Antler Dan's Rule:

 Always pass to the left.

Sonnet For My Grandmother

Death, where are thy 10,000 stings?

My father knows, leaning down to speak.

My son (11), standing by her bed

At one end of the span

Smiles widely for my grandmother

Who's at the other, her thoughts

Always on her face.

Dark water rushes underneath.

She herself waiting for that doorway

Into that perfect cloudless moonlit night

Where my grandfather waits,

Wrinkles sweetly smoothed by hand,

Feeds the hens & chickens,

Wonders what's keeping her so long.

xilitla

a green mountain like

a young girl's breast

hangs over tin roof'd xilitla

 

thru the mist green parrots

the unpaved road with chickens

the singing girls inside the school

 

descent to the bottom

where the children played ball

and stared at me gape-mouthed

 

washed shirts would not dry

on the line overnight

in the sierra gorda

 

the tethered goat sways

on the roadside in the grass

La Silleta, the mountain, looms above

Oz

Someplace Munchkins toil their fields,

Ghillikins pick fruit in their orchards,

Quadlings herd their tiny cows to market

 

Ozma sits serenely on her throne

The sun in the sky looks down & says,

Ho Ho

 

1,000 Nights & A Night

spurs & saddle bells

jingle in the dusk

rolling across the dunes

a rolling black tide

 

a turn & then light

flickering, dancing

shadows whispering darkness:

oasis

Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas & Yucatan

An inscription

Carved in stone

Near the site

Proclaims it --

 

Today it belongs

Mostly to the 

Wildlife.

HURRICANE JAMIE

I think of you like

Grace Kelly or sea storms--

Gone, Cape Hattaras!

Gone, St. Augustine!

Gone Atlanta, Gone Raleigh!

Gone, Bayonne & Fire Island!

All swept away by

Your eyes & mouth

Then flying madly

Into your arms --

But often, in the Eye

It is calm

POTUS 29

Warren G. Harding 

Was at heart basically 

A sweet, good- 

Natured guy who 

Couldn't say no 

To his friends 

And just wanted 

To be loved. 

 

Warren, his 

Father had said, 

If you were 

A woman you'd 

Be in a family

Way all the 

God-damned time.