Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome

The college boy babbles excitedly,
testosterone jitters and beer foam greased,
leans towards the busty co-ed,
with high hopes.
The card in his wallet says “One-A,”
the Tet Offensive rages an ocean away.

The bridegroom fumbles knotting his tie,
it takes five tries.

The wife wakes him up,
talks about his damaged aura,
gasping and hacking to the emergency room 3 AM.
Doctor tells him “Croup.”
“Maybe you should get her a psychiatric evaluation.”
Eight months pregnant.

Career hopes rest on his next mission,
but she and the children have to vacation at grandma’s.
He watches their plane disappear up into the blue,
tight throat, heavy heart.
A letter waits for him at home,
“We are not coming back until…”

The kids have been played, fed, bathed; asleep.
She’s gone again the weekend:
transactional therapist college retreat.
Heavy rain, flooded basement, house creaks.
In the dank dark his flashlight shows
twenty feet of rolled foundation.
How much will that cost?
Upstairs, Saturday’s mail unopened:
bank statement, savings, zero balance,
joint account.

The kids are busy, know everything,
no time for the old man.
That’s okay, everything’s stable,
accounts are paid for,
the oldest likes college.
A union organizer now, meeting at noon.
Secretary puts a letter in his mailbox:
layoff.

She’s a consolation for life in the downslope years.
“Women don’t need men,” she tells him,
“men need women.”
That’s what you think, sweetheart: silent smile.
Next summer at the beach: “I want a baby.”
“Of course.” You always knew,
nature must have its way.
No restoring the sports car now,
keep your zen,
maybe she’ll still love you in twenty years.

Mother calls, father’s had a heart attack.
He leaves for the long drive in the rain.
The wipers break, scratch the windshield at eye level,
electrics are spotty.
How will I take care of her now?

Doctor gives him the news,
prescriptions, change your life,
worry to maximize,
and it costs.
But dependents have all their demands.
You can’t be an artist and have a family.
At least now I know it doesn’t really matter.
So, relax and enjoy.
You can’t make time, you can only savor it,
or lose it.
Life belongs to the alert,
peace belongs to the knowing.

29 November 2016

<><><><><><><>

Flickers of urgency
yellowing into dry curls
release themselves
into a scattering wind
drifting to inevitability.
None notice,
no matter.

24 November 2016

An Old Cur Gnaws Through

People would rather fall off their own cliffs
than have their illusions interrupted.
Our people prefer to perish in a nuclear war
than submit to hanging their wash in the sun.
It’s a matter of principle.

Why give in to happiness
when you can insist on getting what you want?
Success is not about gaining happiness,
but an obedient world bowing to your demands.
It’s a matter of principle.

Women don’t want husbands, they want dogs.
Their ideal husbands would be their dogs
with a steady income.
There’s no bestiality, they don’t want sex,
they just put up with sex to have their children.
It’s all evolutionary programming to pass on genes.
Love is entirely psychological anesthesia.
The doggie on the leash, with its balls cut off,
wagging its tail and waiting patiently,
is the woman’s dearest lover.

The old cur gnaws through its tether
and wanders off.
It’s a matter of principle.

20 October 2016

<><><><><><><>

Sometimes

Sometimes,
it is the the greatest joy to be included,
appreciated,
and celebrated by a throng
bonded by shared ideals,
who immerse you
in their mass joy of identity.

And sometimes,
it is the bitterest of disappointments
to realize nobody has any interest
in who you are,
what you think,
and what you say,
that you are simply disappeared
from all human fellowship.

And then sometimes,
it can be the most amazing revelation
to find that what seemed like a solitary confinement
within socially unanimous rejection
was actually the purest freedom anyone had ever known,
the most profound experience of affirmation
the universe could ever bestow on an individual.

13 October 2016

I Am Not Here

Poetry is the first hideout of a romantic,
and the last refuge of a socialist.
In between
is a lifetime of discovery and disillusion.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
The Sunday afternoon sunlight
of a San Francisco Bay Indian Summer
illuminating the honeyed ruby sweetness
of a glass of port
in a near-empty bistro relaxing
with honeyed saxophone sounds
is the dynamic stillpoint of the All,
consciousness of which is entirely mine
in all of humanity.

With each passing day
I am increasingly cloud-hidden
on the upper slopes of the unseen mountain
at the threshold of the Western Desert.
The berries up here are sweet,
ripened with age,
except for the bitter young ones,
plump and green.
I am eye-to-eye with eternity
even as I am of vanishing consequence.
On descent into the daylight below the mists,
into the hurly-burly of the human ferment,
I am enveloped by a protective invisibility
because ignorance is fragile,
and like the first sprouts of a seedling
needs protective shade against the withering sun.

Soon enough the port is drunk,
dusk has passed,
and in the foggy night chill
I set off once again up the mountain
to catch the dawn rays above the mists,
in solitude,
cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown.

9 October 2016