Empty Nest
Everyone's asking about my empty nest and how it came to be
After 25 years of raising kids, this is what's in front of me –
a condo with a futon, a cable TV, a computer on DSL,
a kitchen with granite counter top and a litter box with its special smell.

I'm not saying I'm lonely, or want my kids to move back in.
I'm not saying the clock's ticking louder than it's ever been.
I'm not saying I expect to hear a good morning from down the hall.
I'm not saying I can't stand the quiet.
No, I'm not saying that at all.

This place has been good to my family,
not like my last roost upon a hill,
where I stayed up in a plum tree
hosing water on the evening fire drill.

Now the sirens in my life are over,
no more red lights at a cross-walk.
First things first have become second.
Tomatoes are ripening, time for sauce.

Time to build another nest, my last baby gone,
it won't be fancy, but near a stream,
one that I'm betting my last feather on,
betting my last feather on.

Party at Leona Canyon
Flowers with whiskers mewl through the night,
dance with leaves and by ten they're real tight.

Some wear latex to fish for a catch,
some want money to buy an eye patch.

Some turn around and say squeeze my chin,
pick up a rock and say stuff again.

I was there when they crept to the stream,
closed their eyes and scrolled through their dreams.

U.S. Soldier With Traumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome, Post Iraq
Deeper down the tubes there's an out-of-box experience,
a self-healing fiber optic ring that offers more response time
to whatever microbrew ales you ought to be in pixels.

They removed guns pointed at our heads because
we were from the same country where the weapons were manufactured,
not because she was so good at polishing her lip with a thumbnail.

The algebra of justice knows nothing about triangulation,
only tit for tat and how we waited all night for day
as we recited bed-time stories for the dead.

God told Oprah he didn't want to pretend he's something he's not,
said his favorite team is the Purple Cobras
and his favorite hangout a little airplane hanger in Missouri,

the same place where dead bees once turned honey into sunlight
and where people now double-park for coffee or run in to get
dry cleaning and where I remain in the country of my jet lag

not knowing where I am, but knowing at the same turntable,
this has not been a good day for love or socially acceptable
narcotics. I'm in your time zone now, baby. Bad credit, no problema.

Winterwren Spring
Manzanita and red madrone
where a reflection of water flickers
on granite rock covered in its own mossy screen
for an afternoon showing of Newt Time
with catamarans of water striders floating above
the stars two newts undulating their tails around each other
throwing burbly kisses beneath a trickling stream;

now I have no idea what they're doing but I can guess
it's X-rated and none of my business
the sun shifts and the pool sinks into darkness
in these Days and Lives of my fifties
when I'll not keep my private parts to myself
finding new oils to rub the insides of my insides down with
for no audience.