Winter is Coming

Sleety rain decorates the windshield
Leaving drops of glistening tears

I park with the others
Cars turned inward
Wiper blades folded down

Our cars look like optimists
In an unforgiving season

It's surely just habit
We should put that car cover on
Before the serious snow

Be well prepared, fellow drivers,
For the ordeal ahead

We could be polar bears with dwindling ice
Or Native people doused with water cannon
My little fears dwindle

My advice, stay warm,
Stay alert
And keep your phone handy

Suffering Human

The story/lap people
look up from their crosswords
and smile with that sadness called wisdom …
And young girls look anxious
and pace and smoke Camels
and wonder when someone will kiss them …
Their mothers are weary
of paper-doll lovers
like Kennedy, Browning, and Ibsen …
While the angry young men
crack their knuckles and frown
and write black power slogans in prison …
As the men who wear watches
tick off the crash/crises
their words fade to ashes and glisten …
All the clichés turn sour
and dry-mouthed, we holler
that words can’t describe our condition …
While the trees tell the seasons
I am here watching silent
and suffering/human, I listen …


I wrote this 47 years ago ..
August 14, 1969
(photo taken May, 1971)