A Bad Bad Boy

The guv’ment came
And picked me up
“You’re a bad bad boy.

“What are you doing
Building a boat
Big as the city of Troy.

Neighbors complaining
‘Bout your hammering
From dawn to flashlight.”

“It’s going to rain.
I want to be ready
For the forty days and nights.”

The policeman said,
“You’re going to jail.”
“I ain’t got no time for that.

“If you let me go
I’ll give you a ride.
I won’t charge you a cent,

“Just you and your lady.
Can hitch with us
When the rain comes down.”

He gave it a think
When I told him more.
“You sure don’t wanna drown.

“There’s lot to do
And it’s going to be
One big regular zoo.

A tirne at the oars,
Swabbing the deck,
And cleaning up the poo.”

“Oh, my God,” he said.
“Think of the smell.
The place is going to stink.”

“That’s the price,”
I said to him,
“For a boat that won’t sink.”

So the two of them
Joined the eight of us
For a round the world tour.

Forty days passed
And forty days more,
We didn’t see a shore.

When you don’t have
A refrigerator
Some food’s going to rot.

In our final days,
We had no choice.
We ate beans a lot.

We continued on
And never turned back.
It was Ararat or bust.

The dove returned
With a single twig.
We stopped our water bus.

A mountain now
Up out of the sea,
We climbed to its crest.

So thankful we,
We minted our coins,
“In God we ever trust.”

And that’s the tale
Of long, long ago
When I was employed

Building a boat
Night after night
Being a bad bad boy.

The Lost Child

Tom took his eyes off his five-year old Sam for just a minute. He was distracted by another child’s screaming. He turned back to see Sam. Sam was gone. Tom ran through the park, yelling, “Duck, Duck, Duck.” Duck was Sam’s nickname. It was a Thursday afternoon.

For weeks, Tom and Sarah, his wife, searched for Duck. His family and friends searched. The police searched. They searched the park and turned the city upside down. No Duck. Finally Sgt. Finelly said, “We’ll keep looking, but I don’t think we’re going to find him. His fate is in the hands of God. All we can do is pray.”

“We’ve got to keep searching,” Tom said. And he kept looking. Any clue, he’d follow up on it.

It had been twelve months when Sarah said one Thursday, “It’s no use. We’ve been neglecting Cassie.” Cassie was their three-year-old daughter. “We need to get back to some semblance of normalcy.” Sarah had always been the practical one.

There was no way Tom was going to give up. He knew that Duck was waiting somewhere for Tom to rescue him. But where? He kept looking. So much so he lost his job as a corporate attorney. Sarah took Cassie and moved out. On a Thursday of all days. On another Thursday, he signed the divorce papers.

After another year, he’d gone through all his investments and savings. He found a one room apartment and a job washing dishes on the evening shift for a restaurant. That way he could spend his days searching for Duck.

He let his hair grow long and he grew a beard. They turned white. He got a job as a temporary Santa to fill in when the regular Santa was out sick or needed a day off. Maybe Duck would come up and sit on his lap and Christmas would be merry again. But he was such a sad, sad Santa. So sad no store would hire him. He had acquired a reputation.

And every Thursday, he came and sat on the park bench where he’d last seen Duck. For five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, he came to that bench. He came, even during the coldest days of the winter. And the young man who’d been a father and a husband had faded away into his past. If some angel had measured his tears, they would have filled Niagara Falls.

“God, it’s all my fault,” he kept praying.

For years, he had watched the giant oak across from the bench. The oak he took to calling “Frank..” In the winter, Frank was stripped of his leaves. Come spring, the leaves returned. In the summers, Frank was filled with leaves on every branch, leaves greener than the greenest green. Autumn came and the tree slowly surrendered his leaves to the earth again.

“How can you just let go like that?” he asked the tree.

The tree didn’t say anything back. Frank was silent. And content to fulfill his purpose of being the best oak he could be. Over the years, Tom had seen teenagers grab his branches and swing. Children danced around him. Families had picnics under his shade. Lovers kissed under his branches. The tree was a thing of life. No wonder the Druids thought of trees as holy things.

Over the years, Tom and Frank had become friends. Frank was the only one who listened to Tom’s pain and did not judge him.

Then one Thursday, Tom did not show up. And another Thursday went by. And still he was a no show.

A woman named Karen had passed Tom on her afternoon runs for several years. He was always on that bench on Thursdays. Now he wasn’t.

Karen stopped a policeman on one of his rounds. “What happened to the man on the bench? I mean, the man with the long white beard. He always made me think of Santa Claus.”

“Oh, you mean Tom. We found him in his apartment. He had a heart attack and died.”

“Who was he?”

“He was a legend in the department. The man who never gave up.” The officer told her Tom’s story.

“It’s too bad he never found his son,” she said, then continued on her way.

But Frank knew different. No matter what had happened to Duck, Tom would see him again.

The Worrier, Or Ever Have One of Those Days

In fourteen billion years
The universe will die.
At least that’s what some say.
It makes me want to cry.

Eight billion years from now–
Give a day or two–
The sun will explode
In a great hullabaloo.

Maybe the moon will drop
Into an ocean or sea
Or maybe a volcano
Will roll lava over me.

My stocks have all tanked.
There’s a war in Ukraine.
Inflation’s through the sky.
And Congress is insane.

I’m broker than broke.
My tires have gone flat.
The rent’s coming due.
And I’ve lost my hat.

But I’ve got a cat.
Her name is Fred.
She snuggles on my lap
And sleeps on my bed.

When she crosses the grass
She’ll give the sun a little dance.
Cause she’s the queen of purrs
Zen master par excellence.

Older Things

For Poetry Month. Inspired by the poetry of Jim Harrison

I have of recent years fallen in love with older things:
A bicycle lock key in an old business card box,
Bobby Thomson’s Topp card folded and passed from wallet to wallet,
a Cracker Jack whistle carried on my keyring, prized like an Olympic Gold Medal,
a Leaves of Grass on the window sill,
a laminated red maple leaf bookmarking Tennyson’s “Ulysses”.
On a bookshelf nearby my mother’s photograph.
I wish I had known my Mama better.

These are but a few of the older things
gathered in the graveyard of my memory,
a place where things go not to die,
exhibits in a Hall of Fame of Older Things.

I make my way through the exhibitions
like some gondolier along Venetian canals.
Here’s a small black rock a college friend gave to me.
She said it was a meteorite come roaring out of the sky.
I loved her. She had other plans
than marriage. It was the call of an explorer’s life.

In a beat-up wooden box somewhere in a closet I have letters
she wrote me way back when she was in Antarctica.
Then, like some Michael Rockefeller, she disappeared.
When I received the news, I was off to bed for a week.
Her life, a piece of parchment shredded into tears.
She was a Cape of Good Hope,
a Shambhala, a nightingale garden.

Outside the sun. The birds chirp their spring songs.
The sun sets in the West as I stroll
through the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,
my mind wondering if Nebuchadnezzar was happy.
Did he walk through these same gardens and fall in love
with older things?

Pantoum

For Poetry Month

When he was a lad and a wee wee fellow
very very young and very mellow
when the leaves turned orange, gold and yellow
he hid under the branches of a willow

very very young and very mellow
for he was not brave but afeared enough
he hid under the branches of a willow
waiting to take on some of that grownup stuff

for he was not brave but afeared enough
and there he did lie under those branches
waiting to take on some of that grownup stuff
in those days afore he was a-taking chances

and there he did lie under those branches
when the leaves turned orange, gold and yellow
in those days afore he was a-taking chances
when he was a lad and a wee wee fellow.