THE SERVICE

THE SERVICE

I rarely ever think

of my uncles’ entire lives.

Instead, I  think of their lives

in the military: The Service.

I've hardly ever thought

of their lives after it,

only of their years spent

in The Service
as definitive,
because

the permanent war

only values

our service
to The Service.

(28 JUN 12, Santa Clara CA)v7

I SMILE

I SMILE

I smile (rare for me) as I read to the end

of my latest poem where I admit

I’ve prayed (a poetic 1^st for me) &
I smile each time I re-read the poem.

I'm smiling now as I read & write this.

(26 JUN 12, Santa Clara CA) v5

ASK & you WILL be Helped

ASK & YOU WILL BE HELPED

for Dr. Ginny’s sake

I thrashed again all night, praying
for help in our unending anxiety.

Sunday I prayed with Canon Linda
in St. Mark’s kitchen, & we left, thanking
each other & ( I’m assuming) God as well.
I tell Linda she'd changed my life when
she told me “Ask & you will be helped”

proving I’ve come so far so fast
for Ginny’s sake, for Ginny’s sake.

(26 JUN 12, Santa Clara CA)v4

FEARING DAN

FEARING DAN

I’m frightened that as her Trustee

Ginny’s son Dan will refuse to pay her rent

& she’ll be evicted from where she lives.

Jutta doesn’t think he will do this “to his mother”

but I think Dan is so vicious he will try anything

to counter her resistance to his absolute control.

He will seek to have her conserved.  He tells

Jutta that he will not tell Ginny

how much money is in her Trust

“because I don’t have to.” Why?

It isn’t a specified in the Trust.

(26 JUN 12, Santa Clara CA)

THESE DYING DECADES

THESE DYING DECADES

What are you dying of?

is the unspoken thought

during these dying decades; many think

of breast cancer, AIDS, Alzheimers,

incurable (yet uncured) pandemics, all

unspeakable thoughts, read in the a.m. paper

by lunch become 'the known cause of death.’

At lunch I was told: "as a 70yr old man, you
already have testicular cancer"; already well
aware of it, I try not to think about it often,

but it seems you can't escape dying

as subject anymore; instead, try

thinking yourself out of suffering. 

(31 MAY 12, Santa Clara CA)v9, appeared on
Sunday, 10 JUN 12,  in the New Verse News:
www.newversenews.blogspot.com 

NO DRAFT, NO WAR, Just Peace

NO DRAFT, NO WAR, Just Peace

One of my uncles, a submariner,

another, a bomber waist-gunner,

another, an OSS assassin in Poland,

another, a mountain ski-trooper

killed in the Italian alps; his widow,

a WAVE, married to an Army cook,

none of them ever marked me for war

except my father, rejected by the army:
for wearing glasses, for being married,
for having a child (me), incredulous that
I wouldn’t accept the Vietnam War draft:

“You’re a citizen! You have to!” He'd never
learn I beat the army draft by checking-off
“covert homosexual" (hidden in its long list of
debilities) during my pre-induction physical. 

How can we deflate war's delusions?

No draft. No war. Just Peace.

(USA Memorial Day 2012, Santa Clara CA)v9
appeared on The New Verse News http://www.newversenews.blogspot.com
for Wed. 30 MAY 12

British WW1 soldier-poets saw war was horrific for the troops & delusional for the homefront. It is again. It always was.

TINNITIS

TINNITIS @ 70

I hear high whistling in my ears as

I turn 70. My HMO audiologist says
not to obsess about it, so I'm trying

not to, but it's steadily buzzing, : 

there, whereever there is, buzzing

like a fluorescent-fixture ballast. Will 
it buzz temporarily, or indefinitely.?

(26 MAY 12, Santa Clara CA)v6