Sonnets and Free Verse

Something stirs me to steal

The succulents of strangers

No idle urge

I yearn to snip clippings

Without license

Because

You know,

I’m shy

Plus — 

Where’s the fun in asking?

My compulsion is restrained

Plush plants near the sidewalk

That sort of thing

Are succulents a gateway?

Cacti beckon, but no cuttings

I’d have to have the whole

Before long, shrubbery

And then things get serious

It’s said into each life some rain must fall,
This year the April showers came too soon,
Heart heavy skies are massing over all,
We hide inside and hope we’re out in June.
We venture outdoors only when we must,
We keep our distances, wash hands, and spray,
We learn of strangers slipping into dust,
And wonder when…who else will slip away.
Not him, not her, not them, dear God, not me!
I’m not too old, I do want something more,
I’ve yet to hold a grandchild on my knee,
I’ve too much more to say to yield the floor.
The day they find the magic pills and charms,
I’ll wade wide seas to hold you in my arms. 

lurching in old lady gait

crab-walking

class to class

on ice slick hills of Ithaca

straight-jacketing my gaze

to glance

their glances off of me

refusing to acknowledge those

whose fingers neatly prised

their Ray-Banned fortunes free

with me here holding

what?

no satisfaction guarantee

doctors didn’t know

joints swelled

my dendrites danced

like go-go girls

you’d be surprised

what weak appeal

mysteries hold for medicos

aspirin four times daily

the cathode

tube-fed pap

of Casey yin

and yang Kildaire,

and Welby cozy-wise

all noise, white noise

capsules stuffed with sucralose

but then one night

in death-wished sleep

Hawkeye Pierce appeared

as on a piece of toast

and listened

sans stethoscope

to my faith laid limp

in a kidney-shaped receptacle

speaking without speaking

“it’s alive”

This time into which I have come alone,

Shall in its suff’ring sorrow make me strong,

As deep within my heart’s revived a tone,

Of blue, yet brave and brightly better song.

It’s You; my anxious hope dares to expect.

Will dash out death and dreadful dreams destroy,

And You, hope knows, whose mighty will projects,

He who in time shall have my hand in joy.

Yet still, at times when silent suff’ring swells,

The ringless brother to the willful right,

Resentment then within my chamber dwells,

In anxious, aching-etched eternal night.

When blessed patience blooms from out this pain,

Acceptance will in taking place remain.

Go ask Alice what it was to be a soldier
At the one time in American history
When "soldier" was a dirty word
Go ask Alice about the times
She changed out of uniform in the ladies room
To avoid being spit upon
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
There are those
Who don’t understand
Why someone like her
Who’d served drinks to celebs in Saratoga
Who’d met Picasso
Who’d ridden on the back of Keith Richards' motorcycle
Would put on Army green and beige
And cross the line from cool to whatever that was
But maybe they don’t know
About her father in a POW camp
Far longer than any human should endure
Maybe they don’t know
That he survived
Coming home to raise a large and loving family
Maybe they don’t know Alice
But, if they ask her
I think she’ll know 

Be yourself.

You’re not a gazing ball, 

or the Virgin Mary in an upended bathtub grotto, painted blue.

You’re not a windmill or a birdhouse.

You’re not the wind.

You’re not a bird.

You’re just a bit of clay-built whimsey,

A splash of color in the yard,

Whose job it is to jolly up the place.

Get on with it.