Dec. 30th

Well, I celebrated my Golden Birthday
yesterday.
30 on the 30th as the world's
oldest orangutan died
at 55.

MARGIE

Well, I received a copy of the new MARGIE today. So everyone who's been asking when they're going to arrive hopefully you'll have yours shortly.

Blindsided

I peddled as fast as an eight-year old could
up a paved foothill.

A mini-mountain tunneled by forest.
The sun poked through like interrupted graffiti.

The trees huddled around me, the quarterback.
At night, the moon couldn’t even tackle my moves.

I felt I was running on the bike’s peddles. My shoes,
the ones that summer beat-up, had never moved so swift.

500 or so yards from home, a loose dog rushed from the
oaks and pines. The long-haired mute bit my right knee,

forced my left knee into the handle bars. I flipped over the
front of the bike, broke out my new adult top front teeth.

I lay on the road, stunned, leaking tears and blood.
The dog licked my face, high-fived the moon, and ran away wild.

The Poem Fights

At this quiet moment my arms flail,
adopts the nature of palms in combat with
Florida hurricanes. Fingers slice the air. An
Osprey’s wings and talons sink into a bass,

extracts it from water. The bass struggles just like
my fingers on the keyboard.

The poem fights,
though it’s been caught. Survival instincts
battle to keep it swimming in the brackish water.

At this maddening moment my cat has conspired
with the poem. She wants me to rub her
long tortoiseshell fur. The mats in her coat
are like the knots that the poem ties my

brain’s matter in. The music hasn’t been much
help. Either has the bottle of Shiraz.

All these pleasures conspire
with the poem.

They’ve got it in for me.