What's left behind
when the City leaves?
If time is a thief
and tomorrow a treasure,
why is the past
still here?
The cat on top
of the book case
hunts in his sleep.
One paw stretches,
claws extend,
and some small
thing gets buried
in his fist.
I can hear the rumble
of his pleasure from here,
can almost taste the warm.
If time is a thief
I am a watchman
holding my light
against the night.

A note from a few babyboomers to OWS

We stand in silence
because this time speaks for itself.
We cannot give our small voice
to the shout of today.
As always the young are in front,
willing us to wakefulness.
We wish we could let them know
they will not fail.
We would tell them
we never gave up hope.

Do you remember the longest hour of your life?
I bet it involves a loved one leaving. Mine was.
On a bench covered in green fabric, 4 in the morning,
near the bank of elevators
waiting for my brothers Scott and Jeff.
Our mothers' body on the way to the morgue
in the basement of the hospital.
When the elevators'
doors open it seemed like the gates of Heaven
and a bright radiance filled me,
and the hour was done.

Been years since these late October winds
have blown through this melancholy heart.
The rattling noise comes, I guess, from a faulty framework.
Once said "What cannot bend in the wind, breaks."
That is what I hear, late at night, as I lay to sleep.
What was once sturdy stands unsure in these winds.
I am not frightened, that lies behind me,
I feel like I want to be cast up, outside,
let me go where I will. Roots mean little to me now,
how can I stand still any longer while the geese
follow the same road that I paid for with my love.

Lock-up Lucy was a Prozac junkie,
a certified ward of the state.
She was a main street maiden,
an alley cat hellion.
All the cops knew her on sight.
She was a cross-eyed vixen
in need of a fixin'.
She'd pull out her no string guitar,
and sing like the chorus of Heaven.
She works the corner of Main and Market,
across from One Hand Armand’s,
in Tangle Town.

One Man, One Poet

When asked what kind of poem I would write about America,
I would rather write about how we beat the PACs
by grass roots smarts, an angry vote, and facebook.
By Yankee stubbornness we caught the wind,
harnessed the Sun, grew our fuel in cornfields.
I could write this, almost, and tell true.
I would write, instead, how we are nearing that point
where our only choices will be Yes or No,
not when, not if, not why.

When the poets gather in their hundred thousands,
in malls, in bookstores, in squares,
I will rise up among them, poem in hand,
I would rather read how children are happy,
how delicious the rivers of my home taste,
how the histories of our lives are carried forth
in the stories we tell around the table,
generations in one room,
telling so that we will remember
where we are from.

My poem will not be that one.
It will be the one where I fear
for the sitters at my table,
and hope we are as strong as we need to be.

What's shaking, dude?

There is a man I know
who does big important work
and makes impressive money
but shakes his wife when he's drunk,
leaves her bruises like jewelry
and turns tears to fear.
AC/DC playing Ride On
and I killed a good bottle of Pinot Noir,
and remembered when his wife
was the toughest girl I ever met.
The light of Buddha shined in her,
and the earth caressed her very feet.