Red Planets

The first bootprints on Mars

Mankind’s mark on that red soil

Will read ‘Made in China’ and be

Made from sweatshop toil

Build another mega-church

Forget about a moonbase

When churches don’t pay taxes

America can’t afford the space race

Space in English will stay orbital

Floating hotels and low gee sex

The rich’s highest playground

Dreaming of nothing next

Russian space will be for work

Ferrying payloads for others

Astronauts will pay for rides

While at home NASA smothers

No more freeze dried apple pie

Eaten with a spork

But a pair of plastic chopsticks

For mabodofu and mushu pork

I do not say that it is bad

That English space will die

I’ve already seen the future

In an episode of Firefly

Snake Spot

As I do karate on the deck

In the park by the gymnasium

Where girls sweat through

Endless rounds of volleyball

I fail to move like a tiger

Fall short of a crane’s poise or grace

Turning to kick like a mule

I see

A black green ribbon

Weave across the green reservoir

Lapping lightly on the waves

Then disappearing noiselessly

Up the path between the trees

Straighter and swifter than any shot

I will ever make

Kyoto Friend Litmus

If we are at Sanjo

Near the old bridge

Over the duck river

Surrounded by backpackers

Bongo drumming Jippies

And firebreathers

Bad boy bands

Where the old samurai

Set heads rolling

And floated poetry on the water

Drinks in our hands

And I turn to you

And say

“Let’s walk all the way

Back to Kyoto Station”

And you say

“No”

I am not sure

We can stay friends

Night Drive # 142

The night drive

To the clinic

Tired from a day of tests

I sit at the wheel

Driving you to a night of tests

Two people with hope in their eyes

Like fog on the road

A train off its track

Snaking down mountain roads on a flatbed

Slows us down

Give us more time in shadows

Between our door and clinic fluorescents

Trees shush by

Back roads home

Quiet save for your loud tears

The tablet plays Irish songs

Under sepia halogen bridges

Two hopeless lovers

Flying over the lute shaped waters

Genesis

Plants standing in the dark

Cold, inanimate

Colorless, ungrowing

Until the word was spoke

And became light

Two girls plied glass after glass

Of wine from their vineyard

Till father was reeling

Then took him to bed

Milked him of their seed

The angry father

Looked with regret on his creations

Turned the heavens loose

To murder them all

Then changed his mind

These tales

Have a beauty of image and word

Like every lie ever told

Ode to Youth

Youth is beauty
Even when cruel or ugly

Youth is true

Even when wrong or stupid

Which is why the young live

Trying to be older

Youth makes them bolder

Than their years

Which is why the old give

Anything to be younger

Age makes them hunger

For days without fears

Youth is beauty
Even when cruel or ugly

Youth is true

Even when wrong or stupid

My Poetry, My Breath

Henceforth
I will only buy new books
To keep the writers
In their cages

My poetry, my breath
Short, sharp intake
Of the world
Long, deadly exhalation
Of its poison
The only good poem
Is a short one

Poems, like bubbles
Arise and die
Before fully formed
In the busy mind