Marathon to Mariupol’

I died at Mafeking
I died at Khe Sahn
Do you really care all that much
If I would just carry on
So I fell at Marathon
And at the Angle
Who knew war would ever be
Such a bloody tangle?
Then there’s the Ardenne
The bulge and countless fronts
But Xmas in Germany in Worldly One
Supreme Command doesn’t cotton such stunts
I died in your arms
I died in your eyes
Giving it your all is not
Often all that wise
But then you turn 50
Or sixty if you dare
And it’s not only youth
Lost with one’s hair
Twas born to love you
But arrived this wrong century
Now it’s all tears in the gutter
And so much fiddle dee dee
But back to the honorable dead
And all that attendant filigree
Do you wanna dance and then stay up
And catch the sunrise over the Mississippi sea?
Married, quartered, and drawn
Spinning verses all day long
I love that smile stolen this away
But I never ever would want you to be wrong
Now all Ukraine sobs unheld
All those ‘standing with you’ so very far away
Stille, all those eager Carpathian kinder
Await breathless for a next different new day

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Along rue de Whimsy

Is it true bubbles make things better,
Like a sunny day doesn’t hurt;
Like a lithesome newly met lady
With a surprising yielding tight skirt?

Or, regard granite-rendered shoulders
Attending a chin suitably cleft.
But, then, the storm is awash the bulkhead
And all Joy has upped and swiftly left.

Can you tell me the way back to happy?
Or, the land over near next to not bad?
We all need a Springtime vacation
From this our time melted into so sad

Paris plans wrap their Arch,
But the Old Caesar is so very dead.
And I can’t abide those self-gilded Trumpettes—
I’d very much rather someone else instead.

Magna Laude will discover une baguette,
As I count the steps to the third etage:
Gray, overcast, with a soft Parisien rain—
All cares forwarded to Le Voice Message.

Is it true bubbles make all things better,
Like a sunny day doesn’t at all hurt?
Salut, Soleil, comment ca va?
Our days grow short, time to be alert.

Fathers’ Day In Quarantine

Ya know she smiles loud
Cuz she’s got all them teeth
But don’t take my word for it
I’m pretty far from beyond belief
All I truly know is better days coming week after next
I know this to be quite true
Cuz it says so in my daughter’s last text

Daughter conquers the days
With a lot more stress than I do
Pouring over hiragana squiggles
A looming test is messing with her artist’s do—
A perfect score in her Summer Japanese (!!!)
Brought my little brilliant girl
Down to her very studious knees!

Soon one far day she’ll marry
And support her brilliant kid’s studies
Skinned knees, broken arms,
Betrayal by once assumed close buddies.
And I’ll wish she finds all the joys
Such awesome women usually discover
Uncovering men buried inside hapless little boys

Tis quiet over on the cul-de-sac
‘Specially when I turn down my stereo
But it’s another Fathers’ Day
So turning Yes’ Starship Trouper to eleven, doncha know!
Singing along with the best dead rock stars
But what on Earth can we do—
We can’t go to restaurants, movies, or bars

An unassuming liquid red
Half fills this humble glass
Cabernet Sauvignon from over Sonoma way—
Wish I was sharing with my own sparkle-eyed lass.
But now time to rewash this mask:
Such varied fun in lockdown
Filled with this new time-worn vital task.

Yes please do come on over
To my wee cool place,
Always room in Alexandria
For one such as you and your happy pretty face!
We can play all the latest games,
Or uncover our darker tragedies,
Then smartly resolve them with neat effectual reframes!

Ya know he smiles loud
Cuz he’s got all them flossed teeth
But don’t take my word for it
I’m pretty far from beyond belief
All I truly know is better days coming week after another
I know this to be quite literally true
Cuz it says so in a text from my encouraging but distant brother

[PS Stay home, stay safe, practice the best proper social distance
Or may a gravid moose find relief in the spaces within your pants!]

Alone With The Jagged Cold

I don’t quite think it was the jagged insult of the cold while stepping out from the shower;
It couldn’t have been the yawning cold empty space beside me on a still unmade bed;
Perhaps it was that the single cup of instant coffee was just okay enough with real soymilk;
Certainly not the unresponded to question of what possibly could I have said to you instead.
More than I surely love you.
More than we can go so far.
More than dreams seek the possible.
More than let’s get out of this damn bar.
I don’t know but the cat claw calls for more food for his old porcelain bowl;
I don’t understand but the heater needs a filter shift out with the coming cold;
I can’t see the change that the sunsets promise for those unparoled tomorrows;
But I could have added that the place beside my heart is all yours, truth be told.
Unless the future scares you.
Unless you can’t chance chance.
Unless my words wither at your feet.
Unless all those maybes can only translate into can’ts.
And, down the tracks and beyond the call to prayer and the next bead-toss parade
I go on with my so lonely but hopeful heart, though I’m not quite sure I got it made.

Luling, TX

Meet me, my lovely, in Luling
Down about the Prairie Lea
We’ll ramble past old Stairtown
And its cud-munching cows neath their tree
Meet me, my lovely, in Luling
South off state highway 80
Right across the arrow-straight train tracks
Give the lie that this is just a fool’s wannabe
Meet me, my lovely, in Luling
Ramshackle in time and space
We’ll shoot down to old Galveston
And together fix up some broke down beach place
Meet me, my lovely, in Luling
Tell your Ma you want just me
Your Pa never did like me that much
So we must run, can’t you see?
Meet me, in Luling, my lovely
Just past Stairtown’s Welcome Gate
Prove the road ahead can carry us,
Just past the train tracks for you will I wait

Love’s Volunteer

Not in love
Don’t even know your name
So why can’t I forget you—
What is this game?

That pretty ring
On your wedded finger
Keeps it real
So I won’t linger

Doesn’t matter
Your eyes’re so fine
That promise you made
Won’t let you be mine

I’ll get the door—
Onto a future apart
Maybe in your next lifetime
You could take the rest of my heart

A Leaf of Plot

Death raised his scythe on high
The Final Answer was at hand
No more questions broached
No replies begged or risked demand

The leaf at last let it all go
Fluttered to its demise below
The wind added its sighed contempt
Blew our leaf scuttering to a future undreamt

Down the path with attention rapt
A 17-nothing wrought prose off the rack
Laurie screamed—the leaf brushed her face!
Characterization blanched: there’d be no turning back

A writer in a Nature, freed of pretense
Her plot thickened and made Total Sense
Death winced scurrilously and not too haughty
17-nothing conjured twists bland and who knows—naughty?

The wind richened and hurried our protagonists along:
A dead leaf and a fallowed teenager trying to catch the song

Hope and Future and Chance

The pain of his past rested on the front of his eyes,
Memory tempted then mocked and let loose in droplets.
Where now can pale usefulness express its wont?
How will tomorrow find reason inside old couplets?

Full-time folly found rest upon the other slack shoulder,
And swirling, the promise and the lie presented opportunely;
Yet a path coursed beyond the copse, bidding one to follow;
New memory scorned to breach history, to grow jejunely.

An old minstrel parsed a chord, and improved;
The song of song that choirs failed yet chimed aloud;
While pan wrens sauntered and soared ever above,
Dodging the eagles, falling, sprinting to eclipse yon cloud.

Tears will dry with hope and future and chance rekindled;
Goats may prance upon thatched roofs, high and mighty,
But the parson-chaplain rises early to great the new day,
And pale usefulness finds expression, keen and rightly.

Unspeakable

Down back around the edge of town
The cat found his prey
Life happened that way
Up on the sill at the house at the top of the hill
The dog languished a lick
Another lingering tick
Tapping a tap the bartender pours
The sod and his sop
Bottom rail on top
Perspective perfuses the perfect
The glance is askew
The lonely heart never knew
Cat and dog and sod and tramp
Living things living their lives progress
Tarry but a little your unspeakable future calls
Time arrives informal and the debutante has found her dress
Back about the edge of town
Prey escaped the chop
Bottom rail on top

Add A Little sgt Pepper

O sing me song by Old Billy Shears
Tell me we’re in days and nights of shifting gears
Promise me it’ll all be completely okay
That we can certainly disagree and still go out and play
I just need somebody to love

O promise me something
A hope to last all day
A guarantee of smiles
A game for all to play
And of course Henry the Horse dances the waltz

Voters are so serious
A future to ball and chain
Leave them their ballots
Recounted again and again
With our love we could save the world

Lend me fair breezes
Skies full of scudding clouds
Miles of rolling farmland
Serrated by old plows
Sitting on a sofa with a sister or two

Beaches bathed in sunshine
With waves of crashing surf
Or mountain valleys misted
Rocks peeking through the turf
Now they know how many ‘holes it takes to fill Albert Hall

We did scavenge Old Dixie
But, a baby is on the way
A guarantee of smiles
How James and Jessie will play
Yours sincerely, Wasting Away