IMMORTALITY
If a leaf should fall
on your perfect wet cement
Do not reach for the trowel
to dig it out and smooth it over
Lift it carefully
Leave its jagged print
along with finger and thumb
on each side of the winding stem
There will be no need to impress
with your initials, or the date
CULPA
Perhaps there is no such thing
as an innocent bystander
Not even my relatives
the ever so neutral Swiss
holding the combatants
coats and wallets
hoping to win
no matter who loses
AMERICA ATTACKS AMERICA
There is nothing more prejudiced
than our immune system
It is always on the lookout
for anything different
to isolate and kill
If this were not so
we would be dead
faster than a scratch
from a dirty clawed cat
Sometimes the system messes up
and attacks the healthy cells instead
This is an auto-immune-disease
and the response must be suppressed
The body personal is hardly different
from the body politic
anything different looks dangerous
On this continent almost everyone
is a transplant and a threat
a lot of immune response arises from that
A black man in a white house
must be removed as soon as possible
even though he is a part of us
A course of immune-suppressants
must be started as soon as possible
or the patient will most likely die
In the body personal I don’t know
the names of any of the drugs
In the body politic it might be love
IN EULOGIES RECOUNT
Time spent in hammocks
watching the wind
having its way with branches
and light lightly licking the leaves
If not considered in the sum
should at least be added to the total
ALL AUSTIN’S CHILLIN’
Time gets a little bit bent around here
Barton Springs is as cold and as old
as the edge of the last age of ice
A Loop One four o’clock trip
is as long as a Mobius strip
Sometimes the words fail
but we’ve always got the music
RAIN IN JANUARY
It is raining
like it has never rained before
I mean, it has rained before
but not like this
Us warm in the falling night
holding each other and listening
to the particular pitter patter pattern
on the tin roof, that has never been
and will never be again. Amen
ZEN AGAIN
Before enlightenment
chop wood haul water
After enlightenment
the body still grows old
More water must be hauled
– hydration is important
More wood will be needed
the cold wants to be your lover
worm its way
into your
ever more porous bones
Write about it
as fast as you can
before your stories fall into the holes
WOOD RIVER WINDINGS
Just south of Courval ran
the crookedest river in the world, or
in Canada, or at least in our province
Crookedest river somewhere we were sure
which for some reason that I don’t recall
was always a source of great pride
Others might make the same claim
although no-one seems to be in a hurry
to claim their river as the straightest
The one with the least curves, switchbacks,
sand bars, and surprises around each bend
The one like the life we sometimes wish
but would never want
SCREENING MY CALLS
If you’re sending love my way
and I’m not receiving love today
It’s just because I’m standing behind
a round-holed screen within my mind
Bullets and BB’s will fit through fine
so take your best shot and I’ll take mine
Call tomorrow when the holes are square
and you’ll find a friendlier person there
All insults and snides the screen will deflect
and whatever you say will have a healing effect
ALAS POOR…
And we in this new old land turning up
with our plow
hammer heads, and arrowheads, and sometimes
a bone or two
and if one would be an uncrushed skull it would
be no Yorick that we knew
This noun, once verb, would mock us
in its grinning
all those with whom we might converse
are laid neath Hamlet’s soil
His redder kin scattered
like his bones