​This battered virtue cloaked
in the downing sun of its own unease
and so outspoken
yet all I ask of you is why
during these calls you persist
in the suffering
 
and ask, through these outbursts
by the pint of wine
how can I explore the depairanto
of languages spoken as one
oh hearer of tangle tongues.
 
I left you because I counted the numbers
of voices pending to the mood and needs
cribbed behind the mercy of their call.
 
By your term of less held beliefs there is a home
all silent walls call you to bed.
and the town crier is by all shores’
rattled escapes
following the iguana in a canyon 
escaping a slither of snakes.
 
I know you rang to buy me back and head
towards with this spring of ask but no, I
will not go into your suffocating ways
I will rush to the city of volcanic ash.
You can read my swamp hand plain
out of symbols.
Back to the slimy commando
lift of muscle and bone.
 

​Soul sleeplost beauty abandoned
waiting for the chorus of harpies
to laugh at our separating bodies
 
just like galley proofs and slaves
hollow heads exploding with the
cupcake girl-gangs worried about their
figures of eight and pieces of wombs
designed for just the two.
 
I am now between serpents audacious
but lanquid after swallowed
deciding between both
which fille-perdue I fall for.
 
Maybe it’s the time for the news
to entrail them in their moon and black
so it’s time for the jeopardy
blasting on our roof with Requiem
 
Half forgotten it’s time to feast
I’m between two serpents in the garden
Languid with easy snatches
Am I asking for the snake or its kill?
 
Like a galley slave chained to his bench
I fight wars not my own
And that includes yours.
 
Sweat it out sister
she’s already half forgotten
slashing in other towns.
 
 
 

​The sun burns a hole through
the sparrow-drab sky
filters through the melting barcode
of skewed greasy blinds .
I gave up on the night
when the pale yellow lights
of rush hour beaters
started sliding across the ceiling
and the sound of faulty plumbing
after a stuttering piss
to a repetitive soundtrack stung
with the hypochondria of sleep lack
that starts in the liver
and works its way up
to the skull.
Shadowboxing with Peter Pan
would be more useful
as running the same dalliance
with you, the past.
Eyes half open, feel
like a plate of glass
splintered by a speeding truck.
 
 

​ 
I have no fear
of your barbed-wire tongue
the way you played
when we were young.
 
Now you call
when you’re alone
so far apart like bone and stone
you make me shy, you make me whole
we can’t reprise our loving roles.
 
Buttressed by another’s kiss
I close my eyes and think your bliss
You were sharp, your lips were thin
I can’t believe I’ll ever win.
 
You’re a magnet with changing poles
You attract and then repel
I want to think, no let’s scratch that
You live alone
So far apart like stone and bone.
The guilt sits hard
 

​Nick, I’m crying and
I’m in love again - I think.
I couldn’t get through to you
last night. You’re sleeping beside me,
It’s a little awkward with him.
It’s like we’re in callipers
that stops me talking.
Now, I’m moving in my bed
like a pylon and you clatter
next to me like a fire escape.
Nick, I’m crying and I
can’t tell you I’m in love
with a painkiller and I’m shaking
like a musical valentine. Nick,
I’ll bleed through my eyes
again tomorrow. I just needed
to tell you tonight that
I was right and I wanted to stroke your
hair. I know I’m me and I’m emotional.
I know I like blue curtains,
red sheets and kitsch dogs
and phoning you in the
middle of the night. But Nick I’m crying
and I want to steady your hand
just in case you cry one time. I want to buy
silk pants and Stranger Music and the soundtrack
to ‘One from the Heart’.
I’m tearing away
from five ugly days of pain.

​Mother-like it stoops to watch Sheba’s endless
sleep, drapes its blush pashmina over her in spring.
Its trunk inclines across the slender path to bask in
solar warmth; branches grasp us as we grapple to pass.
 
After harvest, we shovel it out, abandon windfalls
to compost the ground, around the gaping cavity.
Repositioned by the wishing well, we pamper it, hope
sap will course through veins again and the chasm left
 
will not be needed very soon. In February’s gloom, we wait
for the man trapped in traffic, carrying a mercy-potion.
It takes seconds. Max is swallowed by the void as soil
shrouds him. We replant nearby bulbs, in memoriam.
 
I first saw Max in a dream-chase, the tabby scurrying
from Sheba’s shady grave. Now Max rests beside her.
Seedtime rays and drizzle foster apple blossoms to unfurl
today; narcissi gently waver where heads once bowed.
 
 

They met in dunes behind the bay;
seduced by warmth she cast away
her scant bikini top to bare
her virgin skin. Long fingers played
on tender breasts; as beach grass swayed
she bathed in his caress. She'll wear
a gown today when tests uncover
melanoma from her lover.

​

​Impounded, Maggie waits.
Too old to race at five,
undeserving of her sentence.

The pack surrounds us,
noses poke,
nostrils vetting pheromones.

They separate her, contain
the rest behind a gate;
stress-scratched.
 
Deep chest and long-legged
elegance capable of high speed
in three strides,
 
large eyes outlined, kohl-like
she stands statuesque, as if
on a mural in Pharaoh’s temple
 
Tiny scars from food fights,
fleck her face,
tattoos hide inside ears.

Lying overlong on stone floors
has worn bald patches
on muscle-bound flanks.
 
Muzzled, the retired runner walks
close without tugging, then lingers
beside me while I stroke.
 
 
 
 

​By chance I catch a glimpse of her,
salt and pepper waves kissing
cyan ripples about her neck.
 
A thousand Lepidoptera tickle
anticipation, until she whirls
around revealing an unfamiliar smile.
 
As I exhale they burst out
of my ribcage in a rush, transporting
all desires to an obscure realm.
 
One gatekeeper flutters back
hovering nearby
then settles on my lifeline.
 

​This morning’s sun reminds me of your old love letters.
Creased across the middle by thin black clouds.
Yellow, with an undertone of self doubt.
Wanting to explode,
yet intimidated by all that white space.
Unable to capture the warmth of earlier days.
 
This morning’s sun seems ignored by everyone but me.
Earbuds dislocating them from thoughts
of the failing star above their heads.
Safe in their soundtracks,
as I think of everything evaporating into dust,
adding tracks to my armageddon playlist.
 
This morning's sun casts barely any shadows.
Which forces me into painting my own.
Using green eyes, red lips and black hair
to create an undercoat.
While various eighties indie bands
deepen the hue of my manufactured gloom.
 
This morning’s sun will soon enough sink.
Its uncelebrated February light spent
across an uncaring hemisphere.
Quickly upstaged
by the starfucking antics of another slutty moon.
Throwing sloppy silver kisses at everything.
 

​I’m keeping castles at bay
with dreams of dirge in battleship grey.
No towering heroines
or chivalric skeletons.
No kings to cuckold or venerate.
No queens of dark guile and silk battlements,
to scale, defile and otherwise penetrate.
 
I’m keeping castles in check,
with defeat the divine form of attack.
No subtle strategy
or sly banditry.
Just a headlong surrender to the black.
No bishop, crooked pawn or graphic monarch
will keep me losing myself to this trap.
 
I’m keeping castles in ruins,
with time the executor of hopes undoing.
No kingdom won.
All damage done.
Old lost empires wailing and mewling.
Bricks and mortality reek of rusted heraldry.
Now decay is the only foe left 
​

​Spitting out kisses
hard as peach pits.
Your tongue, definitive as a dictionary.
A cloven-hooved dragoon
whose regimented drool
has conquered my lips.
 
You pin me at the hip
with lepidopterist accuracy.
Pulling off clothes as if wings.
Your touch delicate and invasive.
Fingernails persuading skin
into bone.
 
My fledgling flesh
pressed against your
storied pink architecture.
My awkwardness tormented
into fluidity under your
amused tutelage.
 
You make me beg
for each inch of heel.
Your thirsty mutt,
spewing doggerel.
Delighting you with filthy
sweaty morsels 
of subjugated lust.
 
And when you are done,
I am left to my 
smiling defilement.
Lost in a listless bed.
Red and soft
as discarded cherries.
 

 

​I cannot fathom
how missing someone
can be a good thing.
Remembrance
of a lover, however temporarily lost
always possesses a razor edge
and is as comfortless as a bed of black thorned roses;
as frantic as the ballet of the trapped moths;
as disturbed as the silences between an irregular heartbeat.
 
 
And yet you blithely inform
me this is the case,
and I must accept it.
I must swallow this new alphabet whole.
I must not choke on vowels,
or become overly distracted in my
digestion of large, foreign consonants.
You tell me it is the blissful absence of certain colours in autumn.
It is the enjoyable crackle of silence between songs on an LP.
It is glorious space after the final full stop of your favourite novel.
 
I am not convinced
that your response is suited
to the poetic algorithm
of my brain.
There, life is sorted
into categories of loss
and economies of pain.
There, every moon has a melancholy growl
and love is infused from the first with longing and woe.
Your suggestion,
that there is value in vacancy,
seems at best, heretical
at worst, revolutionary.
 
 
And yet here I am;
my logic half dismantled and redirected.
Not quite accepting the positives
of being missed,
and yet finding myself ridiculously happy in the knowledge
of the fact,
that in some unused closet of your heart,
in some unpainted hallway of your mind;
my absented self may have taken up residence.
 
 
 

​Naked, except
for the red glowing gown
of her cigarette.
She is trapped in a nebula
of carcinogenic narcissism.
The silver backed cell,
a trap for dark rimmed eyes,
brown as a forsaken Eden.
 
Taking inventory puffs.
Wreathing herself in smoke.
Her neck, unadorned,
thirsty white flesh.
Taut, imperfect.
but as yet free from the cruel
jewellery of passing time.
 
Her pink breasted magnificence.
Gravity as irrelevant as death
or affection.  Stomach flat
as a butterfly pinned to a board.
She adores her reflected glory.
All open legged abandon and fog.
 
And in this misty cloud of whispers,
she is seduced.
Long hours removed from her skin.
Lost in nicotine vanity.
An unsmiling tableau
of addiction.
 

Vandana Kumar is a bon vivant who loves travelling, working with young minds and exploring creative possibilities beyond the ordinary. She has done her masters in History from ‘Lady Shri Ram College’ – ‘University of Delhi’ and her Diplôme from the ‘Alliance Française de Delhi’.
She is a middle school teacher and also translates for various publishing houses and corporates. An active member of various quiz clubs across Delhi. She has a soft corner for Calcutta where she spent her childhood. Her various passions include singing, playing the piano, composing music and participating in local music competitions. She describes herself as a dreamer…a wanderer and a certified incurable romantic…the romantic moorings worsened with all her fancy French studies. She contributes poems regularly to online magazines and has been published in a couple of anthologies. Poetry for her is her stress buster – her flight of fancy – and strangely – what keeps her rooted too.

​In life’s see-saw
The sages you saw
In hues, not just one or two
And your hedonistic ways
Clearly got a thumbs down
Virtuous living after all
Eases suffering
In life of beyond
 
All your life you wanted to live
Through clichés galore
Who has seen tomorrow?
Life is here
In the now
 
And you rush to take a train
Wondering if it is to late
To walk barefoot on grass
Without fear of ants
All your life
You looked down at their ilk
Such disdain
They were so diminutive,
After all
 
 
You stretch out your palms
Encircle a flame
Hoping it would not dim
Or mistake you for moth
 
You begin your life
Some day in youth
Opening windows for summer breezes
And in sagging age
Closing doors
To cold draught
 
                   

​Some years from now
When those around us 
Perceive us as old
You infirm
Me terribly weak
 
We shall lie together
And hear them well
Perhaps in snatches
Of conversations
They do not know we overheard
 
Living room debates
Which child will sacrifice his sleep?
And a party in turns
To monitor
That medicine
Measure that injection dose
 
Let us suffer together
The indignity it might bring
As our ailments progress
And rank strangers know
Which ointment replaced which pill
 
So what if our memories elude
There will be days of deluge
 How we once sat at the kerb
With an energy of youth
 And between my Kafka
And your Marquez
 Said it all
Without saying it at all
 
So what if one refrain we skip
Of that Beatles number
 Once played on loop
A line here  
An out of breath rendition there
Will more than suffice
 
And friends’ names might slip
And things so dear to us once
Now even less than partial recall
 
Let us not pledge forever
In an afterlife
One you do not believe me
One that I have not see
 
Let us just promise to be  
You with your partial dentures
Me with my shaky grip on my cane
Cushioning each other
From the ignominies of our age
 

Pushing Doors
​

​Some balmy summer sublime
Indiscretions in your prime
‘Stairway to heaven’ you sought
That one joint shared
That seedy bar
Those pearly gates that opened
Heaving valley  
Whiff of that spread  
Garters et al
 
Conversations with old friends
You could tell it was getting inane
Forced chats that you fled
When you sensed their death
And doors that opened by chance
To rare conversations so intense
Lingering hangovers
Of the metaphors you used
 
Some entrances tantalized
A sneak preview you cried
Some deemed haunted since birth
But never ever spooked you out
Doors whose bells you tiptoed to ring
An inch in height gained
Or so you thought, such ‘make believe’ back then
 
 
 
 
Doors like our dreams
Reoccurring forever
Revolving in theme
 
Life has never been about the houses we lived in
Or those in which we did not
But about doors
Those that opened for us
And those –
Whose thresholds we never could cross
 
 

​Staring into the starry sky, on the wet grass, I lie.
As I close my eyes, with solace, I sigh.
For now I feel complete delight,
Beneath the dancing moon light.
 
I gawk at the stars against the sky stark,
While losing my consciousness,
To the reins of the dark.
And my thoughts once focused, now run around distraught.
 
A state of mind slowly evolves,
Where my thoughts rapidly dissolve.
An armour of emptiness is thus born;
The element souls don.
 
This emptiness sucks out my peace,
Replacing it with the mist of night,
That rises and swirls, and thickens and darkens,
Blocking every speck of light.
 
Nyx appears riding on a giant spider,
Crawling on its web of void that keeps growing wider.
I scream, I run, I stumble and I fall.
But it catches me, and weaves me in a tight ball.
 
I run out of breath.
And taste the kiss of death.
I feel its poison coursing through my veins,
And I laugh, I laugh as though my sanity is slain.
 
I’ve ventured far too deep,
So deep that now I know I never had a soul.
And to govern the cycle of death and life,
There was always this big black void.
 

 

Renee B. Drummond-Brown, am the wife of Cardell Nino Brown Sr. and from our union came Cardell Jr., Renee and Raven Brown. I am the offspring of Mr. and Mrs. Peter C. Drummond of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My siblings are Delbert D. Drummond and the late Pastor Shawn C. Drummond. I was born in North Carolina, at Camp Lejeune US Naval Hospital. I am a graduate of Geneva College of Pennsylvania, and my love for creative writing is undoubtedly displayed through my very unique style of poetry, which is viewed globally. My poetry is inspired by God and Dr. Maya Angelou. Because of them I pledge this: “Still I write, I write, and I’ll write!”
 
“Renee’s Poems with Wings are Words in Flight” is flown across the seas by God’s raven. There are several Scriptures that I love; however, this one speaks volumes during this ‘season’: “And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth.” (Genesis 8:7 KJV)

​We lamented in Ramah,
with bitter weeping for our CHILDREN.
HOW LONG?
We refuse to be comforted
because THEY still are not.
HOW LONG?
We refrain our voice and weep tearless eyes.
Has OUR reward been forgot?
HOW LONG?
We brought these KIDS from the land of the enemy
to a promise. Milk & Honey.
HOW LONG?
The land of the FREE
enslaves our CHILDREN’S CHILDREN’S, CHILDREN’S dreams.
HOW LONG?
We so wanted THEM to taste
The Bread of life’s Manna.
HOW LONG?
 
How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever?
how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?
how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? Psalm 13:1-2 (KJV)


 
Is there any faith, hope and love left to give THEM?
HOW LONG?
Shall ANY of our CHILDREN be left
to EVER reach Your border?
HOW LONG?
WE’RE TIRED OF ‘SANGING
THEM SAME ‘OLE SAD SONGS;
Another one bites the dust...
and another one of “US” (POW) gone.
 
HOW LONG
and how many more
REQUIRED to reach heaven’s shores
?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
with heavy shoes on.
 
But…with every good-bye;
still hope lies
on a promise. We trust.
 
 
Dedicated to: Another one bites the dust... and another one of “US” gone.
 
A B.A.D. RocDeeRay Production
 

 
Double ‘dutchin.
She minds her B I business;
‘jus-a ‘jumpin.
 
 
Grey skies.
Green money.
Silver grillz.
Gold chains.
Black asphalt.
White sheet.
Blue rhymes.
Yellow tape.
Red blood.
Glad she ain’t mine!
(I never knew double ‘dutchin was such a crime)?
 
 
She minded her B I business;;
‘jus-a ‘jumpin..
Double ‘ducthin..
 
 
Daddy’s ‘cryin.
Momma’s ‘PREYin.
Grandma’s ‘hate-in.
Wrong man locked up.
I’m ‘jus ‘sayin…
I never knew double ‘dutchin was such a crime??
Glad she ain’t mine!!
DO WE MARCH OR TURN OUR HEADS; AT THIS TIME?
 
 
Dedicated to:
She had the right to jump silent. And ‘everythang will still be used against her.
 

A RocDeeRay Production

Father God,
my heart cries out
for Antwon Rose;
who can no-longer write for his beloved momma,
poetries of prolific prose.
 
My heart cries out for his dad, family and grans.
who’s weighted shoes
for the rest of their days
are filled
with anger and steadfast blues.
 
My heart cries out for the community
who’s justice served will never brang
Emmett Till’s family
understanding that surpasses peace.
REMEMBER them sad sad songs
that we as coloreds
are now forced to sang for Antwon’s memories?
 
My heart cries out for Michael Rosfeld’s family
who’s bondage
will finally understand
our tormented 400 years of enslaved pleas;
and yet,
we’re “STILL” here counting a Kings dreams…
 
My heart cries out for Malcolm X,
WHO
 forewarned us;
what would inescapably happen next.
I guess “JUST”
like X said: aLLLLLLL
“OUR” chicken’s finally came home to roost! Father forgive “US”
for we “STILL” know not; what it is “WE” do?
 
Dedicated to: Everybody loses.
 
 
A RocDeeRay Production

In the Paleolithic age 
There was a sage 
Who invented smartphone .....
And a drone....
Do not question!
Only listen!
There were planes that could fly 
Electric vehicles that could ply 
Machines that could spy.....
Do not ask how and why!
Just listen!
Don't question!
All answers are found in religion 
Need not bother about science and reason 
Read the scriptures: read the gospel 
Read ' Mahabharata' epic battle 
Read the Qura'an and the Bible  
Till all the lingering doubts settle ....
Do not question 
Do not question!
Human progress through the ages,
Proletarian struggles for improved wages ,
The philosophers interpretation of the world
The scientists hard work - courageous and bold .....
Do not ever mention !
Else, you' ll be tried for treason!
Present situation is tragic 
There is dearth of logic 
Oppression and exploitation  are strategic 
Tools to the system  capitalistic
Do not question! 
Just, to the rulers, listen..! 

Keith Burkholder has been published in Creative Juices, Sol Magazine, Trellis Magazine, Foliate Oak Literary Journal, New Delta Review, Poetry Quarterly, and Scarlet Leaf Review.
He has a bachelor's degree in statistics with a minor in mathematics from SUNY at Buffalo (UB).

He was a former cop,
Well respected,
However, something happened to him,
He has reincarnated from the dead,
He has been dead for five years,
This happened to him recently,
No one can see him,
However, he can go about business in town himself,
He can always go back to his grave as well,
This new life feels great to him,
Death is a scary concept,
For anyone at large,
However, he is alive again,
Where will he go?
What areas will he explore in the world?
This is really up to him,
There is nothing else to add here,
For death is powerful,
A second chance at life greater,
Take care, my good man,
Do what you can while alive and live life the best way you know how now.

​This is a question to ponder,
Why is that these people who had so bad?
Have decided to marry and have a family?
Look nowadays it is really expensive to have a family,
Let alone get married,
My theory is that people have to fit in,
Or they love stress, a lot of it,
Think about it,
People love problems and causing ill will for others,
This has been around forever,
Too many people are having families,
This is at an alarming rate,
You can't tell someone that they are wasting their time,
We live in a world where people suddenly want to be nice,
Then when the responsibilities pile up,
They think otherwise,
We already have more than enough people,
On planet Earth, that is,
We actually could use a break,
For at least 50 to 100 years,
Again, as I have said before,
Believe what you want,
This is a free world,
I will believe in what I want to,
Take care for now and follow a path with prosperity,
Again, carpe diem.

​War is a horrible thing,
Yet, the military still has chaplains,
What can some religious person do?
When there is a war taking place,
I have never seen God or Jesus come out of nowhere,
When the news showed a war taking place,
They never help out any of the soldiers,
Yet, religion is forced down the throats of those fighting for our country,
We are a warlike people,
We have been since man was first on the planet,
Thanks in part to evolution,
God is not real,
Neither is Jesus,
What have they done for you and I?
Nothing,
Same with the military,
We need to realize people like problems,
They really do,
People get wired because of them,
When was the last you saw the quiet, pacifistic person with friends?
Never, because people like tensions and problems overall,
This will never change,
Ever,
Again, believe what you want to,
This is all you can do,
Take care for now and follow a good way in your future and again,
Carpe diem.

Whelan won first prize for poetry in the juried Leitrim Guardian 2012 Literary Awards. Whelan’s collection After God,a free-verse memoir of his lifelong quarrel with God, was published in 2014.  A set of Whelan poems on the prominent late Irish poet and novelist Dermot Healy appeared in the 2016 spring edition of éirways magazine. Whelan’s Clay Feet was included in the Martin Stannard August 2013 Collection, featured on The Best American Poetry blog. In 2017 OpEd News ran a profile of Whelan as poet in its Arts section. 

His work has also appeared in The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Coachella Review, The Washington Post,The Elegant Atheist, The Healing Muse, Little Patuxent Review, The Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe.

​There comes the bite of fright in the air. 
The light of morning in increments turns
Colder thinner. The mist-mellow-fruitfulness
Morphs. The trees are gone gray.
 
How awful.  Depressives plug in their light boxes. 
Moneyed snowbirds pack to fly to Florida.
But hold on. Some birds
savor winter. 
 
Nutty ones see it as a grace of season.
A mystery that expands you out of you
Swaddles you in ecosystem
Immerses you in universe.
 
Cold comfort on a cold day, you say.
And wry rightly so 
May you say no
To such mystery.
 
But oh 
What you expanded-wintered-out-of you
 
May be!
 
 
 

​It's a word that shrugs its
Shoulders throws the whole shebang
Overboard yet doesn't actually abandon ship 
Tolerates a stupidity by dethroning it
Knows what doesn't really matter
And so it carries pins to prick
Pompous balloons and
When told they don't
Serve wry bread 
Rolls its eyes
And sighs
 
What-evuh
 
 

​I wrote an elegy yesterday   it was   to and for
A man who was once a child.  I made
It warm and healing.  Somehow I
Know
             How to do
     That.
He was
       An odd boy when I was
An odd boy. But we were odd In
Ways different from each other's odd. You
Might call his the odd of the social simpleton.
Like: banging on our apartment door
When we got our first TV
And announcing My
Mom says I can watch your
TV for an hour – Even though he had
No invite
From us to join us.  His was
An odd odd also because he was
smart too:
He knew we’d
let him
In.
I had not seen nor been
In contact with this
Man-once-boy
Since I was
An odd boy a few
Years older than he was.
My odd was social too. I was
Afraid of girls. And was slowly drawn
To boys. And I would secretly fling small
Marbles from a high of our fourth floor window aiming them
To land near boys hanging out across the street
Who wondered what asshole was
Flinging goddam marbles among them
Who would not
Consider me
One
Of them. The boy-
Man who died had married
Fathered three children and worked
At a job I heard he did not like in Social
Security from which he had only just retired
With Social Security. His wife found him dead
In their pool. Heart attack? He was not a suicide
Type.  Whereas I alive am the suicide type.
And have no children. Never had a
Wife. Nor a husband, which
Latter is now socially OK
With normal people.
News of his death came as an in-
Terruption   call during a phone conversation
I was having with my brother, who had kept up
A kind of distant contact with him
So
When his caller ID popped
Up
On my brother's
Call
Waiting, my brother remarked
It must be bad news waiting because the man- Once-boy rarely if
Ever called. My bother's intuition
Was right. It was a call
Waiting to announce
The boy-man's
Death.
 
 
 

​Nakba, Great March of Return,
Back to Palestine.  Seventy years
Since we had our houses, villages, lemon groves.
Early in the day, coffee in my cup,
Sunlight caressing our tabletop.
Burning tires, throwing stones, setting kites afire.
Green print Hamas headbands for jihad.
Gasoline fires, billowing black smoke, wailing voices.
Shouts, protest signs, anger boiling onto desert.
 Sublime morning, light through scrub oak tops,
Red rocks backlit by slow rising sun,
Golden and transparent at their edges.
Rockets and drones lobbed to an enemy,
Hating, hating, hating, hopeless.
Tear gas grenades and bullhorns.
Easy talk on recent reads, kisses traded,
Laughter about goofy political news.
Bullets and rubber bullets fired into crowds,
Into our desperation, our poverty.
Warmth, pleasure, expectancies,
Gratitude for this life, this sunlight, this love.
 
You say there is a God who ordained this?
I have not earned these riches.
 

​Open the door, start your adventure.
Escape the cursed confines of the everyday.
Quotidian be damned and left behind, I say.
Come away with me to sail the Carib seas.
Believe me, I am a true pirate of the Caribbean.
Leave your ordinary, humdrum habits where they live.
We’ll sail to St. John’s, Tortola, Peter Island, Norman Cay.
 Sleep on the deck of the little sloop that’s sailed round the globe,
Beneath stars of other worlds glittering in indigo sky.
On a fine day you’ll sun bathe in the foot of the sail--
 
It’s a classic Kodachrome moment.
Can you hear the steel band playing, people singing?
Row ashore in that tiny dinghy to get provisions.
Stop for rum punch at the bar on the beach.
Watch the palm tops bending wildly, fronds rustling, in the wind.
Hold the tiller steady with your full weight in the gale.
 Straight through the Windward Passage, then the Narrows.
Bury the gunwales in the whitecaps.
This is romance!  I am inviting you!
Come away, come away!
 
Now go over the side, your face in the water,
Schools of blue tangs, shading navy to aqua as one.
Military striped sergeant majors move as a shoal.
Dusky damselfish hurries forth to protect her home of coral,
French grunt doing what they do best, glinting and grinding their teeth.
Through a thousand silverlings a large, solemn, dark red eye looks back,
Octopus glaring, hoping you just go away.
Hermit crabs lifting their repossessed shells, skittering to safety, shutting in.
A circle of squid suspended motionless, colorless, in sunlight below the surface,
Effortlessly moving off together in line, transparent sides ruffling.
 
Brittle stars, purple sea urchins, waving sea fans, elkhorn coral,
Parrotfish and box-shaped trunkfish, barracuda and dark angels,
Flame scallops dangling from the reef, siphoning, siphoning,
Elongate trumpetfish hanging vertical, so still, leopard rays flying soundlessly, ominous,
A sea turtle, bashful under its front fin beneath a vast brain coral.
Spiny West Indian fighting conch inching across the floor, pulled by its black velvet ruffled snail.
A second octopus gallops across the tall eelgrass sand flats.
Lookdown fish, silver jacks on the hunt, four-eyed butterflyfish, spotted groupers lurking,
A little jawfish smiles, showing his many babies in his mouth.
Black durgon outlined in blue-silver iridescence, wafting along as if there is no tomorrow.
 
Hurry.  Open the door, come away with me.  The islands and seas are calling.
 
 

“Rat” is a word that conjures
Filth, darkness, telling tales to trouble,
Scurrying, awful animal vermin.
I had no notion any different.
No idea of charm or endearing aspect.
I only knew what I’d been told.
Movie and TV characters,
Stereotypes of evil.
A tough rodent I ought to shun, 
Carries disease.
 
But I had a pack rat once,
Living under the warm corner of
My hot tub in the dogs’ run.
She did not ask my permission
To move in, nor did she
Announce her presence directly.
Instead, I had to discover her,
First suspecting her
From her habits of collection.
 
In the mornings I found
All kinds of things near the tub--
Sequins, buttons, beads,
Dog poop, ribbon, yarn, pencil ends,
An ever-changing array,
Depending on what the night
Had offered most recently.
She apparently had an eye
For fashion and glamour.
 
Well, maybe also scatophilia.
After all, why acquire dog poop?
I mean, you can see the reason
For beads, sequins and
Ribbons and lace, right?
But all that stuff was left
Just outside her front door,
As if she had it ready for
Her next trip to the airport.
 
If I cleaned her front step
She would just pile up
More new things the next night.
And I was worried for
Her safety.  The dogs were
Not always civil.  So
A “pest removal” service
Was called in on the case,
No kill, of course.
 
A steel trap was baited
And set near her primary zone
of operations by the tub.
Apple and peanut butter--
Irresistible.
She was trapped
The first night.
I took her down to our
Neighborhood trash site
And set her free there.
 
Figured she could make
A good living on trash
And not get mauled by
My dogs at least. 
But I was sorry to part with her--
Her fluffy whiteness, pink tail,
Stand out whiskers,
Rapidly whiffling nose and
Bright button eyes made
Me wish to travel with her.
 

​Once a river in South America,
But what now? The supplier of all things.
You can get mink coats, star anise, fenugreek,
Parts to replace defunct, broken plumbing,
The newest chic electronic minders, ready
To spy on you 24/7,
Rubber liners for your beater car’s floors,
 Anti-bark collars for dogs to spray them
With citronella, or shock them quiet,
Long out of print books, and tree ear fungus.
You just sign on and quickly run a search,
 And, if you do not buy one right away
They remember that you looked, and remind
You next time in case perhaps you changed mind
Betimes.  So convenient, so personal.
 What I wish they‘d add to inventory--
Hard as it seems to imagine any
Thing at all missing—is new relatives.
What about a new uncle or an aunt?
Someone who agrees with me, convivial,
Who is quiet and well- behaved always.
Who does not argue while at the table. 
Could you use a new in-law?  Many of
Us might, I think, if only they could be
Found available for instant packing
And shipping by drone. Gladly would I pay
For express delivery if the river
Could just have them here by the holidays.