HHH

First of the hot days
A chimi for lunch
Two men sing loudly
Along with the music
Whooping it up at mid-day

Merengue, is it?
Don't know for sure, but it's Dominican
And it sounds good
Even in this quiet place I'm staying
Miles below

My nature wants to feel the music
Without the men
I'm apparently annoyed by expressions of joy
Now in this pale man's drowse

On his way out, one of the singers wishes
Good Day, my friend
Making me realize, gently,
That I am the real problem.

And so tonight
The purple air, thick and lilac-sweet,
Is heavy with frogs, and silent thunder clouds
Take advantage of the darkness to mass
For war.

Compadre

Crackling lightning illuminates the hopping frog
mistaking the rain soaked road for water's body
eagerly on toward doom, like me.

May Flowers

How green this world at dusk
punctuated with purple flowers
a chill in the air and rain
only a few degrees from snow

Anything can happen
and it does, all the time

The Ballad Of A Thin Man

Documentary

Joked that it doesn't matter much
because we'll be dead soon enough
knowing and uneasy all at once.

I'll never make a film, let's face it,
with this fine and visible tremor in
my hands, it's OK to call it terminal

I've accepted it.

Probably it's your punishment
for watching your grandmother reading
the newspaper so many years ago

Her hands shaking so hard you wondered
disgustedly how she could even focus
her eyes on the print

Some thought they could cure that in you
with love, a calming touch,
but that wasn't to be

A Single Step

All day drowsy and apparently entitled
only to more and more madness
you think it might be time to leave
and begin some where new without
this head and what it contains

Windmills Of Your Mind