Angela

Angel in Spanish
you cast upon us
so many smiles
even if, but for a little while
you stole away
the mundane

This day will be yours
as a celebration
of what you left with us
a memory
the Angel who brought
this world a smile

You comforted me
when all the while
your gleaning smile
while repairing mine
did not speak
of your own trials

Selflessness is an
angelic trait
and I’m sure the reason
why your friend,
your Mom
named you Angela

Gracias for my Smile
and when I do
it will be for you
A welcoming key
you’ve left with us
that opens the gate
where clouds form
the floor boards and tile

The door bell sounds
of heavenly rings
and in the closet rung
now hang your wings

Silence is Golden

She quietly sits staring
sometimes at the bruises
on her arms her legs
wondering how they got there
She doesn’t recall her husband,
son, her daughter lifting her
from the floor.

He now has time to
reminisce and hash around all
the sermons all the words written
from sixty years of ministry
Lies down ten hours at a time
with tubes and needles
feeding him nutrition
and cleansed blood

They come together
for short moments in the day
husband and wife, life partners
instinctively embrace
sit on their irreplaceable sofa
on that one spot
molded through time
and sit without speaking
just stare forward
Her tiny arms and feeble chest
wraps tightly around his
his arm blankets around
her shoulders

When once his words were his sustenance
her violin titillating
ears in concert halls
and churches
Now words no longer spoken
fingers no longer stretch strings
once awakening angels
They now sit
in silence

Unscented Flower

I show my face
hoping you notice
but your world is surrounded
by things other
than me

Like a middle child
when adversity appears
or a swale between
high waves
that parts them
we are left unseen

Silence is heard
as quiet resounds
a single flower
born unscented,
simple words
without pretension

Will you see me

Autumn's Clarity

The Autumn’s crispness
highlights colors
dawns and dusks
with yellow and
rusty auburn leaves

the homeless man
sits in this one street
all year around
his attire doesn’t change
with the change of season

He wears the same three layers
t-shirt, shirt, Vietnam War Army green peacoat
jump boots have not seen
a spit shine for a while
his blanket over his shoulders
dirty, holey and frayed

Wonder'n what he’s thinking
Where his memories take him
does he look forward
to a new day
finding small moments of joy
or at least of contentment
in some way

What lost or forgotten corner
lie his childhood pictures now
possibly sixteen millimeter film clip
of him being held by a mother
when once he enjoyed her caresses
someone’s embrace
being comforted while tiny childhood
tears trickle down little cheeks
his hotdog has jumped off
the paper plate
he sits unconsolable at a
picnic table in a park
his mother assures him
all will be ok

The coolness
and bright Autumn colors
will soon be covered by frost
become unforgivingly cold
the rendered clarity
will be darkened in gray
our eyes will seek shelter
in a haven of warmth
while his peacoat
and blanket,with his memories
once again left alone
in the cool of Autumn
in this street corner
his home

Another lap

The season's cool
discreetly tiptoes in
The morning’s dew
perches a little longer
glistening, mirroring
with prism intensity
the burning yellow-orange
reflecting a glitter grander
than the Summer's sweat

This cool titillates
the nostrils with a waft
of awakening freshness
to the day
A virgin nascence envelops
all that lives

The Earth
is slowly undressing
from dark of night attire
It faces naked
toward the sun
uninhibited unabashed
taking its diurnal jaunt
begins another orbital lap


I ride along
while in its wake
the wind folds my skin
knowing fair well
some will remain
ebb'd into wrinkles
much like inner rings
in trunks of trees,
noting another lap
has been run
another season
has come

Footprints Lost

Wondering what has become of me
when there was a lust for love,
that passion for the verve,
running carefree as
fresh sprinkles of wet cool
spackled my face,
bare feet in the grass,
my vocal chords swelling
from singing out loud
my favorite songs
not caring if I awaken
the sleeping
All was the character
of hope and wishes
thinking smiles would
be mirrored by strangers
and good deeds were
a common thread
amongst all.
My vision,
considered naiveté
not condemned
of being ignorance
and my love ones
Mother, brothers
were accessible
at my beckon call
not yet swallowed by
the earth or their ashes
blowing away in the wind.
Life’s storms have
covered my footprints

I Hear a Roar

Might I be alone
walking and talking
while life’s storm rolls
following me from behind
like a roaring train
coming as I walk
on it’s tracks

Waking in the warmth
of my bed with my wife’s
embrace, my two little
‘kids’ lying at my feet
coffee percolating sound
letting me waft
the beginning of
my day

Belied by nightmarish dreams
of the unfortunate
who’ve recently felt the wrath
of ‘mother nature’s’ hand
now waking in a
foreign space
wrapped around by arms
of angry, saddening
disgrace

tracing the steps
of those disheartened souls
whose every waking day
decry those of us
with so much
who don’t hear
their cries
their children’s
starvation woes

seeing a woman
standing in a street corner
with a cardboard sign
pressed against her chest
indiscernible letters written
with her children's crayons
a man stands next to her
with a plastic bag
in each hand
filled with empty cans
cars speed by

The roaring sound
that rolls behind
is of steps and grunts
coming from our ‘maker’
chasing to catch
this uncaring world
of his own creation
and shake it
from it’s core

Tickling Grassblades

Watching the twinkling
the hanging lights
of the night sky
the blades of grass
tickle the nape of my neck
I lay
wondering about
when the glitter
of these lights
shall cease in teasing
the reflecting
sparkle in
the many eyes
that have looked
up seeing and gathering
their direction, their history
their future

Is there an End,
a Forever.
A Reason for it’s Beginning?

Without a Key

Her voice enters
quietly
into rarely
traveled chambers
of my heart
unknown
echoes
heard with
heartfelt
passion


she smiles
and
my eyes gather
tears, I
release them
washing away
those dire
thoughts
in the absence
of this
smile

A joy
gathers, battling
breaths deep
inside
She’s entered
my abode
without a
key
lies back
makes
herself a home
where few
have
ever been
allowed

I hope
she’ll want
to stay

Dessert Anyone?

Universe with
your pleasured consumption
of infinity
of all the breaths
that I have taken
all the words
that I have spoken
both written
and in song
the volume of Love
I have given,
will I be
a portion
of your meal
possibly a nibble
of your dessert
or will I be
discarded with
the crumbs?

Or am I a tiny
speck of sand
like our Earth
is to the Milky Way
as it is
then to you
sieved
through as in
a medieval
glass time piece
then turned over
to be re-sieved
time and time again
while you
savor the sweetness
of infinity?

spring water

Time passes
a barnacle
in the mind

a heart
without eyes
has no sense
of time

The wind
the rain
a mirror’s reflection
on a face

years of playing
in summer winds
and winter storms

a heart still sings
youth filled
tunes
the legs
the feet
no longer
move in tempo

reminiscing upon
memories
that fill the glass
with spring water
of youth

Nutty Friend

She lets me feed her
from my hand
scurries down
to the homemade
wooden perch I’ve
logistically hung on
the tree.

Multiple hanging birdfeeders
all around
thistle bags hang
on hooks of black cast iron poles
stuck in the ground
a created aviary

Josette, my nutty friend
climbs down
amidst the feathered clan
on the platform of the perch
sitting on her haunches
nibbles on the corn and black oilseed
I’ve placed there for her pleasure

She sits up
taking pleasure in the seed
proudly displays
like brass buttons
her little teats
as her tail
waggles in the air
letting me know
of her contentment
and her joy

light at night

The night, ah yes , the night
I have not seen it lately
for my eyes have been closed

I have heard it, though
what life bares it’s soul
and sings in the night

It wanders about
like I do
in the light

I recall once
not too long ago
looking up
and their were holes
in the sky
one big one
for sure
in the dark
in the night
Boy, was it bright

'M' is for

My eyes closed last night
but still could see
shadows cast
from the day before

Misty light cast upon
the swollen cheeks
distended bellies
tears crust on little faces

My body lays upon
a warm mattress
my belly is full
and sate

My pains and aches
incomparable
to those tiny swollen feet
and the rash
urine soaked shorts

Mom has passed
giving up her food to them
but soon they will
once again hold her hand
smile down upon
an uncaring world

Maybe the tears
that fill my eyes
will blur
the shadows cast
and I shall sleep

Exhaled

Swollen her eyes lids
would then unfurl
releasing saline residue
of memories once forgotten

She shares her story
his wanton treachery
behind closed doors
covered bruises
from him begotten

Someone who closely I knew
sharing boyhood dreams
pangs of hunger
fatherless
unwanted lonely nights
of acculturating plight

Attentive are my ears
as she speaks of the years
nine children born
little time shared
spent by his hand
changing diapers in the night

Commiserating
of positives from their past
her husband, my brother
alone and homeless
in the lonely LA streets
he passed

We wandered into caverns
where minds wish not to go
hearts disdain to travel
Catharsis tamed the moment
we exhaled those darken
shadows cast

Wisdom Reflected

Four days this last week
I saw the world through the eyes
of ninety year old souls
capturing some of their
inner wisdom and their life’s tolls

Papa, a Minister, came with a portable kidney
dialysis set up in our spare bedroom
He's hooked-up nightly by seven
for a ten hour stint till the next morn
refreshed with verve without forlorn

His partner, lover and wife of sixty five years
a teacher of music, a first seat violinist
mother of three daughters and one son,
tennis player when her legs were young
led a choir of church hand bells ethereally rung

When first I met them twenty six years prior
He’d be on his Sunday pulpit proselytizing ‘good’
She’d fill every crevice in the vestibule
with sinuous violin minuets
her finger tips touching every human pore

Now she barely ambles but conjures strength
when incontinence assails her pride
Scurries, crouched, with her walker
resembling a diminutive Mother Teresa’s stature

They shared their ageless wisdom
reminding us of selflessness
we peered into their eyes, their souls
while caring for their whithering incarnate shells
seeing of what is soon to be ourselves

The Likes of Me

What wind does there yonder blow
it crashes upon my face
surrounds me like a whirl wind
warm or cool, wet and cold


It molds me like the rocks upon the shore
years of blowing back and forth
giving rides to winged friends
and anything it grasps
when hard it blows


It circles me with life’s adornments
sometimes they glitter or they glow
and some may fall and break
when the wind howls
and intensity grows

Not unlike the stones of ages
it forms the structure of my being
shapes the high or low brow
the cheek bones on my face

So when I look into a mirror
or others peer into my eyes
they see what wind around me swirls
that encapsulates my world

A Balance

Awoke this morning with the vocals of Eva Cassidy
and Israel Kamakawiwo's singing their renditions
of ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’
Simple and mellifluous she spreads honey on an
already sweet dream filled song whereas he
plays it with his ukulele in a happy upbeat

Yesterday, filled my listening pleasures with
Yo Yo Ma’s emotional integration with his cello
interpreting Beethoven and Mozart through his fingers
of their linear manifestation of human genius

Sate my palette with a coating of Shelley, Tennyson
Shakespeare; all this to spoil my sensorial
with choice pleasures buffering
the inundation of pain filled realities
of treacherous Weather and Wars

Tomorrow I shall greet my wife’s elderly parents
visiting and bringing more than ninety years
of these days of choices and well cognizant of their
awaiting to embrace their transitional destiny
where all the music, the poetry of Human history
now reside in that restful abode

The Rapture is Come

The Rapture did come for some
once existing full with life
in a harrowing wind blown moment
it’s breath of inherent Being is ripped out
by Nature’s vengeful angered hand

In Hell's abode the devil exhales
and the dark of darkness replaces all light
the quiet and calm of the day
is swallowed by a deadly roar
of destructive winds forcing life's flight

Screams resounding with cries of sorrow
filling the darkness and left unheard
cuddled embraces fill the feigned security of corners
where once Felix and Fido’s bowls were left
now lifeless souls of dead huddled carcasses rest

As the wrath of Earthly destruction rolls away
left behind are chards of
denuded Oaks standing still
barren of leaves and limbs
casting eerie tombstone shadows upon piled rubble

Unlike, as captured in pictorial annals
of a Vietnamese child naked, burned skin
scaling and pealing off from napalm 
her smoldering village lays waste behind her
giving rise to the distil morals of war,

had this death and destruction
been from man made war
the battles would be fought and
victory or defeat would be hailed
but this being Nature’s blight
unsettled questions assail the night

Left is unresolved pain and sorrow
questioning the existence of our Faith
Why must all this suffering be
and where is that intervening
caring hand of our Deity?

Release

Floundering about of what to speak
what words with which to paint the picture

of those that draw the memories
or those of the empirical present

a process of emotional acceptance of
how life exists beyond the self

trying to intertwine one’s soul
with the universe

accepting that in order for this to happen
one must release the individual self

and if this be the choice entwined in empathy for all
then let me be part of this universal oneness

is this called Love