Waiting out a Summer Storm

Electrical rage,
fractured dimension, flash
and fissure of mortality,
Occurring, it seals itself, but
in that trice, between extremes,
light and noise, divine voltage,
vision of another side.
Sometimes, you think
the wall will shatter;
sometimes it cracks
so close, you know you
could leap through, but if you
did, what would they do?
What would they do
without you?


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 12, 1987)

Hawk

Squirrels hide and bark
in water oaks hanging Spanish moss;
crows and cardinals taunt,
circle and dart, yell
(that's all they can do),
while the hawk from a kill
watches with those warrior eyes.
When I stand to admire him,
he flies.


(August, 2013)

Polio

At five, I couldn’t walk.

Doctor’s diagnosed me with polio.

A pretty word, polio,

and that short for poliomyelitis,

still pretty though.

The Greeks were good at that;

some Romance languages good, too,

but less so, while the English is ugly:

Gray…bone.

In any event,

my mother laid hands on me and prayed,

and I was cured.

It doesn’t bother me that you don’t believe,

but why the look of disgust?


(July, 2013)

Blue on Blue

Blue on blue, the sky and sea,
God colors each to hue,
and, love, what he shows to me,
he shades and shows to you.


(1974)

The Last Leaf

Quiescent, like the last leaf,
its failure to fall, I suppose
I must have one more poem remaining,
but I'm reluctant to shake it free
and see it fall like this
with no pretty pirouettes
in the music of the wood,
nor will it find its way to water,
silent ripple or tsunami;
it won't make a plash,
but fall brittle and brown
beneath a canopy of arthritic arms
and fuck you fingers
where the leaves have been leavened
to the point of compost, so that
I no longer know what's mine:
It's rotten like the rest,
and I see no need to add to this,
to pluck this last quiescent leaf
while you so hate the forest.


(January 1990)

Faux Pas

Even at play with your own best friend,

it’s inappropriate to grab tail.

You can see it in his eyes, disappointment

bordering on disgust, not quite anger,

but it could go there

if you grab again while he’s staring in your eyes.

So you wait for him to turn,

then you snatch and pull.

He spins around, Bow-Wowzer,

and there’s that look anew.


(May, 2013)

Phan Rang's F-100s

Standing on the ramp with a view of the runway, you could see the afterburner light off, and the Hun, loaded with bombs or napalm and heavy with fuel, begin a slow crawl toward Charlie Mountain and disappear on the runway's horizon before rising above it, and they were off on the day's first sortie, off to fight, while we in Life Support or the mechanics stayed and readied the next group of fighter jocks and airplanes. During the course of the day, flights returned with pilots wet with sweat from the long taxi; aircraft without bombs and low on fuel, but with film cannisters full, film they reviewed in the pilot lounge with Life Support leaning against the wall to watch, the wall that held a North Vietnamese flag and an AK-47. The film, a forward view, showed nothing of consequence, jungle or a river getting closer, closer until you could discern trees in the jungle, a boat of some sort on the river. Then the view shifted to bombs falling or cannisters of napalm tumbling end over blunt end, sparking sunlight with each revolution, toward inconsequnce, as far as the eye could see, and then, not even that, just jungle again, just a river.  In seconds, the jungle errupted with fire and the river into towers of water. Some flights did not return.  The major was found at the base of a tall tree that caught his parachute; his tree lowering device failed to work, and he unlatched himself from the harness, no doubt hearing the enemy, but the fall broke his neck. Some were even less fortunate.  That little first lieutenant, Frenchie, completed all his missions and was heading home, back to "The World", when the C-130 he was riding in got shot down on the way to Cam Ranh Bay. It broke our hearts.        

(Photographs and news regarding the 135th Tactical Fighter Squadron,

Phan Rang, Vietnam, 1970-71; third photograph by Steve Ketzer, Jr.,

all others by USAF.)