Campmeeting

I climbed the field-stones

That perforated the edge of the patchy

Worn lawn

In front of the white

Barn-like tabernacle

I was too restless to sit inside on the

Slatted pine benches

My feet wouldn't reach the gray

Concrete floor

But through the wide screens

I could see paper fans

Like whitecaps

In a sea of beehive hairdos

The ebb and the flow of the

Evangelist's prose

Distorted the tinny speakers

Mounted under the eaves

For those

On blankets and lawn chairs

Preferring the breeze to the

Shoulder by shoulder press

Of the faithful

Basting in suits and long dresses

I knew the crescendo

The song leader rose

The organ began with

“Just As I Am”

The fisher of men cast

His net

Between verses

Every head bowed and every eye

Closed

I knew that the song would be sung

One more time

Then the screen door would yawn

And soon we'd be walking the black-oiled

Dirt road

To the snack bar for sherbet

Under the yellow floodlight

Popular Science

We discovered self-esteem

In our psychological

Blood stream

And like a vitamin deficiency

Everyone's was low

But that was fine

Because if yours was

High

We didn't like you much anyhow

We discovered killer bees

Swarming from Brazil

And we would soon

Be sandwiched in between

Anthophagous rage

And an impending ice age's glacial stream

I wondered if this would happen

Before I became a victim

Of spontaneous human combustion

Or a UFO abduction

Floodlight

At the peak of the barn carved

Shadows

Into the silent salt box house that

Leaned too close

To the country road I traveled

Every night

Its wide-eyed

Curtain-less windows

Stared

Onto an empty gravel driveway

And a treeless yard

With its cropped

Black grass

Some nights I would slow the car and

Peer into its hollows

Searching

For a glow

A movement

Someone standing in the dark

Looking back

I Needed You, Niagara Falls

Your cascading cataracts

Constantly coursing

Confidence

Cleaving the copious

Clouds

That congregate in this cranial

Crevasse

Clamoring to contradict my

Compendium of

Concern and consequence

Sing Out

Old troubadour

Forgotten prophet

Your songs have returned

From their forty year

Pilgrimage

To a world

Changed

But the same

Then

The wind carried your fervent words

Effortlessly

Now

Your voice cracks against the

Nostalgic breeze

Game of Words

'Sometimes'

Is the versatile Queen

Patient

Supreme

The Bishop and Rook

On disparate paths

Are 'always' and 'never'

Respectively

The expendable Pawns

Are the first to come out

Eager conjunctions

'And'

'Or'

'But'

The mysterious trail of the

Knight asks

'Who'

'What'

'When'

And the King

He is

'Yes'

Capture to win

I Predict

The common man now

Has the things that

In the past

Were saved for kings

The food we eat from

TV trays

Was royal nosh in ancient days

So

I predict some years from now

Foie gras chips

Truffle chow

One full aisle of chocolate bars will

Give way to various caviars

The frozen dinner fare

Will be

Quail Escabeche or

Duck Sous Vide

For fast-food there's

McEscargot

McGratin fries

McGelato

The only question that I have is

What will future gourmets crave?

With nothing left unique

Or rare

What

Will the Food Network air?

The Biggest Spider I Ever Saw

Was high up in the corner of the

Eave behind the downspout

His web was thick as cotton

And you could barely see 'im

He wasn't movin' any

He was just waitin'

I went back inside the house

Mom was watchin' TV

She was real quiet

There was smoke and people running

And the skyscrapers fell like

A pile of logs in a campfire

And the man on the TV said

Planes flew into them

I went back outside

I looked for planes in the blue sky

Then I found a long stick and

Went back to the corner of the house

The spider was gone now

I poked his web and curled it

Around the end of my stick

But he didn't come out so I

Wiped the stick on the green grass and

Broke it over my knee

Yeah, that was the biggest spider I ever saw

Lapping

The water pats the

Sailboat hulls

And wooden legs of

Piers

Lap

Lap

Listen

Buoys and gulls

The heartbeat of the lake

Against the break-wall

Rocks

Lap

Lap

Warm summer sun

Slows the pulse

Beneath the fishing dock

Lap

Lap

Mooring line abandoned as

Serenity unfurls

Lap

Lap

Pride

This illusive

Puppeteer

Moves me onto center stage

Bound by his seditious wire

Unbreakable

Except by fire

As tendrils raise defiant fists

My voice

But not my voice

Insists

“I am free”

Last Poem

As daylight backs away

From the window

And a lamp

Is left to prop up the

Shadows

Two hands pillow a

Thin paperback

Tucking words in

For the night

Ramekins

White as bone

Half buried in sand

In three orderly

Rows

Their wooden cupboard

Casket

Has dissolved

In the indiscriminate brine

These salvaged shells

Now on display

As they were found

The ship that bore them

Still decomposing

Leaving nothing but

Anomalies

Kite

Ambitionless

Without it's wind

Uncontrollable

Without it's tail

Rebellious

Without it's string

But as it wrangles and spars

It's way aloft

We point

Exclaiming

“Look at that!”

Convertible

Conspicuous

In the dense stream of hard-tops

No doubt headed for a road with

Fewer stops

Where a free wind will coax an eddy

From his silver hair

And time will drift behind the

Altered chords of a Steely Dan song.

A new world's guileless

Reflection

In his aviator shades

The summer sun invites us too

Out of our air conditioned

Cocoons

As we stare out of our practical windows

Amid the stirring of our soul's

Envious wings

Sesame Seeds

Tasteless adjunct

The purpose of which

Goes unnoticed

Among

The flood of

Fast-food feasters

Who never lose

Grip

On their bun

For Pity's Sake

Pity the rich man

Pity the

Poor

Pity the beautiful

And for different reasons

Pity the plain

The strong

The weak

The bold

The meek

All deserve some pity

Too

Pity the failure and

The successful

And tailor

Your pity toward those who've

Known neither

Feel sorry for the one in front

And the underdog

For pity is the string that

Ties us

To another's cause

'Til it's too late to see

The net

To which the string belongs

Breath

Not a one-time

Shot

Into the lungs of Adam

But an inhale

Exhale

Suspending atoms

As if you were on your back

Keeping afloat

A wisp of universe

A feather of

Existence

If you held it in for

Just a beat

All would return to

Dust

They Still Build Trains

In a world of jets and

Electric cars

Satellites

And deep space probes

To slap out a rhythm

On rails as old as

Great grandfathers

The world will move on

Inevitably

When the only light on the dusty

Rolling mill

Comes streaming through smoky windows

Who will mourn the loss of such a

Glorious metaphor?

Without You

I lean a little

To the left

Or right

As if

I'm missing something

A rib

Perhaps

Memphis

Sleeps in the day

Dreams of

Itinerants

Tourists who stay

In downtown

Hotels

And move shade to shade

But the evening

Blues

Has called her awake

And she

Jeweled in neon

And modestly draped

In her black-water

Wrap

Hosts a thousand

Soirees

Old Dog

Wandering again through each

Stale room

Looking for what

He knows

The man who gives him food

Who talks to him and

Strokes him by the chair

He knows the startling

Snap

Of its footrest

He knows the loud

TV

And the push and pull of snoring at night

But he doesn't know the somber one who

Now fills his bowl

Now talks to him soft and

Childlike

He doesn't understand the empty chair

The quiet nights

The silent

TV

Or where they took his man

Still asleep

Everything But...

I'm the last to know and the last

To go

The counted chicken that

Never hatched

Crowd maker for two

Left standing without

A chair

The last one picked

Fifth wheel

On the bench

In the dark

Stooge

Dupe

Gull

Mark

The kitchen sink

Advice

A maverick

May seem admirable

Iconoclasts

Courageous

A nonconformist

Lots of fun

Except when driving

You never want to ride

With one

Snow Angel

It doesn't matter

What you've done

Who you are

Where you're from

If you can spread your arms

And legs

And disregard a chilly bum

You can leave a

Transient print

Of what your mom hoped

You'd become

I Found Truth

On a busy street

Lying like a stone

At the bottom of

A puddle

Worn by years of attention

Now discarded

To pull it from its murky bed

Meant leaning in and

Getting wet

So I resigned to watch it

Disappear

Beneath the swirling

Turbid veil

And was left with

My reflection