiling tip of the V
at the start of every trip
Last bird on the left
dragging my feathers home
WAIRARAPA
WAIRARAPA
The road
from Wellington
up into the Wairarapa
is a steep and winding road
through green as green as Irish envy
If you keep your eye
on the center line of the road
your breakfast may stay where you put it
If you look down
along the cliffs and crags
all the hardness wrapped in soft
to count the valley cows and sheep
your stomach will forgive you
tomorrow or the next day or the next
and you will always have today
WRITING THE AUSTRALIA TRIP
WRITING THE AUSTRALIA TRIP
We went to teach, we went to learn
we did a lot of both and more of some
We met amazing people – they met us
perhaps none will be the same again
Details I leave for further poems
which I hurry to hurry to write
before the ripples rippling out
are lost
clockwise and counter clock
down the toilet bowl of time
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
The Veeing geese fly freer now
across the autumn sky
No longer do they gorge
on my father’s golden grain
No longer do I lie in wait
twelve gauge at the ready
to bring them in for dinner
12.12.2012 AND COUNTING
12.12.2012 AND COUNTING
Been out of Austin six months now
two oceans, some rivers, and a sea
Gathering material to throw
into a big pot of Shiner Bock
A pinch of limestone ground real fine
eye of salamander, blind of bat
and horn of ram from the Shiner cap
With branches from an old live oak
leaves still clinging to the stock
a dozen poets stirring the pot
and breathing their words across the top
Watch it bubble and settle and steam
something will scum to the surface soon
haiku to draw through a slender straw
and cups of couplets in rhyming itme
The Mayan calendar is running down
but I’ve got next year’s Marilyn and
ten new poems, and plenty of faith
that awe and Austin will carry on
MEDITERRANEAN MUSINGS
MEDITERRANEAN MUSINGS
In the W hotel in Barcelona
……….. the beautiful people
There’s one now
……….. topless by the pool
No tan lines
confirm she does this often
And she does it well
……….. look good I mean
As if it was
… and it may well be
……….. a full time job
FINDING GIACOMETTI
FINDING GIACOMETTI
It is a high calling to be in trouble
as you travel along the road
creating good Samaritans at every trip and fall
The trick starts out by renting a car
from a small gas station/liquor store
Sketchy directions and a wrong turn
an unmanned toll booth and two tunnels
some workmen suggest the one to the right
a tunnel we thought would surface in England
Not England but where?
Industrial park on a holiday
one man working in the flowers
directions to get us a little closer
And then, what you don’t find
unless you get this lost
A town with a Giacometti university
and a statue in the circular town square
that might well have been worth
coming all the way to France to see
CARL HAS NOT LEFT THE BUILDING
CARL HAS NOT LEFT THE BUILDING
The first night in Zurich I dream
Carl Jung is teaching right across the park
– turns out that he did
Also dream of sitting at a sidewalk café
with my teacher who studied with him
many years ago
Across the street and half way down the block
I am only mildly surprised to find
the café and table still there
ROAD TRIP
ROAD TRIP
There is a stretch
in the long loping hills of Montana
where the laws of speed and time are not enforced
Where over every hill there’s another hill
that far to the bottom
and that far up the other side
A-sail, a-sail on an earth-rocked ship
two thousand feet above an ancient sea
Wheels endlessly humming
to the radio’s timeless tunes
Suspended forever midway
between those you’re running to
and those you’re running from