NEXT 1 MILE

 

NEXT 1 MILE

Wooden wagon wheels rolled 
through prairie grass and alkali dust,
over Sierra mountainside from Missouri 
bringing Jeannie’s great grandpa as a baby
to Jeannie’s little ranch 
in what is now Silicon Valley
which she bequeathed to her sister
who immediately sold for subdivision.
As Jeannie’s last wish she gave these funky 
wheels to me, to my home under redwoods.

Moon followed moon. 
Worm followed rot.
Wooden spokes detached, wooden felloes 
collapsed—saved for kindling. 
Rims remain—giant hoops of metal, 
heavy as history.

So today I drive my Subaru 
from the mountains to the Palo Alto clinic
and there’s a highway sign on Route 84
left over from road construction 
as you enter the redwood canyon:
          NEXT 1 MILE
That’s all.

I hitchhiked the American West,
summer 1968, hearing each next mile
like a gift among the yak-yak calls of magpies
a pop song played from every car and truck: 
“Soul Coaxing.” Raymond LeFevre. 
Lush violins. No words.
Then it vanished, as sounds do in the air,
never Number One so never replayed
by oldies radio but launched over light years
to bounce off galaxies and return by surprise
like a lost buffalo—right here, right now
on my drive to the clinic—tune of my memory, 
of alkali and prairie grass
broken by fences and strip malls as I enter
the parking garage for physical therapy.
For balance training. For my internal
wobbly wheel.

In the fireplace I burn remnants of spokes, 
of felloes for warmth launching white smoke 
while balancing on one foot like a 
blue heron in rehab as I hum a lost tune, 
as the creaky old wagon rolls slowly 
toward sunset along the space-warp trail. 
May we find balance. At journey’s end, 
soul rises like smoke. Each mile a gift. 
Look ahead. 

…..

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

*felloes: the wooden outer circle of a wheel held
within the iron rim, to which the spokes are fixed. 

Note: a year later the sign is still there, all alone among the redwoods and traffic. My balance is much improved. Physical therapists work miracles.

Hear me:

After Eighteen Days on this Planet

 

After Eighteen Days on this Planet

At the breast 
baby likes to play
dive-for-the-nipple. 
Like an Olympian 
on the high platform 
baby rears back,
measures distance, 
then lunges for mother, 
for milk.

Today baby grabs his own hair, 
pulls. And screams.
The more he pulls, 
the more he screams
until mother untangles baby’s fingers
bringing peace.

Don’t we all wish sometimes
a big hand would swoop down
to unclutch us 
from our folly?
Then, oh! to rear back 
and lunge
at life’s big love.

…..

Photo by Luiza Braun

Hear me:

Female

 

Female

Riding in my backpack
chattering gibberish 
she charms the gap-tooth man
who is in a happy mood 
so he repairs my chainsaw 
on the spot, no waiting,
asking only for
two six-packs of Bud
which we buy
from the bodega next door.

With greasy finger 
he touches her nose, 
leaves a smudge 
that makes me shiver—
his mark, a warning.
“Don’t tell Boss,” he says, 
winking at my daughter 
who giggles, who is as yet 
too innocent
of her power.

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review 
Thank you editor Roderick Bates

Hear me:

Lions in the Grass

 

Lions in the Grass

Littlest grandson, age one, knows what lions do
but can’t pronounce dandelion as he toddles 
over grass pointing at yellow flowers 
saying “Grr! Grr!”
He calls me G’pa.

G’ma and me, we drive to town 
to buy a new electric clothes drier. 
The old one’s wheezing like me. 
We find one with a memory chip
so it can learn our drying habits, 
remember them as we grow older.

Bigger grandson, age four, 
with mischievous smile says “You want to hear 
something weird about my parents?”
G’ma and me, we both think: “Uh oh.”
And he reveals: “My mom is 41 years old 
and my dad is only 40, but he’s TALLER!”
Meanwhile I’m cutting a sandwich and ask, 
“You want it square or in a circle?”
He answers, age four mind you, 
“I want an irregular polyhedron.”
May we remember as we grow older. 

…..

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

Hear me:

It’s the Summer of Love and your period is late

 

It’s the Summer of Love and your period is late

We are college kids 
flowers in our hair 
bicycling through Oregon 
to Frisco or bust.

We cruise Tillamook 
as if a different life, 
tour the cheese factory, 
charmed by the town 
with cows along the road
calm in their cuds.

Maybe it’s a message from the bovine 
but your breasts, you say, 
are more tender now.
We are in love but not ready 
for the Big If.

Camping at Cape Lookout with 
hot showers, toweling wet hair, 
you return grinning because 
you are very not pregnant, you say.
End of an era, beginning of a period.

When finally we pedal into the Haight, 
summer’s end, it’s a strung-out scene 
selling no joy. Frisco’s a bust. You say 
We lost something in that shower drain.

To the airport, eastward, 
steam-heat classrooms for us. 
Rain, fresh green grass for Tillamook.

…..

First published in Monterey Poetry Review
Dr. Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, editor

Hear me:

Father/Son Night is a casino,

 

Father/Son Night is a casino, 

questionable choice for a high school.
    (The goal is bonding.)
I play blackjack, amass a modest gain, 
bet it all at closing time—and lose.
    (It’s only chips.)
The boy meanwhile steps outside with 
a fretful-looking girl named Cecilia. 
Saves his chips.

Driving home the truck breaks down, 
a clunky grinding noise, so we walk 
a highway of headlights toward a pay phone
    (those old days).
Bats crisscross beneath streetlights 
harvesting bugs. A car slows, somebody 
shouts “Hey! Fuck you!” and is gone. 
“Friend of Cecilia,” the boy explains. “Ex.”

I call Rose who is home with sleeping 
children. Agonizing choice—
    (we live in mountains, isolated)
    (and looking back, we can’t believe 
    we made this choice)
but she leaves kids in their beds
    (ages 9, 13)
with a note if they should wake and drives 
to pick us up, an hour round trip.

Anxious, home, frosty breath of fir-tree air. 
Inside warmth, bundles sleeping safely.
Oh children of this fuck-you planet—
Consider the risk. 
Then love.

…..

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

Hear me:

Through Glass

 

Through Glass

My daughter at age 7 
is a window 
into girl world
a land of star-shine 
and unicorns
so today I ask her 
to give names to 
all her leotards
and she names them 
Bronwyn who is brown,
Cinderella who is yella, 
and Donald who is purple. 
Why Donald? I ask.
Because it’s too tight, she says, 
and I sweat in places
and it’s embarrassing 
and Donald is the old man who stares.

…..

First published in Black Coffee Review. Thank you editor Dave Taylor.

Hear me:

42 Minutes Before Sunrise

 

42 Minutes Before Sunrise

I let the dog out the kitchen door
and stand guard on the porch
with big beam flashlight 
against mountain lions 
(although what would I do?) 
so the poodle pees on a fencepost
while from silhouette of tree
an owl hoots a great horned 
farewell to the night 
and from shadowy forest floor 
wild turkeys awaken 
gobbling indignant squabbles.

Poodle lingers, 
leg still cocked though dry 
as if he, too, savors this moment
while from dark branches
against a quickening sky
robins, finches, grosbeaks in song
declare their territories, call their mates
and (I believe) express their joy 
like a choir without a conductor
lubricating the sunrise
because for birds as in opera
transitions need music.

…..

First published in The Russell Streur Anthology

Hear me:

The Moment After

 

The Moment After

Numb from the crawl space, 
from cobwebs and cramps, 
from weight of wrenches, suck of mud, 
from cruel finger-scrape of crusty pipe
I open the gas-cock, dimly aware of
a hoo-oo-ooting sound as wearily, stupidly
to relight the pilot I strike a match and 
WHOOSH 
a comet of fire slams me to a wall. 

Fast the body moves 
before the mind reacts. 
Scrambling on hand and knee 
for an endless instant— 
I shut the cock.

The moment after in stillness, 
    my right arm is smoking.
The moment after from my sizzled beard, 
    the scent of singed hair.
The moment after from my lip, 
    the taste of ash.

And like a wild river
    blood throbs through my heart.
With a rush of air
    lungs expand.

Before pain can muster
(and muster it shall), 
in the moment after 
I have senses, spirit. 
The soul burns, my love, 
blessed to the quick
with life.

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual, thanks to James Lewis, editor

Note: I wrote this poem after a terrible horrible no-good day when yes, I nearly blew up a client’s house (and myself). How lucky, how wonderful to be alive.

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When Voices Blend

 

When Voices Blend

I’m no musician but one summer 
for campers with my guitar 
I sang sad folkie songs.

Tell old Bill, when he comes home
To leave those downtown gals alone
This mornin’, this evenin’, so soon…

Another counselor, Reggie 
with the better voice, high tenor 
joined my low in a harmony that thrilled,
sent electroshock quivers deep in my chest. 
Closest we ever came to touch. 

Reggie black, me white. 
Inside him, a sadness—you heard it 
in the notes, the tinge of blue.
Girls always sweet on him. 
He danced, laughed, shied away. 
Queer, back then in Missouri, a dirty word.

I didn’t understand the mechanics 
of harmony, how the notes, which way.
Same so, the culture of gay.
 
And the world shot us out 
like pepper spray. No contact 
until a photo, Facebook, an obit saying 
in New York he taught music, drama, 
beloved by college kids, appeared 
on stage with Meryl Streep. 

Oh Lord, tune for me my old guitar. 
Fingers are stiff but in a Mendocino fog 
after half a century comes the music 
of memory, the mystery of harmony, 
the shock of love—this morning, 
this evening, too late. 

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review 
Thank you editor Roderick Bates

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Getting to Yellowstone

 

Getting to Yellowstone

Breakdown in Idaho so I walk with little Lily 
to a hovel of a house where Lily says 
“This doesn’t look like a happy place to live”
because she wonders about such things. 

A woman’s voice “¿Quién?”
I explain with gestures we need a phone 
if she has one. Door opens. Cautious, wordless,
face sweaty-slick, she lets us enter.
An ancient dial phone on the wall. 
Lily says “We’re safe here.”

Tow driver Ethan crams Lily and me 
into his cab, cool toward us until Lily 
clutching a book, always a book, asks 
“Would you mind towing us to Yellowstone?” 
Then he smiles. We chat.

Ethan’s from Oakland, California
so I ask why he’s in potato land.
“I prefer the slow life,” he says
but his wife doesn’t so she has a job in LA.
Lily says “How will you have children?”
Ethan laughs. “Slowly” he says.

Lily and I set up a tent in Ethan’s back yard.
Awaiting repair we read Mr. Popper’s Penguins 
by the Snake River where penguins don’t dwell
but might find ice-cold water. I tell Lily 
we’ll reach Yellowstone by and by. 
“No hurry,” says Lily. 

…..

First published in Hobo Camp Review 
Thanks to James Duncan, editor
Photo by Jacob W Frank

Hear me:

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

Hear me:

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.

Hear me:

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

Hear me:

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)

Hear me:

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.

Hear me:

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.

Hear me:

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
Hear me:

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

Hear me:

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.

Hear me: