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

JUST LIKE MOTHER USED TO MAKE

Winter’s first snow

lay as thick

as my mother’s meringue


all whippy

and curliqued

fluffy yet firm

I would never eat

the snow on my driveway



I would never eat
my mother’s meringue
either

WINTER

　

Winter

is a dead man’s game

north wind bellowing insults

cutting

stinging

anvil-like solidity

beneath stiffening toes

hunched over like a drunken climber

dodging a glacier’s vengeance

Breath

in vaporous gulps

stammering in January dialect

iron landscapes

severed flatland carcass

spires of ice

hard-shell rapidity

over sun flecked roofs

serrated crescents of frost

marking the windows

sparrows skidding

across crusted canyons

dissected by diagonal planks

of waning light



light starved voices

wailing against the entombment of the season