Categories
2021 Poems Road Less Travelled

10 Years

So many situations culminating for me
Fatherhood • Summer Solstice • Sobriety
First, there’s my children who make me proud
They are smart and alive and a little too loud
Then comes the summer with heat and abundance
And all of our pleasures made possible by
Eliminating our dependence on the alcoholic life

No, my life is not perfect, as if one could be
But my love and I have chosen to live more fully
Aware of our existence, our impact herein
Our footprints, our breathing, the path our children
Will follow by example as they seek happiness
Won’t be found in a bottle or the bottom of a glass

We toast this day with coffee, soda and Iced tea
We laugh and play in earnest not because of the drink
I have no tale to tell you how I reached the bottom
We realized before too late that we had a problem
I am not an alcoholic for I no longer drink
There’s time to change direction at least that’s what I think!

Categories
2021 American Place Bird Song New Mexico Poems

Eagle’s Nest

Eagle's Nest

Grackles and Crows
Cackle and call
Filling the morning with their chatter
Does it matter that I’m here?
Not to them, they do not care
About the comings and going of this
Self-absorbed
Man

They don’t plan
Except for their next
meal
Or where to nest
for their love
appeal

And when the crows
Do interfere
These Grackles
Chase them out of here
Then go back to minding
Not a thing
About me
Who listens most intently
To the songs
And calls
Of all things
Small

From the prairie dogs bark
To the red-winged black bird
And the horned lark

Categories
Poems

Midnight Coyote

Coyote snack

Midnight coyote’s
Creepy call
Stirs me awake
With their whine and yawl
What have they found
That makes my dogs bark
How far away are they
In this dark?

Categories
2021 Poems

Take Away

It’s hard to be young
It’s hard to be old
It’s hard to live in a society
–so cold…
It’s hard not to think
{I could end this today}
It’s hard not to blink
And wish it all away
But life is hard
So they say
Dare not to be different
Or you will pay
A suffering price
For your diversions
A block of ice
Instead of compassion
Yet if you were to take away
This colorful light you reflect each day
A river of tears is all that stays
For those who love you still remain
To drown in that river of loss and pain
Taking your life is a selfish play
You accomplish nothing
For nothing will stay
Except the tears of your mother
As they fall on your grave
Better to fight for what you believe
To die in this battle for Love and Meaning

Categories
2021 American Place Poems Texas

Not Home

Home,
Home again
Not my home now
My mother-in-law’s home
Now

Now
Not home
The home of my youth
My old house and school
in a drive by
Through the Alley
of Memory Lane

Somehow lame
A bit run down
40 years passed
This ain’t my town

“Happiness is Lubbock Texas
in the Rearview Mirror”
Happy to leave this home
That made me happily
Weird

Categories
Poems

Exterminator (Disturbanator)

To take a life
Infanticide, it’s OK
They’re just mice

I found the bundle with a start
Mama tried to save one
Off with a dart

The other three fell to the floor
Sharp knife to spines open
Their last door

Mom easily drawn into a trap
She meets the same fate
But that’s not a wrap

One more to find
To finish the deed
One more cut, last one to bleed

Categories
Poems

Counting

It’s so hard to count
It’s so hard to count on
It’s so hard to count on people

How much trust can we
How much trust can we put
How much trust can we put in another

How many let downs have you
How many let downs have you strung
How many let downs have you strung together

It’s so hard to count
It’s so hard to count on
It’s so hard to count on others

Categories
2021 Garden Psalms LOVE Poems

I Love You

These words don’t suffice
For the depths of their meaning
So deep, an azure pool
Sky blue at the top
Navy in the middle
And a pitch blackness
Where no light can penetrate
Save the thought of you!
For true depth is darkness
And true love is the
Light that shines on
In your mind when
All else is dark.
That beacon that carries
You through darker moments,
Lonely nights and terrible possibilities
For even as we talk about
The “depth” of something
We rarely break down
What “deep” represents.
Like deep in the ground where
Well-springs hold dark waters
That once coaxed to the surface
Brings thirst-quenching Life!
Is the depth of my soul
A dark place as well?
It can’t be — For You are
The Light at the center of my Spirit
¡My Love!

Categories
2021 American Place Oklahoma Poems

Cuba

The table’s set, the food is made
Here we sit and give this grace
We’ve gathered here to share our wits
A funny quip, a story with grit

I remember the grand house on the Cimmaron
I’d play in the woods when told to “run along”
In the hills and trees and on sandy shores
The red, red dirt where the water pours

Those days of youth when I was carefree
Not burdened by this loss that’s coming for me
Of my gracious aunt whose lovely smile
Was warm as the hearth after a cold country mile

Never the center piece like her beloved Yellow Rose
But always the backbone for all of those
Who have come and gone doing God’s work
Filling trucks full of clothes and food for the Church

No she was never the center of attention
Just a helping hand, a cup of coffee from the kitchen
An open door to her welcoming home
A meal, a blanket, a place to rest weary bones

I never once heard her ask for her turn
Always on task to help those who yearn
To find God’s grace in an unforgiving land
To help without question her fellow man

Her radiant smile, her questions about you
So gracious, so kind, so ready to do
Anything she could to make things run smooth
All she would do to comfort and soothe

Her presence is missed as we gather today
One more moment or kiss or kind word to say
From this lady of grace who asked for no return
On her investment in you, your life, your concern

We should all be so bold to live life like this
To give all that we have of ourselves in kindness
Like our fair lady who we lay here to rest
Who spent her whole life giving only her best.

Categories
2021 American Place Ars Poetica Footnotes New Mexico Poems

What Am I Missing?

If I stop and take
A minute to write
Or a photograph
How much Life
Am I missing?

If a notational ear
Or observant eye
Can pull from the landscape
Into Memory than my
Experience my be more enlightening…

What is your approach?
Coleridge’s observational reproach?
Or Wordsworth’s walking as he wrote?
Which will glean and which will gloss?
Who will find meaning? What will be lost?

I find myself quite often
At a loss for themes, my memory softened
If I take too long from my observations
The meter fades and the propositions
Wash away and become forgotten.

Yet if in the moment I focus too much
On this art I offer and the places I touch
Do I leave too little of this world explored?
And proffer false narratives for you to adore?
Not the depths of this moment I’m here to explore…