BLACK AND WHITE
Old mister magpie
yin-yang trickster
coyote of the sky
Wearing on the outside
what I’m hiding
in the in
Black and white
and good and evil in
clear and equal measure
Sitting on a fencepost
scolding me for
a coward
BLACK AND WHITE
Old mister magpie
yin-yang trickster
coyote of the sky
Wearing on the outside
what I’m hiding
in the in
Black and white
and good and evil in
clear and equal measure
Sitting on a fencepost
scolding me for
a coward
HAWAII FIVE OH
It was so damn beautiful
It could have been an
ad for anything
A young man and a beautiful
young woman, hair streaming
over soft well-tanned neck
gallop along a deserted
white-sand Oahu beach
They wouldn’t include
in the thirty second ad
how very hard the cowboy
from Canada is trying to
impress the Island maid
How many thousands of acres
How many broncs he has rode
How she had given him
the eighteen hand Hunter to ride
and how they had left the silly
English saddles behind
How good he feels about himself
as the sand kicks up from hooves
how pride goeth before a….
rogue wave crashing at their feet
And the big horse spooking
and the cowboy’s instincts doing
everything right, if he had been
neck-reining a quarter horse
and everything wrong on this one
Who goes left while he goes right
right out from under
With nothing but gravity
between him and
where his butt meets
the wet hard sand
The visible bruise
lasts a week or two
The therapy is taking
a little longer
IN VINO VERITAS
IN GUINNESS LIMERICK
Tis a lovely thing the Limerick
And a pint of Guinness helps it stick
But sad their magic is fickle
And though a little may tickle
Sure and too much of either’ll make you sick
A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD
Two Uncle Milties
lived into their nineties
One had economics as his vocation
one called a laugh an instant vacation
Berle would twirl dressed as a girl
till the water ran out of your eyes
While Friedman freed greed
and won a Nobel prize
I leave it for you to apprise
who was silly and who was wise
MAY IN AUSTIN*
Wind in the garden
Mountain Laurel, source of joy
Snapped like a life
*After the monster storm
with hail 4 inches across
hundred year old oaks
torn out by their roots
and our sixty foot laurel
twisted off at 1/3 its height
APRIL IN AUSTIN
After the rain
mountain laurel become
lilacs of childhood
SPRINGTIME IN AUSTIN
Reading old Haiku
And eating the new cherries
Sweetness from two trees