somewhere a train whistle
deep throaty a mile or so away
mechanical mystery encounter
occasional bray then silence
calling slightly requesting me to stay

i know commuters dark suited strangers
stockbrokers wall street employees
coffee drinking and yawning
would wish to be in my place
that i have secured with my years

if i could join them once more
bound for tasks to be done
years to be won employment
fresh won doing rewards

but life is a voyage a song
a whisper begun a stirring
where are you going and why
few tributes then learn to die

from my window two stories above
trash collectors in an open truck
collect my flattened cartons
arrange them neatly then move on
the street empty again

i dream of journeys tracks and roads
but only this hour this moment
is truly made of gold

collecting my sense my tears
my softening bones my final years

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They say you should be born rich but I was and look at me now.
My father built and drove race cars. Our brick house on thirty
acres in Elmont had no beams because the bottom of the house
was for my mother, for her roller-skating. She would skate for
hours; we could hear the whirr of wheels on smooth concrete.
Mom owned three beauty salons - Nancy's Nests. She had a nice
staff working for her but went in from time to time for her favorite
customers. Then my father got MS. His doctor told him there was
a cure and traveled with my father all over the world to find it,
with Pop footing the bill. When they returned threre was no money
left and my father spent 27 years in the state nursing home. Mom
had to sell all three Nancy's Nests to a married man with a thin
mustache and a big Oldsmobile. He did her a favor and employed
her in the store on Elm Street, the first one she'd opened. He
would come over at night or on Sunday morning and me and my
brother had to play quietly downstairs. When I was eighteen I
kicked him out one night. The slimey bribery he had always
worked on my brother didn't go with me. I had no use for his
bottles of soda or glossy magazines. He never came back. Maybe
Mom missed him. I don't know, after all, a woman has needs.

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Not much happening.
One big empty room after I clear the table,
after I finish doing myself in with artificial
stimulants that only dim the flame some,
or repress the truth: survival is not enough,
that living is what, the only "meaning?"
Whatever that means? Here goes:

The day dolls deep blue. Rain-blessed. August
green perks back after weeks of heat and drought.
Finch and sparrow flit past white oak bark.
Black and yellow swallotwails, wasted amid leaf.

Nature's primal sanities win again - all the awards.

Here I am nearsighted, terminally-degreed white-male,
middle-class USAmerican nestled along New York,
Long Island with a north-shore view - highly skewed.

Such remains all I think we understand, what we believe
if we carry any belief - like those butterflies, here for a bit.
So, hold on to yourself, for me, with love and joy.

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Oh, the mad will of the sea,
flinging
creatures up the spines of mountains,
spreading them
through the grasses of savannahs,
lifting them
into the dark and light of trees.

Oh, the designs of the sea,
sworls of snails,
stripes of snakes,
curls of embryos,
cells twisting
into gill, tail, hand.

Oh, the cunning of the sea,
blue-green dragon scaled in sunlight,
crouched
low at my feet caressing my toes,
telling how you and I were dreamed
eons ago.

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I'll trust the feel of things
the dear, familiar reaching out

and find my way into the dark
to the shed beyond the forcing house

and the sandals you wore
when last we walked this meadow.

And certain as grace they were there
nudging the preserves, apricot jars

like suns gone amuck
forsaking their orbit

reaching for something
beyond the cusp of time,

and your garden hat, a tilting rick
why, a sigh could have toppled it.

Your sandals, a distant-mountain blue
fragrant with timothy and lavender,

I only wish they'd leave a path
where it's always cool and blue-mist

runnels along a tamarack: that path, Annie,
where does it begin?

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Through the loam of my dreams
I felt something push, take hold
after the long dark night
a purplish nudge into dawn
unfolding in small silken wings
twisting and untwisting, budding
up and open-mouthed,
stretched on tender stalks
breaking into sunlight,
lured by birdsong

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in each rising
pocket emptied of rock
twisting shell through
collapsing hours
and
admittedly too gray now
to be more than
ordinary
each dawn breaks
a brutal wink of light

yet
secure she is

in
knowing
water iced over
might romance her step
then so like a virgin
shored up and shoulders squared
stoic be the dance
in
allowing
it will be over
when none left to bruise or appal
and a life be simply sum
of black and white
lines shimmering

in
action
courage snaps to
shorn hair breathes confidence
now
relieved of parent lament
lover unnerved

with pocket of stone
she walks into the chill rising river.

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She was supposed to be here at noon.
It's noon and no one is here.
Ten minutes from now the phone will ring.
Hello, I'll say as I pick the phone up.
Hello, she'll say.
Well, I am somewhere, she'll say.
What does that have to do with you not
being here, I'll ask.
Well, the place just opened, she'll say.
Without getting any further, I'll just agree.
So when are you coming, I'll say.
In a li'l bit, she'll say.
What's a little bit, I'll ask.
An hour, I'll say.
Ya, she'll say.
One o'clock. Ya, one, she'll say.

It's one thirty. No one is here yet.
But the phone's ringing.

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