Echo

The house is without onions,

grey has overdrawn the sky.

Silent cell phone in the other room

begs an echo.

The young girl's cat,

missing the girl,

nests anew 

in every chair.

We pretend to read,

fingers following every line,

but lacking pictures the pages

stay unturned.

It might as well be

the one night Jesus

lay dead.

Even the motor gunning trucks

are dry leaves in a blind alley.

Separation is not a mother's

favorite skill.

Bum ankle creaking stairs,

I cart the coffee trey and cereal,

ancient altar boy in steaming

processional.

As the cups are finished,

the calendar fast forwards

toward return.

Window Dressing

The day after sin sits

frozen, off yellow wax

staining the otherwise blue.

If it weren't for the light

of the Empty Tomb,

you'd think it ruined,

but as the window seat glass

reflects the wondering face

above approaching city lamps,

a whisper of angels

numbers a current of prayers,

circling in the air draft,

posting the eternal ETA

of our forgiveness

and future.

Far from home,

going home,

the jammed seats

face forward to a welcome

landing, the trained to be friendly

personnel assure us

the gravity we just defied

bears no grudge,

and the first steps we take

in the new, will much resemble

our last, dignified

by hope.

Common

My wit's end

is a balloon string

spectacular in release.

I lean into the wind

"blowing where it wishes"

and watch my apprehensive crutch

fall to the yard.

Messianic melodies

drape on a mandolin,

is it a mitzvah ?

Our Deity digs ditties,

a few angels spared

for the heads of tuning pegs.

Not yet old men,

our grown children

groan over our table manners

at the Feast.

Challah bread and jelly

not the only things

common  to our plate.

Lip

What God joined together,

a curt hurt

separated. The promise 

to have and to hold

tossed, crumpled,

by the road.

Though far out in a huff,

the proven meatball recipe called for a call,

cell phone tether

eased me back to a warm kitchen

and you, apronned, stirring

that famous red sauce,

tomato pasting our marriage.

An accosting lip is

better bit, tears

blinking to realize my stubborn steps

nearly led the eye to eye

to a storm.

 

Rib

On the day I was wrong

about everything,

far from Jesus feet

perfumed by the penitent,

I loosened my shoe

rubbing the dust of the world

from my soul.

What should've been love,

tore like a blanket,

stained coffee dark,

heart bitter.

This husband,

reduced to a mad pissing boy,

woodshedding tears,

wringing the too late truth

from a dish towel

after spoiling supper.

You don't make up for this,

the rib is missing,

apple bit.

Sit sunken in a cornered couch,

watching His wash basin

circle the upper room.

Aqua Caliente

Hot water with kale and wide noodles

is soup.

Steep comfrey leaf with raspberry

for tea.

A basin with soap bar

makes a bath.

Only by itself is hot water

considered trouble.

Walk/Don't Walk

There's new blue paint

splattered in the crosswalk.

I don't know if its representation

of where Eula Long was hit,

or if its random pigmentation.

Fifty feet of pedestrian yo-yo,

the body whistles by,

an elder loon voice

broken by inattentive steel.

I heard the story

just a week before she died.

A lithographer, Eula went

to poetry seed when blind hands

refused paper and pen.

More barbed than the bark

of Saint Burbank's roses, her crone croon 

recorded "Cats and Doggerel",

just eight years short

of a very personal

century.

Roof Drums

Painted parrots border the ceiling,

expensive rubber roof

drums under rain,

sweet smoke of pecan wood

rises and reflected flickerings

play shadow puppet on the Persian-

Iranian carpet.

Home has moved indoors

for a season,

at brightest noon maybe

a cup of tea at the covered pool,

Saturday we'll gain back that hour

that would've helped me

at the bank.

Elections, play-offs,

birthdays, pumpkins,

short calendar, long

blankets, hour by hour

the breath draws closer

to frost. We don't rub our hands

together just to pray,

but we do pray.

Porch Light

Late summer, early evening bat

picks off no-see-ums

under circling swallows,

once again humidity reminds me

what i have in common with Banderas

is sticky t-shirts and jeans.

I down a bucket of iced hibiscus

and plot pennant races,

eager beaver stars

pop between whispering clouds,

ain't nothing here to hold

til it turns blue,

everythings numbered,

even the days til the stitches

come out of my dog's eye.

The command is to be still

and know which side the Bread of Life

is buttered on. Easier to face

in the face of a breeze, cricket chorus and solo

frog adding harmony to 

folded hands and bending knee.

Porch light plays out the night,

waiting for the prodigal,

robe folded in my lap,

the weight of a ring

turning cool in my palm.

Civics

The dog days are not

a month to me, unless

it rains, I stash plastic baggies

in my civic duty pockets 

and allow two morning leashes

to pull my shoulder sockets

to the curb.

The still orange sun bedazzles

dew wet tips of fresh mowed green

as a squadron of dragonflies

hums yellow and blue beside us,

the pup following a nose

with time leaps of its own,

the matron content to trot a long,

as long as I follow protocol.

I married into this privilege

of seemly suburban postcardism,

convicted by an Irish movie script,

"if ya cain't love a dog, ya cain't love anything."

For all my choir singing and grace before meals,

it's somehow very tidy

that the depth of my heart is known

by morning romps and brushings

and fresh water in a bowl.

Hand Span

It's not good for a man

to be alone,

except at the piano.

If your right hand offend thee

add a bass note.

Strolling blues,

the envy of angels,

hand span halleluiahs

crimp demons, double octaves

chase the devil from chorus

to coda.

Exchange the time clock

for a metronome

and you're home on seven

continents.

Bars and spaces

frame the soul,

long dead Europeans

and ghetto saints

lay out the truth

on black and white

keys to the kingdom. 

If Mama made you play

thank her today,

if she didn't,

she will.

Nickels and Dimes

Certain strengths from bone

to age depart.

The grip is tenuous,

shifting the cup

from His Hands,

"Take and drink..."

Swallow pride to commune,

no pinkie promise,

this is cross your heart

and guard the changed contents,

water to wine,

beauty for ashes,

house boy to husband,

tattooed roses for thorns.

Our betraying kiss is

wiped Maybelline clean,

the rooster stilled at dawn.

Grace is the refill,

a warmer, fresh brewed,

the breakfast croissant

broken for you

and for many,

baskets of biscuits and crumbs

gathered here together, worth more

than many sparrows

and sums.

Abandoned headlines and folded news

obscure an anonymous  

spread of coins 

on coffee stained formica.

Just enough change

to call home,

collect.

Roma

Time to measure months

in pestos,

first of the season,

multi birthday batch,

lunch back home from red eye flight.

I'm bent in the garden

gleaning each leaf of the basil

we brought up from seed.

What ever might be a monk in me

comes to bear as I groom

the straw thin branches and rub

pinched flowerlets

in my palm.

Even St Francis, the cemented guardian,

smiles as Jays and Chickadees

squawk for roosting rights

to his head.

In the cool of this

is when God walked with Adam,

salt shaker in His pocket,

ripe tomatoes 

on the vine.

Sundown on the Child

Suburban patriarch

puffs up florescent inflatables

and vacuums the pool.

Kids coming,

grandkids too,

reunion for most of us,

introduction for the intendeds 

and the baby.

Graduation is the cover,

envelopes and cameras,

the youngest is now a legit

know-it-all, her siblings hover

to praise and tease and eat.

The light of our world is freed

from roll call and on parade.

We watch her wave to the grandstand

and pray she adjusts her mirrors,

top down on the Volkswagen,

sundown on the child

raised up in the Way.

Dust to Must

Undone monks grapple

torn asphalt.

Cat shriek walls fall

in cement birthday layers

of caked infants,

mothers missing in mirrors,

a teacher's hand

flower pressed to a chalk

board of promise.

Emergency coffees riffle,

winged fingers make eye bridges.

The graves got greedy,

water drowned the bare mountains,

bamboo curtains slapped against

a window to the world.

We have long lost these uncles

of surging rice cups and water.

Shelter is a bag and sticks.

Family is any pulse in a storm.

Our living room is any part of a paycheck

in  relief.

The face of a nation

is held in the heart of a neighbor,

there's no denying two denarii won't do

what's due, but duty

isn't beauty, until it's you.

From dust, to must we

lift from the mud again, orphaned

resurrection from the suction

of martyred mire. 

The swinging Hand in the bucket

brigade is pierced,

its more than necessary now, to know

we're not alone.

Municipal Portion

I sprint to adjust the lawn watering

dervish device, illegal these many drought months

and then the day before a downpour,

I catch the outermost drops

on my satisfied boots.

There's a mortgage on

each blade of grass,

a second on the fence vines.

Our shade oak of righteousness

drinks in its municipal portion,

careful to stretch toward God

in a wireless sky.

The younger maple is spitting

a worrisome leaf curl,

the years old hurricane break

nearly exposed. Easy to see

not yet competing canopies

will make a front yard marriage

of trees, proud Papa, ever ready

at the rake.

Comes with Thorns

The vase is a pulpit

of the backyard rose,

snipped in prime

for appreciative sniffing

of the decorative predator.

Is it any wonder

it comes with thorns ?

The Lincoln, Stewart, American

Beauty burst to fragrance

of fresh torn black cherry

Jello pack.

We name ours after favorite

Red Sox Outfielder Coco Crisp

and bear the pollen stuffed nose

and sneeze as dues

of cultivation.

The storeboughts cause cancer

in Ecuador, pesticide runoff

suffocating fish.

The ugly cost of beauty

marring Mother's Day profits.

Long stems in the arms

of champions and queens,

we made this bed of

short sighted petals,

parading a legacy

of skin spotted

leaves.

Up Against the Call

"Our Father who..."

That's okay for you,

do you know who you're

talking to ?

Let's not quibble

about a man in the middle,

I am the me in

familia 

stiff neck hammer head

up against the Call.

Confess the mess. 

If it ain't broke

I'm not using it right,

talking 'bout my heart

it's supposed to be contrite.

Everything He's done for me

I'm taking it in stride,

little lower than the angels

but swelling up with pride.

Would I give a drink of water

to the least of these,

someone's son or daughter

could I heal their disease ?

O MY GOD

do you care about that ?

O MY GOD

don't scare me like that !

What's designed to connect us

been so blind it dissects us,

we all pretend we'd stand up to a tank

it's only on our knees

we have Someone to thank,

-the original Apostles took it to the bank

-but before the Holy Ghost 

-they're kissing up for rank.

He's the Big Brother man,

the care for each other Lamb,

look to the Lion and

join the race He won and ran.

Unchain the attitude,

show your wife some gratitude,

spare your kids the platitude.

A family's more than photos

ribboned in a box,

there's a key in the Blood we share

pouring through the locks.

Walk this mile in the sandals

we're unworthy to unlatch.

Remember He's the Fisherman

we're the daily catch.

"His Name art in Heaven"

hallowed,

is the game.

Due West

The geese don't know

they're Canadian,

tracking due west over

new growth red tip,

pollen spitting long leaf

and the waterway

of Echo Farm Golf Course.

I've got coffee brewed

for my eldest, who seeks

a wife today.

His Chevy half ton trekking

due west to Atlanta,

tracking a computer connection

from a Kenyan lady.

His alarm is

double past snooze,

the spaniel knows somethings up

even if he isn't yet.

It's first light now,

if this is a promise prepared,

we pray for sure election.

On the road to start a family,

Abraham, Joseph,

there's been some travellin' done.

I hear a zipper

close the duffel bag,

this time it's my

son.

San Quentin

Thieves come against locks

on windows, locks on doors.

Your heart can't be stolen

when you give it away.

If your hand be extended,

an inmate befriended,

the crime of isolation

caves in.

At the bars or behind 'em,

lonely is where you find 'em,

the trouble on their faces

is a sin.

We pretend we can't be busted,

convince ourselves we're trusted, but

it's only by His Grace

they let us in.

His Light is not to blind them,

your smile never random,

start by trading places

from within.