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For all their scolding,
Stellar jays stand
In loyal obeisance
To their corvid roots.
But, all else is
Silliness and noise,
Shakespearean clowns,
Hide behind the
Shenanigans,
Ease the moment,
For tragedy,
For comedy,
So closely entwined,
Except the final curtain.

today, after the rain stopped
I put on Jan’s daughter’s
iPod and
took a long walk

I never changed the songs
when Jan gave it to me
I’m fond of it as is:
dated, clunky, and
filled with Jan’s daughter’s music

I recognize
Elvis Costello,
Liz Phair, Ben Folds,
the rest are mysteries
indie bands from the oughts
arrangements spare
voices flat
lyrics plaintive
as a teenaged crush

the streets are a grey wash
a kid on his bike hurries home
everyone else is inside
but you can sense them
in the smell of
simmered onions and
hamburger
a drift of wood smoke
citrus blossoms

I take it in with the
eyes and nose of
a fifty year old man and the
ears of a fifteen year old girl -
my mind, like
an abacus bead, slid
just a few degrees from
its accustomed position

I once said that
wearing someone else’s
iPod is the nearest thing
we have to telepathy
but tonight I remember
a college professor who
said that the goal of
anthropology is to
make the strange
familiar and the familiar
strange

this is like that
only sweeter

Kauai Jungle Fowl

Friendly birds on Kauai
If they had chins you
Could chuck them
Doves walk the porch
In case some breakfast or
Lunch made it to the floor
Once in awhile a cardinal
With no church affiliation
Jungle fowl visit as well
In all of their feathered finery
A hen came one time to see
what might be available
And chose the option of
My big toe under the table
Forever removing any possible
Diminution of the old saying
“Hen pecked” and its meaning
As a much more serious business
Than I would ever have imagined
If not for a revery incontestably
Interrupted by a definitive beak

I fear that my poems will always be crudah
Than that dead famous poet named Pablo Neruda
His verses were plentiful and surrealistic
And his imagery haunting and somnambulistic
An ambassador once to the United Nations
He must surely have sampled a hundred libations
And eaten of figs and sang with the moon
And danced with the ladies from midnight to noon
Well the poet is dead now and not soon forgotten
And his poetry lives though his body is rotten
And the earth drinks the soul of the Chilean Buddah
That dead famous poet named Pablo Neruda

I have no time for you
I whirl with the stars
A rush to infinity
At the very edge
Of the universe
In love with all
Of the women
Yet to evolve in
World after world
After world