Morning Call
The taste of my coffee
wakes the dawn
and I awake also
It is morning.
Should we not pause
for morning song?
Not any more.
Too loud. It'll bother
the young, still-sleeping neighbor
who is hard to love
as I love myself,
if only because
I don't know him as well.
The birds aren't afraid
to chirp an uproar,
but I'm silent.
And pensive.
He drives a big red Pontiac
and stubs out Marlboros
on the sidewalk.
I'm only glad
he doesn't know
my own idiosyncrasies.
Most of what we imagine
about each other are fantasies.
Two Equal Thumbs
Either thumb
is sucked with aplomb
by a child of equanimity
snuggled in utero.
Two equal thumbs
and have to choose one.
Decisions, Decisions.
My daughter or son.
A Walk in The Morning
The red maple
is eidetic
in early autumn,
and two fawns
cross the road.
The city is far,
its metaphysics elusive.
I am walking.
Poetic License
Gentle Reader!
You have given me
a place to rest my poem...
The poem is free,
and now it's in your home
so I suppose.
How can I show you
how grateful I am?
There is no follow-up,
no vacuum cleaner to sell,
and so, lest I be brought
to court
I'll give thought
to keep it short.
This is it.
It barely fit.
Sue me!
The Banner of The Last Hippie
The sign grew heavier
as he marched along
carrying its message
to culture and counter-
culture. It said
"Make Love not war!"
And what's more
he had been carrying it
in the great march
for forty lean and fat years.
His hands began to tremble
from Parkinson's,
but he continued to unfurl
his lonely banner,
as the crowd that had been
marching with him dissipated.
Finally he was the last witness
to hippiedom on earth.
"Make love not war!"
his feeble witness
to once hoped-for rebirth.
A Homely Soothsaying
Motions
of praise
surround my days
as mist surrounds
a valley.
This earth
is already good,
and what it lacks
will soon follow.
Dissent is hollow.
See!
The eagle soars above
where lambkins play.
Beyond that,
it's lost in haze.
Notes Heard in a Void
The birds chirp madrigals
and the microwave oven
hums to make coffee.
Our vacuum of silence
draws into it
this melody of love
which embraces all,
From silence,
and into silence
we proceed,
but for the nonce,
the words that matter
can be spoken.
There is time to testify
to the fact
that love is truth,
and beauty is their offspring.
Make love, not war.
Morning is in the offing.