High Tide



We laughed and played and laughed

As the waves broke on the shore

And the Sun baked the sand

And the children screamed for more


Seagulls clustered here and there

Awaiting special treats

We played until our skin burned red

And sand crept in our seats


Then the growing ball of Orange

Slightly touched the ocean

Testing the water first,

It seemed to cease its motion


“Time to go,” I yelled and

shoulders slumped in sorrow

“No fussing or complaining

And we might come back tomorrow.”


Then the children smiled

A new light in their eyes

“We have something to show you.

It’s a really big surprise!”


They know I love surprises

As I follow them to the spot

Where they’ve dug a rather large hole

For such a tiny tot


C’mon dad they beg

We’ll do it really quick

So I climb into the hole

That they’ve hollowed with a stick


They pushed the sand around me

I played along with a giggle

Until the sand was packed so tight

That I couldn’t hardly wiggle.


One last tip of Orange

Cast a faint glow to their faces

And they smiled even wider

As they ran back to their places


They laughed and played and laughed

As the waves broke on the shore

And I screamed until I couldn’t

My throat raw, and sore


I looked up at the Moon

Brilliant in the sky

And couldn’t move my arms

Though I try and try and try


I cried until I laughed

Then I laughed until I cried

Then I smiled to myself

And giggled by and by


Hours came and went

And boredom took its toll

Monotony crept upon me

In my sandy little hole


I laughed and laughed and laughed

As the waves broke on the shore

Then I laughed and laughed and gurgled

And then I laughed no more.


So when it’s time to leave,

And they wanna stay and play

Don’t put off ’til tomorrow

What can be done today.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Pillow Envy

			


		

		




There is a pillow between us.


That’s all

just a fluffy puff of cotton and foam

lying nonchalantly, lengthways,

pointing carelessly at the headboard

and forming a T with the other pillows,

a circumspect intersection of downy

hiding its shameful face under the covers.


You are no further away

than before

and yet I can not seem to reach you.


It lies motionless and silent

as do we,

but I can hear it’s muffled laughing.


A feather-light wedge.

The softest of simple machines

prying our sleepy bodies apart

with no effort,

save its cottony presence.


You roll over and I can see

the soft outline of your face.

You embrace the barrier

dividing us and pull it close.


I take a moment to reflect

on the silliness of pillow envy,

then I grab the pillow and cast it

from the bed.


You are startled, but none the wiser

to the melee that has ensued.

I slide to the center of the bed

in victory and gloat myself to sleep

with your arm around me.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
A Million of You

			


		

		
Cell Division




I’ve loved a million of you,

second by second,

through and through.


The one that I met

ordering fries,

a sheepish grin

and a timid line.


I’ve loved a million of you,

minute by minute,

through and through.


The one that I kissed

on top of the car,

the girl you were

the woman you are.


I’ve loved a million of you,

hour by hour,

through and through.


The one who carried

our children with care,

positive and negative

we make quite the pair.


I’ve loved a million of you,

day by day,

through and through.


The one who said yes

then yes, I do.


I’ve loved a million of you,

moment by moment,

through and through.


I’ve loved each and every person

that you’ve gradually become

and all the parts that added

to contribute to the sum.


I’ve loved a million of you,

person by person,

through and through.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
God is laughing

			


		

		
MickieDees




The small plastic balls of varying color bounced around inside the nets as small hands flailed, a few of the balls breaking free and rolling past our feet. My son of three, smiling away, crawled out of the balls and disappeared quickly into one of the tubes, as did many others.


People abound and pigeons galore, we looked away and chewed our burgers slowly, trying to keep the wind from carrying the fry bag away. Sprinkling salt into the puddle of ketchup. Talking about the weather, my job, and bills to be paid. Then a scream. It is my child’s scream.


Terror. He’s hurt. Perhaps twisted an ankle and fallen down a tube? A busted lip? In a fight with a larger child? Following the scream from outside we see his face through the clear plastic of a corner section.


The others had left and the maze had turned thick… dark, empty. He had probably circled once, maybe twice, with nothing familiar, the walls of the labyrinth impenetrable. Trapped with no way out.


We pointed out directions as we tried with calm voices to settle his heart, elephant tears rolling from his cheeks. As my wife walked to the tunnel entrance and hollered to provide direction, I couldn’t help but realize the silliness of it all.


A small laugh giggled its way up in spite of his tears and terror, and as he turned to follow the voice I wondered how he could be frightened at all. In the mind of my child it was the end, with no way out and no hope. And there was no one else around to help. His fate had been sealed by a colorful tube with a bubbly, convex lens through which he could see the outside world but never reach it.


Safety couldn’t have surrounded him more that day if it tried and the unnecessary screams were calmed in a short time. His tears and terror soon forgotten as he attacked another section of the playground. We settled back to dipping fries and I couldn’t stop laughing.


As a result of this encounter with terror and loss of hope, I wonder if in my most pitiful of states, my darkest of hours, in which all of my hope is gone and there seems no way out, if God is looking at me and wondering why I’ve lost all hope and given up. Why I am crying at all. Why I can’t just stop and listen.


God is whispering through that dark tunnel so I can find my way.

He is watching from very close by.

And my tears and terror will end soon enough.


And I wonder… no, I’m certain.

He is giggling all the while.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Sin

			


		

		
Water Well




The day I dug the hole

was laborious and solemn,

unkempt hair wild in the rain

with cakey mud and deep

it went down, down, down

only a pinhole of light at the top

and then I threw in the body

and left.


I came back in four years

gallivantin’ on the baked dust plain

and there were rocks sittin’ in that place

circling up a roped bucket that ran down

to the water that the people all drank

and I wondered about bacteria and death

and e. coli blackness and pissed-off cows

or whatever you call it

and out walked that side of the road dead man

from a whirlwind tepee

still wearing that canvass suit that

married us in madness that muddy night

and pointed at me and yelled to the people

who pinched my arms and drug me to the well

where that stranger I knew so well

watched me enter that pinhole headfirst

to cleanse myself in the muddy wallow of Karma.


 

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
The Clock

			


		

		


My troubles all started 15 minutes ago

when the clocked ticked a stop and ran really slow.


All the people I loved who didn’t love me back

all seems now, rather matter of fact.

The luxurious items that I could not afford

all the cars that I drove that I did so adore.

But the gold and the jackets estate sales did claim

and the Porsche and the Lexus are all but a name.

And the plasma I watched from the living room wall

and the front load washer standing seven feet tall

are in someone else’s house or in someone else’s hall.

The trophy wife I landed with my TV and my car

Is reading life insurance papers at the local bar.

The estate in which I lived, with movie room and pool

was my kingdom here on Earth which I can no longer rule.

And as I float above my body and the surgeon tries his best

there is one last thing to you that I really must confess.

I’ve had it all wrong from the very, very start

for all these things I mention lie nowhere near the heart.

As they call the time of death I take a moment to reflect

and see my life, like my car, was a crumple of a wreck.

I made myself an island, accomplished well and spent

credit cards galore, and loved every cent.

But it’s people I have missed, that necessary part

more precious than the original, Italian works of art.

Some people take with them the heartache and the sorrows

from the loved ones and the kin who weep for all their morrows.

And dreary though it is this brokenness, a gift

we can carry with us here, far and wide across the rift.

But today no one weeps, no tears for me to keep

as I travel my last path through the far and wide and deep.

I didn’t see my time here as painful until now

I wish to set things straight, but cannot figure how.


So I say these words to you, embrace well others there

and for material things, do not give a care.

For at some point in time, which you will not know

the clock will tick a stop and run really slow.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
The Behavioral Psychology of Woodpeckers

			


		

		
Pull_hair


We both have deadlines


he and me and


we’re not so different really


except he bangs his head against his desk


like a ravenous djinn gone mad inside


his emerald coated bottle of a cubicle


and he does this for three minutes


and then a small hole forms


just an eggshell patina break


and he uses his teeth to snag


some object in it…


Paper!


A wadded, rolled up, already stapled and collated


report for the boss


and I just stare at him and then


I stare at my monitor as he


pulls it ex nihilo from the mini-fissure


in his desk.

Everyone skips to lunch and


I’m alone and behind and


worried and


so I bang my head


like he did


really, really hard


but can’t make three minutes worth


and then I wake up on a nightly vacuumed carpet


and see a circle of eyes peering down


and feel crimson running from my forehead


and I think


just like a Robin


that a Woodpecker


is just a crazy bird.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Scientific Inertia

			


		

		
Mustache


Mr. Bachenstein was quite fine


walking home from work,


a light stroll until he suddenly

flew into the air and sped like a rocket


head first


into the bottom of a dangling piano


nine floors above.

And birds, well… they just had to


learn to eventually fly upside down


and build their nests on the underside of the branches.

And fish, well… they rode the largest


blue flying amoeba ever to the exosphere


where the oceans splashed against nothingness


and formed a blurry prismatic shell for those of us


clinging to lamp posts and


clustered, confused on ceilings.

And Remi and Ted’s Pinto


lifted off like at the end of Grease


but they weren’t singing,


just screaming for some long minutes


until, as they suffocated slowly,


they saw a tidal wave coming to swallow them whole.

And so with differentiation at work again


we’re all finding it hard to breath


and so if you find this note in a bottle years from now


know this: it was dropped by a scientist from the doorway


of a lab in Switzerland into the seas above


and we found the Higg’s boson


and we are sorry about the Gravity thing.

In our defense, it was an outlier, you know.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Will Power

			


		

		
I am craving a fudge bar


but I shouldn’t eat one.

So MANY Calories.

I should have a Popsicle,


and I stare at Lucille Ball


some more


driving away the craving


with bungling, Red Head antics


but a sudden commercial


makes me ravenous


and I wrestle myself


Inside


as I often do


and lose


and get up


and go to the laundry room


and open the floor freezer.

I’ve put the highest


Calories


under Megan


where they are much


harder to get


thinking


my laziness will


prevent my obesity


but I dig my arm


around under Megan


until out comes a fudge bar.

It sticks briefly to her


skin, and I pull it free


but she doesn’t make


a sound


because I told her not to.


She’s just an Embryo-shaped


cicle, all shivery.


There’s no head movement


when she looks out the corner


of her eye at me


and I see fear,


and I feel guilty


because I know she


is afraid of my


Lack of Will Power.

			

	
	



				
					


	
	

					
Uniform

			


		

		
the dead soldiers’ Uniforms are dusty


muddy and


shrapnel bitten,


chewed by the grenade


bayonet, puncture wounded


and dyed crimson, signed in the color of a setting sun


by an unwilling author.

bloated gray bellies


distend the carefully sewn cotton


they are camouflaged


but visible just the same


i snap the picture for posterity


and think of scratch-n-sniff ads


and methane putrefaction


and wonder if a mom or dad


will point at the picture in the paper


with prideful recognition like they did when


their son of three made the post for halloween.

the family will look upon a mouth sewn shut


eyes closed


body smooth and painted


and wrapped in his sunday’s best,


but I have seen the blender,


eyes wide with horror


mouth agape, twisted.


add soldiers, pulse for 20 seconds, cloths on, spread gently on the grass.

war is not a Three Piece Suit.