Gingerbread Lady

Gingerbread lady,

no sugar or cinnamon spice,

years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.

Crippled mind movies in then out, like an old sexual adventure,

blurred in an imagination of finger tip thoughts−

who in hell remembers the characters?

There was George her lover near the bridge at the Chicago River

she missed his funeral, her friends were there.

She always made feather light of people dwelling on death.

But black and white she remembers well.

The past is the present; the present is forgotten,

who remembers?

Gingerbread lady.

Sometimes lazy time tea with a twist of lime.

Sometimes drunken time screwdriver twist with clarity.

She walks in scandals sometimes she walks in soft night shoes.

Her live-in maid smirks as Gingerbread lady gums her food,

false teeth forgotten in a custom imprinted cup

with water, vinegar, and ginger.

The maid died.  Gingerbread lady looks for a new maid.

Years ago arthritis and senility took their toll.

Yesterday, a new maid walked into the nursing home.

Ginger forgot to rise out of bed,

no sugar, or cinnamon toast.

Harvest Time

(version 4 Final)

A Métis Indian lady, drunk,

hands blanketed over as in prayer,

over a large brown fruit basket

naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard

inside¾approaches the Edmonton,

Alberta adoption agency.

There are only spirit gods

inside her empty purse.

Inside, an infant,

refrained from life,

with a fruity wine sap apple

wedged like a teaspoon

of autumn sun

inside its mouth.

A shallow pool of tears starts

to mount in native blue eyes.

Snuffling, the mother offers

a slim smile, turns away.

She slithers voyeuristically

through near slum streets,

and alleyways,

looking for drinking buddies

to share a hefty pint

of applejack wine.

Charley Plays a Tune

Crippled with arthritis

and Alzheimer's,

in a dark rented room

Charley, plays

melancholic melodies

on  a dust filled

harmonica  he

found  abandoned

on a playground of sand

years ago by a handful of children

playing on monkey bars.

He now goes to the bathroom on occasion,

peeing takes forever; he feeds the cat when

he doesn't forget where the food is stashed at.

He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market

and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.

He lies on his back riddled with pain,

pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;

praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads

Charley blows tunes out his

celestial instrument

notes float through the open window

touch the nose of summer clouds.

Charley overtakes himself with grief

and is ecstatically alone.

Charley plays a solo tune.

Cat Purrs

Soft nursing

5 solid minutes

of purr

paw peddling

like a kayak competitor

against ripples of my

60 year old river rib cage--

I feel like a nursing mother

but I'm male and I have no nipples.

Sometimes I feel afloat.

Nikki is a little black skunk,

kitten, suckles me for milk,

or affection?

But she is 8 years old a cat.

I'm her substitute mother,

afloat in a flower bed of love,

and I give back affection

freely unlike a money exchange.

Done, I go to the kitchen, get out

Fancy Feast, gourmet salmon, shrimp,

a new work day begins.

Rod Stroked Survival with a Deadly Hammer

Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or a pull of a lever,
that one of the bunch in her pocket was a winner or the slots were a redeemer;
but life itself was not real that was strictly for the mentally insane at the Elgin
Mental Institution.
She gambled her savings away on a riverboat
stuck in mud on a riverbank, the Grand Victoria, in Elgin, Illinois.
Her bare feet were always propped up on wooden chair;
a cigarette dropped from her lips like morning fog.
She always dreamed of traveling, not nightmares.
But she couldn't overcome, overcome,
the terrorist ordeal of the German siege of Leningrad.
She was a foreigner now; she is a foreigner for good.
Her first husband died after spending a lifetime in prison
with stinging nettles in his toes and feet; the second
husband died of hunger when there were no more rats
to feed on, after many fights in prison for the last remains.
What does a poet know of suffering?
Rebecca has rod stroked survival with a deadly mallet.
She gambles nickels, dimes, quarters, tokens tossed away,
living a penniless life for grandchildren who hardly know her name.
Rebecca fantasized that life was a lottery ticket or the pull of a lever.

Mother, Edith, at 98

(Version #3 Jan. 05th 2008)

In a nursing home
blinded with
macular degeneration.
I come to you,
blurred eyes, crystal mind,
countenance of grace,
as yesterday's winds
have consumed
and taken you away.
"Where did God disappear to?"
you murmur
over and over again
like running water
or low voices
in prayer:
"Oh, there He is,
angel of the coming."

Phil and Betsy:  Illinois Farmers

Illinois writer in the land of Lincoln

new harvest without words

plenty of sugar pie plum, peach cobbler pie,

buried in grandma sugar;

factory sweets and low flowing river nearby--

transports of soy bean, corn, and cattle feed

into the wide bass mouth of the Kishwakee River.

It is the moment of reunion,

when friends and economy come together--

hotdogs, marshmallows, tents scattered,

playing kick ball with that black farm dog.

It's a simple act, a farmer gone blind with the night pink sky,

desolate farmer, simple flat land, DeKalb, Illinois.

Betsy and Phil, invite us all to the camp and fireside.

But Phil is still in the field, pushing sunset to dusk.

He is raking dry the farm soil of salvation, moisture has its own religious quirks,

dead seed from weed hurls up to the metal lips of the cultivator pitting.

The full moon is undressing, pink florescent hints of blue, pajamas, turned

inward near midnight sky against the moon naked and embarrassed.

Hayrides for strangers go down dark squared off roads with lights hanging, dangling,

children humming school tunes, long farmhouse lights lost in the near distance.

Hums till dawn, Christian songs repeat, over God's earth, till dead sounds the tractor

pulls itself down, down to the dusk, and off the road edge.

It is the moment of reunion.

Harvest Time

(version 3)

A Métis Indian lady, drunk,

hands blanketed over as in prayer,

over a large brown fruit basket

naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard

inside¾approaches the Edmonton,

Alberta adoption agency.

There're only spirit gods

inside her empty purse.

Inside, an infant,

refrained from life,

with a fruity wine sap apple

wedged like a teaspoon

of autumn sun

inside it's mouth;

a shallow pool of tears start

to mount in native blue eyes.

Snuffling, the mother offers

a slim smile, turns away.

She slithers voyeuristically

through near slum streets,

and alleyways,

looking for drinking buddies

to share a hefty pint

of applejack wine.

I Am Old Frustrated Thought

I am old frustrated thought

I look into my once eagle eyes

and find them dim before my dead mother,

I see through clouded egg whites with days

passing by like fog feathers.

I trip over old experiences and expressions,

try hard to suppress them or revisit them;

I'm a fool in my damn recollections,

not knowing what to keep and what to toss out--

but the dreams flow like white flour and deceive

me till they capture the nightmare of the past images

in a black blanket wrapped up

and wake me before my psychiatrist.

I only see this nut once every three months.

It is at times like these I know not where I walk

or venture.  I trip over my piety and spill my coffee cup.

I seek sanctuary in the common place of my nowhere life.

It is here the days pass and the years slip like ice cubes--

solid footing is a struggle in the socks of depression.

I am old frustrated thought;

passing by like fog feathers.

Rose Pedals in a Dark Room.

I walk in a mastery of the night and light

my money changers walk behind me

they are fools like clowns in a shadow of sin,

they're busy as bees as drunken lovers,

Sodom and Gomorrah before the salt pillar falls.

In a shadow of red rose pedals

drunken lovers walk changing Greek and Roman

currency to Jewish or Tyrian money--

they are fools, all fools, at what they do.

Everyone's life is a conflict.

They are my lovers and my sinners

I can't sleep at night without them

by my bed or the sea of Galilee.

Fish in cloth nets are my friends and my converts.

I pray in my garden alone; while all the rest

who love beside me sleep behind their innocence.

The rose is a tender thorn compared to my arrest.

and  soon crucifixion.

It is here the morning and the night come together,

where the sea and the land part;

where the building crumbles

and I trust not myself to them.

I am but a poet of the ministry,

rose pedals in a dark room fall.

Everyone's life is a conflict.

But mine is mastery of light and night

and I walk behind the footsteps of no one.