Second Shot Blues

Wow! I really got hold
of that one - just keep
your head down, how hard
is that?
Man, it is out there, did you see it?
I'm going to try to put it on with that
4-hybrid.

Shit.
Hand me the sand wedge.

Fetch

who can resist the pleading eyes
of a Labrador retriever
who could refuse to throw the ball
when faced with such ebullience,
eternal optimism?

you don't have to teach a dog
about
seizing the day

carpe diem

une title

Summer fades
into the pale
August sky

Asters bow farewell
to blackeyed Susans
across the canyon wall

[Somewhere] in the deep woods
the first aspen leaf
turns to gold

OR

Deep in the woods
the first aspen leaf
turns to gold

Where You Aren't

I suppose
you're laughing your bony ass
off
up there
laughing at our small lives
our petty anxieties
our desperate clinging
to your loss

It's all about us
now, I suppose
our loss
our grief
our self-indulgence
remembering how
you weren't and where
you aren't

I'll join you
soon enough
and have a laugh,
play a hand of pitch
and drink beer
on some celestial porch, watching
the sun set
and admiring
the livestock
at the dimming
of the day

I can wait.

Heat Lightning

I saw August in your eyes,
in the sun-faded sky.
A scrap of the past,
past the summer heat and dog days
along the Mississippi.

Hot nights and windows steaming,
radio turned low.
We lived in the heartland,
heartbeat to heartbeat
deep kisses on hot summer nights.

Late August clouds scuttle across
a fading sky, August blue.
Thunder booms,
the electric night returns,
blood hot.

Objects in the MIrror

Are Closer
Than They Appear

The past looms: amorphous,
sudden;
unforgotten still

A glance reveals

you've aged, mercifully,
and
mercilessly.

Blessings and curses meld
into a receding image of youth,
a ghost of the future

And the best we can do
is to stay between the ditches.

match.com (in process)

Although you like dogs well enough,
I think you'd not tolerate one
in bed.

And the cats....well...

I hear your last girlfriend
cut a bit of a wide swath
back home:
a conversation I don't want to have.

But then, we're not talking about
a lifetime
or even a long time.

And you're clean and fit
and make me laugh
and live so far away that

I don't really have to think about it

much.