Another Scotch Poem

You passed on
Five years ago
I think of that
Sipping the last
Of the whiskey
You bought me
Ten years ago

You had turned fifty
I played at the party
It was all a surprise
Like the cancer you
Did not know about
And I did not know
You had passed for
Over a year.

I want to make this
Glass last a long time
'Tis but a symbol
The memory resides
Truly in the heart
And always in my soul


Here's to you this
"Cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne"

December 30, 2011
Lake Forest

Under the Apple Tree

Near some village
Some somewhere
That was or was not
Highland Armenadolu
Is that apple tree where
Someone once dreamed
Of sitting with a love
That should have been
Loving or not, the woman ideal

Almond eyed
Moon lit skinned
The reason we stay
What we think we are
Or not

Under the apple tree
My love and I did sit
Under the apple tree
Did I dream of where
And wonder when
Under the apple tree.

That tree in my Keserig
That apple tree in your Van
Let's sit you and I
I'll text sweet nothings to you
You naz nouz them back to me
My heart aches to be with you
Under just one tree
In the same time
Someplace we could call home
Under the apple tree

Is there an app for that?

That with a click we could
Measure our yearning for what
Might have been or not
My love and I did sit
Under the apple tree

November 16, 2011
In the Kharpert of my soul

convoluting or something

in coffee shop again
in a kind of rut
a comfortable rut
like a buck just
in case you missed
my subtle jab
dang there i go
uh convolutin' like
i was really some
kind of poet or sumpun

joni lansing

i could write every poem

listening to joni mitchell songs

'a case of you' playing

like a winter long ago

up there in the east of lansing

trying not to fall in love

and trying to be brilliant

failing at both

kicking back...

thinking and writing

sipping a cup of mesmer

icing on the cake of this day

wondering what canada

i might have lived in musing

‘bout trying to live at living

you make everything better

and angstful at the same time

you make poems just ooze

out of my natural self

what can i say but...

thanks

a different sky

eerie morning light
not eerie but different
not surreal either
it was very real
just different

low cloud post rain dawning
driving westward
there was a hole
in the eastern clouds
an autumn golden sun...
shined through

the illumination
the aura
the gold gray pinkish
misty billows dark and light
(no amber waves or shining seas)
something that jolted
still sleepy me
to a level of
anxious serenity

lake forest
september 2011

A Thin Slice of Life

in a coffee shop
i won't say which
named for the first mate

you got it...
Eve's Kafe Klatch

just me and five women
diverse all
and apparently
living better lives
than i even aspire to
aspire to

being in a human zoo
observing others
in the same cage
only i feel imprisoned

the medical student
i could tell from reading
her perfect printing
upside-down

the reader reading on
one of them little TVs
know clue what she is reading
on her nook bookie thing

me...
typing on my little TV

I'ld rather have
a slice of pie...

libertyville
20 August 2011

Translate this Poem

Translate my poem
Any poem or even
This poem would do

Make it read deeper
More nuanced and symbolic
Make it help change
How people think and dream

Have it rhyme in Turkish
And brook babble in Armenian
Over the stones that
I might have been staring at
If  nothing happened and
I could be writing there
In one of these tongues

Poem II - June 10, 2011

You were a black her
She kind of a white you
You are a younger her
She an older you
There is an uncanny sameness
A mother and daughter that
Never met and never really happened.
You look alike proving
That Ararat Ark Caucasian
Babely thing may have happened.
How else do you explain it…

Well OK… Her Dad and Your Mom
Or maybe marauders and rapists and
Slave owning mysogenists
From oh so long ago
Or maybe it’s just the luck
Of the genetic draw…

Poem I - June 10, 2011

I want to have a drink.
I probably will.
I want to write a novel
I will not begin that project tonight.
I want to write a poem
This one specifically.

I want to help achieve world peace
I have convinced myself that
Having that drink is the first step
I have deluded myself to believe
That there can be world peace
Men and women, different races
Religious harmony and acceptance
Peoples helping each other
Eliminating world hunger
Making real communism work
Saving the earth, focusing on the whales
(no one talks about them anymore)
Stopping the driving consumption of things
No one really needs and basically living
The Nirvane Heaven on Earth that is only in my mind

And to think it all began with my
Scotch on the rocks…

I have poured this magic elixir
I have sipped from the dime store chalice
My parched soul, on this one sip,
Has calmed and believes this barely
Poor excuse for poem will change the world.
I might even try going outside in
The mist rainy cool of this night
And wave my hands solemnly
Mutter a silent incantation and just see
If a good decent well intentioned thought
Can set the world right.

There is no need for credit
I don’t even need to ever know
I catalyzed it all

Where is my Saul slash Paul?
There is no one out there to proselytize
For this macculately conceived.

What ‘til I post it…

Slow Ride to Work

yesterday almost winter
suddenly summer
only 6 a.m. and warm
an hour into dawn
all sunny and green
driving to work slowly

not wanting to go?
savoring the solitude?
cool story on npr?
looking at trees and tulips in bloom?
just enjoying the coffee?
wishing something else?
something more?

no real answers for
these not real questions

just driving slow to work

Typing on an Airplane

I want to write a poem

No type a poem

Who the hell hand writes but me?

I was poised to type

Devoid of thought or idea

No poetic notion at all

When the seat in front of me

Tilted back making it harder yet

To type and see

But it jolted this...

Little lame thing
Out of me

Are You Wondering?

wondering
if this just might
be about you?
something you said?
something you didn't do?
something you
haven't even thought
about not doing
or stop doing
or even saying

maybe it is
or maybe it is
all between
my ears

what changed?

temptation at one glance
none at another

nothing changed but
the firing of my own
synapses and whatever
the hell it was
you said

lioness

lioness
sitting paws folded
in cool repose
waiting to make
more cubs...
pant...
pant...

feeling better already

these are the purgey poems
the structureless aimless
get them out of my system poems

they exist like zits better yet boils
waiting to burst and get the poison
out of me onto tissues, into trash bins
en route to landfills to be part
of some day parks where people
will stroll unaware on what they tread

jux tapose

you were a cross between
gandhi and jack lalane
who just passed awn
zsa zsa wating to go
or that farah and michael
who checked out on my birthday

being purposefully obtuse
well not obtuse but vague
making idiotic cross celebrity
references just to appear
wicked smart....

who uses ellipses in poems
as much as i do for you baby
or sumptin' like that

jux tapose i were to act like a popeye
to your olive oyl and al sharpton to
your jackie O....
just expose