The wrong road?

I don’t know what

Salvation means

As I sit on the train

From Journal Square

To New York,

Maybe it means

Forgiveness

Although that seems

Too strong a brew

To swallow,

When most of life

Comes out of a series

Of wrong turns

We never meant to take,

And can’t take back,

Maybe instead

Salvation means

Finding clues to

That path we meant

To take in the first place

And getting some place

Other than where

The wrong turns

Wanted us to go

And even if we

Don’t get to the end
of that so called right road

We know we’re better off

Than if we hadn’t

Made the effort to

Get off the wrong road

Before it was too late.

Forever Young (monologue)

I notice the odd looks the moment I get out of the cab.

I live in one of the hippest communities in New York City – a place most folks would kill for but is so exclusive, murder is not an option – eternal youth is.

Fortunately modern science provides for us where Mother Nature fails and I am wealthy to have received an implant when I was still in my teens.

I don’t understand the frown until I get up into my co-op and see the wrinkles.

I’m only 101 for Christ’s sake!

I’ve heard people at 200 sometimes showing signs of wrinkles, but no one at my age.

So I plug in and check the small screen that verifies my worst fears: implant malfunction.

I’m in a panic.

I call Phil and leave a message, saying I can’t make it for our usual drinks.

The last person I need seeing me in this condition is Phil.

He and I bet when we got our implants on which of us would out live the other.

The one who wins inherits the other’s fortune.

I always figured I would never die and that someone somewhere would come up with an implant that would defy death itself so that neither one of us would lose the bet.

So I call the doctor, begging for him to see me right away.

It’s life or death, I tell him, little realizing everybody says that to avoid the weeks of waiting.

I also do not yet realize how true it is this time.

A pair of sunglasses hides the worse of the damage, though before putting them on I noticed that the wrinkles seem even worse than a moment earlier.

I tell myself, I’ll be all right; all I need is a minor adjustment.

I get to the doctor and he tells me the implant is failing and that it can’t be replaced.

It happens from time to time, he says.

When it does, a person rapidly reverts to his real age – then dies.

I see – the examination room mirror – the wrinkles spreading across my face like a brush fire.

This isn’t fair.

Old age isn’t supposed to pop in on a person like this.

I counted a living another 200 years at lease.

Worse, I can hear Phil’s mocking laugh in my head and I want to murder him for it.

The doctor says I could try some of the alternative therapies such as surgery or drugs.

He gives me the address of a local clinic.

I hurry out, and oddly enough see Phil in the waiting from.

He pretends not to see me even though I know he does.

This is a relief.

The clinic hands me more bad news.

The surgery, which might slow the implant deterioration, won’t work with me.

So I’m stuck with drugs.

This means I won’t grow older at a rapid rate, but I won’t revert to my younger self.

Except for plastic surgery, I’m stuck with the wrinkles I have and those can expect to get worse over the next few years.

But what will I do with my life?

Where will I live or work.

My co opt will toss me out at the first sight of my wrinkles.

My boss won’t want an old dodger like me handling his accounts.

The clinic assures me that places exist for people like me, communities designed to handle an aging population.

It shocks me to learn that implant failures are more common than any of the manufacturers let on.

With no other options left to me, I make the move – only to find Phil living there already.

As sad as my situation is, Phil’s presence makes me feel better.

He’s still not sure which one of us will bite the dust first, and I’m glad.

Then one morning with my back feeling as if someone has broken it over night, I get up and seek out Phil only to find his room empty.

At first, I’m elated.

I outlasted that son of a bitch after all.

I think about his vast wealth and make plans for it.

I’ll be able to keep up my treatments and maybe hold off the inevitable for a little longer.

Eventually, the truth seeps in.

Phil was my best friend and I miss him already.

Life just isn’t the same without him – especially since I always thought we would spend eternity together, forever young, and not rotting in our graves.

Hand of God

The rain trickles

Down these stucco walls

Like silver worms

Crawling through

Deep cuts

Morning moans

At the windows

A memory of ghetto

I spent a life time

To escape

Bustling buses

With beeping backup

Compete with bird song

for this soundtrack of city

where nests cling

to drain pipes

and old men

sleep in the street

rain sweeping

across all

like the hand of God,

and the drip down

this stucco wall

filling spaces

that God misses

inside me

and out

Tiger shark

(from Imitation Nature)

At times, even he grew afraid, of the sea and its dark places.

Others feared him and his power, even envied his row after row of razor-sharp teeth, his sandpaper hide, his jaws that spread wide enough to devour anything he chose to eat.

But they never understood his curse, his need for constant motion, the swishing bubbles and the endless circling to keep him from falling.

Through motion alone, he kept breathing. Through motion he forced water through his gills.

They feared him because he constantly killed. He had a fire inside of him the water could not quench – only blood and shredded flesh.

Others moved away when they saw him, small things even scurrying on the ocean bottom as if they might be next.

He seemed so majestic when he passed over them, leaving his broad shadow across the bottom like a twin.

But he had no voice the way the lion had, and could not roar, living his life in silence – perhaps even more terrifying to others who did not always know when he came near.

They did not understand his hunger or his need to move, and perhaps they thought him some evil god they could appease with prayer – if only they could find the right prayer, not knowing no prayer would save them if he chose them.

He was a glitter of silver in the water, a stirring tail, an open mouth, a snout always sniffing ahead for the scent of blood, swooping down like an eagle might, rising with his victim clenched in his jaws.

But he was always hungry – at no moment satisfied – and always fearful of falling into the darkness below from which he might never rise, always moving, circling, feeding, watching his own shadow for that day when he would no longer see it, and knew then, peace.

Deep in the valley

This trail stretches out it long finger

Pointing down the soft incline

Into the heart of a valley

Where trees have spread wide

Moved aside by the persistent

Strike of ancient tribes

In their persistent hunt

The sky drips wet

With the remnants of rain

And a suddenly exposed sunset

Each drop dripping

Off extended limbs

As the trees lean in

Gray given to blue

That rapidly grows

Darker and dim

With the orange gleams

Of another dying day

Along the ground

The points of pebbles

Sprout up like

Living things

From between

The yellowed hair

Of dying winter grass,

Each with roots

Into his sacred brown soil

Over which we stroll,

The unnoticing wanderers

Who seek comfort

In the warmth of

This deep valley

Marching down into it

Down into the dying day

Down into the labored night

Down into the place

Where all life sprouts

Hearing ever before it

The flowing river

And its promise of life.

On the ice

They mostly come by night

Light-haired strangers

Brawling and squawking

At the shore

For the precious bits

Of sustenance

The old oaks

And tired elm offer

Ruffled feathered

Philosophers who

Ponder dawn

From their flapping lofts

Complaining hotel guests

About lack of hot water

Or towel or some other

Minor inconvenience

Most can live without,

Or stool-warming barflies

Glaring around at who

They can sucker into

A refill,

Some never land

But glide for miles

Streaking beneath

Snow clouds

While others

Peck at each other’s hearts

For apparent fun

Or wreck others minds

For profit

Mostly, they dance alone

Squat upon their haunches

Without permanent partners

Eyeing everyone

That has more than they do,

Especially those

Who have partners,

To swish through this

World of insufferable reeds

Love-tapping beaks

That gets them through the lack

Of heat of this winter river,

While the crabby loners

Wonder where their lives

Went wrong, snapping up

Those grains of cracked corn

Strangers give or they can

Steal, always organized

Even when the cracks

In the ice

Eventually

Consume them.

Reckless and weary

The road from here to there

Is filled with woe,

Cold miles of early morning

Caught in a harried pre-dawn dash

To keep from disaster,

Warm weather evaporating like mist

As February flexes it muscles

And drags back brutal air

My hands aching despite my gloves

The unnatural feel of leather

Against the steering wheel I hold

Car headlights blinking through trees

As I see once more the distant shape

Of the New York Skyline

Limbs to either side of me,

Bent and bare like masts

Of sail boats in the harbor

Across the Hudson from where

World Trade Center towers,

Once stood,

I ache for the smell of the sea

After so many days smelling mountains

I hear the imaginary echo

Of seagulls crying in their winter despair

Birds like me who cling here

When the more sensible among us

Fly south for these brutal months

And like me, the birds

Rise and fall with winter winds

Taking a peek at the distant sun

Over the mountain peaks

Boat masts and skyscrapers

But not warmed by the sights

Needing something more

To warm our fingers on.