Introduction: Except as otherwise indicated, the following is a collection of my own verse and of poems I like to read. This document is where I go when I have the opportunity to read to others.
Omega Days
Live Free – Live Now
Nurture Relationships
Family & Friends – Embrace New Social Technology
Bike Circus & Coffee Meetups
Involve Children & Young People
Live Simply
Independence & Solitude
Minimize Driving – Use Cycling & Public Transportation
Take Every Opportunity to See Family
Read, Write, & Teach
News, Fiction, & Non-Fiction
Travel
Ireland & Roman Europe
Meditate –
Seek Higher Awareness
Penny Whistle & Ukulele
Pursue Culture in Social Settings – ‘Go To …’
Live Music
Simulcast Opera
Theatre & Film
Museums
Maintain Health
Eat Well
Practice Yoga
Avoid Toxicity, Controversy, & Drama
Enjoy Regular Massage & Pedicure
Attend to Medical Maintenance
Mother May I
Greet all creation with loving-kindness,
Share in their joys and sorrows,
Seek serenity,
Practice peace.
Love everything,
Crave nothing,
Be at peace.
And cease.
Spanglish Kaddish
Uncle Walt-o es muert
Uncle Walt-o es muerto,
Centavos for the old vato.
Seething Disneypark, salty crowd
Queuing for the craic
Gentelleros hoscos, muy loud
Olvera becoming Oliveland
Ey, old companero
A donde es Atzlan?
No space birthplace
On yer bike, pachuco!
No recuerdo Los An-ga-lees
Move on!
So long.
Hollywood adios,
Bros befo’ hos.
2003 -> 2023
Bag Lunch
Old crow bobbing judgment
Guernsey Park sunshine and
Snow in deep shadow
Chess table available
For small wars.
Empty playground pregnant
With possibility of almost mothers
Cotton shifts, daffodils, crocuses
And sandy bummed kids.
Old vato dabbling in a book
Daydream on ~ munch a bag lunch.
Listen to wrens splashing the sundial.
Happy as the bird is black.
So long Gurenesypark
Adios Guernsey pals
Roll on
April ‘04
Whisky on the Veranda
Whisky on the veranda and
Sun-shined children flutter ~
Islands unlock as chimney pots gauge
Goose flights heading home
If by some divine indulgence
I kenned my days and
They were few, I’d spend two
Sipping whisky on the veranda
With you.
March ‘04
24″ Rainbow Schwinn
In ‘48 Double Bubble
And me patrolled the Burma Road
(Of Summit Avenue, Pasadena, California)
Aak, aak, aak, aaaaaaak!
Detonated Zeros became
Magnesium stars
Swirling like snow
Into steaming jungle
Aak, aak, aak, aaaaaaak!
They fell like dandruff
On Smiling Joe Stalin’s
Bloody epaulettes
Aak, aak, aak, aaaaaaak!
I flew home for refueling
Peanut butter & Jelly
On homemade bread
. Feb. ‘05
* * * *
Seattle
Hip, Young, & Sooo Single
But terminal
Tattooed 30-something got de pox.
Paradise cum compost pit.
Sea hawks shit Styrofoam.
Don’t smile or speak.
Checkers disconnecting, strictly business
Words separate, don’t conjoin.
Paddle palming gays pissed off, alone
Invisible, just passing through
Kids and puppies, open doors
Curiosity surmounts barricades
Not in Seattle.
Young mothers tune out with iPods
Dead but don’t know it.
Gut shot deer still running.
On empty.
RIP
June 27, 2007
Them Dog Kickers
How about Them Dog Kickers,
Ain’t they crumbs?
Kickin’ them doggies,
In they buns.
Kickin’ them Afghans,
Kickin’ them mutts,
Kickin’ them puppy dogs,
Poor little butts.
Look at Them Dog Kickers,
Ain’t they cute?
Some use a shower-shoe,
Some use a boot.
Them dadgum Dog Kickers,
Ain’t they mean?
Run ’round kickin’,
Ever dog what’s seen.
How to be a Dog Kicker?
Don’t need a ticket.
Find an old dog,
Haul off and kick it!
Mason Williams
Mother May I
Greet all creation with loving-kindness,
Share their joy and sorrow,
Find serenity, and
Practice peace.
Love everything
Crave nothing
Find peace, and
Cease
January 2006
The only thing I crave
Is to crave
Nothing
September 2013
Pleasure
Mum when the world was two
Da’s engineer boots and lunch pail
Kisses from Spot, Queen of the Rat Terriers
Hoop rolling with Pat Neal, future hero
Rainbow Schwinn, iron charger
Daisy, a gun to defend America
Sabot sailing the Spanish Main
of Glorietta Bay
*
A Summer girl in cotton dresses
A basket, wildflowers, white wine, and
a kiss
A baby, us dozing in the second dog watch
Children underfoot, noses to wipe, then kiss
Blowing bubbles, and
By God, a grandson
*
A book, a glass, and hearth in winter
A night’s sleep
A story to tell
*
Mother Ocean,
Crystal Constellations,
Laughing Cosmos,
A kiss
Goodnight
When Blackberries
When blackberries lined the lane
You brushed my hand and
Hold it yet as winter’s tide
Crests the reef at Red Strand.
From time to time
Black stained lips still
Kiss mine with urgency
Echoing that first embrace.
Will I love you less for wayward
Grey I sometimes find
Or lines which sun paints
At the corners of your eyes?
I who by your grace
Find beauty in every breath
And thrill to your smile.
When Blackberries
by Jack
When blackberries lined the lane
You brushed my hand and
Hold it yet as winter’s tide
Crests the reef at Red Strand.
From time to time
Black stained lips still
Kiss mine urgently
Echoing our first embrace.
Will I love you less for wayward
Grey or sun-lined corners of your eyes?
Dearest heart, by your grace
I find beauty in every breath
And, without guile,
Still thrill to your smile.
Snapped
Zapped and tumbling
Starswirll fallen
For you
Talking and laughing
Hearts welding, lives melding
One, two… can’t get enough
Of you
I will always be
Loving you
Mrs. Lamb
God damn!
Caro Lamb,
Lord Byron
W.B. Yates
If There’s A Bell
If there’s a bell in Dingle
And you want to say how
Sorry you are I’m gone,
Ring it and make it go
Ding Dong!
J.P. Donleavy
The Ginger Man
The Ballad of Joking Jesus
I’m the queerest young fellow that ever you heard
My mother’s a Jew, my father’s a bird.
With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
So here’s to disciples and Calvary.
If anyone thinks that I amn’t divine
He’ll get no free drinks when I’m making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.
Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all that I said
And tell Tom, Dick, and Harry I rose from the dead.
What’s bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet’s breezy… Goodbye, now, goodbye!
Oliver Gogarty
(As abbreviated by James Joyce in
Ulysses.)
Musee des Beaux Arts
W. H. Auden
About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
| Thanksgiving for Two BY Marjorie Saiser |
| The adults we call our children will not be arriving with their children in tow for Thanksgiving. We must make our feast ourselves, slice our half-ham, indulge, fill our plates, potatoes and green beans carried to our table near the window. We are the feast, plenty of years, arguments. I’m thinking the whole bundle of it rolls out like a white tablecloth. We wanted to be good company for one another. Little did we know that first picnic how this would go. Your hair was thick, mine long and easy; we climbed a bluff to look over a storybook plain. We chose our spot as high as we could, to see the river and the checkerboard fields. What we didn’t see was this day, in our pajamas if we want to, wrinkled hands strong, wine in juice glasses, toasting whatever’s next, the decades of side-by-side, our great good luck. |
