Grief poems

Marble Cat




Lucid as the dome over her iris,
seldom fooled,
her paws are fluid as dream sequences.
She drifts into the room,
brushes the door and slides outside
to fissure tree bark
or hook into the feathers of a slow bird.

Back in, she whispers hello,
without divining
human approval.
This lithe creature,
reclining against my thigh
lets my fingers weave around her
resting hocks, or
my thumb burrow into her foot pad.

She rises and is compelled out again.
Her bullet head pierces a well placed bush
to gather information.
Then, collecting her sleek pounce,
she springs in twitching zeal
up a strategic tree limb to scope.

She considers without gathered hurt;
clean heart as open as dawn,
thumping big,
all the hours
life circled in her.
Such a short life,
such a visitation of joy.




Life In Two Cartons


Dutifully,
the suits and shirts were given away
soon thereafter,
while still in the throes of shock;
as were the CDs and skis.
His "to save" basket was emptied
of magazines and news articles,
impotent now in the wider context of loss.
All but one of the hats(a knit cap)
were eliminated,
and the swell gag trinkets
from simpler decades appeared
silly and cheap now.
So were the smooth toys
and racy adornments lined up to stymie
encroaching middle age.
They lost luster and were foisted
on a handy also grieving friend.

Then his chinos went a few weeks later.
A heaving breath, more swollen eyes
and they were gone.
Harder still the shoes,
chanting his name in each rounded
give and stretch of leather.
But they too were finally thrown to charity.
Except those there...
his simple tie oxfords,
those go in the special carton,
with that favorite berry striped sweater,
and with his best watch,
a couple key investment files,
a baseball glove, a high school yearbook,
a strange set of beads, a small redwood box,
an address book (to send thank you cards),
and a photo album of his pre-married life.

The bronze monkey had to stay too of course.
How many times had it gazed at her
when she’d fought with him?


His favorite sun glasses
and a glass lion from Italy were saved,
plus an electrifying speech
taped during his promotional dinner.
Those went in, saved.


It all came down to two cartons.
Two boxes of intention and passion,
childishness and faith,
pursuit, competition,
and unmitigated joy.
She could visit them whenever she wanted.
There was always room enough for that.

More Poems

Cobalt Morning




Hounding the huge glass
housing your corporate stricture,
the cobalt morning reaches into
your window, supplanting your duties,
beckoning the long denied in you
like the growing need for food.

The blue enjoins you without mist today,
clear and obvious,
drafting that part of you so long unsaluted:
departure onto real cliffs and slopes,
face awash in crisp air,
with trees preaching quiet psalms.
That place with no right angles;
longer and deeper than a calendar.

Even the caveats plaited into
your company soul
cannot withstand the tincture
of this curving temporal blue.
At lunch you come heaving outside
onto the vague cement,
whisking a breath,
considering some personal diagram
to explain this troubling impulse.
You’ll try to put it
into perspective;
convert and align the gnawing fathoms
into something that can be
formatted, and perhaps
even faxed.




CEO - The World


The Inner Circle
formulates our New World Order
with a menu of self interest
more profound than a
new vaccination.
More truculent than a
non-cabinet Republican
who thinks he’s in the loop.

Lopsided Men,
wag tongues with covert operatives,
demons sporting close cropped hair,
lighting their cigars with the
Bill of Rights
on Persian carpets at Capitol Hill
or in a five sided building, and sometimes,
the big house on Pennsylvania avenue.

These policies serve huge interests
that hide under cover of
the Security Council,
State department,
or our economy.

Putrid priorities blacken
the back side of
sunny billboards.
Corporate multinational
tyranny thrives,
spun through willing banks.
Endless weapons distribution
stokes pathetic conflicts and
convenient despots.

Geopolitical decisions rake the earth
as the stratosphere thins.
People choke and grow more lesions;
so tremendous Presidential and
Congressional P.R. machines
create COPY,
dished out to us like cool melon
in the desert of leadership.
We, pop culture consumers.

What skillful treachery,
holistic treason,
fuel these preeminent deceivers.
New world order indeed.

-HM

Le Seine

La Seine



Old as the rainfall,
the deep green water rises and falls
like an ancient slow breath,
your throat and lungs
thick with water lettuce and reed.

Spent, darkened tree segments
decay into varying coves and shoals
harvested and devoured by microbes and
six legged removal engineers.

The grand Queen reaches across the land,
her corporeal ribbon
informed with arching loops,
that tell her age
like the roundness in an old woman’s back.

No more the reckless white water,
the gushing adolescent madness,
hurtling down ragged beds,
and with the stones that bring
fragments,and broken hearts.
Your peace has come.
A green maturity.
Your history layered in
fine sediment.

And in the open countryside,
far from city cement,
the birds above you
see your islets and gentle sandbars
stretch like skin folds and moles
along your long torso, neck and arms.

And at the sea,
you empty the dreams from your head
like vapor into air.

Coyote Comes

Coyote Comes





Big eared scrub runners
winking and rubbing sage brush.
Ever hunters. Their own enemies few.
Like senior legislators
waiting for the righteous dreamers
to tire,
they crouch and scratch,
sniff and whine.

The suburban sprawl
splayed on these overbuilt hills
they cruise like market aisles
feeding on its pets
who arrive like stupid tourists.

With a good rain
mice and rabbits fatten
new coyote litters
that will soon visit trimmed yards
sporting basketball nets
and soft unknowing dogs
or untutored cats,
their owners never imagining
silent killers with spotted backs
on honeyed legs
would devour them
next to some cordless phone,
steady plastic and foolish
on the patio.