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Happy Holidays...

I wish you all holidays of quiet peace, and a fruitful new year.

Thanksgiving Day 2010

Temperature drops
thirty five degrees overnight
North wind strips the trees
empty bird feeders swing
like broken barn doors.

When the Wampanoag
bailed out the Pilgrims with
berry stuffed venison,
did they sense their doom?

Today’s paper
heavy with Black Friday ads
is our wake up call.

Natural Selection

A dozen and a half
fat little birds
fluffed against the cold
(58 degrees, after all)
argue over the feeders while
one pissy, twelve year old cat
sits beneath
either accepting
or annoyed;
it's hard to tell which.

Reality Check

Washing dishes,
a flash of light and color
across a drying grater
caught my eye,
made me think I’d seen
images flickering across
a small video screen.

Perhaps it’s time
to radically
simplify.

Check out my Sis' new blog!

My dear Sis, acclaimed northwest gardening author Annie Lovejoy, has a new blog - Check it out and subscribe, it and she are gems, indeed!

Annie's Blog

The Sustainability of Happiness

If you depend upon
someone else
for yours.

If politics rules your roost.

If acquiring wealth
or things
are paramount.

If fame
is what you seek.

If you’ve sought
education
or experience
merely to slake
your ego.

If you do what you do
for the sake
of accolades.

If where you live
or
what you drive,
is how you measure
your value as
a human being.

Then,
you’re
not
gonna
find
it.

In Sickness and In Health

The prep nurse noted her fragile veins
advised delay, but
she was ready, so,
on she went.

Together for decades,
he could not be with her
in surgery.

Something gave and
she never woke.
For two days
she lingered
on life support;
they told him
he needed to make
a decision.

Knowing she hated it,
he told them to stop;
all of it.

Down in the bright sterility
of the cafeteria,
he was cutting into his chicken when
he felt a hand,
warm on his shoulder.

He knew it could not be her,
not her body;
no one else saw,
she was there
only for him.

She smiled and said,
“It’s going to be all right;”
and then
she was gone.

A love crossing decades
suddenly condensed,
out of time;
in the last possible moment
one thing needed to be said;
“It’s going to be all right.”

Is there anybody out there...

If there is, I should say that most of my writing energy lately is going into a new food blog, which you can check out right here - And please do!

I've also started publishing more or less done chapters of a new novel titled Once a Fisherman, so scope that out too!

Cheers!

E

Ihr Garten

There’s a language here,
spoken in color,
texture,
and pattern.

Rock Rose to Rosemary to Oleander;
myriad greens with
bright blooms
interposed.

Zinnia and cucumber,
chile and yucca
painted pot and tree trunk,
purple-blue blossom
against weathered fence board.

Pieces fit together perfectly,
each is perfect on its own.

Bronze bell on maple branch
prayer flags over herbs,
scent of basil redolent
as cold water
splashes leaf.

Even when she is gone,
here,
I breathe her scent.

Flow

If you told me back in the 60s
that I’d not only drink water from bottles
but have a favorite brand
I’d have said you were crazy.

If you told me that,
after DDT and 2,4,5-T,
Love Canal and the Cuyahoga
that we’d forget all we learned
and fuck everything up afresh
I’d have thought you were nuts.

If, after I tore up my Exxon card
you’d said we’d have one even worse
within twenty years or so
because nobody really did anything different
I’d have said you’re bonkers.

I do so wish that you had been.

Waffle House, Redux

See, the problem is that nobody really
gives a good goddamn about them people
comin' across the border.
See if we was Canada, it'll be all different.

I'll tell you what the real illegal immigrant problem is;
it's those fire ants.
Them's the real problem,
and look how easy they got here?
Them and the bole weevils...

J.R., you are one dumb sonofabitch.
You're so dumb, you don't know to shut up
when somebody tells you you aughta.
And you're no better;
you just sit there and agree with him.

Aww, come on now, Bud
we're solving the world's problems!
Give us another five minutes
we'll solve 'em all!

Oh buuuuuullshit;
You've had forty five minutes
and you ain't solved one damn thing;
I am done with you two idiots.

See ya tomorrow, Bud.

To hell with the both of you both.

Good Morning, Ivy

Welcome, tiny girl!
We’ve been waiting for you
but no rush;
you’re right on time.

Your first morning and
you’ve changed things
forever.

I awoke smiling,
perception shifted,
seen through your eyes;
I bet they stay blue.

May the world’s ills be cured.
May it be for you as
it was for me;
a joyous youth
awash in pure tones.

So it shall be, because
you have arrived.

Esurient

Van Gogh sky,
jagged white
stabbed with black
and grey.

Songbirds nervous as deer
before an earthquake.

Air, muggy and hot, pauses
grave still,
waiting for the balance to tip.

Bromidic

Back in the day
some Neanderthal was the first
to add spikes to his wheel;
studded leather wristlets
followed shortly.

In my youth, only motor heads had muscle;
now, “CEOs drive Harleys and
wholesome mothers have tattoos.”

On my twelve mile daily commute,
a surfeit of over-horsed idiots
bob and weave in a winnerless race,
striving to wrench
that last free car length
from all the others.

Virga

It’s 101 in the shade of
the steakhouse veranda;
nobody’s goin’ out there
to dig into a sizzling rib eye.

He sits alone,
just a beater six string for company,
belting out Tejas-tinged blues.

Top down in the parking lot,
I stop for a tune or two.
He pays me no mind,
eyes closed, playing for those
who first shaped the music.

I start to roll and he looks over;
I give a thumbs up and
he smiles, jerks his chin,
starts into another tune.

Texas Rescue Dog

He weighs nine pounds,
stands ten inches tall
at the shoulder.

Tied to his star-studded collar
a tiny barrel holds
one good shot an’ a half
of Anejo tequila
an’ a Dixie cup.

When some poor sap gets
whupped upside the head
by a tornader, he will crawl
from the wreckage of his doublewide,
and as his eyes clear,
he’ll spot Bandito,
standing tall on a rubble heap
ready to quench his thirst and
make everything OK agin.

Darwinism

Coffee cups that read
“Caution, contents are hot”

Boxes printed with,
“Do not turn box upside down,”
on the bottom.

Hand guns that note,
“Read manual before use.”

Fish hooks warn,
“Harmful if swallowed.”

Male enhancement pills marked,
“Do not use while pregnant or nursing.”

A hair dryer reads,
“Never use while sleeping,”
and a curler,
“Do not use in shower or bath.”

If this kind of mindless shit
really is necessary,
shouldn’t we just allow natural selection
to do its thing?

Time Lapse

My eye caught the clock
just as the numbers changed.
I thought, what if
they just kept flipping?

Would it be the end of days,
a flashback,
or just a busted Sony?

If I roll back over,
surrender to sleep,
will I wake up older than time
with all I love
turned to dust?

It’s probably nothing that
coffee and a morning paper won’t cure;
in that instant between sleep and waking
it can give you pause.

X Chromosomes

I have drifted through life assuming
that one got rid of furnishings
when they were worn out:
This is not true.

I have, over the years, perfected
the Belushi lear; one brow arched high
with the eye beneath squinting,
the effect one of incredulity defined.

When your spouse arrives
out of the blue
with a new couch,
there to replace your beloved nest,
you must never deploy
the Belushi eye.

You may, if you feel so moved,
try to save the rug, and
you might even win that fight;
but forget about the couch,
it’s already gone.