The Day Is Like Wide Water, Without Sound*

Run what leaves

Your mind through your heart

Before it exits your mouth.

There is a source.

It can be corrupted.

The source is all goodness.

It is corrupted by fear and misplaced passion.

People who do terrible things

Are corrupting this goodness.

Yet they seek the goodness

Of the source at the same time.

It is a corruption of love.

Every moment is sacred.

There is deep peace in each instance.

Fear prevents you from experiencing it.

The chrysalis opens halfway.

Sticky adhesions reveal wings,

As the butterfly struggles.

(Written on the day of the Sandy Hook shootings.)

(*From Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning")

In the Waiting Area at LaGuardia

Among America’s capitalist

Cowboys and cowgirls,

Decked out in our

Post-Millennium garb —

Leather, denim, slip-off shoes,

White wires sprouting from our heads,

Faces burrowed into our screens.

We all seem bemused

At this hour, in this time.

Menacingly, two dark-skinned soldiers

Strut the floor,

Milling about the baggage check,

The noses of their AK-47s pointed downward,

Cloaked in uniforms gone tan,

As the battle for the American Way

Heads from jungle to desert.

Why I Still Believe

I can count on it like clockwork:

He arrives late, on Christmas eve,

His presence building,

Some ineffable, magic pattern

Tessellating the air.

Alone by the tree, lights twinkling,

Balsam scents swirling,

I hear a tinkling of bells,

Crisp snowflakes falling

Like rice dropped on paper,

When some low voice 

Rises out of the dark and silence,
The lights flicker, brighten,

Then a shadow moves

In the corner of the eye, 

A bumbling benevolence glimpsed.

I catch it, despite

Commerce’s ugly rattle,

Replaced by all that endures,

Merciful and hopeful:

A sudden, sharp recognition

Of what is right in each of us.

And he comes, big-bearded white knight,

White light, this night,

Bounding clumsily into my heart.

D-Day

You married one.

Should have known.

D-bombs dropped

Down through

The generations

On her side:

Grandma, grandpa,
Great-grandma, great-grandpa.

You fathered two daughters,

Your seed in that barren place,

Who each became one.

Will they, in turn, do the same?

So simple to pull the trigger.

Cop-out. Throw in the towel.

So modern.

Tell me, though, why does it feel

Like something so wrong 

Feels so right?

Found Poem

The parties further

acknowledge and declare

that this Agreement

contains the entire

agreement

between
the parties

hereto and that there are no

agreements,

promises,

terms,

conditions

or understandings

and no representations
or inducements

leading to
the execution

hereof,

expressed

or implied,
other than those herein

set forth and that

no oral

statement

or prior written
matter extrinsic to this

agreement shall
have any
force

or effect.