NYC to West Texas -- It's all the same team!
Dmitriy P, the Ukrainian Cowboy
Skullet peeking out of a black cowboy hat,
Dmitriy P darkened the door
of the pub today, high noon,
and he has admitted to himself
that only mezcal and Lone Star
will get him back on that horse:
stirrups higher even
than we were last night.
No one knows better than DP knows:
the most dangerous showdown
is with ourselves; the devil
in the sight of our pistol
looks just like us;
the dusty Main Street
Is really just a mirror.
More Excitement for the Change of Season
The late fall sun jangles
while I open up my house
and lay on the floor
while the north wind blows
through the screen door
taking with it all the summer
dust and the death
of my friend Rick. The angle
of the light could be ominous,
but it isn’t, it is cocky —
as if to say, whatever else
you have in store, you
beastly universe, we
are not impressed, we
have seen it all. Great things
have come and will come again.
Blue Norther
Late in the year in Texas,
when the wind turns,
ripping out of the northern
Panhandle, and scraping
the sky clean of any cloud,
the sky turns somehow
bright, blue, and black
all at the same time, it is
cold at last, and we are as
close to eternity as can be.
On Turning 50
Here’s to the ones who
said we’d never get here.
Let’s drop the curtain, and call
the rest of this an encore.
Sprawling Gambling Scandal
“What does the mafia
have on these ballplayers,”
my brother asked. They
all keep throwing games.
Chuck the bartender
replied “what don’t
they have” in this age
when everyone’s life
is one click away.
But it’s an older story,
I think to myself, as
old as the first human.
The yawning emptiness;
the burning need for more.
Some Guy
Some guy committed a crime,
and some guy investigated
some guy was bereft of life,
and some guy was beside himself
with loss. Some guy picked up
the phone to make a call,
but he put the phone down
again. Some guy waited
and watched, but the truth
was all knotted up
like a twisted cable
under a dusty end table.
The Long Night Shuffle
The nights are beginning
their luxurious winter stretch
as the northern hemisphere
tilts away from the sun, and
I realize how much we depend
on the haphazard wobble
of our planet in orbit.
Without it would there be
weather as we know it?
And if not, what would we
talk about? Without the seasons
would there be time at all?
Our celestial wiggle
turns our rock into Earth;
our planetary boogie
makes life wonderful.
No Kings
We don’t need a king,
we need a hand.
We don’t need ICE,
we need an ice chest
full of tamales.
We don’t need
another angry dude
on the internet,
we need a national
weather service.
We don’t need global tariffs,
we need a phone call
from our little sister at 3AM
when it seems like the last light
in the world has gone out.
Jack O’ Lantern
Born on a little bit
of October afternoon air
is all the potential
of a Saturday night;
the evening yet to begin
is full of weird, wild potential,
like a pumpkin, smooth
and plain, until
a knife and some fire
enter the picture,
and then who knows
what it might become?
Gendarmes
Citizens such as myself
find themselves at odds
at times with those more inclined
toward the rules.
Put another way, if
a gentleperson should indicate
that they are “of arms,”
they will find me making
quick use of “the legs.”
A Neat Little Bow
I cooked dinner
and cleaned the kitchen
and stowed the leftovers
away in the freezer, and
the evening was tied up
in a neat little bow,
which dramatically contrasted
the unmitigated chaos
that was the rest of my life.
Lug Nuts
“I’m gonna just trust
I did this right,”
my brother said,
this October evening
while we sweated lightly
in the driveway.
He screwed the nuts
on to the new lugs,
while I thought
about our lives.
I’m gonna just trust
we did it right too.
Monday Night
When the bar is quiet,
the music seems louder,
and the tv a little brighter.
The drinks are a little
clinkier, and I get thinkier
to no particular end.
Well La Dee Da
In my younger days,
I was looking for a miss,
and your lovely, loopy
hats enchanted me
and you driving
terrified and delighted me.
Later I would find myself
looking for a Mrs, and
your emotional intelligence
and command of conversation
were aspirational for me.
Now I find myself looking
backwards, and in the many
different people you were
on the screen, I see many
of the ones I loved; once
again they feel next to me.
