Wound

up earlier than wings


how to tell the hours


you don’t care for numbers


blue whispers






what is just


is without hope


blue whispers form


grass listens first






my cat rubs her face


on death’s craggy face


it’s papier-mache


the skull in the window






the sounds of birds


before birds appear


do you seem a transcription


to yourself?






what is just


it’s papier-mache


blue whispers over a skull


now wings arrive






without hope’s burden


blue is more itself


do the birds seem a transcription


to themselves?

Vacant Lot Haiku

vacant lot
wildflowers
holding someone’s mail



red balloon
in a cemetery
holding your breath


evening
shadows
night picks up


in the woods
a snake passes before me
before I pass myself


snake spotting
deep woods
time sheds its skins



deep woods
your time not mine
holds my hand


everything only
borrowed light
speaking



long after
the reflection
the light


which comes first
the light
or the reflection



Kato Shuson
the wildflowers
your soft grenades


garden we planted
then let go–
strange shapes entwine


raging sea
finds one soft spot
in a boulder



bubbles
in ancient glass
hand-me-down windows


empty coffee cup
one continent
pushes another


morning diner
the first one seated
keeps his coat on



her desk’s peeled orange–
a skyscraper
sways in wind



manhole steam
in the night things not words
gossip


bird’s snow trill
all the wasted flutes
in my bones


night coming
a period
grows a tail


a dragonfly
collects energy
from a hot tombstone


morning diner
the waitress pours coffee
from another lifetime


a Monarch unfurls–
as many ways to be born
as die


mushroom
if you touch her house
ghosts emerge


a country
a rain puddle
collects rain


the waitress’s smile
a pink packet
sugar substitute


morning diner
he tells a teen waitress
why suspenders matter


things are far
from their birth–
a worm in rain



frost window
my reflection
must be away


diner parking lot
sparrows kill time
until McDonald’s opens



his family dead
an old man finds new enemies
at a diner


mark on glass
from a dog’s nose
not sure which side


old men’s diner
all the coats
are too big



night’s stars
tell a story
breathless


morning diner
two octogenarians
plot a new country


the wind–
a child’s
half-finished drawing



winter diner
a waitress forgets
Proust’s name again


small diner
a truck with Trump stickers
takes up two spots



starfish–
a blind hand
shows you its teeth


starfish
all night dream
they are starfish



the morning
pretends to be an image
again again



orphaned train car
spring nestlings
sing of new hair


a stone
its starkness
fuzzy in my mind



one room schoolhouse
there’s a wasp trapped inside
local history


a peach’s fuzz
some are aroused
by armor


listening to trains
from a bathtub you say
you don’t say



winter diner
nobody young here
but the sparrows



trains and bird trills
morning’s metallic
in sound


birds then trains
morning sounds
met with silence



a houseplant grows
largely ignoring
nonessential input


funeral hands
people touching people
as autumn does


empty milk jug
in the fridge
as a memo


airplane overhead
sound waves in my body
want out










 Photo: Artem Saranin

Flashback: Did You Ever Get a Chance to Read this Fascinating Article on How CNN President Jeff Zucker Fostered the Rise of Trump?

This article written by Jonathan Mahler for The New York Times Magazine back in 2017 was endlessly fascinating to me.

I had actually been googling to see whether anyone shared my viewpoint that CNN has largely ceased being a news network, as it advertises itself, apart from a few exceptions of largely obligatory reporting. In fact, the network seems to have developed an allergy to news not related to Donald Trump. It's largely just the Anti-Fox Network now.

Hey, I love hearing Trump-bashing as much as the next triggered snowflake, but please, not all day and all night.

Think of all the medical and technological breakthroughs about which we hear nothing on this news network, soi-disant. What about all the impending legislation in the states and at the national level (not directly related to Donald Trump) which threatens our civil liberties? These important changes go unreported.

I remember when CNN was all over the McStay family disappearance, which turned out to be the McStay family murders. Because it was ratings fodder. The story was huge then. Now the trial is underway and they have not reported one word on this attempt by the State of California to mete out punishment for this horrible familicide.

What I am no longer getting from CNN is the daily struggle of American lives.

What I am getting from CNN is the daily struggle of Beltway lives.

This is elitism at its worst.

But, if you read the above linked article, you will see CNN is raking in the dollars. And that's what Jeff Zucker was hired to do. So his conscience is clear, because his conscience is directly tied in to the network's profitability.

All the justice warrior CNN employees who fancy they have skyrocketed from mere news anchors to television personalities probably think they are giving America just what it needs. Witness Chris Cuomo's star break into his largely self-congratulatory prime time show. The more star-based CNN's programming becomes (and I mean those "anchor stars") the more unctuous it all becomes. Chris Cuomo's fawning upon his guests from the left and the right leaves me feeling how empty it all is. Cuomo dances a predictable dance every night. If anything changes, I'll be sure to tune back in. But I'm not holding my breath.

On one typical night on CNN, as someone from the left spouted the expected rhetoric, we could look over to the right side of the screen and watch as Rick Santorum's eyelids grew heavy and started to droop. Clearly, Santorum was starting to fall asleep. And can you blame him? Santorum's drooping eyelids were telling the truth about CNN. Everyone was just phoning it in. Everyone's there for a paycheck. This is a scripted "reality" t.v. show. Nothing truly shocking is going to happen. There will be no revelations or powerful moments. It's nothing more than entertainment now.  Chris Cuomo, self-styled justice warrior, might as well be on Zucker's earlier baby, "The Apprentice."

I find the best source for the real news today is online newspapers. Television news is in dereliction, because its very existence is tied-in too closely to ratings. Ratings skew our perception of reality, or they do if we rely on television news.

I understand why people might just fall into that pattern of trusting television news. And that's because it's easier and the passivity of the situation attracts us. But it's a big mistake to make, and we sacrifice so much if we let networks like CNN become the arbiter of what's really important in America today.

Van Allen Belts-Friendly Haiku

zen retreat
can’t stop not talking
about it

spring day
an app for flying kites
is popular

immigrants trim
wildflowers
floating across a wall

untangling
my dead dad’s fishing line
for no reason

autumn walk–
a ghost app shows
half my neighbors are haunted

cherry blossoms
she deletes Tinder
for several hours

naked
watching sparrows dine
in formal dress

summer evening
we learn the app to fool mosquitoes
is a joke

spring hike
butterflies in my stomach
gender unknown

zen date
we watch stones slim down
in his garden

but do the fish
know they are fish–
we worry

steak plate left out
the cat hums
as she drinks blood

planetarium
a light pointer
touches a nipple

planetarium
kids only interested
in the dark

planetarium
in the darkness a boy
touches Venus

lifting a letter
its sunlight
stays in place

dinner argument
going outside to think
about other planets

book in sun–
light we use to read
part of the words

being young
the maple does it
every year

cat sits
in a rainy window
quietly reading

crow says something
it can’t take
anything back

winter therapy
running the pipes
to avert freezing

snowy night
watching time
it drifts

spring day–
newborn insects
don’t guess they’re orphans

water in my hands–
how old
are you, really?

the mellow cat
given a sibling
becomes Beyonce

sluggish fly
on February’s window–
early or late?

blue rainpot
three goldfish
know your shadow

what’s left
of this life–
a drip in a room

the seconds
listening to an airplane
without me

off-season funhouse
no one makes a face
at distortion

blue paint
chipped off shutters
wood drinks

moonlight–
a lover that won’t
tarnish

finding an old key–
jaywalking
a memory

handing you
a green sprig-top
the carrot below

three-hundred-year-old
floor cradle
diets on dolls

we thought the house ours–
carried out
we see we were its

old house
cracking its knuckles
in our sleep

two girls swimming
in a creek haunt a prison
long years

touching morning
wanting (peonies)
out from under skin

once a ranked diver
he flees to a bathtub–
the lonely mermaid

white noon wall
you know only
my shadow

freezing
on a winter windowsill
Pablo Neruda

summer clouds
the sky’s unreliable
narrators

secret gender
frozen onions
thawing

meteor shower–
cold headlights
on a hitchhiker

weed cutters
in a graveyard
battling presence

death whistles in snow–
groundhog below earth
dreams green things

graveyard wind whistles
a father
calls a child home

rainy day
memory
and its checkpoints

we drive past
blue chicory
I say the same thing

cuckoo nestling
dying amid
strange accents

winter friends–
more birds than people
know my face

spring dreams
a bear knocks the trail’s phone
off the hook again

loving your shawl
frayed edges
of you

winter stew
all we turned down
in a single pot

snow’s brightness
in Shaker windows–
chairs hung on walls

the secrets
cherries sweeten
all winter

on my porch
an iron pot
older than my country

rainy night
your pronunciation
changes

rainy night
dark promises
leak from everything

the railroad tracks
never touch the horizon
mono no aware

forest bathing–
pond bubbles
instead of thoughts

morning’s shells
on sand–
behind on reading

beachcombing,
we find a door from Japan–
where are the sides?

the oldest dad
waves the longest
at the school bus

you crush
a Dixie cup
on a certain word

my needless worry–
black gums
on a black cat

after
a meteor shower
a metaphor shower

An Ear for Crime

Hickory, dickory dock,

I selected the Hickory family. I had to choose the right one. There were several families with the surname Hickory in this city, in its suburbs. I drove and drove. So many days, so many nights. I scouted. Studied houses and yards patiently. Until I saw the ones with the clock. Right there in their backyard. I knew then. They were the ones.

The mouse ran up the clock.

It was the sundial in the backyard. The clock. I placed it against the wall which I knew had the best window for a stealth entrance. By then, I knew the Hickory family’s schedule. I knew when the kids went to bed. When the parents did. The rooms were all dark that night when I stood on the sundial and leaned against the wall, next to the pretty trellis. I used the glass cutter. I unlocked the window. I was in to do my business. I must say it all went beautifully. Not a whimper, not a pleading out of place.

The clock struck one,

They actually had a grandfather clock in there. Imagine that. I heard it strike one a.m. And people say there’s no such thing as fate. There was one Hickory left alive by then. Her eyes pleaded with me. Her mouth couldn’t. Not with that gag. I had recited the rhyme enough by then, that she must have known what was coming, what that sound from the downstairs clock meant. She must have known that it was time for me to leave. Finishing time. And so I did.

The mouse ran down!

I went out the way I came in. Down to the clock and off through the backyard, racing into the shadows of the bushes and the trees. Then through dark neighboring yards. My car was parked several streets away, where it would not arouse suspicion. I must say I was pleased with the way it all went down. It was the night of the new moon. The cool dark of that night on my skin felt so nice. Thank You, Moon. It took everything I had not to steal peeks at the videos I had recorded of the Hickorys. Such fun we all had. But I waited until I got home.

Hickory, dickory, dock.

The obituaries for the Hickory family were sanitized. The news stories splashed across the front pages, and all over the airwaves and internet, were more sensationalized. Television’s talking heads were fascinated by the murders. They loved that I had left the nursery rhyme behind. They loved that I had left a sprung mouse-trap on each of their bodies. That sort of thing plays well in the tabloids.

But not all the details were released. The police like to hold some gruesome facts back. I get it. They have to play the hand they’re dealt. They have to hold those cards close. To see who knows what. So the darling public didn’t get to learn that the dearly departed indeed showed signs that a mouse had visited. None of the news stories mentioned the gnawing.

For those following my work in the press, they’ll have other rhyme crimes to read about in the near future. Unfortunately, some will be discovered out of sequence. There’s Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary, that old battle-axe who writes those letters to the editor constantly. I finished that one months ago. But Mary has yet to return to her gardening . Come spring, when she finally gets back to tending her silver bells and cockle shells, she should find them. I mean those pretty maids all in a row.

I hope she writes a letter to the editor about that one.

Janissary Moons Haiku

            Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels

blue marble, red leaf–
one plus one
is impossible

waiting for food
seeing myself
in the plate

blue glass marble
tocks down spiral stairs–
the  winter weight of Bach

missing child
blue marble
the weight of Bach

red maple--
the telephone
rings and rings

screen door bangs
the crows fly off
centuries of this

place where something cold
comes through her dad’s screen door
she’s young there

long after death
a marble rolls out
from under the fridge

icicles–
the pointed questions
night finds

red maple leaf–
imagine dying
without apology

lottery ticket
losing in the Bible
at his funeral

old screen door’s holes
chewed by dead dogs
as therapy

that place something
chewed through a screen door
she flirts there

wearing lipstick
to bed she drunk drives
in her dreams

MLK Day
the cold hurts
everyone’s skin

MLK day–
cold widens
a house’s cracks

MLK Day–
boy in a hoodie
we see his breath

the cold mixes
a horse’s breath
with mine

bloated deer
at the roadside
New Year’s Day

the crow screams
it’s the same–
New Year’s Day

roadside bloated deer
a moonlight fear
she’s pregnant

a shed roof–
thud of an apple
where no one lives

storm outage–
by candlelight
we listen for our power

healing morning walks
wading herons
a new setpoint

zero degrees
animal questions outside
just stop

two old men joke
about Tang hair the color
of spiderwebs

morning walk
trees wait
without questions

above the noise
of my dead mother’s voice
winter wind

pond’s edge–
a dried out rock bass
makes us wonder

winter karma–
a stray dog learns
where you live

roadside deer bloats–
a moonlight fear
she might be pregnant

winter stillness–
more stories emerge
from a dead friend

Hokkaido snow cranes
some people have no ideas
but in postures

moon in ass-less chaps
introduces you
to its best friends

crossing death’s beach
tonight crabs in their millions
get by on moonlight

long dead friend
dark tunnel we enter
to hear the echoes

skipping stones–
how quickly water
heals its scars

what he drew
on his cell wall
he licked all night

another new year
another cell
trying to find its nun

old paint in cells–
dream women
peel away

midnight sun
at the famed waterfall
we yawn together

rain all week–
craving a movie
in black and white

spring cemetery–
a boy on a ten speed
pedals backwards

dead mall
we shop
for silences

watching snow fall–
all the letters
never answered

snow drifts
in a dark Shaker village–
quietude come home

on your tongue
a snowflake’s
Shaker quietude

icy rain
things we say
only to death

late at night
suddenly you change lanes
in bed

on all fours
gathering wild berries
a stranger smiles

make stranger sex
great again–
don’t wear MAGA hats

people won’t admit
if the best sex
was ghosts

up all night
thinking about Sting’s
carbon footprint

wind
blows the leaves
you feel connected

the snail
living alone–
it feels convoluted

donating the pants
you leave his good luck coin
in the pocket

sunny day
the spider in its web
feels beautiful

spider in a web–
being alive
requires a system

your dead loves–
oysters on bay cultch
grow pearls in moonlight

distant blue mountains–
stealing the neighbor’s
wifi

full moon
owns the window–
unapologetic

sometimes the shadow
is just better
than the object

t.v. news in brief—
more violence
more apologies

empty classroom
hand feels a paper cutter’s
guillotine nostalgia

sudden wind
across the lake’s moonlight–
no one left to tell

feeling legs kick
under you a lake’s
moonlight shifts

police diver
surprised to find the river
fully furnished

standing and dripping
in the rain this tree
and me

the empty side
of the duplex–
hearing moonlight

empty room–
we stare at the suicide’s
leftover moonlight

dead shark washed ashore–
here’s to those who refuse
to explain their lives

street’s freezing
you tell an owner-less dog
to go home

your death day again
the telephone wires
sag with ice

no one home
years now
but a doorbell’s glow

frozen bird feeder–
sparrows eat closer
to those they dislike

Can Vitamins and Other Dietary Supplements Cause Cancer? Probably.

I wrote briefly on this here, after learning of some horripilating studies.