Mama!*

Mama made me eat liver
And mama made me eat fish
And mama made me eat green beans
And eat everything on my dish.

Mama made me take baths
And mama made me clean my room.
Mama made me make my bed
And do my floor with a broom.

Mama made me say my prayers
Mama made me cut the grass
And mama made me wash my ears
Or mama would spank my…bottom.

Mama told me about bad girls
Mama said I should not kiss ‘em
And mama told me to stay away
But I just wouldn’t listen.

So here I sit still eatin’ liver
And here I sit eatin’ fish
And I'm still eatin’ green beans
And all the slop on my dish.

I didn’t do one thing ma told me
And I did everything she said don’t.
Now everything I wanna do I can’t
And things I should do I won’t.

Oh, can’t you come back, sweet mama?
I won’t gripe about liver or fish
And I promise to eat all my green beans
And clean everything on my dish!

I’ll stay away from those bad girls.
They just make a guy shell out and pay
Then when they get their claws in you
They’ll make you wish you’d run away.

I’ve been a very bad boy, ma
And I don’t know what to do.
But if’n you’ll help me sweet mama
I’ll do all you say to.

I’ll give up runnin’ and chasin’
Kissin’ bad girls, and such.
On the other hand, sweet mama...
I guess it ain’t cost me that much!

(* Sometimes poetry is just for fun. Lighten up!)

Corporal Burwell

You were
Some mother’s boy
Some lover’s man.

It’s lost
How tall you stood
Even the color of your eyes
Is no longer known.

All that is known
Is you died
September 20, 1863
Near a creek
Called Chickamauga
In far-away Tennessee
One among thousands
That gave up the ghost
That dreadful Sunday.

You perished
In a sheet of flame
And a buzz saw of musketry
As much a victim of incompetent leadership
As enemy action.
But that's just my opinion, Corporal.

You must have been well loved
To have been wrapped
In a sheet
And shipped to your home
Hundreds of miles north.

Most were buried where they fell.
But not you
Corporal Burwell.

How your poor mother wept
Your lost lover sobbed
And your town clicked their tongues
Saying
Isn’t it a shame about the Burwell boy?

Now you lay beneath
The slab your father set
Upon which your mother cried
Embraced by your broken lover
Before which I stand
Remembering a soldier
I never knew.

I come to see you
Once a year
To stand at your feet
Wondering about you.
If the truth can’t be known
It’s my duty
To make it up.
You deserve that much.
And I’ve done a fine job, I think.

You were young
Proud and noble.
But not too proud
Nor too noble.
You were enthusiastic and brave.
But not too enthusiastic
Nor too brave.
You did what you came to do.
But you did not want to die.
You wanted to kiss your mama
Marry your girlfriend
Have babies
And watch them grow
To honorable adulthood
Around you.
And you wanted grandbabies
on your knee.

You wanted to
Learn piano
Find a trade
Make love
Fish with a buddy
Tell tall tales
Watch the sunset
Worship at your church
See a bit of the world
You wanted this and more.

But you early stopped a bullet.

Now I stand before you
Corporal Burwell
Once again
And place another small flag
Before your stone.
You’d be surprised
At the number of stars
In its blue field.

My beard has gone white
Since I began
Visiting you.
As white as the harvest
Through which you marched
The morning you died.
As white as muzzle flame.
As white as the sheet
In which they bound your body.
As white as the shoulders
Of the lass you would never marry.
As white as your bloodless body
And white as your bones.

Thank you, Corporal Burwell
Although that seems a small thing to offer
Before such a sacrifice.
Sleep on, Corporal.
Rest.

If my own death
Prevents my return
I am confident another will remember.
That's the way it is
In the land for which you died.

Note to Self

I rode a horse named Fantasy
Into a vast
High desert
Snow to the west
Sage behind me
Littered with ancient campfires
And faces of the lost within.

Days stream together
Riding Fantasy.
You lose track of time.
What does it matter
That Sunday feels like
Wednesday?

Fantasy is a good horse
Broke to the saddle
And takes her head
Keeping south of the storms.

But Fantasy never looks back
Wondering if I’m well
Or there at all.
Nothing matters to Fantasy
Except she has food
At day’s end.
If you fail to feed Fantasy
She gets testy.

She will kick you to death
And leave your carcass to the
Ever-present vultures
Circling overhead
Waiting for carrion.

Note to self:
Never ride a horse that never looks back.

Little Difference

I danced with the devil
On a slender thread.
We balanced on air
As if it had substance.

The devil is a woman
With eyes like autumn
Hair of pale moon
And the kiss
Of nightshade.

The devil is scented
In lavender
Has the touch of
Sweet flame
Searing the soul
Burning the nerve root
Until you cannot
Feel yourself dying.

How tender her kiss!

Her charms
Embrace desert winds
Filling your heart
With sand
And you think you’re dancing.

But there’s little difference between
Dancing
And writhing.

Lots of Ways to Kill a Man

There are many ways
To kill a man
There are lots of ways
To die.

You can kill him
Lying or standing
Kneeling
Or sleeping.

There are as many ways
To kill a man
As there are men
To kill.

Line him in your site
They told me
To the center
Of your blade
Take two shots
They told me
And if he’s still moving
Take two more.

But there are lots of ways
To kill a man.

You learned your lesson well.

You caught me sleeping
When I was most vulnerable
When I trusted you
Believed you my friend.

You lulled me
With your fable
Of happily ever after
And I believed you.

That was the night
You put your lips
To my chest
And pulled the trigger.

False Light

The desert moon
Bathes the canyon
In the palest of light
Misty blue
Cast over
Sienna and silver.

Nothing can be seen
By looking directly at it.
You must not look
At a thing
In this false light
To note its place.

How like this desolation
Are you
Sweet lover!

You are lost to my gaze.

Though I seek you
You are past finding.

When I’m not
Looking for you
There you are.

The woman at the bus stop
Had your smile
A child with a rag doll
Your innocence.

I bought a cup of coffee
From a woman
Who had your hands
Your bright red nails.

I see you
When I’m not looking.
When I’m not looking
You are everywhere.

A woman at the café
Laughed like you.
I laughed too
Just to remember how it felt.

I turned the corner
Into the parking lot
And was surprised
By a cool, fresh breeze
Playing at my temples
Cupping my face
Kissing my joyless lips.

I swallowed hard.
The wind rushed my throat
Tumbling into my belly.
You were there.
You were the wind.

You’re there when I’m not looking.

The Dead Sing

I heard someone singing
In the night
A sweet
Disembodied voice
Ageless and gentle
Hardly a breath
Merely a whisper
But a sad
Forlorn song
Rolling from the hills
From deep valleys
Of Atlantic waves
Tossing again its white hair
Moaning like a grieving lover
At the stone of her despair
But a song
A melody as silver
As a fingernail moon
The ensign of the bewitched
Rattling the chords of a solitary wolf
The staccato of owl wings
The vesper of a priest
A song as gentle as shadow
Tucked under the darkness
Beneath the flicker of a candle.

It was a song
Without a singer
An apple without a peel
A speech with no words
Love without passion.

Then it resolved
And has never repeated
I know will never come again.

The dead sing
I know they do
But only once
And without conviction.

Sky Terrors*

Blood smells like copper
Death smells like wine
But there’s no smell like sorrow
Growing on vines.

It pierces my heart
Squeezes my breath
Stifles my cry
And shrouds me in death.

Gone are the children
That played on this street
Gone are the families
Gone, head, heart and feet.

Swept are their hopes
Banished their dreams
Cast off all the plans
Ripped bolts, nails and seams.

The homes are all gone
Churches gone too.
The wounded stumble about
Not knowing what to do.

Tuscaloosa and Joplin
They’re so far away.
What does it mean
At the end of the day?

The death of anyone
Diminishes me.
Our poor, ruined cities
Become a mortuary.

* This poem was originally published in May, 2011, as
Tuscaloosa and Joplin. I now update that work under this title,
following the horror that occurred in and around Moore, OK.
Having survived two relatively minor tornadoes, I cannot imagine
the fright and loss after an EF 4, or 5 tornado. My heart and
prayers go out to the people in our heartland. May a merciful,
loving God wrap them in His compassionate arms. This fallen
world subjects us all to such disasters.

A Few Loose Ends

Wait for me there
At the great Pearly Gate
Wait for me there
I will not be late.

Just a few loose ends
I need to tie
Just a few more tasks
Before I lay down to die.

The night will soon pass
And the sweet morning light
Will show me the way
And I’ll give up this fight.

Won’t you wait for me there?
Time passes slow
Though I’ve made up my mind
And I’m ready to go.

Swept and Gone

How many days
How many nights
Have passed, lover
Since last I held you?

In time
We both stop counting.
Passing days
Fade
Into a dull ache
A spinning
In the back of our skulls.

We know what it is
But we never say.
It must never come
From our lips.
We swallow it back
Bitter in our throats
But we know what it is.

Beyond the horizon
Your feet pad soft in the grass.
You water your azaleas
And watch a monarch butterfly
Dance on the morning air.

You are not far away
Though you live
In the dark of the moon
Between the rings of Saturn.

It saddens me
I will never see you again.
My shadow weeps in the knowledge
It will nevermore twine with yours.

I can't know what you think
Of me
Though memories of you
Swirl like puffs of milkweed
Along the rails of the Burlington.

They are swept and gone
In the rattle and hum
Of the passing beast
And setting sun.

Swept and gone.

You Show Me Yours

When I was a kid
I wanted
A scar.

It would be
A purple slice
Extending from eye
To chin.

I would say
It was a saber slash
From a battle
Brilliantly fought
Nobley won.

Back in the day
Scars were cool.
They were autobiography.

But like the Apostle
When I became a man
I put away childish things.

These days
I make great effort
To hide my scars.
They hurt.
They are butcher marks
Unglamorous
From stories in which
I am the loser.

I don’t want you to see them.
They betray my secrets
Expose my weakness.

Most are invisible
Nevertheless real.
They crisscross my heart
The way the foreman’s whip
Rends the flesh of the field slave.

You’ll never see my scars.
I’ll never show you.

Unless you have scars too.

Tell you what…
You show me yours
I’ll show you mine.

Ironic, Isn’t It?

For the first time
In my life
I don’t know the man
Pacing me
In the glass storefronts
Along the avenue.

I’ve let my hair grow long
And my beard came in white.
I wear clothes I like
And not the uniform of society.
I’ve swapped my ball cap
For a battered Charlie 1 Horse.

The old Chevy truck I pilot
Suits me fine.
I don’t need an onboard computer
To tell me where I am
When what I really want
Is to get lost.

In contrast to convention
And the dogma of the day
A Swisher Sweet is sometime
Exactly what I require.

This is far from
Midlife crisis
Because I’m way on
The far horizon
From midlife.

What this is
Is
A purging
A slicing and dicing
An adventure in loss
A reduction in force
A right-sizing.

The freedom I want
Is the liberty I long ago enjoyed.

Ironic
Isn’t it
That as a man ages
He eventually returns
To the same point
From which he began?

But this time
I'll take fries with that.

I Am Not a Brave Man

Death stood on the staircase
With arms crossed
Daring me to pass.

I am not a brave man.
I felt the chill settle in my spine.
I am not a brave man.

I took a step toward him.
His frame tensed
Ready for me.

I am not a brave man.

I mulled the consequences
And took a second step.

I am not a brave man.

Death leaned in
Towering over me
At the top of the staircase.

I am not a brave man.

But he is a tenant in this building
Not the owner.
So I passed him by.

I am not a brave man.

But I am the son of the Owner.