Happy Time

The magical afternoon
Hour of four
Offices start to empty
Beers begin to pour

Shinagawa Shiodome

Resting my feet,
A form of meditation,
In a canyon of steel, concrete,
All echoes and reverberation...

Finessing The Issue

A bad day, where less was received,
As compared to what they gave,
Is best handled like a boat
Surfing over a passing wave...

Autumn Gloaming

A late-November afternoon,
Sunlight, intense, low-angled,
Shining on a day gone too soon,
It's heat, dissipated in shadows
Which presage the moon...

Hurt

A case of verbal decimation,
Leaving burnt flowers,
Emotional desolation...

Free And Lonely

My shopping mall can be
An existential place,
Solitary oldsters sit, and
Stare off into space...

Morning Patrol

Above the garbage bin
The crow flies laps
Flying food
Reconnaissance perhaps

Knee Jerk

The order from above
Was meaningless, manic,
A result of loss of nerve,
Bureaucratic panic,
And amounted to rearranging
Deck chairs on the Titanic...

Minority View

We may get overruled,
But that does not mean
We’ve been fooled,
For we see the lies
Being launched & spooled...

Pre-Coffee

Another anonymous morning,
Staring ahead, sorting the pills,
Which delay the inevitable
End, of my geriatric ills...

Military Loss In Peacetime

In the line of duty
They have died...

It is a tough thing,
Relentlessly applied,
Duty's "line"...

It is unforgiving,
And will assign
What must be carried out,
No way to avoid what
It will bring about...

Duty's hard-ass line,
Grinding meat
As the fates incline...

Autumn Dementia

The clouds are streak-blown white,
Same winds muss-up the hair,
Also white, of a lost old woman,
Who seems to have forgotten where
She was going, and when and why,
Windswept, she wanders in circles
Under a cold November sky...

Church Life

Faith and doubt come in waves
Sermons bray, the frightened pray,
Pay your tithes, Jesus saves...

My Japanese Apartment

I live in a box, within a box, within a box,
Made mostly of steel and concrete,
Along with other multi-storied boxes
Lining a typical Japanese city street,
Here and there hostage trees stand,
Reminders of nature’s retreat
From the box invasion, and now
It’s the weeds which live and compete...

Temporary

Our days are
Evanescent,
Gone before we
Know where they went...

Navy Life

Wake up, get on your feet,
Dress, eat,
Stand watch,
Sleep, and repeat...

Public Discourse 2017

Fake news,
The product of
Opposing views,
Less able to agree
Than accuse,
The results for
Reporters to use...

Sartre Would Be Proud

Another day in front of me
Full of potential
Absolutely empty & free...

Dawn Cries

Quiet cool transition to a
November's morning light
Crows' calling farewell
To the fade-way night...

After Losing

When disappointment
Casts a pall
Better to go to sleep
And feel nothing at all