What Is Created

dreams die hard.

the art gallery wrapped

in middle of a rambling

museum: several Picassos 

fracture white walls and the women

his cubism twists 

into fragments of selves;

they want to slide to the floor

and escape 

but cannot. 

One painting near a portal

is beautiful, tenderly 

glowing, her eyes rendered 

towards ground. Here at

this opening she’s found home, 

in her left hand holds 

words of a dream

where green parrots weave

their story of gathering joy

across a cerulean sky.

Outside, the afternoon melts 

underneath a huge slab 

of concrete spanning 

the street into dark silence; 

later, you tell me how 

you wished I’d bought

you a bracelet in the gift shop

we’d wandered into. Your face 

sadly tender, angular, one 

of Picasso’s invisible models.  

   Colima and Post-Modern Love

Romantic love is sometimes a sputtering 

Volkswagen bus inching up a twisting

road, at others a spare tire with a bald spot and you the exhausted driver beyond rescue

from one more cup of roadside coffee  replenishing any chance of making it tonight 

to the splendid village nestling at volcano’s stony foot.  So you pull over, overriding an impulse 

to warrior onwards through darkness, 

and put on your one Jackson Browne album 

and let the tears roll.  As sometimes they must.  

A few hours later you awaken, mouth parched, shirt soaked with sweat. Above you a coconut palm swaying. Through the smeared windshield 

a spiral of smoke rises from Volcan de Colima beyond foothills stained green littered 

with boulders and old cars. You turn the key 

in the ignition and say to yourself a small prayer. 

   Easing

He slips back 

into the sea

of unknowing

like stepping into 

a shirt

of blue silk.  

Knows now to breathe

deeply and easy

diving into wings

of the merciful 

ocean underneath 

breezes of salt

where endless cries

reap and release

scintillas of spindrift—

these difficult, 

astonishing 

truths.  

           Song of The Post ICE Age 

Earthquaking had become 

our neighborhood’s norm, no that’s untrue—more like our nation’s—no one predicted where or how bad would the tumults of earth roiling erupt under soil, beneath our tingling feet, a neighbor’s home. Mayhem’s hungry jaws had ground down peaceful days and dream laden nights as parents forgot to feed pets, even some children who’d been stolen by government’s zealots. Placing ourselves into forest and park, into bright hallways of laughter, purchasing tacos from a food truck 

were now illegal acts. When our eyes became fixed on aluminosilicate glass

instead of breathing each other, 

weakened bodies abandoned our lives

leaving images and unfleshed sounds

to innervate digital tissue, encapsulated organs like hearts marooned beyond feeling.  

Our humanity captured almost completely

by forces slick, false yet impactful.  

Hard to calibrate on scale called Richter

how intense these earthquakes could be rated. A shuddering quake pervaded every leaf, every cloudbank, every kidney and liver, every foot, grimace and daydream, every boy and pigtailed girl, nobody here, nothing we desire was safe in the land anymore.

Yet as we squirmed with unease, we breathed deep then mustered somehow 

the power to step forth from claustrophobic slumber and move forth towards blue sky into green earth, now seeing more clearly each other, a promise arises of eyes shining with unshaken kindness across different languages; the land starts to calm within quiet, our ears perk up and grin broadly as these from farmland, mountain, desert and city sing respect, speak for all creatures

now inhaling angels of safety, breathing out

rivers of thanks.   

         Glazed Balsamic

Here on the shores of the Payne Gray Baltic

where pebbles sheen zinc and often 

are salted aquatic, she stops to lie prone 

on a birch tree dune, gazes at a flotilla 

of clouds under spell of a shimmering moon. 

Eyes of amber close as she begins

to hum then sing out a jubilant tune

about a party rowdy with plentiful booze, bodies of beauty that simmer and sprawl lazing beside loaves of dark Russian bread soaked in indigo bowls of viscous, glazed balsamic.   

Stanch This Flood 

 A thud! 

Neighborhoods filled 

With sounds of blood 

Where proud hard-working 

Immigrants dug tubs 

Of mud

As the madman president- 

A cruel thug, floods words 

Caked with toxic crud— 

All I know— 

This police-state nightmare 

Is fucked-up bad,

A solid dud.

      Heidi’s Backyard 

Face down in moist grass

communing with dewdrops,

a language translucent

and shimmering as it caresses

her soul, solidifies her true home,

transporting her mind

to a sparkling safe place

of nourishing mystery

 and Yes!—all here

her own.  

 Professor O’Riordan 

Chairman of NanoTechnology

at Trinity College, Dublin

is the kind of chap

who while on stage in Stockholm

being awarded the Nobel Prize

in Biology for a lifetime of work,

80 hours in lab per week,

3 divorces and 6 children

that refuse to speak with him,

who is massively 

distracted now

by a pesky hangnail 

on the ring finger

of his left hand.

He’s simply intrigued 

by very tiny details.  

   Time with Wislawa S.

The Polish poet is an acquired taste

the man lounging 

in his soft robe declares to himself. 

She writes obliquely like a cloud 

invisible at night 

or a journalist on holiday 

who continues to write about people

seen clearly yet might know 

little about.

There’s an abstract quality hard

to pin down he concretely realizes,

(or perhaps my limitation?)

as this morning 

he perseveres reading,

the thick book, a grin, 

slight chagrin, minor 

frustration, a frown.

Then two doves perch

and lounge 

atop 

backyard’s wall. 

     This Bus Is A Bust

Waiting forever this morning for a second 

Cup of coffee to complete its cycle

Of brewing is like my son and I last Saturday— Sunny cool afternoon in Chicago—

Used record store, soccer game and beers

In neighborhood bar, brunch with cousins,

Street fair, rowdy onstage indie rock bands And at tail of the day our ride homeward

              (actually Airbnb-wards) 

Towards thankful rest and a warm meal

Only to become weirdly stranded,

Marooned on this urban island,

Walking in haste between bus stops 

Then languishing impatiently stewing 

On various corners, hunger pangs at first Barely whispering, eventually shouting 

(The Thai restaurant across from the third or Fourth empty corner—tables without patrons

yet refusing to seat nor feed us)

Over what felt like entire days 

Of trudging then standing frozen,

Necks craning,

Eyes peering southwards

For signs of hope, just a tiny glimmer, 

Along Damen St as the #50 bus wandered

On its wayward journey,

Optimism and transit passes 

Now wholly dimming, our rescuer and us 

Asunder, 

Predictably never quite arriving.

I’ll now sip from my second cup of Joe

To raise a tardy toast 

For our lost lamented driver..