Oh Papa, is this how it ends?

What of cows?

The men that watch them from the road? The Women folk
that stand by and let them be milked for all they’re worth?
The fields of Pennsylvania are browning now. Too late for hay
for long hours of sunshine have passed and now the cold
is revealed in our wordlessness. The boys watch them stand

chewing on some long held hurt. The men stand on their shadow-tips
praying redemption is enough, if only they can wait long enough.
The women folk, they do not know the manure, except as stains
and a vague scents of something wrong. The fields of Pennsylvania
roll past the Poconos, out to Harrisburg, and the boys play

in what is left of autumn. It has been so many years since
the lion stood and watched the boys and the cows and the men
standing on the feet of their own shadows. Perhaps it is hell
that holds us foot to ground, lip to lip and tongue behind?
A heavy rake, a plough, the men wait. The boys off, out of sight.

Perhaps it is the drain where faith was washed away that leaves us
standing by a dry hole wanting back the dream before the flood?
Perhaps it is a drought, and every farm must fail for now.
The men will eat the red steak. The women will bow their heads.
The boys will pop wheelies in vacant lots when their friend returns.

What of the cows, well-milked, or slaughtered? What of the truth
of the duties left under the golden Pennsylvania pale of last weeks sun?
Dare I say, they do not serve any but their own cold hearts,
those who only stand and wait?

My word, which art
hallowed, be thy name
poetry or prose – thou art
beloved.

the cool edge of sunrise aches along
the long ominous eastern horizon

a fat old pelican waits above
the almost blue. he watches her

long dark hair hang in the warm still air
her toes dig in to this sandy shore

on the gulf of Mexico
her thoughts cast out into the storm

she can not see.
like the pelican, she hungers

for something out there beyond
he looks back at her, then on gray wings

cuts a path through the void between them
smaller and smaller

He grows in her mind
until he dives and finds

something.

His mother drinks tepid cola
from a neon pink plastic cup
and dies a little bit more
every day.

His mother eats penuchi fudge
naked in the back of her closet
and thinks this is what it is to be
alive.

His mother sings soft music
to her sad little gray kitten
as if the words could pat him
all night.

His mother screams at roaches
on the granite kitchen counter
and dies a little bit more
every day.

She walked along the road in bright sunlight
near the railroad bridge, searching
for something in her bag. Her face
wild, her muddy blond hair scrocked about
in every direction but the wind, she glanced
at me as I passed, noting her beauty
silently. She continued over the bridge,
I, the other way. The sun said nothing
to the only cloud for a million miles.

Richard believes in kindness
He sighs as an old lady talks to herself
as she pushes a shopping cart down Merrimack St.
every day.

Paul believes in love
he cries as an old drunk man collapses
in the alley off of Palmer St.
long after midnight.

Mary believes in charity
when she sees a ratty man picking bottles from the gutter
she screams when two youth rifle through her trash
on Riverside St.

I believe in something else
something else
entirely.

I watched the old man on the park bench
wince as he tried to clench a fist
shake his head, dip his his chin,
wipe his brow and eyes with his left hand
then mutter, “life is short, so damned short,
but God, sometimes …”

He looked at me, with a tear in his eye,
his head bobbing in time with the realization,
“sometimes,
it’s not short enough.”

I handed him a five and walked away.

I dream of peacrab running sideays preening
and of turkows moobbling in the field
I dream of the long-necked ravraffe,
black winged and ready to lope among the dead

I dream of Cockertles zipping in the dark places
six-legged and hard-shelled, nearly living
forever. I dream of kookoofish and cuttlebirds,
tentacles of octodiles the sharp front teeth of Beavidees

but most of all, I dream of the impossible
a gentleman.

the crabs were not crabs
they were gulls feigning
a skip to the side before
flight.

the gulls were not gulls
they were whales exhaling
a long held breath before
a dive.

the whales were not whales
they were squid seeing
the tiniest dreams in the absolute dark until
dinner.

Understand, please, the eternal question is the same
regardless what you hope the truth to be
a question hangs in the cold dry air
between us:

Is it enough to snap the picture
to capture a single moment
in a single frame
for all time until tomorrow?

Or must art be revealed
to a single seeing eyeball
in a conscious frame
for all time until death?

I do not know, the tree has fallen
and no one was there but me.