She turns and builds and paints and fires—
She grandly grows both flowers and veg—
Recycles, composts, rules, desires—
By god, she’s even baking bread.

Mostly she smiles and jitterbugs,
Though sometimes fate deals her chagrin—
Never morose, she sometimes shrugs—
Her Yang well-balanced by her Yin.
                        (2/16/10)

Flirtatious birds flit—
Stalking cats misunderstand—
Unrequited love!

Cats, obsessed with birds,
Fret, constrained by gravity—
Unfair: cats can’t fly!

Slit-eyed cats can climb
But birds read dark feline hearts—
Tempt—then flick away.

Birds would like to stay,
Play tag, mix it up—but can’t!
Cats play much too rough.
                     (3/10/09)

Crows, like ravens, caw!
But only stately ravens
Predict: “NEVERMORE!”

Though rodents disgust,
Rabbits, despite overbite,
Charm—long ears, puffed tails.

Strange creatures abound—
Platypus, eel, giraffe, squid,
Plus the long-eared hare.
(2/26/09)

Turtles swim the seas,
Tortoises gallumph on land—
Weird dichotomy.

Lethargic tortoise—
Unambitious, carapaced—
Lives for centuries!

Though slow, they’re steady,
These tortoises, and race well!
Doubters? Ask the hare.
(2/27/09)

Politicians jest,
Excoriate, mock, score points.
But what principle,
Philosophy, theory,
Informs “lipstick on a pig”?

Three pigs built houses.
Two, unfamiliar with wolves,
Their huffing, puffing,
Owe their lives to a brother
Acquainted with rigid bricks.

Pork Haiku

Pigs have their uses.
They snuffle and snout the ground,
Uncover truffles!

Eerie idioms?
A pig in a poke, perhaps,
Or in a pig’s eye.

Charlotte, a spider
Publicist, lobbied to save
The prize pig Wilbur.
                 (2/16/09)

I pride myself on being smart and cool.
I understand decay, mortality.
And yet, I cannot fathom the misrule
Of mind trumping corporeality.

I know I’ll die; all mortals wear away,
And though I do not welcome death, I feel
No terror at finality. I say
This often. But (I know now) stress congeals

The flesh! Can this be? Biochemistry
Rules—we know the organs fail, hormones
Fade, peristalsis cramps, things go awry.
But how can my mind, acting quite alone,

Imaging my wife’s distress, plant duress
Sufficient to freeze my neck? Sure, I feel
Concern—but sense no conscious stress.
So much for consciousness! The stress looms real!

My ectoplasmic mind asphyxiates
What matters most, twists flesh, and molds my fate.
                                                       (2/5/08)

My cash, of course,
Is what that merchant’s
Looking for. Doubtless, he, too, needs
Warmth and sustenance.
And besides, the rent is due.

But what I most desire
Is not stocked in stores.

While stumbling toward
My own dark precipice,
I mock myself
And foolish folks
For all the stuff we felt
We could not live without.

A bed, a chair and table,
A pencil, some paper,
Some clay to shape.
Groceries, of course,
A few books—
A heated room against the wind.
Stuff enough!

Beyond this modest greed.
Again, I have to say:
What I most desire
Is not stocked in stores.
(1/25/08)

II
My wife
Places talismans
About the house.
Ceramic turtles
(Created
In her kiln)
Assure good luck.
But, during the Year
Of the Pig,
They must face west!

III
My wife
Made strange
Ceramic
Pendant beads
To dangle
At the neck.
Hard to describe—
Four faces, each
Sharing an eye
Of the one
Adjacent,
Alternately Scowl
And Smile.
“They’re amulets,”
She patiently
Points out.
“They keep you
Safe
From the plague.”
(They sold
Like hotcakes
At the fair!)

IV
My wife’s
A research scientist
With a Ph.D.
In Molecular
Biology.
Clear evidence:
Neither Testament,
Nor Data
Out of sterile labs
Displaces
Ancient Magic:
Hope trumps Fact
And always has.
(5/14/07)

Divorced, thirty-seven, predatory,
I used to chat up the women at lunch
In the faculty dining room.  Glory
Goes with pain, you know, and playing hunches 

Might, just might, enliven my lonely life.
I met Joan—inadequately married—
Shamelessly hit on her, babbled as if
A flood of words, would do the trick, carry

Her to my bed, until, exhausted, said,
“I should shut up, just sweep you off your feet.”
And that was that, until again we met,
When, eyebrow arched, she said (grave, but cheeky)

“Why don’t you take me to your place tonight
And sweep me off my feet?”  Damn it! I’d made
A date I couldn’t break—sucked air, felt fright—
And, as I murmured sheepishly, I prayed

She wouldn’t huff rebuff—“I can’t tonight,
Would tomorrow work?”  Her steady eyes, blue
Flame and ice, met mine.  Smiling, she said “Sure.”
She came, embraced, undressed; we loved.  That night

The die was cast—trajectory and shape—
And tumbled through some 40 years of grace.
                                         (1/24/07)