One Door Away From Heaven
One door away from Heaven, We live each day and hour. One door away from Heaven, But it lies beyond our power To open the door to Heaven, And enter when we choose. One door away from Heaven, And the key is ours to lose. One door away from Heaven, But, oh, the entry dues.
One door away from Heaven, And yet we sing the blues. One door away from Heaven, We live each day and night. One door away from Heaven Is such a perilous height,
A long fall from the doorstep, If we can’t tell wrong from right.
Neither Do They Fade Away
Elvis is dead but spotted in Biloxi,
In Nashville, Corpus Christi. He’s got moxie To be dead vet movie-going at the Roxie, Still sticking to this world as if epoxied. Glimpsed in a pink Caddy there in Biloxi, Our ageless King, still smilin’ and still foxy.
They say Walt Disney was frozen to live again, To once more walk his magic land of mice and men.
Al Einstein’s brain is rumored floating in a jar. Until he’s got a new body, he won’t go far. This is America, where failure is decried. This is America, and death must be denied.
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In The Fields Of Life
In the fields of life, a harvest Sometimes comes far out of season, When we thought the earth was old And could see no earthly reason To rise for work at break of dawn, And put our muscles to the test. With winter here and autumn gone, It just seems best to rest, to rest. But under winter fields so cold, Wait the dormant seeds of seasons Unborn, and so the heart does hold Hope that heals all bitter lesions. In the fields of life, a harvest.
The Weight
We have a weight to carry And a distance we must go. We have a weight to carry, A destination we can’t know. We have a weight to carry
And can put it down nowhere. We are the weight we carry From there to here to there.
The Train Leaves The Station
All of us are travelers lost, Our tickets arranged at a cost
Unknown but beyond our means. This odd itinerary of scenes – Enigmatic, strange, unreal –
Leaves us unsure how to feel. No postmortem journey is rife With more mystery than life.
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A Delicious Walk
The tired dog lies licking its feet. Absorbed, quiet, and so discrete.
You would be wrong in assuming It is engaged in mere grooming.
You can tell by the canine smiles, It’s tasting the mem’ry of miles.
Habit Makes Destiny
On the road that I have taken, One day, walking, I awaken,
Amazed to see where I have come, Where I’m going, where I’m from.
This is not the path I thought. This is not the place I sought. This is not the dream I bought, Just a fever of fate I’ve caught.
I’ll change highways in a while, At the crossroads, one more mile. My path is lit by my own fire. I’m going only where I desire.
On the road that I have taken, One day, walking, I awaken. One day, walking, I awaken, On the road that I have taken.
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Pedal To The Metal
Hope is the destination that a seek. Love is the road that leads to hope. Courage is the motor that drives us. We travel out of darkness into faith.
Even on this map of infinite complexity, Only one highway is worth following,
One route worth the time behind the wheel, One arrival rewarding to the traveler.
No rest stop can offer rest assured To equal the peace at highway’s end, When you’ve driven hard and well, With purpose, in search of meaning.
Remembering When We Didn’t Expect To Live Forever
We once ate great half-raw steaks And washed them down with martinis.
Eggs and bacon for breakfast, Sweet or sour cream over Minis. We drove fast and free of belts. We smoked if we wanted to.
We finished the day with a brandy And occasionally even two.
Now we know the folly of those ways, The dangers of those innocent days. Salad now, and a glass of iced tea. We shudder at the mention of Brie. Seatbelts, airbags, sugarless gum. Count every calorie, know the sum. Clogged arteries are not forgiving. Clogged or not – this isn’t living.
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A Roundness
Life is a gift that must be given back, And joy should arise from its possession. It’s too damned short, and that’s a fact. Hard to accept, this earthly procession To final darkness is a journey done, Circle completed, work of art sublime, A sweet melodic rhyme, a battle won.
Remembered Dreams
Your face, as no other face, Populates remembered dreams. Your arms, as no other place: Landscape to remembered dreams. Your heart, as no other heart. Your eyes, as no other eyes, In you each dream must start. With you the real world dies And my life thereafter lies Only in remembered dreams.
Academic And Novelist As Abbott And Costello
You deconstruct. I’ll reconstruct. You analyze. I’ll catalyze New brews from old elixirs. You mix it up. I’ll fix it up.
You break it down. I’ll play the clown At one of your faculty mixers.
You challenge style. I’ll smile awhile. You find the theme. I’ll soon redeem My work from any classroom trickster.
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The Chair
Tremulous skeins of destiny Flutter so ethereally Around me – but then I feel Its embrace is that of steel.
Short Story
A gasp of breath, A sudden death: The tale begun.
A rustled page Passes an age: The tale is done.
The Modern Age
Living in the modern age, Death for virtue is the wage. So it seems in darker hours. Evil wins, kindness cowers.
Ruled by violence and vice. We all stand upon thin ice. Are we brave or are we mice, Here upon such thin, thin ice?
Dare we linger, dare we sate? Dare we laugh or celebrate? Knowing we may strain the ice? Preserve the ice at any price?
Wee Wisdom
When tempest-tossed, Embrace chaos.
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This Old Honkytonk Of Fools
Rush headlong and hard at life Or just sit at home and wait.
All things right and all the wrong Will come straight to you: It’s fate.
Hear the music, dance if you can. Dress in rags or wear your jewels. Drink your choice, nurse your fear In this old honkytonk of fools.
Cold Fire
Vibrations in a wire. Ice crystals
In a beating heart. Cold fire.
A mind’s frigidity: Frozen steel,
Dark rage, morbidity. Cold fire.
Defense against A cruel life, Death and strife: Cold fire.
Whom You Might Trust
Nowhere can a secret keep Always secret, dark and deep, Half so well as in the past, Buried deep to last, to last.
Keep it in your own dark heart. Otherwise the rumors start.
After many years have buried Secrets over which you worried, No confidant can then betray
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All the words you didn’t say.
Only you can then exhume Secrets safe within the tomb Of memory, of memory, Within the tomb of memory.
1992
Winter that year was strange and gray. The damp wind smelled of Apocalypse, And morning skies had a peculiar way Of slipping cat-quick into midnight.
Men On White Horses
Those who would banish the sin of greed Embrace the sin of envy as their creed. Those who seek to banish envy as well Only draw elaborate new maps of Hell.
Those with passion to change the world Look on themselves as saints, as pearls, And by the launching of noble endeavor, Flee dreaded introspection forever.
Crossing Nevada
Las Vegas far behind The highway flat And straight
The Mojave dark Where this small town At 2 a.m.
Holds hot eternity at bay With service-station lights
And a humming Coke machine Though neither can lay to rest The uneasy suspicion That a power failure Would release not only
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The dammed-up night But also the ancient sea Withdrawn eons ago And waiting to return In a massive tide When the cola logo Blinks off.
Melodrama
A rain of shadow, a squall! Daylight retreats. Night swallows all!
If good is bright, if evil be gloom, High evil walls the world entombs.
Now comes the end, the drear, Darkfall.
Busy Humanity
Pestilence, disease, and war Haunt this sorry place. And nothing lasts forever.
That’s a truth we have to face.
We spend vast energy and time Plotting death for one anther. No one, nowhere, is ever safe. Not father, child – or mother.
Kiss
Night can be sweet as a kiss, Though not a night like this.
She’s traveled on from me, Across that uncharted sea.
I stand on this dark shore And of the stars implore.
Give me that same cold kiss. I’ll join her then in bliss.
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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Where eerie figures caper To some midnight music That only they can hear.
Winter Moon
Under the winter moon’s pale light, Across the cold and starry night, From snowy mountains soaring high To ocean shores echoes the cry. From barren sands to verdant fields, From city streets to lonely wealds, Cries the tortured human heart, Seeking solace, wisdom, a chart By which to understand its plight Under the winter moon’s pale light. Dawn is unable to fade the night. Must we live ever in the blight Under the winter moon’s cold light, Lost in loneliness, hate, and fright,
Last night, tonight, tomorrow night, Under the winter moon’s bleak light?
The Mask
Evil is no faceless stranger Living in a distant neighborhood.
Evil has a wholesome, hometown face With merry eves and an open smile. Evil walks among us, wearing a mask That looks like all our faces.
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Reality
In the real world As in dreams, Nothing is quite What it seems.
In the dream world Or the real,
We can’t know what We can’t feel.
The Answer Comas After The Funeral
The sky is deep, the sky is dark. The light of stars is so damn stark. When I look up, I fill with fear. If all we have is what lies here,
This lonely world, this troubled place, Then cold dead stars and empty space… Well, I see no reason to persevere, No reason to laugh or shed a tear, No reason to sleep or ever to wake,
No promises to keep, and none to make. And so at night I still raise my eyes
To study the clear but mysterious skies That arch above us, as cold as stone. Are you there, God? Are we alone?
Drummer
Darkness devours every shining day. Darkness demands and always has its way. Darkness listens, watches, waits. Darkness claims the day and celebrates. Sometimes in silence darkness comes.
Sometimes with a gleeful banging of drums.
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Potboiler
There’s no escape From Death’s embrace, Though you lead it on A merry chase.
The dogs of Death Enjoy the chase. Just see the smile
On each hound’s face.
The chase can’t last The dogs must feed. It Will come to pass With terrifying speed.
The hounds, the hounds Come baying at his heels. The hounds, the hounds! The breath of Death he feels.
Saving Graces
Courage, love, friendship, Compassion, and empathy
Lift us above the simple beasts And define humanity.
Politics
At the point where hope and reason part, Lies that spot where madness gets a start. Hope to make the world kinder and free -But flowers of hope root in reality.
No peaceful bed exists for lamb or lion, Unless on some world out beyond Orion. Do not instruct the owls to spare the mice. Owls acting as owls must is not a vice.
Storms do not respond to heartfelt pleas. All the words of men can’t calm the seas. Nature – always beneficent and cruel –
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Won’t change for a wise man or a fool.
Humanity shares Nature’s imperfections, Clearly visible to casual inspections. Resisting betterment is the human trait. The ideal of utopia is our tragic fate.
Ten Years Old, Reading In Bed
From a blanket, the boy built a palace With a flashlight for a chandelier. Down a rabbit hole, he followed Alice,
Where the cursing and shouting weren’t clear. He lived stories of courage and malice, While the old man chased bourbon with beer. Riding with horsemen north out of Dallas: Thunderous hoofbeats would not let him hear The plotless rage and the whiskey diction And the chaos always conquered in fiction.
Fallen Yet Not Lacking In Virtue
Every eye sees its own special vision. Every ear hears a most different song. In each man’s troubled heart, an incision
Would reveal a unique, shameful wrong. Stranger fiends hide here in human guise Than reside in the valleys of Hell.
Yet goodness, kindness, and love arise In the heart of the poor beast as well.
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February, 7969
She died wondering If she were loved
She died with her hands Ungloved
By the hands of a sister Or her son Neither one Neither one
We were on the highway In the night
Speeding to Pittsburgh Stars not right
We arrived in the crisis She couldn’t wait
We reached her bedside Too late
My father entered Whiskey on his breath More than my lost mother He smelled of death As useless as usual Self-involved Into tearless grief
His face dissolved Had I not stopped To eat a slice of toast I might have gained
Two minutes at the most Had I not changed my socks And then my shoes Before responding To that urgent news Had I driven
Even more recklessly Mother might yet have been alive
For me
Still only aching flesh And weary bone
But spared the burden of dying alone
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We Are All So Modern Here
Peaches, surfers, California girls. Wind scented with fabulous dreams. Bougainvillea, groves of oranges. Stars are born, everything gleams. A weather change. Shadows fall. New scent upon the wind: decay. Cocaine, Uzis, drive-by shootings. Death is a banker. Everyone pays.
All Those Snappy Epigrams On The Theme Of Night
The whisper of the dusk Is night shedding its husk.
Numberless paths of night Wind away from twilight.
To know the darkness is to love the light, To welcome dawn and fear the coming night.
Night has patterns that can be read Less by the living than by the dead.
Something moves within the night That is not good and is not right.
When I’m in the night, I feel the night in me.
The night speaks with a human voice. To commune with it remains our choice.
Brother night, sister moon. Together sing a tuneless tune.
Anthem
To see what we have never seen, To be what we have never been, To shed the chrysalis and fly, Depart the earth, kiss the sky,
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To be reborn, be someone new: Is this a dream or is it true?
Can our future be cleanly shorn From a life to which we’re born? Is each of us a creature free -Or trapped at birth by destiny?
Pity those who believe the latter. Without freedom, nothing matters.
A Thought While Reading Rex Stout
Holy men tell us life is a mystery. They embrace that concept happily. But some mysteries bite and bark And come to get you in the dark.
Cry Doom
Is that the end of the world a-coming? Is that the devil they hear humming? Are those doomsday bells a-ringing? Is that the devil they hear singing?
Or are their dark fears exaggerated? Are these doom-criers addlepated?
Those who fear the coming of all Hells Are those who should be feared themselves.
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Dragon Tears
Far away in China, The people sometimes say,
Life is often bitter And all too seldom gay.
Bitter as dragon tears, Great cascades of sorrow Flood down all the years, Drowning our tomorrows.
Far away in China, The people also say,
Life is sometimes joyous If all too often gray. Although life is seasoned With bitter dragon tears,
Seasoning is but one spice Within our brew of years. Bad times are merely rice; Tears are one more flavor That gives us sustenance, Something we can savor.
Cold Questions
Is there some meaning to this life? What purpose lies behind the strife?
Whence do we come, where are we bound? These cold questions echo and resound Trough each day, each lonely night. We long to find the splendid light That will cast a revelatory beam
Upon the meaning of the human dream.
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Mary Shelley, No One Listens
Humanity yearns Desperately
To equal God’s creativity In some creations How we shine
Music dance storytelling Wine
Then thunderstorms of madness Rain upon us
A flooding sadness Sweeps us into anguish Grief
Into despair Without relief
We’re drawn to high castles Where old hunchbacked vassals Glare wall-eyed As lightning Flares
Without brightening Laboratories in high towers Keen scientists With sharp powers Create new life In dark hours
In the belfries of high towers
A Job May Not Be Enough
Life without meaning Cannot he borne. We find a mission
To which we’re sworn Or answer the call
Of Death’s bleak horn. Without a gleaning Of purpose in life, We have no vision, We live in strife Or let blood fall On a suicide knife.
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The Root Of All Mystery
Death is no fearsome mystery. He is well known to thee and me. He hath no secrets he can keep To trouble any good man’s sleep.
Turn not thy face from Death away. Care not he takes thy breath away. Fear him not, he’s not thy master, Rushing at thee faster, faster. Not thy master but servant to The Maker of thee, what Who Created Death, created thee, And is the only Mystery.
Haiku
Whiskers of the cat, webbed toes on my swimming dog:
God is in details.
Sinuous shadow,
she moved like hot tears, clear and bitter.
Tear-damp flush of face, white cotton so sweetly curved,
bare knees together.
Moonlight on water,
eyes brimming ponds of spring rain: dark fish in the mind.
Rare albino bats: Calligraphy on the sky, sealed by the full moon.
High looping white wings, faint buzz of fleeing insects: the killing is quiet.
The soft shush of surf, conspiratorial fog cover his return.
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Dew on the gray steps. Snail on the second wet tread,
crushed hard underfoot.
Hanging in the fog, cascades of dead-still palm fronds
like cold dark fireworks.
Green eys growing gray. Rosy skin borrows color from the razor blade.
Black hair, black attire. Blue eyes shine like Tiffany.
Her light, too, a lamp.
Wrapped up all in black. Odd color to wrap a toy -one not yet broken.
Girl’s face shiny damp. All the sorrow of the world
– yet such bright beauty.
From black sky, black wind. Black, the windows of the house. Does wind live within?
Busy blue-eyed girl. Busy making Hobbit games.
Death waits in Mordor.
Cold stars, moon of ice, and the silhouette of wings: night bird seeking prey.
Moonglow on the sand.
Black shoes wear pale glowing scuffs. Should I blame the moon?
Star, moon, and gunshots: two deaths here where life began,
the sea and the surf.
Marshals and gunmen.
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Shootouts in the western sun. Vultures always eat.