Missed Connections

A storm in D.C. caused us to miss a flight in Paris, but we got where we were going anyway.

   Missed Connections

To be late is to be lost:
the plane departed,
the job filled,
the face turned
toward someone else –
until you find
you’re right on time
for whatever happens
next. 

At the Uni-Mart in Philipsburg PA

Here's another short vignette from a trip through Pennsylvania.

  At the Uni-Mart in Philipsburg, PA

a blonde clerk named Destiny
sells cigarettes and dispenses
smiles to teenage boys
with fake i.d.’s
all dying for a date.

Hillside Cemetery

 Here's one brief image from a drive through Pennsylvania and New York.  (A couple more may follow next week.)

                 Hillside Cemetery

The worn headstones struggle to stand upright
on the steep slope while the bodies beneath them
slowly luge their way feet first toward eternity.

Dog Tired

    Dog Tired

At times the panting devotion,
the adoring gaze,
the disproportionate hurt
or happiness
become too much
to bear,
and I long for less
dependence.
But then again,
the cat seldom comes
when I call.

 

Compensation

Trying to find some consolation in old age.

     Compensation

As the hair thins,

the waist thickens.

As the brain slows,
 
the bladder quickens.

As the day shrinks,

the night lengthens.

And as the body wanes,
 
the spirit strengthens.

Birds on a Wire

                   Birds on a Wire 

                  (On hearing that most birdsongs are either
                   claiming territory
                   or calling for a mate.)           
 

            They perch on words spanning the space

            between the poles of our conversations

            and echo our familiar strains,

            our same old songs of long distance

            love and local loss, with their own

            two-toned tunes warbling of nothing

            but war then lamenting their loneliness.

Secondhand Smoke

Just a note for foreign readers (or for those too young to remember Bill Clinton's presidential campaig).  While running for President, Clinton admitted to smoking marijuana but claimed he never inhaled.    Sorry, I can't seem to get the first stanza in single spacing.

       Secondhand Smoke

My father was the Bill Clinton of tobacco,                                                                                      claiming he never inhaled what he always

lit until the doctor said it was cancer

causing his noisy morning coughing fit.

And now I somehow still love the smell
of cigars, though I hate the stores that sell
them – and live in dread of the day I’ll die
of all the things I have never done as well
as all those things I couldn’t bear to quit.