About Me

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Near Peekskill, New York, United States
My view. No apologies --Shorts, Poems and Photos-Your Comments are always appreciated. (Use with permission)

Wednesday, December 23, 2020

Prayer from a Gracious Receiver

 

Prayer from a Gracious Receiver

 

Why cant we sleep, Oh Lord?

Do you have a lesson here?

Why is she tortured in the evening hours

While you wake me every morning?

 

Slowly, slowly we are drained

of lubricants and fluids

And the seeds of our necklace

Fall from the string…

I come to your bedside

With pearls

But you refuse them.

I have no guarantee

That they will benefit

If you use them,

Still, you could play the part

Of the Gracious Receiver.

 

We are already on the far side

Of the fulcrum

Waiting for God to take

His fingers off the scale.

It could just as well be me

Sleepwalking

We change places on the hour

So, if I have one prayer

It would be to have the power

To be the Gracious Receiver.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Lockdown

 

 

The deer have caught sight of me watching them eating. 

They pitch forward and turn running hard up the hillside

and that’s when I see the buck up there waiting.

Far out of range he waits for his family.

When they meet up they melt away into the forest.

Hole up for the Winter.

They feel safe in the red oaks, and boulders,

between civilization on the one side

and the long train down in the valley

running along the river.

It is a long train.

 

People are dying all over the place.

There’s a long train pulling us into the darkness.

There are ears to the ground.

There are eyes on the horizon.

There is no one and nothing coming to save us.

Gather your loved ones close to your bosom

and find your place to hole up for the Winter.

It’s a long train. A long, long train.

 

The people left living

eat medications

delivered by drones high in the sky.

Women in skirts and blouses  

too hot to handle,bought second hand

predicting the weather.  

Pessimistic futures based on unproven theories

delivered by false profits,

at work in their basements.

They’re building models with erector sets,

and bottles on conveyor belts.

They hold seances with Tarot cards.

They’ve traded their bicycles

for dreams of self-driving cars.

I sit with my elbow resting on the window stool,

watching the deer eat delicately up high on my hillside.

The 5:10 meanders off in the distance.

I can just barely hear it.

I used to ride it.

It’s carrying the bodies

back up the Hudson

to Newburgh and Beacon.

It’s a long, train.

The Tear of the Clouds.

 It’s a long, long train.

 

Sunday, October 25, 2020


 It has been a crummy year in a lot of ways. I suppose there has been a lot of good too but losing someone like John Prine kind of over-shadows a ton of good stuff. Oh, I oh, I oh!



Postman’s Voice



He was still dressing like a postman

on Sunday,

getting dragged to church by his old lady.

His hair from a nap in an old aged home.

He melted my heart like a pat of butter.

A voice down under quiet water.

He was bent like a pretzel over the microphone.



It chokes me up to think of him

in hospital scrubs,

I think he probably brought dignity

to that cold surround.

He would have been upset to think

He was be bringing

The nurses and doctors down.

I think he knew

about the people he tickled.

I think he could tell how many lives

he touched

with his shy little shuffle

and his postman’s voice.

I didn’t realize

I’d miss him this much.



Hope he is standing

By peaceful waters

By peaceful waters

Oh I Oh I Oh.