Cage Fight
I sent my love.
You sent it back
with no forwarding address.
A broken heart
is like throwing a punch
and hitting myself in the face.
Grateful Dead Sonnet
I think we will be smarter when we’re dead.
Obligations neatly folded in a
drawer, no eyes to watch Wheel of Fortune,
no property to shield from Jeopardy.
No bruising fist can kill us – we’ll be dead!
The pressure in our chest will decompress.
Back on earth, our family will be a mess
but we’ll be surprised how fast they forget.
No unpaid bills, no debts to collect.
Life’s albatross no longer wrings our neck.
Forgotten, all the good and bad we chased –
the pain of time and space will be erased.
Love’s so much easier to find, saints say,
when everything else is taken away
The Best Company
Who creates these xeriscaped dreams where
everyone clutches their change purse of plans?
I ride my bike for miles through aisles
in the store where everything is bought.
I look for a friend, would settle for a fiend,
but find I’m meant and blessed to be alone.
Silence always has the most to say.
Love Isn’t Brain Surgery.
Those who say love isn’t brain surgery are right.
Brain surgery is tic-tac-toe
compared to love.
Love’s unrepeatable operation
is performed without tools or time to wake up,
scrub up, wise up, or find a nurse.
Love’s procedure is carried out blindly.
It only works if something inside me
dies on the operating table.
The Family Doesn’t Know
“It’s not my stripper name,” he says.
“It’s my nom de plume.”
She sips her wine and smiles.
Tell me again the difference?
Retirement, a Dream Poem
With untaxed money a thief gave me
before his death by disappearance,
and inheritance from an unnamed aunt,
I purchase a major league baseball team.
I do it for the fun of giving them a name.
Their hometown is a moving target
on a map of Texas, so I’m thinking Amigos,
or Hombres if Amigos is too pink.
I interrupt a board meeting no one told me about.
They stare at me with a lot of White in their eyes.
Their motionless faces say I’m the boss
they’d stab if I turned my back.
However, they seem to know what they’re doing,
all this business stuff with columns and lines,
so I back out of the room like I’m delegating.
I’ll just work on the name.
My CEO catches me in the hall.
He has a John Waters mustache.
I need to stay on top of this thing
or its going to get away from me.
We schedule a meeting for Sunday
at the place where the thief gave me money.
I jot down some ideas:
Figure out how to make money.
Pleased with myself, I put down my pen.
I’ll think up one or two more before the meeting.
Owning a baseball team is doable.
But it feels like work, and I’m supposed to be retired.
I wake to birdsong and revelation.
My teeth and tongue are imitating the bird’s.
I’ll sell the baseball team and learn to sing like a bird!
But research reveals that’s not how birds sing.
I lose faith in myself. My brain is a cotton ball.
Retirement isn’t where every day is Sunday.
It’s a day not among the seven that govern labor.
It’s a baseball team that doesn’t have a name.
