The Moment

June evening

Phoenix

As she was leaving 

I was arriving at the Havana Café.

She was tall, in her early fifties,

wearing a white cotton dress.

It was the stuff of sudden connection,

some would say love at first sight.

Time slowed down.

Her dazzling, hazel eyes settled on mine 

like hands reaching out to caress a tired face,

reminiscent of a time when we might have known 

each other before our creations.

She was lovely, nearly angelic, 

stepping lightly across the dusky parking lot,

turning, a backward glance, a subtle smile,

before disappearing into a waiting Volvo,

leaving behind a trace of her timeless, 

luminous fragrance. A deep sigh.

My heart beat a little faster.

The hostess seated me. 

With a friendly pat on my shoulder

she said, 

Down boy.

From: Memories Of Things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 29

Janis And Grace

After a little too much wine,

I wandered into my back acre

where I discovered a rabbit hole.

I peeked in and saw it was dark,

but no way would I try to enter,

though I might have if I had been 

much smaller or the hole much larger.

I recalled the lusty, beautiful mayhem 

of the 1960s and remembered my crush 

of the era, Grace Slick, singing “White Rabbit.”

What a spine-tingling, powerhouse voice.

At the time, the song was mysterious to me— 

a white knight talking backwards?

a hookah-smoking caterpillar?

the pills that mother gives you?

That last one I think a push-back 

against the elder hypocrisies.

It wasn’t until 1968, after “White Rabbit,” 

that I finally read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

What a curious, amazing place,

and what a trip Alice had. 

I wished I could have done that.

“White Rabbit” still gives me the chills.

And Janis Joplin, having nothing to do 

with rabbit holes in this sense, God bless her,

I don’t think she ever got her 

Mercedes-Benz or a color TV,

but that was the last song she recorded 

for her album, Pearl, before she died 

three days later in October, 1970.

Another tragic loss for the era.

Caught up in the mystery of nostalgia,

I poured more wine and looked

across the grasslands of my home.

Grace wasn’t here yet, but I could hear Janis, 

her passionate, raspy voice singing 

like her insides were shattering, letting loose 

into the wind pieces of her broken heart.

I raised my glass of wine.

Here’s to you both

and to what a time that was.

From: Memories Of Things Left Behind

Unpub. MS p. 37

A Movie Dream

It was there,

life and death,

the six-fingered man

accused me of killing his father.

I killed your father? No.

Where’s Westley?

Out pillaging the world.

The countless echoes from

the Cliffs of Insanity are guarded

by a sword-wielding Buttercup.

What of the prince?

Forget the prince. He’s a sissy.

We need a miracle!  Call Max.

He knows everything.

No. We just need Fezzik.

Then we can storm the castle.

Buttercup and Westley are married 

by the Impressive Clergyman.

Vizzini and Inigo Montoya 

arm wrestle for a horse.

Inigo wins; Vizzini protests:

That’s Inconceivable.

Buttercup and Westley,

Fezzik and Inigo

ride into the sunset.

All’s well that ends well.

From: Dreams, Memories, &

Leaps Into The Wilderness

Unpub. MS p. 27

Early Morning

Under this clear blue sky,

sitting on a towel in blue jeans 

and a red Tee on damp steps,

sipping coffee with the sunrise,

orange and yellow;

wisps of high clouds appear

as if from dreams of ideas,

barely thought out, 

stretching themselves fearlessly.

I’ve seen this many times before

while wandering Pacific shores, 

deserts, and from the forest’s edge, 

how they will blend together, 

shades of white on white, 

as on a painter’s pallet,

without effort,

without the heave of collision, 

creating again and again, coalescing

into something imaginative and new,

and all we have to do is wait and watch.

From: Small Places, Big Places, Everywhere 

Unpub. MS p. 7

Set Love On Fire

To fly with wings ablaze, the moth 

cannot resist a flickering candle.

Inside the needle’s eye a growing universe.

Its constellations and galaxies need no scale.

You wonder how is the embrace you long for

that will set love on fire, split from all else.

Despite all the words written about 

love and beauty, your silent gaze says it best.

The grasslands whisper, You have tasted 

the sweetness of wind. You are the Universe.

From: A Meandering Search for

Innocence, Time, and Love

Unpub. MS p. 5

Absence

A restless night,

up early.

Yard work at sunrise, 

then shower, coffee, breakfast.

Reading headlines:

Ozzie Ozbourne’s cause of death;

Brad Pitt buys a mansion for 12 Million Dollars;

famous women are wearing see-through clothing;

I couldn’t care less about Kanye West.

Evening Tequila, like a savior, 

sets this corner of the world upright.

The grassland sighs with the swirling breezes;

the stars are intense, glittering eyes;

a bird, into the good night

floats its sleepy trill.

From: Shorts: Short Poems

On How We Ramble

Unpub. MS p. 60

Radio Flyer

Remnants at best memories are,

lodged or dislodged by strange forces

that come out of nowhere.

We try so hard to remember some,

equally hard to forget others.

They’re all there,

even if we think some are lost forever.

I’ll never forget my first kiss

and the panic in my heart.

My first wagon, a Radio Flyer,

in which I traveled the Universe.

My first bike, a Schwinn.

My first rifle, a .22, at eleven years old.

My marriage to a beautiful woman

and the bewildering beauty 

of the births of our children.

Mountains are grafted where valleys lay;

It was winter…or was that early summer?

Things were shiny? Or big? Or small?

Did they ever exist at all?

The faces, the places, 

the joys, the broken hearts.

Memories are strewn in our heads 

as if by five-year-olds 

who played with them all day.

Sorting is futile at any age.

We cling to our vague certainties 

of who did what and when.

They were like jewels in the fog,

but we fill the gaps with what seems possible

and change them if something seems better.

Even siblings, under the same roof, 

witnessing the same things,

rarely agree on what happened.

However messy it is, we still say, 

Oh yes, I remember that…

And for a minute, utterly convinced.

From: A Preface To The Universe:

Women, Getting Older, and

Other Mysteries

Unpub. MS p. 27