quiet

i love the silence
of no one but me being home.
i love the feel of my sitz bones on the hard wooden seat.
i'm alive
and so are you.
i smelled the reek of marijuana on a respectable
man's breath this evening.
it's legal now and he feels good.
he feels alive and is smiling
even thought i know he works very hard
and argues with his wife.
i love the look of the multi-colored clothing
strewn across the floor even though it's
messy.
i love making up music that sings
like poetry.
who would have thought.

home sweet home

a new version of a riverboat, nothing fancy

but it's home, the gentle rhythm of the stream 

rocks him to sleep, he lassos his boat to the

bank and dozes off, hopeful that another

day will come without a visit from the police.

it's dawn and we walk across the bridge,

the tip-tap of our feet will drift in and out

of his dreams and he'll turn in his sleep

and doze off again.

he was there three days and disappeared.

the police came, his dreams were 

shattered.

all you need

on a beautiful day

a small tent is all you need

to watch the stars circle above you at night

the earth crosses the moon

and the lights go out,

our eyelids droop and the book falls away,

our dreams picking up the last words

and filling in the rest as our arm

twitches under the light covers.

it's all you need, a small tent 

in the desert, a bottle of wine,

some good cheese, a loaf of

French bread and someone

you love.

rock teeth in Utah

packing never gets easier

how many poems about packing,
the uncertainty about what to bring,
the weather, my mood, whether to be stylish,
who I might meet, what I will do, how much
is too much, how much too little,
what brand of toothpaste, do I have to go
through security, is the car full, will my husband
complain.
the answer to that is no.
Will I,
perhaps when he loads his greasy bike
next to my precious sheepskin for my
little bony hips befitting a little old woman,
that's what my daughter calls me as she
towers over me.
I don't let her forget where she
comes from.

What a Day it Was

and what a day it was.

an old man in white visited a black man,

the most powerful man in the world

who watches helplessly as 

the pictures roll across the screen,

a man desperately gripping his children as the rubber dingy

flips away from them,

a lone tree in Croatia offered shade to a crowd

of suffering migrants,

a man talking to a hippopotamus

and a baby swaddled in a snowsuit

in summer,

peacefully sleeping in the 

middle of a gymnasium 

somewhere in the world.

what a day it was.

drinking wine shown to aid in French conversation

the surveys continued on the effects of wine
on performance,
flute improv
French conversation
happiness and contentment;
all found to be aided by wine consumption.
the type of wine was found to be insignificant
as long as it was drinkable,
I hid the good wine upstairs and left the
crummy stuff in the kitchen,
he won't notice after he drinks enough whiskey.

the experimental data on drinking wine before bed to promote sleep

they say that drinking alcohol before bed interferes with sleep
i contest that
after depriving myself last night of wine
only to find myself watching the clock go by
minute by eternal minute, second by second,
each hour was a century of waiting
for what except to scientifically determine
that drinking wine before bed is good and aids
in good sleep.

Napping Three Hours

where did she go during those three hours,
her eyes twitching, then her right leg, she's moving
somewhere in her own space,
dreaming of children and lovers, of black dogs
and long hikes in high meadows,
in her dreams there are no troubles, she
chases away strange men in black cars
and picks sweet tomatoes from her garden,
no wonder she lingers in sleep.

telling the temperature by crickets

they say you can tell the temperature
by cricket, counting how many chirps in
fourteen seconds and adding forty.
the crickets in our neighborhood must be stoned
like most everyone around here, the scent
of marijuana floats through my window.
they chirp sluggishly and notify me that I
should be wearing a sweatshirt when I'm
comfortable in short sleeves.
i'll set the metronome to the correct pulse
and broadcast it to the cricket masses
every night until snow hushes them
for the long winter ahead.

not sure about this, sure about that

not sure about this.
the style's not quite right,
the dress doesn't fit, the drumbeat is off,
her voice grates on me,
the carrots don't have enough sweetness,
it's greener over there, the sounds are purer
and they're different.
this is stale.
i need to turn the page, find another book,
take a right turn, run a red light and outrun
the police who have been on my heels so many years
trying to get me to run.
i drove the speed limit, followed the rules
kept the beat, watched the key signature
and played their tunes.
now it's time for me to make my own
music, i'm sure about that.

flute improv

middle C to a high trill
chromatic flutter scale down to a long
low D, opening up wide to a long vibrato,
tapering to silence.
a high G
i wished I knew my arpeggios
but no matter, the notes fly from my fingertips,
my lips follow, my heart is singing.

Solo: Shooting for the stars

we look up from below, jostling amongst our neighbors,

beer in hand, laughing, craning our necks

while Solo looks down from above, angling for the 

best view, the angle, the zoom, looking down crannies,

then capturing the last fizzle of a blue-green firework

against a black sky.

We can't see past the ochre wall on our right and the child

perched on his father's shoulders blocks our view to the left

but Solo captures it all 

such spectacular beauty in Sicilia recorded forever.

buy a Solo today, capture your own beauty.  

i am mostly not at work

i am mostly not at work.
i remind myself of this with each footstep on the gravel path,
the black dog romping ahead, tail wagging, not a care in the world.
the sun is not yet over the horizon, the clouds are bathed in pinks and oranges.
i am mostly not at work,
i remind myself when i lay my head on the pillow for an afternoon nap
filled with dreams of sugar plums and fairies, only to awaken
in time for a glass of wine on the front porch with my loved one
and the black dog, who has not a care in the world.
no, i am seldom at work, i must only remind myself of this
simple fact.

Cutting the locks in Paris

countless couples pledged their undying love and commitment
with the single click of a shackle.
how fitting and when the
city officials arrived with hefty cutters,
I wondered whether at the moment the locks dropped into the water
below, lovers started bickering, uncomprending, helpless and confused.
they never even heard the splash, only the bridge
felt their nakedness.

she doesn't believe in posting signs

she doesn't believe in posting signs,
she says it's her philosophy and there's no asking why,
there would be no answer.
she votes, she'll sign a ballot initiative but no signs please.
everyone else will have to step up for a good cause.
the title of the book I'm reading is this changes everything,
that no one stands up, we board airplanes and drive cars
that spew emissions, our heads down, averting our
gaze so we won't see the glaciers melting or get
more dust in our eyes from the Sahara desert lifting
into the skies,
we won't even post signs to save our neighborhood
somehow I find that sad.

how to get a response from my daughter

she may be ignoring me for the heck of it,
mad at me, preoccupied, baking a pie.
if I really want to hear from her, I need only
send a question on Matlab coding,
she replies immediately and follows up.
if only life were a series of Matlab queries.

starvation has set in: Bella's point of view

I am lying listlessly on the sofa
letting my eyes roll and droop while I watch
out of half closed eyes to make sure they're watching.
they'll see that I'm starving, that my fur is falling out
and my energy has ebbed to near death levels,
my heart is beating more rapidly, I feel weak
and I'm sure I've lost 50% of my body mass.
mom is mean, but dad must surely notice
that "his little girl" is starving with only
1/4 cup each of wet and dry food twice a day.
I don't even get table scraps anymore beyond
a thin slime of gravy on a plate before it's loaded
into the dishwasher.
they aren't noticing, my dad's legs are up next
to my head and he's watching TV instead of me.
oh, woe to me and them that this diet is killing me
even though the scale at the vet's shows
I haven't lost a single ounce,
much less a pound.

The Weigh-In

49 pounds.
7 pounds overweight according to that nice vet
who's staying with us.
the food rations dropped even more and
I saw cucumber mixed in with my canned dog food
I ate around it but then out of desperation
and sheer starvation, ate it anyway.
they're trying to kill me, my mom and that vet.
I hope Dad saves me but he asked the vet
when Mom was gone whether all that mass
on top of my ribs was really fat, even though
I tried to convey that it was 100% muscle.
Dad seemed to believe the vet and so
my fate is sealed with less good food
and more vegetables.
I'll have to eat more mice.

losing weight from a dog's perspective

things looks grim,
as soon as the vet walked up, she commented
on how chubby  I am.
she said I need to lose 5 pounds,
my food needs to be cut by 1/3.
dad needs to lose weight, too, but the vet didn't
say anything to him,
so unfair.
so mom has switched the food cup to something smaller
and the vet said to drop my wet food to less
she even suggested that I get fed only once per day,
and so I put my ears back knowing that mom will not budge
and dad will sneak me food but I'll still have to
lose weight.
i hope the vet leaves soon even though I like her.

Labor's Day

walk the dog
trailing behind to pick up the remains in a used
newspaper bag, depositing the warm stink
into the trash.
this is the start of the days work,
well done.
we walk together along the creek taking in the smell
of the forest, feeling the gravel, hearing the grind
of stone against stone.
this is pleasure
we would not have enjoyed without the work.
digging strawberry plants from the ground and
moving them in the hot sun from one place to another
where they will fruit next year.
this is work
next year the taste of fresh strawberries
against our tongues will be pleasure.
it will not be without this work.
tomorrow i will return to work and
when I sip wine next year in a small French cafe
in the Alps, I will remember that this work allowed me
such pleasures.

a simple cosmos

]

a meditation on a flower

while the crowds flow by like

cars on a highway, strollers and walkers,

children, seniors, couples and families

walk by this flower without a second

glass, a common cosmos

but have they noticed the feathery leaves

and the shades of pink, purple and white,

the yellow stamen wiht black tips.

i felt the leaves with my fingertips

and tasted the pollen, i am following

the wisdom of bees.

walking

the breath of warm air against my right arm
wheat colored grasses brushing my left hand
i'm listening for the dog tags to make sure she's
not too far behind
the sun is setting earlier and the colors
on the rock face glitter then fade to grey.
summer is slipping into fall
every pore feels the rising chill
before its arrival, we know it is coming
we anticipate snow and sharp blue skies,
but let us linger with the warm breeze
on our skin, let us linger.

looking back at the last 7 years of September 3's

seven years of poetry and i seldom look back
forgetting most of it, wondering at the time gone by
what did i do back then and what did i think,
who was i and who were you and you and you
on september 3, 2008,  i was saying good-bye
to my girl, her hiking boots still hot from the sun,
a pink bike on the back of car, i watched the
bus pull away and went home to two rabbits in
an otherwise empty house.
on september 3, 2009, the same girl and i were
visiting my grandmother's chateau and the year before
i promised to stop writing random poetry every day
that one didn't stick.
i forgot the poem i wrote in 2011
and the fragrance of peach pie filled the
air in 2012.
oh, how wonderful to sit in the garden in Vail
after a decadent lunch in 2013, off to France in
2014.
here i sit in 2015, waiting for the milk to cool
so i can culture yogurt and go to bed.

Writing Down the Bones: A book

Writing Down the Bones,
a title of a book,
about writing, how to do it
correctly.
I've never read it, daring to write
without knowing how, uneducated, uncultured,
unknown.
I've heard it's a must read for all poets,
I must read it sometime so I could learn how to
write instead of randomly placing words on a page
like I've been doing for so many years.
it's a ritual
not a task, a ritual without candles
or incense, prayers or kneeling, there are no Gods,
no degrees, no literary circles, nothing but me
and some random thoughts on the second floor
of a little house in Boulder, CO.
there is no need for a reader, the words spill out
and tell me what I really think.

the Joy of Calendars

everyday i see people i love

and dogs, too.

each page turn brings a new month

of adventure, empty squares to fill with 

music, hikes and gathering of friends.

this month my son is camping in 

a beautiful forest, my dog is sitting 

in the sun on the porch and i am 

spending time with someone i love.

it's a good month to be reminded of

all the good in life.