From fires of young years
live embers lie smoldering
in the ash of age.
—Cave Outlaw (1900–1996), Autumn Walk, 1974
poems
Breakup
Dear Middle Age,
you fair-weather brute! —
Oh, why don’t you love me
the way I was loved by Youth?
Hustled
Spring doesn’t know
how to spring anymore
because it thinks it’s summer
Autumn can’t fall in line
with seasonal time anymore
because the heat’s still rising
Winter won’t wait
to leaf the trees anymore
because spring too early spirals
Arise thankful
a new day doesn’t mean
forgetting yesterday
but simply letting it go
not to dwell in memories
but to cherish each one
as it pops up and surprises us
and then release it with a smile
the birds are singing of now
our hearts beat of the present
the past is a muted background
enhancing our carpe-diem lives
dawn paints the scene of today
and invites us to live beautifully
to be the artists of our own souls
Umber
there are only so many poems one can write
about umber tree roots and the glowing moon
before the psyche starts crying out to be heard
the suffering of the world isn’t poetic
but it is essential to poetry
Weather reports 2023
PHOENIX, ARIZONA
* * *
JULY 19
july the nineteenth
overnight low temp
of ninety-seven degrees
* * *
OCTOBER 19
october nineteenth
one hundred and three degrees
climate change is hoax
* * *
NOVEMBER 6
day before winter
ninety-three degrees
summer-autumn in phoenix
* * *
NOVEMBER 8
dear gods of weather —
will it ever rain again
in bone-dry phoenix?
* * *
NOVEMBER 14
now a week into winter
high: eighty-eight F degrees
that’s not fahrenheit
* * *
NOVEMBER 18
i begged & pleaded
for rain but now bemoaning
winter mosquitoes
* * *
DECEMBER 6
really, december:
high of eighty-two degrees?
oh no you didn’t!
* * *
DECEMBER 21
on midwinter day
seventy-seven degrees
a sunburned solstice
* * *
Night haze
The moon shines
into the dirty desert air
with a rusty opal halo —
Scorpius has lost his way
behind the thin clouds,
city glare, smoke, dust —
His heart shines in some far
better place — but not here
in this smoggy summer.
To be continued
life blooms right through death
and they beautify each other
Value-able
some see treasure in everything,
while others die believing
everyone else struck gold but
never finding any for themselves —
how sad for those lost, bitter beings
who were ever blind of heart
X
life is a treasure map
and also the treasure
Hear & Now
Music echoes rhythms of the universe
Music is audible time
Music is past meets present
Our heartbeats are the drums of life
We dance to life, not music
Asymmetrical kisses
Asymmetrical kisses,
the sexiest yearning —
one lip on nostalgia, the
other, love yet earning
Close quarters & distant dreams
in good times and in bad
’til death do us part
isn’t just for marriage —
but family too — lifelong vows
coursing through our blood