SOUTH HAVEN

SOUTH HAVEN

Autumn
          October
hunched along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan
like an abandoned child
South Haven waits for summer’s return

My wife and I
stroll the streets
now reticent and barren
like the beach itself
sulking behind the buildings
where seagulls screech their impudent calls
as they prepare their escape
from the looming
hostile Michigan winter

Along the beach
rows of gift shops
tee shirt shops
fast food cafes
sit shuttered and dark
rejects to the changing season
that leaves them barren and sequestered
like victims of a dreaded disease

The sound of our footsteps
ring past the seaside inns,
their blinds drawn against blank windows
the season’s dust settling like a plague
over unused furniture
closeted like unwanted dogs
behind locked doors

The clouds
like charcoal smudges
across a translucent canvas
wallow in their own reverie
hang
then drift eastward
over jade waters churned
by the rebuke of fall’s stiletto winds

South Haven
lives for the drone of motorboats
skiers in tow,
and the background chorus of tourists
in their flip flops and shorts,
hot hands clutching cold drinks
watching their kids scurry to the lake
like berserk lemmings

But as the inevitable cycle
plays itself out,
one last gull paces the beach
looks westward
and anticipates an arduous flight to the sun
as autumn bites
at its wings

MOHAMMED’S MESSENGER

Beneath the cloak,
his upper body is girdled
by a vest ladened with explosives

He meanders through the streets,
each step bringing him closer to martyrdom
 each heartbeat a plea for immortality

His eyes are blurry from the cataracts
of religious zeal that blinds him
from the bleating of children and stoic old women

who are, to him, mere dust particles
in a windstorm of heresy for which
he will mete out their punishment

His thoughts are locked on his reward
of a paradise filled with virgins
awaiting his arrival so that he may

devour the fruits of their chaste innocence.
His faith is as steady as the sun over Mecca
that lights his path to the bosom of Allah,

for he knows there is only one truth:
in the nanno second following his vaporization
he will either be greeted by 72 voluptuous virgins

or devolve into a baleful eternity of blackness.
Either way
he’s fucked

CARIBBEAN REVERIE

From my table outside the café
     I watch two cruise ships snuggle with

the dock at Saint Thomas, as if they were
     enormous dolphins wanting to mate.

A net of vehicles covers the boulevard,
     a languid stream of taxis

hauling red-face tourists to their
     island fantasies, cameras and sunscreen in tow.

I sip my diluted ice tea and watch
     the harbor waters sway with the afternoon breeze,

reflecting cubes of Caribbean sunlight,
     reminding me that it’s February back home.

Back home where it feels like an old man’s frail hand.
Back home where it looks like degraded tintype.
Back home where you can see your breath
but not feel your fingers.

Back home used to be home
when there was family left to cherish
and tomorrows to plot
and lives to share.

Back home has dissolved like the ice in my glass.
     This island is my home now.

This island where I can feel my fingers
and never see my breath,
where my last years are spent leaving footprints
in the sand, as I imagine myself flying with the seagulls,
equatorial currents uplifting my wings.

This island is where I spend shiny afternoons
drinking ice tea and watching the cruise ships
unload their frozen dreamers

MY FRIEND SIG

Sig Sauer  rides next to me
          He rarely ever speaks

And when he finally does
          it’s too late to listen

although he is always
          the last thing you hear

TO MY GRANDCHILDREN

Remember life’s rules,
for they are the pathway
to harmony and fulfillment

Ignore those who say
life is a nightmare, for they
are the ones who have forgotten
how to dream

Bend to no one’s whims and will,
and bend no one to yours

Revere nature and remember
we are part of it--not separate
from it--and that the creations
 of the intellect are as precious
as any mountain peak or
sun-dappled forest

Keep reason as your friend,
logic as your tool,
superstition as your enemy

Keep a safe distance
from the arm of the State, for
at the end of it is an iron fist

While others may seek and demand sacrifice,
revel in life. While others may drop
to their knees in fear of myths,
stand erect and embrace reality

Put your life first, for that
is your highest moral purpose,
but always honor those you hold dear,
for they are the rewards of your humanity

VESPUCCI’S OCEAN

We sail across
     Vespucci’s ocean,
inhaling the salt-ladened
air like frolicking dolphins

as supple as the waves
     we navigate.
They heave and rasp as the
Atlantic rolls like a mariner’s lullaby,

while Cuba crouches
     in the vague distance
like a torpid centipede,
a failing western sun hovering

over its spine. We wrestle
     the undulating sea
doing twenty-four knots at a
longitude beyond our reckoning,

and a latitude
     beyond our scope
sailing somewhere in the domain of
Vespucci’s ocean

　NEW YEARS DAY--2000

　
Above the white-capped roofs

a flock of starlings fly in strict formation

their position and angle subtly shifting

against the pallid sky,

like venetian blinds

adjusting to the light

on New Years Day

                      Two Thousand