The secret life of a rock

Situated at the foot of a gutter spout

Rain water washes over it,

Days ago before a desert sun

With its mean streak beat it dry

The gush of summer squall

Utterly forgotten

If not for the spirit of your father

Watching over it and you,

Blessing you with a ghostly sigh

When you most needed it,

His deep down love leaving

Its moist mark on the ground

A whisper from the other side

You can read from the puddle

The way gypsies read tea leaves

Telling you that he is still there

And that he still loves you.

Dream Streets

I walk the same streets

As you do

In my dreams

Unable always

To recall the names or places

Or even the faces

Only the emotional landmarks

The feelings I felt

When those feet stumble

Over stories of past made present

Or present made past,

The loves won or lost

The truces brokered

Then broken

All of them fading

Into a cloud

Of what might have beens

As I walk in the same shoes

I wore,

Hoping they might lead

Somewhere different this time
but they never do.

Morning chill

A stiff breeze

Blows through

My bedroom window

As I wake

Chilled with just

A tease of changing season

I used to fear fall,

Back to School sales

Leading to the dead of winter

Scolding teachers

Painting bleak futures

For those who did not

Follow all the rules

I learned to love it

Seeing passed the changing leaves

Even though my favorite

College professor

Said age would teach me

To fear it again

And the more permanent

Chill later years

Would bring,

but time hasn’t bent me

backwards

filling me with any more

respect for rules,

it’s the change,

the fading away

of one thing for another

and that brief cool time

when old wounds heal

under a crust of snow

all presumptions

like old leaves

turned to earth

from which other things

better things

can spring up from

in the spring

Al Sullivan's webpage

Jungle warfare

"Keeping your head when all about you others are losing theirs" 

My upstairs neighbor when I lived in Haledon used to talk about the traps the Cong would lay for him when he was over seas in Vietnam, how they were always trying to trick him and his men into making some move they could capitalize on.

“I never let them get in my head,” he said. “You would hear them out there, making noise, making you think you were crazy, and trying to get you angry so that you put yourself at risk. We weren’t crazy, and we always knew the truth. They were only trying to hurt us, and as long as we kept our heads, and knew who the enemy was, we were okay. Those who forgot for a minute just how evil those sons of bitches were, didn’t make it back alive. I’m here because I stayed sane and never let them piss me off.”

Never, however, was too strong a word. Once he thought he might befriend locals.

“When they butchered my best friend, I went ape shit,” he said. “That’s how I got shot up the ass. After that, I knew better. Never forget they are always out to get you, and sometimes, they even think they're smarter than you are."

tick tock

She always looks over her shoulder

For things that aren’t there,

Mistaking the click of her heals

For the tick of a watch

That hasn’t worked right for years

Wound too tight when young

So it tells her what she wants

Not what is,

Scared out of his wits

Lightning rips me open

As I sit facing the dark

Each bolt jolting me erect

Shocking me

Inside and out,

Tearing open

My most vulnerable parts

Bringing out

The most primitive

Fears in me

At my core

I remain the same savage

That hid in caves

Painting alternative

Realities on my walls

So I might make up

For the terror real life raises

Each image only making

The terror worse

coming to life

with each flash

my Frankenstein monster

rising from the depths of me

to seize me

as I stumble

a joke of a man

scared out of his wits

by the thunder

Telemarketer

The telephone always rings when I have a mouth full of food,

Some strange voice from some distant part of the planet

Trying to convince me I really need the product they happen to be selling,

Reminding me again just how sometimes I’ve been guilty of the same thing

Mailing letters when I was young I shouldn’t have mailed or misdialing

The wrong four digit extension to get the wrong voice on the telephone,

Trying to sell a product the person on the far end of the line doesn’t want

Or need, their mouths full of a lunch counter sandwich or cold coffee,

“No offense,” I always tell the poor fool on the other end of the line

When I manage to swallow my meal, just as I slam down the receiver,

Sometimes it takes a click for the real message to get through.