The Poetry Marathon

Ten Years Ago

Thinking of ten years ago makes

me think of ten years from now.

I’ve been spinning around this globe

for seventy five years and notice that

its speed seems to be picking up.

I’m on a carousel, trying to grab a ring

that’s getting harder to grasp because

the prizes that seemed within reach

are starting to fade from view.

Africa, New Zealand, India, Vietnam are

places I can visit but probably not all of them.

I can’t do everything I once thought I might.

It’s hard to grasp a world without

maybe I’ll go there somedays

or maybe I’ll do that somedays.

Maybe my fear of missing out is

pitting myself against my desires.

Perhaps I should listen to the fire in

my belly that looks for art in everything

and shines a light on where to go

as it puts my mind to sleep.

The Road to Somewhere

I made a small gesture

by paying the ten cent toll

on the trip that all my learning

prepared me for though

I didn’t know it at the time.

The small entry point to Canada

welcomed me to the rest of my life

though all I saw was a stop along the way.

The couple in the front seat

had picked my up at a

homeless shelter in a church

where an earlier ride had dropped

me off after giving me a ride

in the hardest rain of my life.

I could tell he didn’t want to

take me in but felt too guilty

not to as I knocked on his window

in a rain so hard he had

to stop on the freeway.

The kind people in the church he took

me to warmed up the put away meal

and found me a ride to Canada with

a kindness that shrouded me in love.

It was a sunny morning as we passed through

the border post and further down the road.

It wasn’t until recently I realized that maybe

someone else or maybe me on a different day

would have given up and taken a bus back home

on that first day that I left my old life behind.

I didn’t know life without making plans.

I didn’t know each day can be its own story.

Perhaps the biggest lesson in all my

studies and talking with buds

was to forget everything

and start each day as if

I didn’t know anything.

Starting to get in poetry head

a part of me that to snow is a sled

and different than wonky things

rattling ’round in my head.

The Commune

Perhaps my life has been random.

Or it could be that every step has been planned.

Why did I extemporaneously quit dental school?

If the stars were different or the sun out that day

maybe I would have stayed.

Calling Mike from the battered, graffiti covered pay phone

and asking if I could join his commune.

The subsequent call to my mother who understood my quitting

dental school but asked that I not join one of those hippie communes.

Mike helping me move in and then finding that I had to be voted in.

The questions and answers in front of the group.

How did I feel about group nudity was a tough one.

The celebratory joints when I was accepted.

The joyous jaunts to second hand stores to buy old rugs and furniture.

The nine-bedroom house for $350 per month rent in Philly’s fashionable Main Line

that was only so cheap because it awaited demolition to become apartments.

The landlord who said we could do whatever we want with the home.

All of this in stark contrast to any other alternative that I faced on that

dark and rainy day in a run down section of North Philly.

There was laughter and creativity and talk about changing the world.

For me it was a pause in my hyped up engine of having to be somebody.

A time to regroup and realize that everything ahead didn’t need to be planned

when you are twenty two.

I gained the strength in that group to then be alone.

And after a seven thousand mile hitching adventure that became the rest of my life

I found a place where the rain wasn’t depressing and a vocation that

captured my fancy and the just right partner for the rest of my life.

All because I was smart enough to know I needed a group to make me

realize that I could be alone which I needed to understand before I could clearly see.

There are Times

There are times when my side aches

as my ribs go in and out in reaction

to what someone has said. My smile bursts

with concavity and I show plenty of teeth.

Other times I react to what someone says that

is so outlandish that my face looks the same

but with a touch of irony in my eyes and only

the normal in and out of breathes to mark my sides.

In both cases my eyes may fill with tears.

I feel good in the first case and pain in the other.

How can such opposites have such similar reactions?

Maybe there are just so many reactions and we have to dole them out.

When we’re out of anything new, recycle the old.

How I feel depends if I’m happy or sad, elated or mad.

So maybe we should stop this nonsense and just be stoic.

After You

I am one of Harvey’s hummingbirds.

I know…it ridiculous to act like he owns me.

But ya know he’s got some of the best sugar water around.

And he doesn’t forget to refill it like his lazy neighbors.

So it’s an easy gig but there is a catch.

I wish I wasn’t so intuitive but I can see

Harvey’s not so crazy about when I chase

Chester away every time he tries to swipe

my food.

Oh, excuse me – there’s Zoe.

I need to fly way high like this

and, hang on, swooooop down so fassssst!

That must have really impressed her!

But back to Harvey and Chester.

Yeah it’s kinda hard to do I admit

but I don’t want to disappoint Harvey

so Chester go ahead, after you.

Ya gotta realize I lap up nectar

eighteen times a second,

I ain’t no slouch.

I can catch up.

So go ahead Chester

Please you first.

But stay away from Zoe!

Moms

Moms cook up a storm

is just how it is.

Kids can play while

she does her biz.

Dad works in the office

fixes teeth like a whiz.

She mixes up batters.

I lick what gets splattered

on the phone she loves chatter.

I eat, run and then scatter.

Elaborate meals she often made

I hated coming in from where I played

Street ball is where I wished I stayed

but changed my mind with her marinade

which was worthy of a motorcade.

Many years and events have come and gone

Colleen’s in the kitchen and loves to cook

a favorite companion, her cooking books

and the meals she makes won’t be mistook

they are labors of love as if from mom’s guidebook.

Who I Am

I wander through this life, a tourist.

I try to be sincere, a purist.

Sometimes events are happenstance

and there are times I want to dance

but mostly it’s a game of chance.

Be kind to strangers I try to be

knowing it comes back to me.

Keep track of news to some extent

but too much of it can cause torment.

Keep away from what’s securest as

I wander through this life, a tourist.

Be kind to strangers I try to be.

Don’t come off like I’m bourgeoisie.

Look in their eyes, not absentee.

In the end what seals the deal is

show the world my best cartwheel.

Big Red

Our pond is a symphony of stories.

Dug twenty feet from our home

in the horse pasture that long before

had been part of a forest.

I look across at the totem that Vic built

in a piece of old growth cedar that had

been sitting in his yard.

What do you see in it? I asked

A Thunderbird, he replied.

Across from that are big leafed plants three feet high,

maybe a hundred of them that monopolize a twelve foot hill,

a present from Miriam many years ago that was

one plant in a small pot that fit in my palm.

Most years I send her a photo saying something

like The kids done grown up!

The first tree that I planted in the whole yard was a willow

to the south that once had orange paint on it

when we returned from a long trip and

turned out to be a swastika.

The neighbors urged me to call the police

but I wanted to figure it out for myself and

proved my mettle as a detective.

After a talk with the guilty kids

and parents there is now a peace pole

and shrub nearby that the boys planted as a

token of redemption and understanding.

And then there’s Big Red that I haven’t seen this year.

A monument to survival, he may have met his demise.

I used to put fifty feeder fish a year in the pond. They were small

and grey but grew large and beautifully orange/red

until the herons would pick off every one of them.

I outsmarted them and got a dozen fish too large for herons to eat.

The first night I heard the angry snarls of raccoons decimating

most of them but not Big Red and one other unnamed motley colored fish.

They were survivors and have lasted many years.

I have a tinge of sadness as the water surface is still

but still I have some hope because I know Big Red

knows how to hide.

Yet I also know that the pond reflects all our lives

and the transitory nature of all sentient beings.

We’re here for a while and then go the way of Big Red.

Dear Harvey

I am thrilled to course through your veins

and down to your hands onto what looks a lot

like typewriter keys but I know is something else.

I’m your grandfather Harry

and you were named for me.

You would think I’d be marveling

at so much that has changed.

But you don’t understand.

Nothing has changed.

I won’t use a lot of words because

all you need to know is simple.

Follow the Ten Commandments.

Especially, honor your father and mother.

I taught your mother by example.

I always had a flower in my lapel

and gave the best advice I could

to those that sought me out.

But of course the Great Depression

taught me a thing or two.

So what can I tell you?

Life can move in mysterious ways.

When you can, try to understand

that it’s not what you do

but how you do it that will

be your legacy.