Yikes

Look, when you’re setting the country on fire, it’s just so much easier to have everyone be on drugs. –Tammy Bruce

Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn. –Alfred Pennyworth (Micheal Caine) in The Dark Knight

But if Rome is burning at the command of Caesar, who can be sure that the population will not be slaughtered at his command also? –Henryk Sienkiewicz, Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero

Poems for a Monsoon, a Lake, a Wayfarer

Monsoons

the rainclouds will come
like a ransom note
from unorganized kidnappers
small ragged clouds glued together
making one large dark thought
lurking like a sleeping snake
in your mailbox
no postage no return address no prints
no monetary amount mentioned
no victim
just the joy of the threat
the rise in your pulse rate
the urge to grab your child
and lock all the doors

Post-Monsoon Parking Lot Puddle

The Heart’s Lake Fills

with rain
with web-footed birds slinging water
silver flash of minnows muddy gleaming tadpoles
tremulous prickly kiss of mosquitoes
static dance of dragonflies quick slender snakes
water lilies flat and begging
lank blonde grasses languorous sweeping branches
occasional footprints sliding down the slope
in the water a cloud of silt
the diminishing echo of a wave
rippling into the memory of thunder on the Otherside
the old rumor of harsh weather moving in
with sure disregard for certain truths
found in almanacs and omens

Casa Malpais Monsoon

A Poem for The Wayfarer (You Know Who You Are)

The Geographer*

first he must remember what state
he blew in from        a feathered seed
spiraling along the highway
of a tireless wind
what mountains he surfed
what treetops he skipped across
like a flat stone over smooth water
what sands he skimmed
and now this imaginary landscape
with its exposed geological strata sexy
as a skirt sliding off the angular knee
of a reclining woman
what valleys in their green darkness hazy
as the secret spaces between lovers
what plains before him golden and honest shivering
in the wind that brought him here
to the place where he opens his sighing book
and begins to write

—————————
*This poem first appeared in Erete’s Bloom, Summer 2000, No.1

Boots

Four Domestic Vignettes for Summer’s End

Poem 1

the gargoyle roosting on our wall
grins spellbound
as a queue of ants sojourn
across his green resin talon
in search of water

Poem 2

the truncated left arm
of our backyard
mesquite tree beckons
to woodpeckers, doves,
and flycatchers:
good eats good shade good home

Poem 3

a papier-mâché dia de los muertos
bone boy bobbles
his hollow head in agreement:
there is much to be done this morning

Poem 4

dogs sleep curled like crescents
warm and aromatic their paw pads
smell like popcorn

One Big Daddy . . .

. . . And a Submarine Poem

Strategy

hey honey
where did you get that     torpedo
who died and left you
commander of this submarine
stealthy periscope sliding up
through frigid waters    in your cross hairs the enemy
spawning a trail of mines
can you navigate through this
do you know when to dive     and when to fire
when to surface and open the hatch
your survival depends on knowing when
to maintain radio silence
to ignore the war