Welcome!

Sleepless in a chair

I glance at our bed:

Pale light on the pillow

on your sleeping face.

Not a poem.  Not a dream.

I hear your winter breathing

and close my book.

*   *   *

MEDITATION

When his wagon became

trapped in deep Russian snow,

the wood-gatherer, my grandfather

cut loose his horse

and came to America.

Why do I think of this now?

*   *   *

Midnight.

A car alarm wails.

I pray for the thief’s swift success.

*   *   *

A SUBWAY POEM

Close up

the tall beautiful woman

at the far end of the car

is a boy.

*   *   *

A BICYCLE POEM

I look ahead

the hill is steep.

I look behind

the valley’s deep.

I look straight down

the road is flat.

*   *   *

Saturday night outside my window:

shouts, squeals, honks, laughter–

the raucous roar and splatter of life.

There is no noise.

*   *   *

THE LIFE I ENVY IS MINE!

In all his wandering, meditation

and joyful drunkenness

playing ball with the children

visiting the ladies

Ryokan, great hermit poet Zen monk child-at-heart

never got to imagine himself

sitting in an eighth floor apartment

in new York City!

Hissing waves of traffic

rising and falling slowly–

this cold March morning rain.

*   *   *

One brief horn honk

thru the cool morning rain

reveals the world.

*   *   *

Enjoy your writing

While you write–

Tomorrow your critic

May overthrow your muse.

*   *   *

FOR MY FATHER

Today a client sat with me

eyes swollen in tears

refusing to speak

of his dead young son

lest that death become

real for him.

Thirty-nine years have passed

since you left this floating world.

Where have those four decades gone?

*   *   *

Do I like meditation, you ask.

No…no, I don’t like it

nor do I dislike it.

What, you then ask

do I get from it?

Nothing I can

put my finger on.

*   *   *

A patch of sunlight

a window’s shadow

moves off my leg

an across the bare wood floor.

Now long ago

friends and I

would pass warm aftenoons

in the timelessness

of shared wine.

Where are they now?

Do they live?

Do they remember?

(Not all that long before my friend Ed Rothkowitz passed I sent him this poem.  He replied, “Here, yes and yes.”)

*   *   *

When my father died

Spring flowers died

and all shades of Summer green

became the same.

Air was airless

the brilliant sun blinding.

*   *   *

Sadhu                                                                                                                                                       One of tens of thousands                                                                                                                                               Just like you and me–                                                                                                                                                               Really.