POEMS OF NECESSITY

These are poems of necessity
Recording what matters
Saying what needs to be said
Revealing unappreciated complications
And the unexamined chaos of the heart
Providing comfort, not explanation
Gathering words behind a levee
To contain love and loss and laughter

You Dirty Rat

No longer can Cagney
Fling out
"You dirty rat"

Neuroscientists have now discovered
Empathetic rats will set free
An imprisoned fellow rat
For no reason

Other than compassion
Something many of our species
Cannot yet do

Instead, it is prison for ounces of marijuana
A Berlin style wall for our Mexican border
And rats accusing each other
"You dirty human being"

[Based on a Houston Chronicle article, 9 Dec 2011, "Altruistic behavior stuns scientists". Neurobiologists increasingly believe animals can detect emotions. I hope they find something we can inject into certain political leaders before they kill us all.]

Good Guest Merit Badge

Earning a good guest merit badge
Has its real tests and perils
I got a demerit today
For waking the dog
While I ate a Milky Way
As I gazed at the Milky Way
But I did get extra credit
For washing the dishes
And instituting soft butter on the table

The Wind Blows

In a new place
I find an old self
Peaceful - no goals

The wind blows through the trees
As do thoughts through my mind
Still there are moments of silence

Of no anticipation
Of freedom
Only being here

Sitting in the cool Autumn breeze
Accepting and slowing
Preparing to become a meal for worms

Last Meal

He chained Byrd to a truck
Then dragged him to death
Brewer did not eat a bite of his last meal
Like both lives, it was thoughtlessly discarded

A fuss resulted
A Texas politician wants the legislature
To prohibit this death row final supper privilege
Instead, he wants to kill both the person and the tradition

And once again
Undeniably demonstrate
We are a mean, vengeful society
And not afraid of ghosts

[Death row last meals originated in pre-modern Europe as an attempt to quell the ghost of the soon to be departed. Brewer's ordered: fried okra with ketchup, a triple meat cheese burger, 2 chicken fried steaks smothered in onions and cream gravy, a pound of BBQ, half a load of white bread, a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell pepper and jalapenos, peanut butter fudge, 3 root beers, and a pint of Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream]

Hair

My wife tells me I need to comb my hair
Then I tell her
I am more concerned about what is in my head
Than what grows out of it
Of course, she is right
And so am I

No Chance To Say Goodbye

I did not get a chance to say goodbye
You slipped away while I was sleeping
I've tried to get you back
To reach you in my dreams
But each morning
Despite dreams' temporary reprieve
You are gone again
And I must be satisfied
With only memories

10th Anniversary of 9/11

Thrice injured on 9/11

First, the loss of precious lives
American and foreign
On that day
And many more lives on many following days

A second loss
When told to keep shopping
While they prepared unnecessary wars

Third, lost opportunity to re-examine policy
And affirm humane values

Instead, we got a Middle East abyss of blood and dollars
Revealing the sham of our assumed betterment
And our complicity in failure

Parents Withhold Water - Boy Dies

This title in my local paper
Is not news to me
So many people are ignorant
And cruel

The child, a bed-wetter,
Was being taught a lesson
And now we are all taught
We often are a vicious specie
And radically unsympathetic

He was enduring a one month
Court-ordered custody visit
When he called his grandmother
To say he was afraid

3/4 of the earth is covered with water
But there was not a drop for this suffering child
Now let us cry
And water his grave
With our too late tears

Grant unto these parents, O Lord,
Eternal thirst

160

The paper reported
A fatal car wreck yesterday
Police called a father
Looking for the car's young owner
A friend of a victim found at site

Dad calls his son's cell phone
Somewhere there's an abandoned ring
Lost in almost silence
But no one to answer

So he drives 160 miles to the scene
Just 160 feet from the crash
He recognizes a lone boot
And falls to his knees

He dreads searching further
But does
And finds a crumpled, damaged body
And now beside it
There's a father's crumpled, damaged heart

It takes the love of a father
To keep searching for a lost son

[Police had found only one victim at the site, a friend of the young man. Thinking he must have borrowed the car, they looked no further for other car occupants]

FLOGGING / OLD MAN'S GOLF

Celebrate the well hit ball
Not just the long drive

Develop the friendship
In addition to the sand shot

Not so much the score
But even more the fun

Don't expect young men to agree
Or even understand

Flogging does not belong to the PGA
It is an old man's game

Simultaneous Equations

My life is similar to an algebra class
Simultaneous equations with many unknowns

I try to be sensible
To not spend all my time trying to solve the problems

To just go along
Taking what comes

A long journey looking for love, happiness, and peace
Creating a pastiche of food, sex, reading and other pleasures

All the while staying alert for glitches
The unknowns in a prescribed but unpredictable life path

Condition Normal

It's just dawn and my shield is not yet raised
A cold front blew through an hour ago
Blowing over my garbage can and scattering trash

Just as I finished gathering the detritus
The garbage truck is rumbling down my street
With only a single, frantic man dumping the containers

It's below freezing with heavy horizontal wind-driven rain
The worker is wearing only flip-flops, jeans and a very wet t-shirt
Running, hauling, lifting, dumping, returning, freezing, repeating

I caught his eye
And shrugged my shoulders
"What in the hell are you doing?" I chastised

In turn he shrugged his shoulders
"I'm picking up your trash
These clothes are all I have" I thought he said

Anticipating the weather conditions
I'd dressed in layers
Before stepping outside my warm, dry house

My indifference barrier still not activated
I am shocked at the situation
Pain and empathy seize me

I gave him my sweater
And my favorite rain coat
And returned to my home

When I crossed the threshold
I burst into tears
Later my heart returned to condition normal