Fish Bowl

So many lights below

More as we fly west

                As if the coast

                Took a big inhale that

                                Never exhaled

A big swinging pump

that never equalized

                To center.

They moved out West

And never contemplated

                Moving inland again

The slosh in the

Fish tank hangs

Suspended on the

Edge of the bowl

Each orange amber or

Silver dot shining below could be

A person;

Unique and stuttered dots

In the San Francisco Bay pin ball machine

Lights, darkened only

By the edges of the sea:

Our fish bowl wall

Why I Bring My Camera

Wonder, wonder everywhere

And one day my memory

Will fail

to bring these images,

this emotion to my

life screen

And then I will have my pictures

Packed with memories

And the wonder, wonder

Everywhere I’ve been

Middle Sister

Sisters, we three

In the middle was me

Not in age; instead

                In the middle of the bed

At our grandparents’ house

Staying quiet as a mouse

While the trains rumbled by

In the middle of the night

If it was to keep me warm

It sure wasn’t working;

Me, tiniest of the three,

As big sisters they be shirking

Their duties, unaware,

They rolled to either side

The covers they did lift

Until my naked hide

Did shiver from the cold night air,

My blanket anew,

Catching cold (ah-achoo!)

Sometimes life just wasn’t fair

For if they rolled inward

I’d be squished even thinner

Baby sister would lay awake and stare

PS....

Fatty and Skinny were lying in bed,

Fatty rolled over and Skinny was dead

Simple Acts of Kindness

Jet Blue boarding lines,

                defined confined spaces, stiff spines

Merge, converge to single file

                I’ll wait a while

say eyes that smile

Kindergarten Kindness

                Please, after you

                We all take off and arrive together,

                Same place, same destination

Merging, our journey a little more joyfully shared

because someone cared

With eyes that smiled

Nachos For Jennie

Nachos in the morning,

Nachos every night

Nachos in the airport

with steak taste all right

Nachos are the gut bomb

We borrowed from down South

Or did we simply make them up

Tasting yummy in our mouths?

I ate them at the Chevron

spilling over with Velveeta

later, much to my regret,  

a bathroom dash a la cheetah

I shoulda had the pita

or maybe just the chili.

Really, Jennie, trust me now,

this poem is just too silly

Sarcasm

Sheathing daggers in clown shoes

is an art above poetry,

An art practiced Sean Connery style,

shaken, not stirred then

poured elegantly into its chilled

icy glass, offered to 007’s  victim to be

sipped, suspiciously, or gulped in trust;

Either way it drugs and numbs while Sean

looks on, Scottish eyebrows lifted in appraisal;

Did my dagger find its home?

Autumn's Calling Card

A bumping cacophony of winds

Spiral

                                Thump

                                                and Secede,

Sucking and Howling, Scattering

                                  thoughts and leaves

Awaken My own howling,

resisting

             irresistible interrupting gusts

Rapping persistent then

Dropping

into

Quieting,

                Nearly no volume;

A parental inhale, gathering

                attempted calm before the storm

takes over again – rising and falling

in tirades to

inspire the slumbering

                                        numb summer soul