Urban Body

These days I am
a traffic jam of stuff

Topside, somewhere under brown and silver hair, sits my brain
Inside it's own congruent bungalow, with a couple of windows for light
Dutifully manned by my own personal Lily Tomlin, 
sitting in a old wooden swivel chair, her legs hugging like twins.

Laboriously plugging and unplugging crisscrossed phone lines ,
playfully fidgeting with the neck of her blouse and batting her eyes.
Doing her utmost to keep up with the ever coming calls.

Nervy Autobahns are bumper to bumper with shocks of pain, panic 
cold  or hunger or elaborately planned or mere random thoughts

I see the hairs on my arm rise erect in the cold Autumn breeze, then
it's, "Cross legs; sweat lightly behind the knees; 
now salivate and chew.
Sneeze, sneeze again, now sigh"

Veins and arteries each run in their one-way directions
and see my pumping heart in an aged Grand Central Station
with groined vaults and corridors slathered in cream tinted subway tiles.

Inbound and outbound trains heralded
from old cone-shaped loudspeakers in crackly-muffled voices.

My departure signs buzz with flipping letters
spelling out new destinations after each burst of steam and departure.

Then dinner arrives, dumped right there on the freight platform, for all to see.
The firemen shovel and feed it towards the fire below, 
through caverns too dark to see a hand in front of your face.

Ah, yes. Someone needs to take out the trash. 

OK, let me get my slippers.

Missoula

Missoula makes Montana nervous.

the elk hunters are unsure 

of its motives or real dedication.

Folks in Red Lodge and Sydney

don't trust the people or the politics over there

or the proclivities found in that general locale

It's them ones, with their certain "loose and lewdness,"

those shaggy, rowdy kids filling up the town

that foster strong suspicion

They really can't belong to these rugged 

rocks and mines and mountains

nor the smelters, ranches and dusty ravines.

Some try to act scraggly and drive a truck on occasion

or even own a gun for varmints and such 

but tolerance is only barely possible.

If they'd float on downstream

towards Idaho or somewhere else

next week or tomorrow,
everybody would be much obliged.

Next

The tree quavers in the gale

beneath angry green-black clouds

Measuring each gust with leaves and
tiny bony fingers
grappling at the ends of each fearful branch.
Limbs panic at the winds cold kiss;
in violent hugs they sway and toss.

Rumors drain down the trunk
to gather amongst the roots.
Today will be the falling-day;
the one last trial and then gravity

will crash it’s span to earth.

Leaves laid down, not by autumn's chill,
but for the first time,
all still holding hands, 
left to wonder what comes next.

Bad News

I swore a new oath,
quit the paper
and the channels
of deaths news and vitriol

No more fervent apostles
rising extra early to greet my eyes,
lovingly preened and anointed,

readied to share their
never ending streams of gloom
seined from the wider world

Dripping their inky words into my daily water,
the billowing clouds of dark thunderheads
kill empathy with numbing repetition,
begetting angst
and the gray weariness
of dread

I do so miss the comics!

Maggie left on Friday

That last morning,
so alert, so soft, warm
and blue-eyed smiley.
Her grey and white so clean and freshly cut

I chose that eve of Halloween
to be her last.
With rain and bluster,

the sky readied to blow her
to another place

Upon a small rug she slept,
not hurting, snoring ever so slightly
The next needle would erase her from
that place and us

We could not watch death take her,
it would hurt too much,
to hear her last breath push out to join
the common air

The gentle teacher of dog-wary kids,
allowing them to walk her befriended,
She was the only sister Maddy ever knew.

Her curse was a Portland world
filled with steps and old tint stair treads
and slippery floors.
All  unkind to old hips and eyes

I miss you sweet Maggie-dog.
and will search for peace of mind,
Striving to somehow work off my penance.