Drunken Boots 

Drunken Boots

There they are, sprawled out on the laundry room floor,
Switched left for right, not standing up straight like usual,
Not in their normal place under the wooden bench,
Stained and smelling from spilled beer,
They walked a crooked line from the barn to the house, and
Leaned up against the old John Deere for support,
The dogs licked them when they fell,
Tugged on them to get up and then got kicked
By them to ward off some unseen assailant,
Toes down in the dirt along with knees and hands,
They reached the back door, and
Crawled into the laundry room,
Where they lie this morning,
Unable to move

Whizzing Around

56 trips at 67,000 miles per hour
I’m closing in on the True Point of Beginning
The signposts along the way are familiar
Summer, fall, winter, spring
Each passage takes less and less time
As it should
According to the Special Theory of Relativity
I am getting younger.

But this year is different
For the first time I feel the inertia
Of another space and time
Tugging at me
Trying to knock me out of orbit
To be sent reeling and rocking into outer space
Until gravity pulls me into another place,
Like a diver on a springboard
Jack-knifing in the air,
Falling into the blue abyss.

Next Time Around

The walk to the barn every morning
Is half hangover, half wintertime blues
As I feed the animals I recite the mantra
Of the six syllables and tell the animals:
Maybe next time you’ll be new acquaintances
And I will come to see you,
Mr. Browne, Ms. Albert, Cheyenne, Mr. Zeeb, Kokopelli
And you will think that you have seen me somewhere before
Or maybe I remind you of someone you once knew.

Photosynthesis

56 trips around the sun
My hair is getting windblown
Standing in the vineyard
Watching the vines
Chlorophyll-Sugar-Wine.

Full Wolf Moon

We are galaxies
Inside other galaxies
The moon shimmering