Well-Mannered Kids (the St. Thomas University School Year Has Begun)

something faintly fetid-smelling

fall leaves swirling in eddies 
far below

this jagged limestone rim

not as hard on my back as it might be

sunny spot

t-shirt folded under my tush

fresh charcoal-pile right there at the edge

someone had a party here not long ago

how friendly it must have been!

boys and girls together

in shorts barefoot, such
sweet pheromones in the air! but I swear

no one took their pants off

Late September Poem

colder today, kept my t-shirt on
with my snap-button jean shirt
raggy-faggy high-cut shorts

long-ago dream
driving with a girl endlessly through town
trying to find a place to stop and make out

but it was just me
went through my selfies
me in a store window

black shape like a handbag
CRAZY GOOD VINTAGE sign
beautiful left foot flexed on its ball

what a pretty boy I am!

at sixty-five years of age,
not a boy at all

Waking

only an ear
eyes shut

other’s voice bringing
the Gospel news

vision not
of the eye

fiery
tongues

Word only
spoken

open
your eyes

behold 

your glowing limbs

Venus Holds Sway Over the Cyprian Heights

Cypri munimenta sortita est

Trapped in the tub

by rain this morning,
course charted
by sirens, thence outward
and unto Circe
(but why does Pound have
Odysseus sail backwards?);
the whole crew
would troop to shore
after those hellcats,
tawny voices
stopped in beeswax—
I alone hearing
the forbidden strains,
but I can’t move my limbs.

Dewey's Shakespearean Pun

They said, take a walk, you fox!
went out barefoot in cut-offs
on sidewalks, mostly

soles tough
soul
aquiver

best
pun
ever

grass parkway
hot
unbutton shirt

pavement again
foot prints 

five 

seconds

dew

change to air

for the trees

words
to convey
a forest

reality rich

words
poor?

smothered in
words
like snow

fuzzy

wormds
squirm

corpuscle sun
in heat haze
dimmed

now 

no trees to
be seen

Dewey's Live Wake

late September, sitting
out by their compost
hole

what could be more like
Huckleberry, asleep
in his hogshead?

green-bottle

fly on their right big
toe

Honey-Dew and Sooty-Mold

For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of paradise.

A financial planner advised us that, with medical advances,
people will soon live well past a hundred years,
so we’ll have to save even more for retirement—
a horrifying possibility for me,
as I retired four and a half years ago.

Greasy black veneer over everything—
sidewalks, deck boards, plants, lawn furniture—
we thought from oil combustion, but Robin
talked to an arborist at the State Fair,
and it turns out the veneer is sooty-mold,
a type of fungus that grows in honey-dew,
substance secreted by a variety of aphids
after they ingest plant sap.

It’s true that the sidewalk is almost black with it,
a bit tacky on the soles of my feet as I walk
outside at any time of day. The sooty-mold tinge
gives the whole yard an antiqued look—
if I removed it I’d damage the value—
especially dark on the stones of our little garden circle,
where you can see the insect damage
and the discoloration from the sooty-mold
on the leaves of an overhanging bush,
sticky as they are with the honey-dew the fungi drink.

And it brightens my whole outlook to know,
I walk barefoot every day in the leavings
of billions of invisibly tiny bugs,
their sweet dung inhabited by such dark accretion,
day by day more distinct, as if constituting
whatever is venerable about my days—
devouring the least fear
that I might live forever.

What’s John Writing II (Come, All Ye Salty Sailors!)

Dewey want to see the writing
any writing can be the writing
maybe, sometimes the writing sees

whatever writing Dewey doing

Dewey almost
never stop writing

writing the revolution
writing the end times
writing the heart

scriving
scrivening
scratching

scribing
Dewey a scribe
for their tribe?

Dewey not
employed by the Tribe
in any scribing capacity

Dewey don’t submit their scribbles
to the Tribe
for publication

why do Dewey write?
ain’t their writing mostly
an embarrassment for them?

Dewey everyman?
no, have to be
non-gendered

everydude, everyfella?
no, everyone:
that's the gambit

as far as they’re concerned
Dewey are
everyone

suppose Dewey should plan a performance
and invite all their friends
on social media?

if their friends didn’t
come
would Dewey be mad?

Dewey don’t expect
their friends
to come

think of Dewey’s own evenings—
so luxurious not to have to
go somewhere!

but how can Dewey be
everyone
if no one comes?

Dewey themselves

come synecdochally
they come and come and come

The Worst-Best Thing About Dewey's New Life at Sea

Its unsettledness,

having to navigate the rocks,
my own and everyone else’s feelings and expectations—
bad as Odysseus.
Odysseus had his Circe and Calypso—
Calypso was a sweet chick—
I could almost have spent my whole life with her,
but, feeling kept and urged by duty,
escaped and landed with Nausicaa’s Philistines—
thence home to Penelope.

Odeweysus always finds it best
to take things at face value.
Might have to pay too much—
real and face value may not agree—
maybe even in their own favor. . .
I take myself at face value,
but who set the price?
Don’t know what the actual cost will be,
but the real value is at least one orgasm per day,
wherever I’m at home.

Sept 8

kids back in school
back porch too cold
for sitting

What the Skeleton Wanted Out of Life

my body to be loved—
was that
too much to ask?

when I was buried
in the ground the bugs
loved me unconditionally

now I’m down
to bones and hair 
there’s nothing but love left

Dewey's Summer Project

Got fed up with my
new composting bin—swinging

metal-capsule thing.

Old system better—

a big hole in the ground. Just

needed a lining.

Went to Menards. First

thing I saw was a wooden

loading pallet.—Sawn

into four pieces,

that would be perfect, I thought.

Bought one for five bucks.

Wouldn’t fit in my

car, though. Kid cut it in half

with a power saw.

Once home, I hand-sawed

it into four suitable

pieces. Oak is hard!

Had to wait a week

because of fledgling blue-jays

in the apple tree.

Then I worked in the

garage for hours. Had to pry

a lot of nails out.

Then I dug a wide

hole in a corner of the 

garden that gets sun.

The sides I salvaged

from the skid worked fine. I was

plenty proud, I’ll say!

Pretty-looking too—

bright wooden teeth above ground-

level—a big mouth.

It accepts what I

put into it—coffee grounds,

corn shucks, apples, grass-

clippings from the lawn

mower. Now and then, I turn

it with a pitch-fork.

It’s almost full now,

but I believe that it will

always accept more.

Soon, I myself will

lie in a warm hole like that,

bugs nibbling my toes.

Dewey Can't Bear to Look

lids squeezed tight

barely peeking

snowy pink aura on everything

salvage of the summer

heaped

around them

oh we drove em nine miles

then we stacked em

up in piles

old Paint’s a good pony

and he paces
when he can

their feet propped

on a chair

as usual

arcs of nails

so white so hard

such a soft rosy glow

the tambourine
they should
have given to Annie

good morning young lady

my pony 

won’t stand

or to
the little girl Chloe

Annie was watching

tambourine still in their car trunk

they were going to say guitar trunk

buried inside their cowboy hat

the metal button-

nosed pig right there 

beyond the porch rail

beautiful

compost

hole

the words they didn’t say

you know

I fall easy