Quote:Martin Luther King, Jr./ Poem:

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

--Martin Luther King, Jr.



Half-way to Heaven
or Where was God?
Based on film/photos of the holocaust

These were my girls- stacked
like cord wood naked to a ditch.
Limbs in all directions, along with men-
a death orgy in shades of black & white.

Once we stood in bars leaning on one another
touching layers of material to fumble arousal.
Their names so easy
back then
to remember.

When I entered this death place fatigue-clad
led by stench to this magi-less scene,
those alive like ghosts from a Dickens’s tale
pointed to these heaps of limbs, half-way to heaven.

Modesty untangles the bodies
as those filled with sin and dust
drag and straighten atrophied appendages
for burial.

These are not just
my girls, come to think of it
they are me
they are you
the abyss the tight rope.

I danced with her
I’d know her ankle anywhere,
and yes that knap of neck, now
so elongated that my lips
would fit thrice in that space-
when one kiss was always
enough. Those places on bodies
we never mentioned but moanly vocalized-
splayed to nausea and overted eyes
and no light. There is no light.

Invitation to Poetry: “Tell Us What You’ve Found” | Abbey of the Arts

Invitation to Poetry: “Tell Us What You’ve Found” | Abbey of the Arts

Quote: Edgar Allan Poe Poem: Crows in the Belly

Edgar Allan Poe wrote, "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."

Crows in the Belly

For Sally

In the belly
so dark past wounding
crows emerge; like witnesses
to a prayer service under
a canvas tent.

Wings raised in decrepit
angles of praise and pain.

On his back lays the slain.
Warm hands
Combing ruffled feathers.

Yakima Fruit Market Surprise!

Thanks to the Yakima Fruit Market for putting my name in lights! My wife Gwen called me from under the sign to tell me. Here is the poem:

Yakima Fruit Market in Winter
Funny fruit people adorn
articulated doors as vacancy
erupts all around.
The Christmas trees are gone-
a carpet of needles shifts
above the ground.
Steel poles holding nothing.
they are the last structures
to go before March.

Quote: Murial Rukeyser Poem: Tracing Yesterday

Rukeyser's advice was to write about the things that they tell you to forget.


Tracing Yesterday
Do you remember standing
Between here and there,
Laughing with glee
That the chase was on?

Watching dust billow
From those Red Ball Jets.
Resting to drink from a hose
Any hose; the taste of rubber
into cool water. Soaking your shirt
Then your whole body. Summer hot
And wet.

Moms call us in with their dog day warnings
And they’d be the only ones who’d nap.
Harnessing our youth in afternoon calm.

Looking out the window
That now seems smaller
And yards shrunken
It seems right to jump
The bulkhead once more.

History of PRH | Personality and Human Relationships

History of PRH | Personality and Human Relationships

Quote: Hebbel Poem: All can be Reflected

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion."

--Hebbel





All can be Reflected

Take my fathers rhymes
Add my mother’s gifts,
Give it to me, fresh
As home baked bread, strong
As an oak tree. Stiff
As carded wool.
My time, aging and moving
Carrying bits of memory;
When trolleys sparked
And asphalt was agitating.
Bend my days and cure
My soul
Let me lean into it.
Lend me clues, a green leaf
Into tomorrows yellow.
A cracked chestnut
A caressed nipple.

Take a son’s conversation
That leaves a line
Hung with wet laundry.
A missing button on a sun dress
Revealing. The crow on the wire
Waiting. Life in domino zags.
A sticker bush of yesterdays
Rose full today.

The trees, yellow like
Lamp light before dark.
Cut grass with its smell
Windows that shine an autumn
Orange, reflecting moments
In a harvest moon.

Brothers and sisters
Who rested in father’s lap
Now scramble for familial
Security, yet find no comfort
Without the coarse weave
Of rumpled trousers.

Supple memories pillow dad's funeral closet.

Bear Myth for New Years

The constelation lost a star, it landed in the wounded eye of bear who could not stand on two legs for long periods of time. On all fours, searching the sky created the hump in bears neck.