Abiding Oak

“I cannot say how bad it hurts
not to have you around anymore”



(could anyone make more plaintive of a cry?)
(no, probably not)



days return
like a typewriter carriage



each waiting for the bell;
waiting for the bell to ring out
“I miss you”

mountaintop

hey now

does the world win

in the spice of life

race of grace

for a two-bit shoe shine medal

given for heroic kicks

at a patch of earth beneath your feet?

hey now

if the world could win

we'd never know

what things above

what things below

and the spice of life

face chase

would just hound us 'til we're dead

no way to live

no home, no bread

hey now

the world can't win

as the world might like

as the world might hope

when life has got you on the ropes

but the spice of life

jerky derby

all peppered, kippered

and dried to a twist

to a twist and a wrinkle

(even a pucker)

that jerky derby all spiced of life

(just the rind that truth spits out)

the fatty rind all soap-cake white

all tremble-licious, salty rind

of fat and blood

(don't ever mind)

hey now

did the world win

in the hand-me-down moon race?

patching baling wire and duct tape

patch your craft for outer space?

baling as fast as we can

to keep the waters – the rushing flood

the rushing tide of inner space

at acceptable levels

in your neighborhood

just low enough to keep our ankles wet

and then the world can't win

Saturday Morning, Davenport Post Office

I told you your mother wouldn't like that -
she wouldn't like it if you lied -
lying about that dollar and a half -
the money I wouldn't give you
as I only wanted to buy you lunch.


If you'd told me what you wanted
was a dollar and a half for booze
I might likely have obliged
and helped you tie one on.
Honesty goes a long way -
longer than a cheese sandwich.


So I told you your mother wouldn't like you lying,
and to make her happy you should tell the truth.
So after I departed
it was the next fool who came along
who gave you the money
for the 64-ouncer
that you took home to dear old mom.




You never got that bottle back to mom,
to your dirty old flat across the tracks
right next to the place run by nuns.
You never got to hear her say
“thank you so – my good and truthful son.”
You didn't spend the afternoon with dear old mom,
getting tanked and smoking cigarettes
traded for food stamps.
You never saw her smile at you like she always did
because the meth lab fire next door took out the whole place,
and the truth came out,
and the truth came out.
And dear old mom wound up behind bars.

Ras al Khafji and Beyond

Pete the Marine
lost in time again
again
says “who am I?”

Dredging from his unkempt mind
like so much half-remembered sand
a foreign land
a foreign tongue
a foreign time
when he was young
again.

Leaving his office on a Friday afternoon
and a half-baked desert hobo lets out a yell
and Pete the Marine jumps and turns
no friendly fire
no warthog's screaming shells
again
to flash and burn and burn like hell

Keep coming back.
Keep coming back
again
in half-forgotten stories he was told
by that kid who wanted to sell him cassette tapes
cassette tapes in a foreign tongue
keep coming back
like the burning sun.

So Pete the Marine
might not know
might not know today – not know at all
just who he is
“just who I am”
without the sand
without the sun
without the stinking diesel-soaked dust
and smell of burn
and stink of death (baked-on, bloody death)
on a long, dead, stinking highway mile of death
or hear that sand
or foreign tongue
when he was young.

Spring Evening on Glen Armil Park

salmon-stained cloud smears
in an ocean turned upside down

all the air smelling of puppy breath and cheap tortilla nights

chairs and boxes and hubcaps
covering the shit-thawed lawn
in the neighbor's gladiator coliseum garden

no longer frost, not yet buds --
a raised-bed tarmac for air-bound summer dreams

roundball pang! pang! pang! in the concrete gym

neighborhood kids make good use of daylight hours
and the newspaper headline on my doorstep
reminds me of another shooting
with no arrest