A Puff of Fluff
A Puff of Fluff
Three surviving kittens
Of an abandoned cat
Living under our house.
Mother left for work.
Sisters visited friends.
Stepfather saw opportunity.
“Let’s learn to shoot,” he said.
Crawl under there,” he said.
Get those damn cats.”
He’d won the rifle at poker.
Each kitten was posed on a fence post,
mewing and blinking uncertain eyes,
like political prisoners dragged
from dim cells to face execution.
We stood together, he and I,
Fresh in life yet holding death.
He demonstrated the mechanism.
Schooled by scars of war,
He modeled the stance.
“Squeeze lightly,” he instructed.
The first kitten exploded
In a puff of fluff, disappeared.
He slid a bullet in the chamber.
He handed the gun to me.
The stock was shiny smooth.
He fit it to my shoulder.
“It bucks. Keep it tight,” he warned.
A smell of oil and gunpowder.
“Close your left eye,” he said.
“Line up the sight and the notch
With your target,” he said.
Wordless, I did as he said.
“Steady. Squeeze.”
The stock slammed my shoulder.
My ears were deafened.
The cat was gone, annihilated.
One perfectly good kitten remained.
He ejected the spent shell.
He filled the chamber.
I had started to cry.
“Don’t be a sissy,” he said.
He handed me the gun.
I shook my head no, a rare refusal.
He raised the weapon and fired.
The third kitten exploded.
“Don’t mention this to your Mom
Or the girls. They won’t like it.
Little did he know,
I hated him and the machine.
. . . j
From the Senses and More Such collection
Impressive
Whenever i read
a poem
and trip
over a word
deliberately set
as a trap—
to catch my ignorance,
a word
i do not recognize—
like a stranger
approaching,
potential danger,
in a dim
piss reeking
late night alley—
intent unknown,
i turn the page
lest i be taught
a lesson
I don’t care to learn.
. . . j
from the Senses and More Such collection
Fare Thee Well
A slight rise in the earth,
a gentle knoll near the school’s entrance,
marks the spot where we
teachers
gather on this most happy day—
the remnant hour of another school year,
to wave good-bye
(God be with ye, Child)
(We did our best.)
to our charges, their heads stuffed with us,
Colts to pasture, now set free,
to cavort and buck as they please.
And we, stern taskmasters all, discover
our smiles once more,
cast off our titles, Mr. or Ms.,
to become again, simply,
Barb, Phil, and Marv;
Dale, Terri, and Dean;
Mik, Rin, and Debbie;
Carolyn, Doug, and Ted;
Dawn, Frankie, and Alexa;
Arlys, Joan, and Roland,
and all the rest.
Amid the deafening roar of honking buses
pulling away, young faces appear tight to the
windows, frantic waves, joyful smiles, tears,
and the occasional flagpoled
middle finger.
. . . j
from the Childhood Remedy and Other Such collection
Gunslinger 101
Several school shootings
have prompted some
bloodthirsty citizens
to urge school administrators
to encourage and force
classroom teachers
to arm themselves and be trained
to defend their classroom with handguns,
a half-baked idea if I ever heard one.
The idea is that if an intruder,
bent on destruction, bursts into,
a classroom,
amid an otherwise dull
lesson on proper nouns,
(always capitalized)
the teacher stands ready,
calm and brave,
like Billy The Kid,
(who’d murdered many,
but caught a fatal bullet
himself at twenty-one)
to protect his students and
maybe even himself.
I can see it now—
me cowering behind my desk,
the insane shooter shielding
behind a wriggling
armful of shrieking Jennifer,
while wildly reducing the
blackboard
to shredded chips of powdered
rubble with one of those
AK47 gizmos.
Meanwhile, I’m peeking over
My laptop, waiting to get a clear
shot
an inch or two above
Jennifer’s shoulder,
without grazing her ear,
all the while wishing I had
buried a few IEDs in the floor
near the doorway
so he could experience firsthand
the finality
of smithereens.
Despite my lack of Seal Team training,
I cursed out loud the fact I had
neglected to string up
a few strands of barbed wire to hold him
at bay while I rummaged in my desk
for a spare grenade to lob,
but I didn’t dare take my eyes off him
for fear he might touch Jennifer
improperly.
My best option seemed to be just to
wait until he blazed through a thousand
rounds of ammo,
and the local Swat Team could swoop
in, and mistaking me for the shooter,
riddle me with bullets,
and ask questions later,
just like on
one of my dreaded pop quizzes.
. . . j
from the Senses and More Such collection
Orville
I saw a hawk soaring high overhead,
and wondered what he thought and said.
I watched while he plummeted and flew by,
And yet could not imagine how or why.
Coming near, he cocked his head,
and I inquired of what he read.
“Tolkien, the Bible, and the Bard,”
he shared, uttered while braking hard.
He landed gently, my knee his stool.
“Of what does your mind use for fuel?”
“Much the same as yours, I must say,
but also, of Steinbeck, Updike, Hemingway.”
His eyes were unlike any I’d ever seen,
huge and rounded, incredibly keen.
“No poets then, if truth be told?”
His eyes glittered, a mine of gold.
“Oliver, Kilmer, Poe, Emily, and Frost,”
I hesitated, my memory somewhat lost.
“All masters of the word and thought,”
he mused, “such wisdom can’t be bought.”
. . . j
You
From my window
I glimpse the sea.
From the shore
I closer be.
Imagination
carries me across.
‘Tis but You,
I long to see.
. . . j
from the Childhood Remedy and Other Such collection
Wonderments and Such
Children should discover
the tales of Robin Hood,
Hansel and Gretel,
Snow White
and many others of course,
but also,
they need to visit beaches
and get down on their knees to play
in the sand.
For it is there they will
begin to imagine
how many countless
grains of sand
cling to the edges
of our world.
And thus,
when they turn their
gaze to the night sky
they will also
wonder
how many stars
torch all corners
of our Universe.
And so too,
these story tellings,
these imaginings,
these wonderments,
will help them
peek inward
and examine themselves
with a much greater
sense of humility.
. . . j
from the Wonderments and Such collection
Like Bogey and Bacall
If i were ever to be young again,
i’d cash out my savings,
and start up a yogurt company.
With all due respect,
i’d call it
Humphrey Yogurt,
with flavors like
African Queen—
hot romance and lemon,
Casablanca—
smoky piano and vanilla,
and
Key Largo—
grave danger and chilled chardonnay.
silly boy that i be.
. . . j
from the Wonderments and Such collection
Guilt
A storm’s wrath had wrenched
the robin’s nest from the tree above.
Jerry and i, boys of ten or so,
stumbled upon it the next morning.
The mother robin stood her ground,
fluffing her feathers in defiance.
We two, imitators of brave hunters,
executed her with a BB gun and laughed.
Jerry grew up, played college football,
and became a famous California detective.
i went on to teach children our language,
and lay bare my shame in poetry.
. . . j
from the Wonderments and Such collection
Onrush
Pollution is not an unknown x
To be solved.
Snow gathers and freezes at elevation.
Air, cold and clear, cradles all.
The ancient streambed, a collection
of scrubbed stones waits to deliver.
Sensing warmth, purity comes alive,
melts, and gravity guides the path.
What happens upstream
Concerns us all.
. . . j
from the Senses and More Such collection
