I get a feeling I’ll do something big today.
I can taste it in the tea
when the idea begins to take shape–
a three-masted frigate out of the fog,
Better than the anticipation
of your long fingers and heat.
Look now.
I can see the figurehead,
Full-breasted and fresh-painted,
and there, just ahead,
a giant tentacle rises
to fondle her oaken curves.
I found this in a journal I wrote in Baghdad during the “Surge.”
In Mesopotamia the god is angry,
The air stinks and the dogs are mangy.
Eye-for-eye and hand-for-hand,
And the blood of the people soaks the land.
From deep inside the Green Zone’s walls,
Send Hershey bars and soccer balls
to soothe angry fathers’ hearts
while they police the body parts.
See the miles of autumn leaves,
Where the hand of Frost,
Has touched them in their full maturity,
Year after year,
With the sorrow of Nature,
Leaving them magnificent in their prime of life,
Rich with experience,
In a way not possible in pale green youth.
