Radio Scraps

Maybe this thing just ain't meant for us
Yes
I do believe it's time for me to fly
Midnight you come pick me up
No headlights
But big ol' jet airliner
Don't carry me too far away
Just Take me into your loving arms
Because
The light in the window is a crack in the sky
And I'm
Standing still In a field of voices
And I
Believe in your song
On the real no lie
I don't know what it is but you're just my type
I need to be where you are
The lady then she covered me in roses

Spilt Milk

When I first spied it

It was already listing to the  starboard side

Having been surreptitiously slipped out of its berth in the icebox 

Through the kitchen and the dining room and

Almost out onto the open  table

Almost and

Then as almost slipped away

I saw it come crashing back to the ground

It's white prow

Hitting first and

Bleeding

Gushing

Leaking white in all directions and
Calling out to the fully aware, alert, and prepared

To streak across across the sand 

Life preserver in hand

To save lives and 

Assign responsibility

To sound the alarm and

Begin the rescue operation

With a reluctant and ineffectual awareness

Of the limits of feasible deniability and 

The inevitable cleanup to follow

seasonal plea

I don't want to see
my breath in March so Mother
Nature do something

Global Warming

You think
Your neighbor owns a
Shiny
New
Mercedes
Although it is hard to tell
Since you only see it
When you happen to drive by
As he is taking empty cardboard boxes
Across his meticulously plowed driveway
To the curb
It's pretty darn clear
He must be doing well
He must be happy
We must be entering the next ice age
Of course
You aren't writing the checks

Sinkholes

Sinkhole swallows two people on Seoul sidewalk
Swiftly
Succinctly
Temporarily
In much the same way As I am swallowed up by my children's
Soliloquies and
Tantrums
The only real difference is that my
Sinkhole experiences are
Seldom
Succinct

snuggling for warmth

stuffed inside a box
snake, turtle, frog, and stop sign
keeping out the cold

The Rising Son

Hiding somewhere between the opening of his bedroom door

At six forty five in the morning and 

The opening of his eyes and mouth
Almost simultaneously

Just short of six forty six in the morning
Is a transition
Of the sort that
Most folks never get to see
From a reality shrouded in mystery to
One about which there is little that is mysterious
Unless you count his consumption of carbs
A transition
That is no less momentous
Than Mr/ Roger's shoe change
No more apparent
Than  the annual life cycle of your average pine tree and
No easier to capture
Than the moment that toast goes from just right to charcoal briquette and
On most mornings I pay as much attention to it as I do to
The dust that builds up on the bottom lip of the picture frames around the house but
Even I dust and
Every so often
I am aware of the opportunity I have
To witness a sunrise
Every single day of the year

A Pinch of Saffron

There is a moment 

Hiding between the opening of his door

At six forty five in the morning and 

The opening of his eyes and mouth

Less than a minute further on

That feels a lot like 

Opening that nearly empty 

Yet newly purchased glass jar of saffron and

Adding a pinch To some carefully coalesced combination of

Oil

Vegetables

Spices and

Meat

With no promise of 

Anything yet to come

checking out at the grocery store with a new hire

He moved fast
Like a tornado
Strawberries flying across the belt and onto the floor
Like cars being hoisted off the road and into homes and businesses
Bags spinning in the wrong direction
Like people being forced to seek shelter in the attic and
Stretching the the breaking point
Like the folks forced to shelter in the wrong attic
Each item scanned at least ten times in the span of twenty second
The little red phone getting more use than 911 and me
Standing there
As if I was watching
"When tornados strike"
On my television
Just after midnight
Not moving very fast at all

thermostat

inside the house it's
sweatshirt weather outside it's
thirty two below

hungry for spring

Today is cold and clear and
Cluttered
Like a recently emptied meat locker
The snow piled everywhere
Browning in the air
Like day old avocados
Most of the trees doing their best turkey carcass impressions
And
I'm hungry
For spring

Give Me a Smile

He shrugs his shoulders and

Flashes a wry smile

Not the one where he sticks his tongue out and closes his eyes but

The one that is more reminiscent of 

A contented male lion 

Resting under an acacia tree 

It is even followed by a roar and
It always leaves me hoping
That the smile is what it seems to be and
That I don't end up getting more than I asked for and
I suppose
Now
It would be
The moment for me
To shrug my shoulders

Random

I just want 

The only thing that could make a difference 

The new version 

I'm not sure if you have a lot of people who are not in my head 

You know how much I love you too 

I love you too 

I don't think that it would mean the world today 

You know 

You know what you want me to be 

seasonal itch

by February

I'm wondering whether God

needs Head and Shoulders

Modern Menopause

They now say

Menopause 

Is

Ten to 

Fourteen years of

Hot flashes and 

Night sweats

And

Basil

Is being grown 

In storage containers

In Boston

So

Ladies

You can think about 

The origin of the pesto you had for dinner

At three in the morning

I had a dream

Hippos were gliding

Like nuclear submarines

Just below the surface

Not even a nostril or

A periscope

Showing

Just a ripple

An unlikely hint

Of the breadth of the problem

Lurking just below the surface

Of my mind

Smiles

In our house 

A French fry shaped like a smiley face

Inadvertently taking a swim in a glass of milk

Is like

That old joke about Italian snow tires

Told in a smokey bar

In New Jersey

You're guaranteed a smile

But

Once you get it

You may not want it

At least not in your house

winter creep

skis over his head

snow creeping into his pants

hot chocolate at home

Peas

Frozen peas are a life preserver 

In a sea of pasta and

Monterey Jack cheese

As long as 

He is willing and

Able

To grab hold

I can throw them out there at every meal

But 

Peas are green and

Slippery and

Don't go well with cheerios

If life gives you lemmings ...

I've never been hit in the head by a falling Kennedy half dollar and
Though my money disappears faster than the sun in Southeast Michigan
It has yet to attempt harakiri or
Seppuku
Mass or otherwise or
Even
To give itself to the needy owing to overpopulation but
Misconception or not
It does seem to go to the very same place as
Everyone else's

the wish of a new generation

May
Indecisive
Always grow up to be
Eclectic

Hold On

We've been told to

Let it go and

Watch the world erupt into song and

Adventure leap out of the hillsides

It's the promise of Heidi 

On crack but

A little lower

There's an older promise

Connected to a simpler and

Sometimes more courageous act

Too often confused with the submissive wife and

Neville Chamberlin

Not that anyone remembers him or

That when playgrounds were blessed with metal slides and

Teeter totters

We did not ride the merry go round 

(Also called the roundabout to avoid confusion and visions of painted horses)

Alone and
That while we loved letting go 

It wasn't the hardest part

Did Navajo children go away to college
I don't
Remember the first time I held her hand or
Forget
Ever
That taking it in mine and
Letting it go
Are as connected as we are
In winter
Summer and
Probably even in the Swiss alps
I suppose that courage
Like the illegality of defecation
And most everything else is
Situational

Family Recipes

If I had been 

Suffocated

Along with head lice

In a plastic bag full of mayonnaise

I would 

Not be able to bake

My great grandmother's molasses cookies for my children and

Offer each

A cookie and

A glass of milk

Before they slip off to bed

To sleep

To dream

To wake even

If I wanted to

Brian Williams

Memory
Is a picnic and
We are ants
Brian Williams might walk away with a bit of wonder bread
You may grab a crumb from a pumpkin cheesecake
I might carry off a piece of sushi grade ahi tuna and
Find myself wedged in the tread of a pair of vintage Air Jordan's before
But at the end of the day
Along with the season finale of the Biggest Loser
It's all my memory
Your memory and
Brian Williams too

this is thirty seconds

maybe nothing good is possible
in thirty seconds
just half a minute
maybe
just
this

still snowing

forty percent chance

better odds than on Sunday

snow still coming down

winter status quo

snow is still falling

windshield wiper fluid

is still hanging in

Better In Video

Who needs home videos

Read a book

Watch the movie 

More than once and

By the third or fourth time

It's just like you're reliving your own life

Only with prettier people and

Better special effects

Who needs to video tape their own life

Who needs their own life

February

February

Now playing

In a limited run

On and

Off 

Broadway 

Catch it before time

Marches on