Spirit World Beckons

He lay on the stark bed,
old arms sunken skinny and no doubt
cold like gray, shivering in the constant
frigid air flow that hospitals spout, as
annoying as blown air-horns to the sick
and sensitive of hearing.

He had been avoiding mirrors
for years, but he could finally say
the mounting wrinkles took over. Time
and the inlaid alcohol had won.
His heart was finally weary and softer,
he could feel it.

He turned over and looked at his
family that he had betrayed,
mistrusted, misfed, abused, and
thought not deeply enough about
these things. Only couldn’t wait to taste
the kind of vodka they had in Heaven.

-- Celestial K. 

Waiting Trails On

She waits for the phone to ring.
Tries to keep her eyes on the golf channel.
Those hard little balls being hit so far,
traveling such a long way, usually hidden.
Most of them are found again though. It’s rare
for them to be just discarded. Left for dead.
Masters of the balls find them.
Almost like they are tamed beasts.

She wrings her hands together,
massaging the place in her hand
where her gold wedding ring –
intricate diamond – once had been.
She took it off when he died.
Didn’t wear it since the funeral.
And it’s emptier now, but she won’t wear
it again.

The tiny little box that can play music,
electrical thing that is molded to
people’s hands – bothersome. Infants are born out of
the womb with these devices of awe attached.
Yet hers does nothing for her, in her older age.
She’s grown wiser, yet lonely somewhere.
She waits for the phone to ring.
It is her birthday, after all.

-- Celestial K.

Pothole and roadblock

And if I had gotten
where I thought
I needed to be,
she states,
I wouldn’t be
here beside you.

My unspoken
gratefulness
for a pothole
like me.  

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

autumns

again our ships return
can we embrace
what they may bring
another season, days,  
or just moments

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

Aunt Enid

Aunt Enid’s phone calls
winter, spring, summer and fall
her birthday greetings

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

In-between

More than they were once
They are not the same
Beginnings from yesterday’s
moments, near as this next one  
And us, royal inspiration,  
purple clover upon the
fallow impermanences
of overgrazed fields
The only lasting moment
initiates the creative
within the next
And us, avatars of access,
mascots of divine continuity
within the from and to
between moments.

-- Ayaz Daryl Nielsen

Jerusalem

Your time
Stands still
As motionless
Butterflies caught
In your ancient stillness
Decorate the backdrop of ages
Drawn by your ageless inner light
Held fast there by the force of your being.

How many have died to name you with their belief?

How many sacrifices does your jealousy demand of us?

Our frozen fluttering is a testament to the terror of your power.
Indifferent you allow us to expend ourselves in our passion
For the unfathomable depth of beauty that shines
Whether celebrated in the unity of love
Or ground to dust by a steel-shod heel.

Fluttering to you
I find no fault
Only the paradox
Of white stones flecked with red
That might be iron
Or might be blood. 

-- Tom Rubenoff


 

Sunflowers

No one has to teach a field
of sunflowers how to worship.
Before dawn in high summer

their necks are bent
in silent prayer like monks.
But as the sun comes up

sunflowers rise as well.
At noon they adore the sun
the way monks in pews  

adore the Host at elevation.
Listen and you may hear  
sunflowers sing Alleluia!

-- Donal Mahoney

Petals Drift

Last week Opal learned
she has cancer

might live six months
even though she's busy

quilting with other
widows at church

gardening every day
pleased with her roses.

"I'm 80, Betty,
That's old enough"

Opal tells her neighbor
over the fence

as she walks
in her garden  

waters some roses
not as warm now

autumn is here
petals drift

in the breeze,
an early snow.

-- Donal Mahoney

No Paper This Morning

Most days the newspaper hits
the lawn by four in the morning
but it's six already and I don't see it.

I'll have to pull on my pants
and go out to see if it's hiding
in my wife's flowers and bushes.

She keeps adding more plants
to the jungle she's created out there
with parrots and macaws on the way.

But instead of going out  
I tell her it's a nice morning
and suggest she check on her roses.

In this heat, they may need water.
And while she's out there I suggest
she scan the garden for the paper

in case it's held hostage by the foliage.
After coffee she sails out the door
and returns with no paper but brings

an armful of roses, a bouquet
I welcome more than the poison ivy
I find every day in the paper.

-- Donal Mahoney

The Ruby Throats

Hummingbirds dance
iridescence afire

around the red feeder
hung in the cedar

a symphonic swirl
ruby throats glistening

sipping sweet nectar
sipping until
 
it's time to jet back
to thimble nests.

The tiniest beaks
are open and waiting.

-- Donal Mahoney

The Spider and the Spray Can Man

He's my buddy, this tiny spider
sitting in his web, not moving,
waiting for a fly that never comes.

The problem is, he spun his web
in a bathroom on the 30th floor
of an office building

where in 20 years I've never
seen a fly  or other insect
never mind a spider.

The man from pest control
comes after hours
and sprays in silence.

We call him Spray Can Man,
He has "Butch" on his shirt
and creases in his pants

pressed by a wife who packs
hearty lunches, I suspect.
I've watched Spray Can Man

twenty years and never heard
him speak to anyone working
overtime in a little cubicle.

Years ago we'd say hello to him  
just like Trash Can Man and Mop Lady.
I said "Merry Christmas" to him once

and Spray Can Man never looked up.
He kept looking down, like an anteater,
spraying one baseboard after another.
 
When it comes to insects,
Spray Can Man is a serial killer.
Yet the spider in the bathroom

has escaped his gaze and lives on
despite the lack of any flies to eat.
The spider doesn't know death's

his destination even though
I know some day soon
his life will be swept away,

perhaps by execution if
one of my fellow workers
sees him waiting for a fly

or if Spray Can Man spots him.
This spider will discover
life is just a belch in time

as I'll find out too some day.
If I'm wrong about what's to come,
I'll have missed a lot of fun.

-- Donal Mahoney

Carousel of Marriage

Harry and Grace had a carousel
of marriage while it lasted.
There were arguments galore
and children by the score
or so the neighbors thought
as they counted kids
running across their lawns
causing divots to fly and
dogs to bark, a canine
tabernacle choir.

Fireworks on the Fourth
were peaceful in comparison.
The kids would light their
crackers in the yard while
Harry and Grace sat
and swirled vodka on ice
in plastic tumblers.

Harry and Grace had arguments
so loud the cops would come
but no one was ever arrested.
Grace would say Harry was wonderful
and Harry would say Grace was too.
But eventually Harry moved out
and Grace got a job doing hair.
Harry sent money for years
and the kids went to college.

Decades later a neighbor saw Harry
at the Mall and they had a nice chat.
Harry said he was happy his kids
got degrees and it was good Grace
had married the farrier and moved
to Wyoming where there were horses.
Not much work for a farrier in Brooklyn.
He had time to break up a marriage.

-- Donal Mahoney

Weeds and Blooms

Alice, a mother and housewife,
watches her husband, the doctor,

out in the garden on weekends
weeding with a speed and ferocity

she can't muster, her energy spent
taking care of the kids.

They never discuss his work
at the clinic where he digs

bulbs out of wombs, snuffing  
any chance for blooms.

-- Donal Mahoney

Remembering His Third Wife

Never speak ill of the dead,
his father always said,
and his father was a pastor
who preached from the pulpit.

That's why whenever
he thinks of his third wife,
and he does almost daily,
he never says anything bad.

Instead, he sends himself an email
and records for history yet another
evil deed she managed to execute  
during the years they had six kids.

Between kids she drove him nuts.
He never thought she'd die
and never hoped she would
because as he said in an email,

the Devil has his hands full.
Then he saw her death certificate
and, by golly, it was embossed
so it had to be good as gold.

Since he couldn't keep the original
he took it to the office
and made a giant photocopy.
Now he wants the right frame,

black as he claims her heart was.
So far he has sent himself 400 emails
about his bonfire life with her, a brief
prologue to the Hall of Fame injustices

he maintains he suffered simply
because so long ago he said "I do."
He isn't certain what she said.  
Perhaps it was "You're through!"

-- Donal Mahoney

Find Him

Millie on crutches
in the day room
tells Fred on
his walker
to find him.
It's important
says Millie
even if you're old
and can't walk.
Hire someone
to push your
wheelchair
toward him.
If you can't
get out of bed,
hire two people
to wheel
your gurney
toward him.
It's too late
if you hire
ten men to
carry your coffin
toward him.
Now is the time,
and for many
that's a problem.
They have
too little time
to find him.

-- Donal Mahoney

Bubbles

Foam circles on the water  
A dance of millions
Bubbles joined by surface tension
Jostling in a swirl and eddy
Expanding into glittering existence
Popping into nothingness
They seem to know not what they do

From our point of view
Picturesque
Reflections of trees and sky
Light-bending ripples
Scintillating sparkles
Please and calm the eye
As the rush of water soothes the ear

For them, shoved by irresistible forces
In unforeseen directions
Blinded by constant collisions
Deafened by the roar of existence
While life and death writhe and spit
Those nearby one moment
Gone the next

Wow
It must be hard
To be a bubble

-- Tom Rubenoff

Harley

Let’s face it he’s an aging Chocolate Lab,
Overweight, domesticated to the point
That he will rarely go out without me,
Even in the backyard, doesn’t chase cats
Anymore or rabbits or even the squirrels
On the deck, sees them and walks by,
Even when they‘re close and temptingly
Run off, slowly enough to catch, he goes
By them to his favorite spot or two and
Does his business, then he barks at the door
As if he has been a long term exile, left
To a cold cruel world; but on our walks,
The one we take every day at the same
Time, he returns, though briefly, to being
A dog, instinctual, primal even, his nose
To the ground he charges from spot to
Spot, pauses for long periods as if deciding
As if he recognizes something of importance
Then trots on, stops again; it’s on these
Walks when his species, his breed come
Through, he becomes a drug sniffing dog,
One of those state police dogs in search
Of a criminal or someone lost in the woods,
Or one of those dogs after the earthquake
Looking for the living and the dead;
On our walks he plays, for a short time,
All the roles we assign dogs, plays them
Convincingly, but he tires quickly now,
Wants the shortcut home, tugs that way,
Ready to get back home to the comforts:
A bowl of water, a few dog-treats and
The family room’s couch with its dreams
Of chasing cats and finally catching them.

-- J. K. Durick

Providence

He must get
to the ocean every summer
the primeval waves
recharging his batteries so he
can continue the civilized struggle
against bills and banks
blighted lawns and broken cars.
Last year he was so desperate
to get into the water
he found himself swimming alone
except for the seals and sharks
his family on the shore
angry and yelling, frightened as hell
but he figures when his time is up
his time is up.

-- Michael Estabrook

Philosophy

When I was younger
I’d walk the train tracks beyond
where we lived pondering
the direction of my life
where have I been?
where am I going?
what am I doing or not doing?
what could I be doing better?
Even though I’m older now
and still have no answers
to these my life’s questions
I no longer tread the tracks
to ponder them
because those big trains appear silently
from around the bend awfully fast.

-- Michael Estabrook