In Bed

Why stay in bed
When the world needs your light
More than ever before

On Ron Hynes

How many times
Did I hear Ron Hynes
Pretending that I didn't care
In the Rose or the Ship
Trying to be hip
Secretly thrilled I was there
You can have your fun
Down at Mile One
Me I'll just stay right here

Cause we lean on the bars
Listening to stars
Singing the St. John's Waltz

Freedom

Freedom is a tough row to hoe

You're not forced to wear burqa or bikini
(But the latter can be more dangerous)

You are as free to love
As you are to hate

The good are defended
As much as the bad

I think this is why
So many choose servitude

Hate Magnet

It is wrong to see hate
As a repulsive force
Its power lies in attraction
Like a black hole
That neither light nor love can escape

Remembering the War

I have forgotten
The war
As I knew it
Banzai charges
Grenade three pointers
The unknown soldier and Sgt Rock

I only remember
My grandfather
On a Labrador lake
Boating with his daughter
Dropping his medals
Into the cold dark about them

Silent Lovers

Two silent lovers
She inside, he out
Dark eyes locked
Waving their fingers
At the ticket gates
Again by the iron railing
And again at the stairwell

Sweetest, saddest, beautifullest thing
I have seen in quite some time

Tennoji Zoo

It was in the Tennoji Zoo
Watching the lions
Your weight on my shoulders
Pushing my third & fourth vertebrae together
Conforming me to average height
Screaming boys in baseball caps
With plastic swords
Chubby girls in Barbie shirt
Walking after mothers
I knew we'd have to leave
This country that put itself
Back on the road to war

Cat and Carp

Beautiful black and white stalker

Ears perked, haunches coiled

Eyes alight with birds

You give up instantly

Tongue your muddy paws

Nap standing in the sun

Between stone bench, temple and stream

Thank you for being in my world

Cold gold and grey wanderer

Gills whispering, body undulant

Obsidian eyes inscrutable

You undulate slowly

Through muddy waters

Disappear in the shadow

In dark stream below stone bridge and bench

Thank you for being in my world

Kyoto Cricket Song

Is that a cricket chirping

In our hot apartment

This sweaty Kyoto night

Or a loose screw

In our old fan

That barely turns

The turgid air

I know you cricket

I saw you yesterday

Brown cockroach color

Peeping out from under my slippers

In the hall

My roach murder rage dissipated

When I saw your fiddlebow legs

And sad pinhead eyes

I let you live

Now you serenade us this night

Your repeated high C

Cooler than any old fan

That barely turns

The turgid air

This sweaty Kyoto night

Our Memories

What you'll remember
Blue up
Shovel house
Sun on skin
Animal smells
Sweet mouth
Warmth
Hug


What I remember
Sunny Saturday morning
I took you for a walk
Under an azure fall sky
The quaint old house
I wanted to buy
Being ripped down
By a power shovel
The foreman tousled your hair
As you watched enraptured from your pram
We bought bread from the French place
Then watched the goats and rabbits
Playing out back
We sat and shared apple strudel
You grinned and asked for more apple
More apple please more
As the sun shed the morning's chill
And for the first time ever
You asked your dida for a hug
Instead of running from
My stubble and wet dog smell

Our memories are one

Long Commuter Haiku

Drink in the blue sky
Tree lined walk to the station
Come home in the dark

Train Spider

Little spider
Spinning webs across the lights
Above our crowded heads
On the ride home
You end up so far from where you started
But flies taste the same anywhere
Don't they

Beautiful Children

My heart
Wants to believe
Those beautiful children
Pale or tan or black
Lying on Greek beaches
In pink pants
In bloated diapers
Shoeless
Rocked on the waves
Cradled on the sand
Will wake like mine

My heart
Wants to believe

Japan Train Life haiku

Watching river ducks
From my train trapped on a bridge
Human accident

Farewell Peach Mountain

Farewell Blue Field
Your promise of grain
To nourish us through wintertime
Betrayed by your stony ground
Unfit for growing anything
But weeds and thorns
Treacherous footing
Best avoided

Farewell Fishing Well
You spouted wisdom
To weary travelers
Not to ease their burdens
But to swallow coins
Which poisoned your waters
Turned treacherous
None drinks of you now
But dogs

Farewell Peach Mountain
I rest a moment here
Before I depart
Your old orchard
Littred with rotting crosses
Overripe fruit fallen
Rotten to the ground
Elysium awaits me

Modern Sacrifices

In ancient times
of savage nature
we sacrificed children
in the fiery mouth of idols

now
we sacrifice our adult lives
in the humming halls
of idiot machines
where only children
show life's spark

Morning Pick Me Up

Commuting
To a job
That makes my eyeballs bleed
Thanks for the pickup
Foreign girl at the station
Fellating a juicebox straw
In purple stripper boots
Amid the morning stampede

Spring Commuting Haiku

Silence between trains
Nested in the station roof
Baby birds crying

Loveless Haiku

I feel what is gone

Being with you without love

Phantom limb syndrome

Twenty Years

Twenty years is long enough
That all the salted tears and inky sorrow
That pooled in the scarified void of our parting
Have drained away and been replaced
By clear sparkling wonder
That we were ever together