Casualties

I saw a vulture

crouching over

some poor creature's 

mangled body

on Tamalpais Avenue

yesterday.

It flew up

as cars approached,

then quickly returned to it's task.

At noon today, 

the sirens cried

at 14th and Broadway

where a body shrouded

in a sleeping bag

stirred and moaned.

Two Downtown/Uptown

courtesy officers bent

and tried to get his name.

The pedestrians stepped around him

when the crossing signals

bleated go.

Words on the breeze

Sharp wind in the olives

that line Avenue H.

Do they catch

my whispered dreams?

The ones I send

up into the blue

to ride

the feathered clouds.

No one to harvest

the fruits these days

and their days

grow fewer,

the chain saws'

hungry maws await.

When the olives trees

are gone,

where will the branch

that offers peace be found?

Give us this day

Another day when I

haven't pecked a word

or snapped a shutter.

However,

the pork chops

were excellent

and the eastern sky;

magnificent.

With just a snap

of my fingers

twelve years slipped,

and she,

who took me to

far places

and into her heart,

was gone.

If I were to blink,

would that take me

to the brink,

the dusk,

when we return

to the promised

ashes and dust,

tomorrow?

Tomorrow.

I'll make the sauce

I've made a thousand

times before.

And serve it with joy,

seasoned with sorrow,

savor the moments

however brief,

blessed by Fortune

or Savior, I say,

Give us this day,

this day.

He She

Decisions, decisions

The omelet or the crepes,

blue shoes or black.

Which name gets the ink

and which one does not.

Who gets two dollars

and who gets a nod.

The fork in the trail,

the fork in the road,

The fork for the salad

or the fork for the fish.

When to speak,

or still my tongue.

Aim the missile

or walk away.

Omelet, blue shoes,

Progressive, Larry

Salad fork, speak up,

Walk away.

An other me?

Were the shooting stars

I saw last night

just falling in my dreams?

The thought that I was sure

that I’d remember popping up

like a cork in a pond,

floating away instead.

Is this all a dream that

lives in someone else’s head,

Some guy who never left

Modesto or Nebraska.

And if I walked past him on the street,

would we exchange a glance,

a nod on the border of cognition

although our paths would never meet?

Is he on his way to rendezvous

with a lover as sweet as mine?

Or is that a dream of his

I’ve stolen like he has mine.

Is that jasmine I detect, -here?

or in some other land.

Does the echo of that song

I can’t quite remember,

the half that’s missing,

whisper in someone else’s ear

The hills are turning now

from green to blonde,

as the year always insists.

The church bells chime noon,

the children in the schoolyard

laugh and shriek at play

and perhaps the ones I never had

live somewhere else, far away.