Naval Station Great Lakes

You stand the watch, hour after hour,
Tired and bored, but alert
Making decisions, wielding power,
Over mostly trivial things -- your feet hurt
Along with your back, while time
Ticks away, never to be retrieved,
Until your watch is properly relieved…
Afterwards, burden gone, you
Go outside to have a smoke,
Marlboro menthol in your hand,
And feel like the punch line of a joke…
At least you get to sit, instead of stand.

Nimitz Highway, Oahu, 25 August 2011

The homeless man
Stands on a median,
Guarding nowhere
From no one,
Like those nobodies
Who barely notice
Anything, driving by…
He stands in the sun-
Baked street
And defends his piece
Of concrete,
Because he can.

寒露 KAN RO (Cold Dew)

A thick wet blanket of normality
Covers and threatens to suffocate
All creativity, leaving banality
Or, yet worse, a dried-up celibate
Soul, incapable of stepping off
The treadmill -- stuck in a state
Of impending check-mate,
The bright lights never getting
A chance to beat the betting.

The Climber

I climb up a rock, with my hands
And muscles, no ropes, no cleats,
I am unstoppable, defying gravity…
And limpet-like, my grip defeats
The force that would fling
Me down onto the safety mat,
Placed carefully, intending
To break a fall from the boulder,
Mitigating an otherwise ugly ending…
I climb for the challenge, the thrill
Of ascending vertically on an
Unforgiving granite face, until
The top is reached, the goal achieved,
My tendons and fingers relieved,
And the feeling which follows
Is beyond normal pleasure:
Minutes of dopamine's treasure...

Navy Wife

Learning to wait,
Lonely as hell,
She goes through her days
Resigned to her fate,
But it's all right,
She's saved by his smell
On the pillow,
She hugs at night...

Temporary Enjoyment

Happiness happens for an instant,
To be enjoyed in its existence,
However fleeting or transient,
It gives pleasure, then off it goes,
Disappearing without a trace,
Wafting away to someplace no one knows...

Cosmic Heads Bump, Galaxy's Edge

In space’s outer reaches
Where astro-mysteries hide,
Is a strange phenomenon:
Two cosmic heads collide
And crash, releasing
Energy and light in massive
Heroic amounts, and ceasing
To exist thereafter… passive
Remnants speeding away,
In awesome colorful display...

The Power Of Song

So logical, strong, and serious,
He still wonders why,
There are some songs which
Make him float and cry.

Now I Lay Me Down...

Chamomile and Valerian
Soothing into drowsiness,
To fade-forget, where I am
To the edge of being awake,
Beyond which lies darkness,
The wonderland dreams make,
And as hard as a day may be,
It ends in surrender
To sleep, unconditionally...

Lunchtime Visitor

The crow approaches, step-by-step, slow,
On reptilian feet, its eyes deepest black,
Waiting for me to finish and throw
A scrap or bone from a different bird
I’m eating in my car -- What does it know?

A Word From The Wealthy

Going through life
With lots of money
And a trophy wife

Taxes are no worry
Which my lawyers
Fix in a hurry

I give to the poor
Just enough to keep
Them away from my door

Take as much profit
As I can get
Then fly off to spend it
In a corporate jet

Of course I have more
Than I ever will need
An endless surplus
To feed my power
Nurture my greed

Going through life
As one of the rich
I don’t look behind
Or below, which
Would only remind
That life’s a bitch
For those with less
Who can’t buy happiness

Man's Best Friend

 

A dog stares with careful eyes,

    Deaf to spoken syntax, but oh so

    Sensitive to movement, smell, and size,

    And signals about the pack, of which

    It is a member, so, the dog tries

    To see past the sounds the human makes

    And grasp who follows, and who leads,

    Who needs protecting, the dog takes

    Its time, alertly watching the

    Signals and actions that transpire,

    With cautious ancient eyes, unchanged

    From the first time it approached man's fire...

White Memory Bird

What used to be a watery space
Where egrets fed on loaches
And frogs, is now a different place
Growing cabbage and leeks,
And only gods know where
The egret flies and seeks,
Elegant-white in the air,
Looking for the rice paddies
No longer there...

I wish I could explain,
About man's-made change,
Why things don't always remain...

I wish I could still see the egrets,
That things stay the same...

Too High To Use The Stairs

Awkward, in the elevator, with a stranger,
An apartment neighbor I suppose,
We both stare at the number changer
Display, wordless and so still, we wait
Lowering, in confined space -- and tension
Marks the seconds of our slow declension,
In a pulley box, which controls our fate,
Suspended and dangling-down a shaft,
As we silently refuse to contemplate
Possibilities to awful to mention...

Post Tempest

The ginko nuts lie randomly where they dropped
Onto the ground, softening under the sun
Now shining strong, after the typhoon stopped,
And through their sour-butter smell I run,
Slowly, so as not to over-heat,
And nearly trip on the broken bird-wing
Skeleton of an umbrella on the street,
Twisted and bent, it’s bereft of utility,
Spindly aluminum proof of a cyclone’s wrath,
Of nature’s strength, and man’s futility,
Revealed in small bits, in the aftermath…

Welcome Home Lisa

God bless the beaches in Thailand
Which host our indiscretions
And drinks on sparkling sand
Amid the exotic color and noise,
Jungle-bird-like expressions
Of hawkers and katoys…
Summer vacation in Phuket
As long as the money lasts
The most fun you can get
Continues unimpeded
Till medical help is needed.

Mid-September PT Thoughts

One yellow leaf peeking out
From the green of the cherry
Tree, gives a whisper, not a shout,
Under a pale blue sky, still very
Humid, this day it’s about,
The puffy clouds are a vapor trail
Signifying, like the bell crickets’
Arrival that summer is stale,
And headed towards a cold
Denouement -- like ships put to sail
Carrying cargo, already sold,
To merchants who have bought us
Long ago, sight unseen, untold...

Eternal Conflict

The war between
Women and Men
Starts off as peace,
And sexual Zen,
But rust settles in,
Magic times decrease
Never to return again,
And the battles begin
Which do not cease,
Which can't be won
Unless damage is done...

The war between
Women and Men,
Kinetic or unseen,
Can be halted
Before love dies,
Before things get too mean,
Through compromise,
Or the look in her eyes...

A Flicker In Darkness

Darkness instantly retreats
Into outposts of shadows,
Into corners, where it meets
The dust that has gathered
In my room, where the light
Of the screen shines blue,
A square-ish beacon which might,
Like a window opened
Out onto a troubled night,
Allow some fresh air in,
Allow creation to begin...

The Side Not Green

One side, facing the sun,
Of the old fir tree, is bare,
A reminder of the other
Tree, no longer there...

But grow on it does, while
The fallen is a table somewhere.

America's Team

The story of the flag can be traced to Nebraka's preseason camp when Jack Riggins, a Fremont native and U.S. Navy SEAL, spoke to the team for about an hour. The speech left an impression on the players. "He gave us probably one of the best speeches I've heard," Cassidy said. "He really got everybody fired up and just talked about having the guts to try, and not be afraid of failure." Riggins gave his American flag to the Nebraska Football Team Unity Council, and told the players they could do what they wished with it, as long as they took care of it. The team chose to have the flag be part of the Tunnel Walk. The flag was placed in a stand near the bench during the game, and it may continue to be part of the Tunnel Walk this season. The flag has been on several missions, and it was an honor to be next to the flag for the Tunnel Walk, Cassidy said. "He said they bagged a lot of bad guys under that flag and gave it to our team as a Nebraska guy and fan," he said. "That flag was in Afghanistan. The game we play is of little importance in comparison to what they're doing over there. It keeps things in perspective." (From the Lincoln Journal Star)

Link: http://huskerextra.com/sports/football/article_56b1167f-9266-5497-a3b9-2efbaed45418.html

Light, Sunbeams, & Healing

There is a special moment, around dawn,
A magic instant, when anything goes,
And problems and pain and sorrow are gone,
Then it leaves for some place no one knows.

In His Dream

"We meet again", he remarks, unspoken,
Standing at the counter at Tully's
Ordering caffeine product, to be awoken
From a fantasy, it would seem,
Involving the sweet barrista before him
Who appeared in the past night's dream...
She proffers the coffee, with a smile,
Unaware, offering sugar and cream,
He says "just black", all the while
Wondering how she got inside his head...
Wondering if she'll reappear,
The next time he's in bed.

The Great American Divide

Left or right, red or blue?
I have to choose, goes the rant,
From lawyers and reporters and
Camera-preening egos who can't
Stop their non-stop D.C. gabbing,
Push me to take sides -- but I shant.

Capital

Washington D.C.
Importance supposed,
Washington Monument
Cracked and closed,
Washington politics
Ugliness exposed...

The hubris-buffet of power
Is irresistable to those
Least capabily of humility --
It's just how it goes.

A sense of awe-entitlement,
Derived from the devil-deal
They chose.