WALMART WOMEN

WALMART women,

plump and hungry

 

in their pink,

laundered

housedresses

 

pack a wallop

and raise a stink

 

when shopping cart,

aisle contested

 

by a wandering

wimp of a TARGET

shopper like me.

will you?

Will you take ten seconds, feel down into the murk and depth of your day, sense the early evening breeze as it softens your skin and with your swatch of hair does play, watch these rush-hour drivers  

 

and how their motorcars sprint like hounds at the track along bustling Baltimore way, hear the sounds  of engines revving and car doors slamming while tinny rap music pounds like a faraway
jack hammer

 

somewhere behind your bare-bones metal chair, and yet as much as you scorn it's raw primitive nature, you can't deny that your body right here in the cool evening air is beginning to awaken 
and sway?

Irish Afternoon

Saunter slow up Grafton Street
past the bustling shops and sidewalk
buskers, their wide open guitar cases


and shy smiling eyes hoping for a pile of
Euros or dollars or even British pounds
(it don’t matter which you toss in).


You sip this steaming cup of coffee laced
with cream and in a few minutes you’ll
discover a manic magician four blocks up


near the top of an easy slope where
a raucous crowd circles round to hear
his bawdy banter, trickster talk and


witness astonishing feats, then you spy
open space beyond an inviting arch
across the street and feel drawn to enter


this surprising Celtic kingdom of thickest
grass where blue jewels of placid water
invite pairs of snow white swans to glide


along in regal pose while lovers wander
arm in arm and children sing and skip so
quick and joyful to an Irish beat.


Ah yes my dear, St. Stephen’s Green might
just be my favorite spot in Dublin Town on
this cool bright day, or anywhere else on
God’s good green earth, for that matter.

tenderness

The middle-aged

monk

 

grins sweetly

 

in silence,

massages

 

a supine

brown cow.

MOM (for Mother's Day 2014)

I loved
My mother,
Her graceful ways


Shone like her often
Smiling hazel eyes,
Her playfulness blazed


Red and flowing like
Her thick wavy hair.


She conjured the cozy
Welcoming smells of
Warm snickerdoodles


As we arrived eagerly
Through the back door into
Her kitchen after school


And tasted simmering bubbling
Spaghetti sauce which eased


Our confused lives made up
Of equal parts joy and fear,
Lives filled with undigested


Evenings pierced through by
Tense snarls, humiliating sneers
And our father's wild eyes


Like a mad junkyard dog
Smashing the easy grins,
Tender flesh and comfort of
Those fragrant dinners,


The menu of homemade marinara
Ladled plentifully over pasta
Al dente and redolent,


Romaine salad with oily
Lemon garlic dressing
And then those perfect


Cinnamon tinged cookies
Hot out of her oven as
The five of us all


Now blasted and bleeding,
Souls singed black from our
Father’s feral rages, those


Nightly volcanoes foaming
With inexplicable terrifying
Eruptions--as real as her


Loving desires to make a
True home for us were his


Unconscious menacing impulses
Transforming our mom’s good
Hearted lively beauty into


A plain mute wooden chair:
And her four children,


Her saplings of pride and joy,
Into frozen witnesses of this
Familial crime.

YOU

you are so beautiful,

you hover in such

delightful delicious
softness through our
days and nights,


that if you were food

my dear,

(and you do so

nourish my body

my soul my mind 

my heart) 

I'm afraid I'd not

ever leave the

dining table.

my images come

One night a middle aged monk with the face of a cherubim
hovers tenderly over a milk chocolate colored cow lazing
on this grassy field; he strokes her broad back, coaxing the
silent animal to greater health and she stands up ever so
slowly;


And then the next night, I’ve been told the baseball team
needs a pitcher and since I pitched at age 13 in Babe Ruth
league play it’s my chance to be back in the game so here
I stand on the mound staring down at home plate throwing
hardballs at a catcher I’ve not yet met;


The entire team right behind me when a silver jet suddenly
screams overhead, it’s so scary low it barely misses the tops
of our bowed caps, then returns to molest others near a large
building and eventually lands wildly with a crash and chaos
now behind the backstop. A crew investigates the downed jet


With strange geiger counter type instruments in hand; they’re
looking for dangerous radiation. Later on we’re inside a day
room like you might find in a hospital and watch a long intriguing
movie where ordinary neighbors are mysterious, have hidden
motives, and then out of nowhere the wayward jet is back, crazily


Enters the film’s plot when the movie stops, we try but can’t figure
out how to turn it back on, the damn remote isn’t working which is
very frustrating, and a fire breaks out here and all hell ensues. People
are burning, emergency crews shout and haul them away for help;
I watch a teenage boy’s clothing burst into many flames, the back


Of his shirt’s on fire and someone is hosing him off but doesn’t take
the shirt off him and I want to scream ‘take off his shirt now!’, but
don’t, and then the shirt IS off and his naked back so covered with
patches of brown twisted skin erupting across his once pink smooth
self.