It’s All About The Weather


Settling in to spin a top of gossip
As that old summer-sizzle feeling grows…
Ms. Cleary spied on Harold, said to Kim:
“Your man’s a cheat, you know.”  To which our Kim
Then said to me: “I wish I cared, but don’t.”

This heat is hell, I said, and took a swig
Of Kimmy’s lemonade and, sizzle sure,
Saw in her some undercurrent glee;
A new romance had come to Kimmy’s shore,
And felt a stab of envy she’d the balls.

So, linger not, I told myself, and left,
Well satisfied this torrid August day,
All slow and damp, had made itself my friend.
Then howled a bit, to cleanse myself, I said.





Silent Morning


after yesterday’s maelstrom, when the lights
flickered and the cold crept in beneath the doors,
when the birds lost sight of the strewn seed
and the mice who live in holes in the ground 
went hungry, leaving their little circles
of no avail in the whited-out back yard,
when we read the day away and fretted some
about tomorrow, now today, ate long
from our store of gifts and prayed for the one
who had to be out on the stormy road…
And now in this dim morning hour of silence,
and snow that’s sealed up the earth from us
here in our warm enough rooms, we wait
for light to show us the way we will be.

Already I’m looking across
A too dark corridor, trying
To smile and wave from over here.

And there you all are, you I love,
Still alive in me, still living out
All your inevitable days,

Not ever looking my way, or
If you are, not seeing how this smile
Is lit with a sad brightness, how

My hand isn’t really waving,
But more a reaching out to touch
Your own, wanting to be back there 

In that old place I used to live
And not so very long ago,
In that old country called desire.