mike wallace tribute

Couldn't hold back the tears
When they presented the clip
Interviewing the Secret Service man
And showing the grainy video
Jackie in her pink hat in Dallas
Helping him -arm extended-
Onto the back of the limo

two hundred dollars

I fell on hard times
I did what anyone would do
My body now belongs
To Palmer Chiropractic
Portland, Oregon
When I'm done with it
I'm a cadaver

hypocrisy

"What you do
Speaks louder than your words"
Said she

But I don't mind
I've made my peace
With hypocrisee

April

    After three days of voluminous rains, today was rumored to be “taper off” but instead we got the full meteorologic roundhouse, the haymaker that sheeted us out of a barrage of dark supercells, lightning thunder & hail in robust volleys turning the back roads white & slick with their swift pummelings, traffic reduced to twenty-five MPH on freeway-- lightning like the fuse lit to thunder, lapse of time, then crack & roll like Thoreau descry, “gods rolling lumber in the sky”-- but by day’s end sun shone gold in the west firing his rays up under the heavy veil of nimbus that lingered on Newtown, delivering across the rainshimmered earth a promise of weather faire-

downtown pigeons

My friends
They chuckle at me
For my exuberant admiration
Of downtown pigeons

Yes common Rock Pigeons
Local merchants are likely to call
"Feathered rats"

But how I soar with them!
When they swing wide
Across the Del Oro tower
By the dozens

The way sunlight
Flashes on their wings
Mid-turn

Dip    rise    &flutter
Across the Safeway park lot

Back to roost
   ridgeline
      on the OddFellows Hall--

Splendid!

Careful- high voltage!

They had just purchased
My lot of overstocked handyman stuff
Collected over the years,
        strewn haphazardly
In & beyond the old tilting shed.
ABS, PVC, gutters, buckets of fittings.
A contractor & friend.
After the negotiation and a deposit,
We leaned on his truck
And reminisced together
Our years in the trades.
"If I had to do it over again
I woulda been an electrician"
I offered.
"Of course I've been shocked once in awhile,
But what 'sparky' has not?"
His friend, Damon by name,
Chuckled, then added,
"Well, I knew a poor fellow
Working on a high rise in Frisco
Walked by some 440 stubbed
Out of the wall, got shocked alright,
Threw him onto the safety net below.
He survived,
But he was burned real bad
Across the shoulders,
And it messed up his brain,
Couldn't put thoughts together
The way you like to.
Oh, he got compensated alright,
Something like half a million,
But his heart was affected too
And after several years had a heart attack
And that was it"

rescue

The cat stuck high in the tree
     will surely be the death of me:
No regal lion with burning eyes
     could have spelt more succinctly
My demise