Interpreting The Wind

the wind
speaks all languages

the leaves
are its many tongues

i have spent a lifetime
listening

learning
trying to understand just one

Toy Wars

Can you imagine if they passed a law
That required every future war
To be fought with weapons
Purchased from your local toy store?

And that every gun had to be fake
like the ones you make
with your hand -
using just your index finger,
your thumb,and a rubber band

And every gun
Could rattle off a million bullets
And fire as quickly
as you could move your lips

And since all children’s wars
are based on pretend
If anyone was shot
they could fall to the ground,
Lie still for a moment
and then get right up again

And none of these wars
would last more than an hour
And neither side would ever surrender

They would simply
go sit in the shade
And enjoy a pitcher
of cherry Kool-Aid

If wars were fought
with make-believe guns
We could send a few troops
of heavily armed children
Into the world’s
most hostile regions -
Assured they’d return
safely in the evening

But if this scenario ever came true –
What would be left for the adults do?

Oh, they’d still be responsible for
Starting all of these deadly wars.

AP English

Bill Cates said I was an academic rogue
That I belonged on the road
Writing - And not in a classroom
Deciphering what others had written
To satisfy some silly exam in June

He said this in front our AP English class
Right In the middle of reading Prufrock
One spring afternoon in April
Not to embarrass me,
but to pay me the highest compliment
he could bestow on one of his students
and then he proceeded to read
one of my poems aloud – a short one

and when he was done
my classmates were stunned
at what they had heard –
at what I said in a handful of words
for I had always been the quiet one

and when they turned
and looked in my direction
the only thing I could think of
was Ezra Pound’s -

"The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals, on a wet, black bough."

As I stood at a threshold:
One foot in the classroom
The other on the open road

Tonight

Tonight, the bay is calm,
Veiled slightly with mist -
As we watch the sidewalk lovers
Walking arm in arm -
Stop briefly to kiss
Before moving on

Tonight, the moon rises
Slowly, pulling the tide
Back with gentle hands
Across the glistening sand
As though it were a cover
On some lover’s bed -
The small waves breaking
Like delicate ruffles along its edge

Tonight, the sweet sea air
Permeates your hair
Mixes with your perfume
Then settles in my mind -
(A memory to be recalled
At some future time)

Tonight, you are the only woman.
Your eyes sing soft alluring lullabies
Inviting me to lie at your side -
Your delicate fingers become butterflies
Fluttering playfully in a nocturnal garden

And as I unveil your moon lit skin
And accept your invitation -
I hear the Sirens sing their warning –
A song that can be heard in every woman:
Will you be here in the morning?

Sadly, there is only one answer:
Kisses are not promises,
`Nor are words whispered in the darkness -
But if it is of any consequence –
Men think and sometimes ask the same question.

Rhetorical Questions

Does a mason
Hold a brick
And wait
For the architect
To show him a plan
Before laying it?

Does a musician
Restrain his hands
From the piano keys
Until the conductor
Flicks his baton
And signals him in?

Does a poet
Hold back his pen
From the page
Until the muse
Sends him
Into a writing rage?

Does a surgeon
Envision
What’s beneath
The patient’s skin
Before making
His incision?

Does a jury
Weigh the evidence,
The criminal intent -
And reach
A unanimous agreement
Before passing sentence?

Does a policeman
Make certain
His victim
Is the right one
Before
Reaching for his gun?

The Odyssey

I

You knew that I was a solitary person
Preferring the dark side of the moon
Or the underside of an unturned stone -
That my path to the future was a narrow one,
One that I would travel alone.

II

We spent our nights listening to Beethoven
Drinking cheap red wine by the gallon
Reading poetry by Byron and Donne
Never thinking it would someday end
We lived in an intellectual Eden
Until our little sanctuary was overrun
By protesters, assassins and political doctrine
By a decade full of chaos and madness.

By the end of the Sixties
We had switched from the classics
To Corso, Ginsberg, and Ferlinghetti
You went from cheap wine to cheap whisky
And spent mornings hung over and sick
I practiced Zen in a store front monastery
And lived out of a rucksack like Kerouac

III

You left for Chicago to attend university
And I joined the Navy and went out to sea
We sent occasional letters back and forth
Two, three years passed uneventfully
You told me you were happy translating Baudelaire -
I asked if you still braided your long hair
No, you had cut it short –

You plotted my Mediterranean ports of call:
Barcelona, Spain – Cannes, France - Rapallo, Italy
On a map you hung on your bedroom wall
You said it made your academic world seem small
To which I replied: No two worlds are of equal size:
To a snail it’s an inch wide - to a bird, it’s the entire sky
Do you recall Gulliver’s tale?
More often than not - it is we who are out of scale.

IV

More than four decades have passed since then –
And where there had once been a garden
There is only an overturned stone,
Its underside bleached white by the sun -

And as I turn my back and continue on
I Keep pace with time’s slow pendulum
Content with having chosen
The path less taken

Submarine Dream

When I was a child
I would stay up late -
While everyone slept
I’d be wide awake,

Pretending to explore
The ocean floor
In a small submarine
Called the Imagination

I was the captain
And would order my crew:
Steady ahead
Stay true at 5 knots

As I would carefully plot
A meandering course
Through the fathoms of darkness
Surrrounding my bed

My destination?
I’ll give you one clue –
It was a floating island
of shimmering light
That only appeared
On cloudless nights.

Have you guessed , yet?
No, it wasn’t the moon-
but the moon’s reflection -
Which many have said
was worth more than a chest
of gold dubloons

But the journey was long
And about halfway there
I’d always hear footsteps
Coming up the stairs

And as the last few crickets
Finished their songs
In the brakish light
Of the emerging dawn

I ‘d yawn, and say to myself:
Not now, I’m almost there.
And I’d fall asleep
in my captain’s chair

And I always dreamed
That I was carried aloft
By a pair of white swans
With delicate wings
(in reality, my mothers arms)

And heard a voice that softly said:
Maybe next time my little captain
Maybe some day you’ll reach that island -
As I was gently placed back in my bed.

A Letter to Lincoln on the Anniversary of his Death

Dear President Lincoln,
The efforts you made
More than a century ago
To free all men
From the drudgery of slavery
Lived on long after
You were laid you to rest
In your hometown cemetary.

All leaders question their decisions,
Trying to envision
The consequences of their actions
Before implementing them –

But in the end,
They all rely on blind intuition.
For none are ever certain
of the outcome -
None can predict the future -
Only God and magicians
Know what’s hidden
Behind tomorrow’s curtain -

But you were correct -
The protection of freedom,
The inalienable rights of men,
Should always take precedence
Over the politics of a nation.

From reading your letters
I can clearly see
You personally felt the pain
Of every battlefield causality,
Probably to a greater degree
Than the bullet Booth
Put into your own brain.

And on that day
When the horse-drawn wagon
Pulled your body away
In a flag-draped coffin
To the awaiting Funeral Train
You did not travel alone -
Thousands mourned you
At every station along the way
As you made your final journey
Across the nation
To your Illinois home.

And today, Mr. President
Your proclamations remain
the portals through which all me pass
In their journey to freedom -
they are still the most humane,
The most heartfelt words ever spoken -
And show the deep commitment and passion
You had for mankind and the preservation of the Union.

In the time that has past
Since your death -
You may be tempted to ask:
Is there total equality
Amongst men?
Have we reached that end?

Sadly, the answer to your question
Is that equality is not a precept-
It still remains a rare commodity,
Possessed by certain men
Men with uncompromising opinions
Who act as guardians
and protect the more obsequious members
Of their respective generations –
Much like you did Mr. President.

Finally, I think you would agree
With Malcolm X -
A radical contemporary, who said:
Freedom is not given,
It is taken.


Sincerely,
An admirer

Abandoned Rails

Do you remember friend,
The mighty diesel engines
We carried on our backs?
And the songs they sang –
Clackety-clack…clackety-clack
As they traveled over our tracks? -

Yes, I remember, friend -
And can you still feel
The vibrations of the wheels
As they raced across our rails
Faster than the wind!

Yes, and do you remember, friend -
All the men, women, and children
That passed through our stations
And how we faithfully took them
To near and far destinations?-

Yes, and do you remember, friend -
The Great Depression
And the homeless hobo men
Who camped along our tracks at night
Who jumped and rode our box car freights
In hopes of finding a better life?-

Yes, and do you remember, friend -
The rough and rowdy railroad men
Who worked beneath the blazing sun
To replace our rotten ties with newer ones;
Who pounded in those long iron nails
To secured our endless miles of rails?

I remember well my friend –
How faithfully we served this nation
But now we are covered with weeds and dust -
And our silvery rails have turned to rust
And instead of the rhythmic clacked-clack
Of the burly engines that rode our backs
We only hear the lonely wind
Blowing between the abandoned stations.