Flatlander

No Way Home

Nostalgia is junk food for the soul,

A lovely siren on an exotic island,

Like sneaking peeks at the sun,

It’s best not to stare too long.

But what harm lies in a glance?

A momentary indulgence,

A brief transgression,

To see where things were then,

Life before you lived the rest of it.

Her face was lovely, her smile satisfying,

Remember his gracious, comfortable laugh?

Those were buoyant, triumphant times,

The faces friendlier, the rooms brighter,

Your jokes sent ripples of laughter,

Your love letters armed with the right words,

Dancing off the page, around her head,

Literary ants performing their own nutcracker.

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I Saw God

I woke up this morning and saw God,

But did not recognize the face.

God didn’t look at me at all,

Didn’t see me sitting there,

Propped up on two pillows,

Bleary-eyed from a night of self-doubt,

Another love lost in the dark of night.

God offered no explanation for the visit,

Or worried about any important football games.

God failed to notice the man next door,

Constantly wandering around his yard,

Talking to the trees and his decrepit dog.

To see God blasé and aloof,

With no higher plan in mind,

No lofty calling or purpose,

As if looking for a lost shoe,

Sat me up straight in my bed.

If you saw what I did this morning,

You would never pray or go to church,

Forget anything you knew about miracles.

Could we keep the faith during lonely nights?

Long dark hours turning in quiet despair,

Followed by mornings of earnest regret.

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John Updike Is Dead

The day John Updike died,

I missed him like an old friend,

His witty words, fictional and otherwise,

The countless ordinary lives he made real,

Sturdy and timeless, a vast kingdom of words.

I first read Updike the day he died.

The words read naturally,

Prose playful and bold,

What took me so long?

This is our fate, it seems,

For the greats and everyone else,

To be honored, even loved, in life,

True appreciation earned only in death.

Who else has passed beneath my radar?

How many more brilliant wordsmiths

Continue departing in stealth by the dozen?

Allen Ginsberg? Too late, he’s gone.

Kurt Vonnegut’s left us, too,

Taking his brutal genius with him.

Don’t even ask about Jack Kerouac.

Poor David Foster Wallace

Left us before he got started.

At least Billy Collins is still hanging around,

Giving us words to seriously consider.

Tom Wolfe still cracks dialogue superb,

While Philip Roth leaves us all in the dust.

Watch all of them while you can,

Everyone is on limited engagement.

Dust off your Donald Halls,

Get down your John Ashberys.

Don’t discount Stephen King,

Imagine all the fuss he’ll cause,

Once he follows his tortured creations.

They will all leave us someday,

With only words left behind as witness,

Waiting to be discovered, read, pondered again,

By those who never knew they were there.

We should all hope to be so lucky.

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Later, Lovely

To say I love you is cruel,

To you, to us, everyone who gives a damn

About anything we still might have left.

What comes next in all this?

Live life alone somewhere,

Wondering what might have been,

If we just said nothing, stayed home,

At least playing our dutiful parts,

Inside our bubble, constructing lives,

We made to keep our eyes up ahead,

Where the strong ones lead the way.

It is impossible, I know,

To be in love and wise,

All at the same time.

In a perfect world all my own,

There are two lovers eloping

On some deserted island in the sea,

Tying the knot, barefoot in the sand,

Looking at each other with a laugh,

Toasting the world with wine.

Gone forever yet there all along,

The clever one when life blinks,

Afloat on your own so long,

You wave to me now,

I want to jump aboard, sail away,

Not to leave the world behind,

But to bring you into mine.

I pass on touching your face,

I have rehearsed this more than you know.

I don’t dare imagine you next to me,

Giving yourself to such a willing accomplice.

I curse the children with our faces,

Those little ones we will never meet.

I ignore those who love us now,

Sitting next to us, faces blank,

Blissful in their own ignorance.

Perhaps they are the lucky ones,

Not us, for dipping our toes,

Into bottomless warm waters.

If I stare too long or say too much,

You might leave my world for good,

As if you were never there at all.

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Two Cups of Coffee

Two lovers swear eternity over cups of coffee,

Served black, like boundless galaxies.

The only two people in the world,

For the moment, perhaps a lifetime.

We would trade places with them

This very second and never think twice.

No history nipping at their heels,

Endless tomorrows before them,

Each day a new discovery to treasure,

To keep walking forward, surefooted,

Singing each other’s praises,

Laughing, kissing, holding hands,

Choosing only the best each has to offer,

The forest ahead lush and warm,

Green leaves overhead yet to fade.

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Icarus

Sunshine smiles on me from far away,

Past the stars and the moon next door.

Around the dawn of the Milky Way,

Dancing past the rings of Saturn,

Running with Jupiter’s lunar children.

Let me move the pictures,

Change all the frames,

Paint these yellowed walls again,

Own the air I breathe for once,

Dare a glance toward open skies.

I am afraid I will crumble,

Maybe disappear altogether.

My own private Icarus, wings melting

After finally leaving the ground.

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Last Dance

Soon we will be forgotten, our faces blurs.

No memory of bonding over White Russians,

How they went down in sweeping fashion,

One after another in our pitched duel,

Eventually settling to attention like soldiers,

Drained, content with the day’s work.

Allow me one final performance,

On my sparse and graceless stage.

It will be a short act, I promise,

No pained ballads, no bloated dance numbers,

Maybe just a monologue or two.

About who we once were,

When we were so busy

Creating a symphony set to us,

One performed by tone-deaf soloists.

We can sit here, if you like,

Pretend it is just a blind date,

Be grateful for ambient light.

I glance at the clock on the wall,

You adjust the snugness of your dress.

You’re beautiful in this lonely space.

I’m still a looker in dim light.

You used to preach about destiny,

We both talked about faith.

I don’t think you believed it,

You once called us soul mates.

Tonight you sit perfectly straight,

Reminding me we are all alone.

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Confessions of a Worldly Lover

She hands me another book,

One more to be stacked, unread.

She meant well, filling my mind

Full of things I missed during the time

On my own, in my small world

Of coffee and newspapers

And greasy stuffed sandwiches.

Our trip out of the city

Offered an alien world all our own.

The postcards in my bag

Screamed Wish You Were Here!

Then remained clean and unsent.

This is no place for lovers

The movie star told his girl.

Words screaming inside my head,

Outside a weak fidget, a whimper.

Maybe life could be so simple,

Just kissing and loving

In front of strange people,

Tucked away from the pack.

Except I have a knack

For parting over coffee

In crowded hushed places.

No chance for scenes

In a sea of strange faces.

My spine runs empty,

The big questions elude me.

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Family Guard (Old Gray House)

Faded house sits proud on its hill,

Cutting the pose of a hero past its prime.

Daring all passersby to stop and stare,

Pause and contemplate its glorious posture.

Impish boy on the front steps,

Sadness owns his small face.

Old Glory dances nimbly in the wind,

Faded and a step slow, still trying its best,

A red, white and blue sentinel

Standing guard over time and place.

Old men in folding chairs sweating out back,

Swallowing beer from cheap red cups,

Arms frail and bellies bulging in yellowed t-shirts,

Skinny legs masked by polyester slacks.

Telling each other tall tales from long ago,

When everyone was young and important.

Ghostly girl in a yellow dress

She’s worn four days straight.

On the floor in the hall alone,

Playing with injured dolls

Many owners removed

Sitting still around a crooked table

Waiting silently for their tea.

Faces patient, in compliance with the scene

Set by their empress director

With soft, dirty hands, eyes darkly serene.

The dog lays out back, noosed by a chain.

Once the center of everyone’s world.

The old gray house stands proud but broken,

More yesterdays than tomorrows.

Tending to lives in limbo,

Overseeing lives already lost.

Tenants who will never leave

No matter where they go.

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Evolution of Dinosaurs

Hello Mrs. So and So,

Do you remember me?

I sat in the middle row

Behind the red-haired boy

Who never said a word

I wonder what became of him.

I stood a head higher than the rest,

The faded class picture my only proof.

Our school was so grand, our class the best.

We learned so much about dinosaurs,

Those Latin names came out all wrong.

The teacher next door certainly bored us

With all fifty states and their capitals.

Albany. Sacramento. Des Moines. Montpelier.

Sprawling cities dwarfed by Tyrannosaurus Rex.

You invited me to your house one day,

My mother was happy to come with me.

Seeing you at home was like watching Santa Claus,

In his residence at the North Pole.

Out of his red suit, in a t-shirt and jeans,

Sipping a dry martini in the cold,

Diligently prepared by his finest elves.

You pushed me hard on the head one day,

As I sat drawing my fighting soldiers.

You said it was a most important test,

I left the entire second section blank.

It’s too late now, you said in disgust.

I finished my battlefield masterpiece.

I’ve never told a soul about the clear bottle

In your top drawer, next to your M & M’s,

Rewards for learning multiplication tables.

Kids all told me you wore a wig.

I insisted it couldn’t be true.

Your hair was real to me,

Jet-black, strong, magnificent,

In a red and blue headscarf,

An actress from a foreign film,

Slumming it on small town blacktop.

The kids all peek around you,

Looking up, asking who I am.

Aren’t you going to tell them,

About me and our third-grade class?

How I was one of your favorites,

And scored perfectly on spelling tests,

Twenty-four weeks in a row?

Or my project on The Battle of Gettysburg,

So detailed in speckles of blue and gray?

You weren’t prepared to see me,

But still nod your head and smile,

Quieter now than I remember then.

It’s good to see you, you finally say,

I stand too tall now, have stayed too long,

In your small room with small kids,

All waiting for yellow busses to come.

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Kissing The Sun God

The walking, I thought, would never end,

The white light blinds me in my tracks,

Burning my head, my nose, my lips.

No more running, no more wondering

When the next time will come.

The journey ends for everyone this time,

Miles to go on sun baked blacktop,

Then on crushed stone, waiting for my feet

To recover from the last bruising trip

The one we all thought was the best ever.

We were wrong; there would be no best,

No destination worth this work and toil.

Here we are, without eyes to see, feet worthless,

Cooked and tired, nothing to show for our efforts.

A long walk wasted after playing too close to the sun.

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Marry Me, Will Ferrell

The face is so clear now,

A mad suitor in my midst,

Without jokes, no skits,

So this is how I am paid back,

After laughing at him for so long.

Why would he do this?

He has a life all his own.

What’s he doing, messing around here?

While I sweat out rebuilding my world,

Recovering the love of my life,

From a place I never knew she went.

He had no one-liners,

Or any dead-on impersonations

Of stupid former presidents,

Or frustrated game show hosts,

No cheerleader uniform in sight.

But she loved him just the same,

Looked at him like I remember,

And long for after all this time.

What is bothering you, dear?

She says with a casual shrug,

So dismissive, so maddening.

She’s actually going to do it,

The love of my life is cutting us loose.

My love is going to marry Will Ferrell.

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Norman Rockwell

The old man laughs at me,

Safely hanging from the yellowed wall.

Anything to say, Norman Rockwell?

Sitting there, smug with nostalgia,

Punch drunk on your mythical America.

You will never know what we feel,

Acting like we aren’t scared to death.

Each day we shed another suit of skin,

Snakes calling it quits to go die in peace,

Leaving all the ants to run the place.

This one here, sitting across from me,

Greets me each day around this time.

She looks at me like I’m ice cream,

Then loves me with the touch of sandpaper.

She