StarPoet Newsletter Vol. XI, No. XVIII

Here, I enact myself,
Wearing various disguise of poet license,
Amusement, curiosity,
Audacious challenges of temporal authority,
Disputes theological cleverly concealed
Amidst myriad wonders astronomical;
A fine house I keep, better than I deserve,
But no more than my skill requires,
Nor less than the muse would demand of me.

Peace, Instability, Insurgence, and War,
The seasons of life as long as we exist,
Our standard behavior inflected with primate cunning,
Choosing our sides, reshuffle, redeal,
Innocent of guile unlike our enemies
Who eat babies for breakfast and would slaughter us all
If only we didn't smote them first.

Bus in the rainstorm,
Swerving at headlight shadows,
The ghosts of abandoned cars,
Potholes that jump up and bite you.

The passengers, one by one,
We put down our newspapers,
Our paperbacks and smart phones,
And concentrate on the road,

The traffic building around us,
The cars slowing in the local lanes,
And the possibility we'll be late
For morning donuts and coffee.

Life doesn't end with happily everafter,
A big white wedding doesn't ensure forever more;
We are a changeable animal, a maleable beast,
The passage of years can wash away
All but the strongest love, leaving only aging husks
Waiting for the other to finally die.
Divorce is better than a slow desperate death
Counting the days until you might love again.

Bill Hickok was a gunman,
A marshal at times, a gambler often;
Sharp of eye and quick of reflex,
He survived by his wits, alcohol and women,
Until glaucoma plagued his eyesight
And Deadwood took his life,
An assassin's bullet while playing poker,
Aces and eights on the table.

Mourned by Calamity and history,
The people's hero to the end,
Who never denied the blood on his hands
Or though he had need to apologize;
Buried by his friends up the hill in Deadwood
Where you can still find him
And have a whiskey for old time's sake.

All roads cross in Deadwood,
The rough hewn revolution
That was America
Rolled through the Black Hills
Armed with Colt Forty-Fours and whiskey
Instead of muskets, taking the Indians,
A tribe I'm certain
My Iroquois ancestors would dislike
Even as they plotted to take the gold,
And the Chinese not yet Americans,
Those eager entrepeneurs,
Hardworking and drug dealing,
Along for the ride,
Catechizing our peculiar form
Of individual democracy
Leavened always with a strong dose
Of unsatiated frontier testosterone.

Boomtowns are all alike,
Deadwood only more so;
May it rest in peace
Alongside Wild Bill.

I link to my father and, through him,
To the Second World War;
When I was a few years of age,
My neighbor was called back for Korea,
And his entire family, including my playmates,
Left for Alabama for the duration;
We kept their dachsund,
A champion named Fritz,
And became friends with the housesitter,
A nice lady if I remember.

They returned when the war was done,
Life moved on through grade and high school;
After we graduated, the boys I knew
Left for Viet Nam and the jungle;
Some came back missing significent pieces,
Some came back in caskets and body bags,
I greeted them all and kept to my studies
While the endless war dragged on.

When rock and roll was a teenage ghetto,
It was us against them,
-- The man and our parents --
We were as surprised as anyone when we won;

But when Richard was still a threat
And Elvis, untelevisable, 
Our music was our lifeline out of the fifties
And our music was always
Rhythm and blues rock and roll,
All guitars and tight pants and attitude;

We would change the world before we got old,
Instead all we provided
Was a different soundtrack background,
Or hearts ripped out
To remove the threatening pants
And make the world safe for advertising.

When Spartacus to Rome did bring
A bloody slave rebellion,
Freedom waited across the Alps
But the Roman Army beckoned
And all was lost amidst the frenzy
To lay vengeance on the Republic.

Into the night, endlessly spinning,
Filled with stars and galaxies,
An infinity of alternaties
Extending up from earth's shoreline
Out beyond light's stodgy boundaries;
Universe upon universe, physic by physic,
Until we devour our grand tail
And all the human multitude
Come a crashing raucous tumble,
Planet by planet, breath by breath,
As time's great maw consumes us all.