Private Parts, Private Thoughts

 

Private Parts, Private Thoughts

Terry comes over for our Tuesday walk.
He bruised his leg pretty bad 
going down some rocks on his motorcycle 
so we don’t climb any mountains today, 
just walk the roads and talk about private parts, 
the concept we impose on children
who are born without privacy 
until we lay down the law at some point 
for their safety, our comfort, society. 

Terry was seventeen in Cincinnati, 
she was fifteen and curious, 
they shed privacy together 
for an entire summer.
I remember skinny-dipping 
on a sandbar of the Meramec River 
in Missouri with friends, 
private parts flopping, wet,
the same summer as Woodstock, 
I guess it was something in the air at the time,
never expecting fifty-six years later 
to be homeowners with SUVs, 
old hippies with grandkids, 
reminiscing. One of the Meramec girls,
Debbie, died in a car wreck a month after.
I still recall her breasts slick with the river,
upright, untasted. 

We each are wearing broad-brim hats, 
canvas sombrero for Terry, 
funky fedora for me, 
and we wonder about the lost custom 
of tipping one’s hat to a lady, so we try it, 
tipping “Howdy ma’am” 
and then simply “Ma’am” 
like the laconic cowboys of old movies
as we arrive at the pond in the center of town. 

Suddenly we both share a glance,
something in the air. Strip our clothes,
keep the hats on. Wade into the pond.
Cars drive by but nobody stops.
Fish, bullfrogs make way.
A great blue heron takes flight.
Squishy mud between our toes,
simply wading. Glory. Hot day.

Still wet, we pull our pants on.
A sheriff’s deputy stops his cruiser,
leans, lowers the window,
says there was a complaint,
two old men naked in hats,
personally he doesn’t care but
the young mothers seem the most upset, 
what if the children saw?
“Haven’t seen any,” we say,
“but we’ll keep a watch.”
We tip our hats to the officer
and walk home with our private thoughts,
mine of greeting Debbie still a young lady
in heaven. Howdy, ma’am. 

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig  
Thank you editor Hayley Mitchell Haugen

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Quarter Acre

 

Quarter Acre

In my undeveloped lot
you can walk a trail 
formed by hooves, 
by generations of deer 
followed (but rarely)
by pawpads of lions.

In my undeveloped lot
quail warm their eggs
in nests of woven grass
or gather a kindergarten 
of bustling chicks.

In my undeveloped lot
grow oceanspray, hazelnut,
snowberry, thimbleberry, 
elderberry,  blackberry,
coffeeberry, currant, 
a buffet for songbirds 
who gather and gossip.

In my undeveloped lot
stand trees of straight fir, 
patient redwood, generous buckeye, 
scented bay, calm cypress, 
rock-hard oak, big-leaf maple
where squirrels scamper, raccoons doze, 
fox and skunk and possum wander
while crows call, vultures perch, 
where owls call to the stars.

In my undeveloped lot
a lot has developed.

…..

First published in The Russell Streur Anthology

Photo is of my undeveloped lot. The ladder (which I built) has been there 40 years. Nobody remembers why.

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Beauty is your death beheld

 

Beauty is your death beheld

This mountain in the rising sun, 
these waters home to loon, 
these pines pulsing with sap,
this handful of berries wild and blue, 
all this and more your body shall become, 
all this and more your spirit shall join. 
Behold the glory you shall be.

…..

First published in Northampton Poetry Review 
Tom Harding editor

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Spiritual Plumbing

 

Spiritual Plumbing

Terry and I climb a narrow trail 
in search of an old water intake. 
We find rusty pipe but no collection box. 
Mountain plumbing is constant crisis 
as storms re-engineer the landscape 
while three hundred houses wait to wash.
Terry, you should know, operated 
the water system for years and years
in our old hippie town. 

Moving on, we walk around the once-reservoir
that collapsed in the winter of ’82.
Now that was a crisis. 
I say I used to come to this hilltop 
every day at sunset with my dog
to meet a woman with her dog
to witness, to feel in our flesh 
the cool, the color, the end of the day. 
Terry says thirty or forty years ago, solstice, 
he used to come to this hilltop to drop acid 
with his merry prankster buddies.
“When was the last time you took LSD?” I ask.
“Last week,” Terry says.

Terry, you should know, is seventy-two
with cardiac plumbing that has 
weathered a few storms. 
He says the trips are milder now, sweeter, 
like spring-water from the glen on the hill 
above his cabin, gurgles out slowly 
but worth the wait at the end of that trail 
where only coyotes go.

…..

First published in  The Summerset Review 
Thank you editor Erin Murphy
Photo by melanie (mathey)

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Sometimes on a quiet road

 

Sometimes on a quiet road 

you have to stop your truck, 
step out,
admire streaks of pink,
the soundless sky. 

Breeze chills your cheeks. 
A vee of birds way up high. 
Unseen children in the dusk 
shout about rules of hide and seek.
Beyond the trees a glow,
somebody’s kitchen. 

Here comes a beagle loping 
through the meadow weeds, 
tongue lolling, 
eyes bright.

And you drive away knowing
you’ll never see that same sunset,
those birds, hear those children,
meet that dog
ever again.

…..

First published in Hobo Camp Review Thank you James Duncan, editor.

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At Last

 

At last

Dirty dogs with weary paws
trot the dry-weed hill,
plop down beside me 
with toothy grins
slobbering pant-pant-pant.

One dog with fur of old hippie beard
snorts at my pocket, trace of doobie.
Other dog with fluffy brown 
of big-hair New Jersey woman 
here on rocky Pacific coast
studiously with warm tongue
cleans a scratch on my ankle.

When motorcycles approach,
both dogs raise hackles, growl.
No collars. Feel the ribs. Hungry.

I walk, they follow at first,
then take the front as if all along
they’ve known the way home. 
I’ve been adopted by the mother and father 
I wish I’d had so I fry a dinner 
of turkey burgers to share. 

They are old. Vet bills 
will be enormous. I don’t care. 
In this life you don’t choose your spirits.
They choose you. 

…..

First published in I-70 Review. Thank you editors Maryfrances, Gary, and Greg.

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Southern Exposure, 1967

 

Southern Exposure, 1967

I know the white South, warn her
but she wants to see Mardi Gras
and I love her madly. 

Jackson, Mississippi has ‘colored’ restrooms 
unmarked because illegal, watched by 
a rooster man, teeth of yellow, neck of red
shouting, poking fingers in my chest,
scared by my beard, her beads.
She pulls me back on the bus. 
“Peace,” she says. “Peace.”
Which saves a lot of grief.

Beyond Baton Rouge
a greasy white man in a banker’s vest
beckons a little black girl: 
“Come sit on my knee.”
She’s scared. She goes.
He says she’s a precious peony
which he grows for the fragrant flower
though the more he says peony
the more it sounds like picaninny
as he bounces her deep into his lap.
He squeezes her ribs with his fat hands
saying he wants to take her home 
and plant her in his best soil of the Delta.
All the while the girl’s mother sits 
across the aisle, eyes a narrow slit. 
Every passenger’s lip, grim. 
Every eye, flame.

In the weird dynamic of the South in 1967
the whole bus simmers 
on the verge of explosion.
“No peace,” says my love, 
rising. “No peace with that.”
The driver slams to a stop, says: “Off. “
“Us?” we say.
“Yeah you,” he says. “Get off, hippies.” 

By the side of a swamp she sobs.
“Hold me,” she says. “Just hold me.” 
We walk a mile. 
A shack is selling fried frog legs.
As we stand by the road with greasy thumbs
a woman stops with a Plymouth 
back seat full of puppies in a swirl 
of black and white and brown.
One licks our fingers, instant bond.

The Greyhound driver likes puppies, 
lets her ride on our laps to Saint Lou.
A practice child, then nanny to our kids.
Here, meet Nola the river dog.
“Peace,” Nola barks, “Peace!” 
with a Cajun accent, meaning “I’m watching 
you so don’t mess with the kids.”
Then with a warm tongue she licks your hand. 

…..

First published in MOON Magazine 
Thank you editor Leslee Goodman
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We were poor before we had kids and then we were poorer

 

We were poor before we had kids 
and then we were poorer

This windstorm could blow a sprite away 
so in the fading-flower microbus
I deliver bright-eyed kids to school, 
our gift to teachers. Gusts of the gale 
like, kids say, a stampede of buffaloes
nearly push us from the road 
but by afternoon pickup, in the 
great outdoors, calm restores. 

With kids we head into hills snaking
up a road narrow as a noodle
patched like an asphalt quilt. 
Little hands gather pine boughs 
ripped from trees by violent air, 
settled everywhere like lacy green turf. 
Filled, the bus is pine fragrance in steel,
a forest on wheels. 

Returning down spaghetti road 
a Mercedes woman nearly hits us 
wrong side around a curve. But doesn’t. 
She waves, so sorry. Big smile—
Almost wiped out your family bye-bye. 
How absurd. To her we wish 
one reindeer turd.

In the cottage with branches and twine 
we build a tree, for free. Joy to this world!
Some day we’ll have money 
for a pre-cut symbol of Yule. 
Never so cool. 

…..

First published in Storyteller Poetry Review. Thank you editor Sharon Waller Knutson

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For David E. LeCount Who Wrote 148,000 Haiku

 

For David E. LeCount Who Wrote 148,000 Haiku

Four pens in shirt pocket 
because moments like frogs 
come, go

Red, black, blue, gray
because nature
has moods

Index cards
behind the pens, so words
won’t wander

Fresh ink 
from pen to card—
raindrops, petrichor

One life 
won’t fit
in three lines

Today we bury you
in green shirt,
full pocket

Above you
come spring everlasting
flowers bloom

Their roots 
hairy and soft,
grip pens 


(Teacher David,
reading my haiku 
you’ll need the red pen)

…..

I wrote this poem the night before David’s memorial service and read it at the service. He was listening from beneath fresh dirt on the hillside across the street.

David always had a shirt pocket full of pens, plus index cards behind them. Every day he wrote 6 to 12 haiku. For 50 years. That’s 148,000 haiku.

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Four Old Men, Digging a Grave

 

Four Old Men, Digging a Grave

on a hillside 
one with a pick, two with shovels
all with stories
passing them around—
stories, pick, shovels.

Don is the oldest, age “about eighty”
a good man with a pick
breaking, pulling clods of clay.
After thirty years in a 
San Quentin prison cell,
he chooses to live outdoors. 
Big guy, gray ponytail, 
power of a bronco
behind gentle eyes.

Terry in the Air Force was trusted
with nuclear launch codes, 
then thought better of it and hit the road, 
dirt-bike racer, merry prankster, 
grinning beatnik, psychedelic dancer,
wields a shovel like a pencil
writing the hole
as a poem.

David is bearded like a prophet,
shirt pocket bristling with pens, 
wizard of China,
heroic high school teacher
telepathic with teenagers,
can speak to horses
in haiku.

The grave is for my dog, Dakota,
who watches us from above
and it’s a hard job, the work of death.
Muscle and sweat, our language of grief.
We joke: I’ll dig your grave
if you’ll dig mine.

We agree, each canine 
has an individual personality
but also each carries dog spirit. 
As one leaves, you welcome another—
different, but the dog spirit renews,
rejoins your life
making you whole.

Terry says “When Dakota arrives
in doggy heaven, she’ll report
there are good owners here.”
A five-star review
on doggy Yelp:
Fear not, next puppy.

Four old men, digging a grave
on a hillside 
among spirits. 

…..

From my book Foggy Dog

David LeCount (top right) and his friend Don Moseman (bottom right) both died on the same day, November 18, 2025. Dakota (top left) died in July, 2015. Terry and I (bottom left) are still breathing, still have pick and shovel. We miss our friends. 

Hear me:

And hear an earlier (more expanded) version of the poem: