podunk remembers

Appalachia
still uses Shakespeare's English
London has moved on

figuratively, or not

Tony Hayward's gaffes 
 could fill an entire ocean 
 oh wait, he's done that

puppetmaster

Ashfaq Kayani 
formerly of ISI 
 still runs key assets

context

Were we immortal 
 what would hold value for us? 
all is transience

safely sequestered

Old Senator Byrd 
 interred with his darling Coal 
 may they rest in peace

used clothes travel

Tee-shirt on Lamu 
"WOLVERINE TASTES LIKE CHICKEN"
 he reads no English

urgent

hurdling the speed-bumps
the police cruiser sped past
fresh box of donuts

anhedral

when you're high-siding
to wind in you just relax
microscopically

posturing

boyish ambitions:
be the coolest kid in town
buy the shiny truck

drunk tank II

what hast Brego wrought?
Meduseld's door-bars faced out
to keep perils in

form follows function

Rohan's architects
built Dunharrow for defense
Meduseld's for fun

drunk tank

bars on the outside
won't defend Brego's mead-hall
they pen the drunks in

blood lust

hot joy of battle
coursed through Theoden's old veins
Eorl's shining scion

no exit

into the Huorn-wood
orcs fled before Erkenbrand
hammer smote anvil

the Morgul king's mount
hideous chiropteroid
can't dodge an arrow

noble end, noble beginning

on Theoden's grave
Eowyn was trothplighted
great circle of life

retrieve

tear that glider down!
other are flying farther
it's not about you

weather: the theory

Thermals nucleate 
 in hexagonal close-pack -
from a windless plain

too much

Cheap contraception 
 uncoupling sex from diapers 
may sink the Church yet

hot springs, cold night

Catabatic flow 
 pouring off the Sierra 
 chills Mammoth at night

killer instinct

A laser pointer 
 stimulates kittens to hunt -
bugs that aren't there

audio cues

Diminuendo 
 means tighten your circles up 
 the lift's behind you

the curse of vast mineral wealth

Louisianans 
can't control their government 
Big Oil paid for it

startling

Hovering loudly 
 hummingbirds inspect my book 
 inches from my face

fatty snacks

if you freeze it first 
 you could make deep-dried foie gras 
 as you would ice cream

rites of passage II

The porcelain shrine 
 gained another worshipper 
 he turned twenty-one

not science

So far, String Theory 
isn't falsifiable 
 it's more like a cult

beyond bamboo

Better composites 
 of cellulose with lignin 
 may be the frontier

educational

raised in close quarters
team Plaskowitz learned manner
without formal school

surf wise

Eighty-six years young 
doc Plaskowitz lives to surf 
 his God tells him to

rites of passage

Swallow the terror 
 ask her if she'd like to dance 
 maybe she's shy too

elemental

Primitive contests
 throw this tree. . .pick up that stone 
sort the Scotsmen out

high in the Whites

Aspiring glaciers 
 doze through June in high canyons 
 dreaming of Winter

coupled

two-axis aircraft
turn when we make roll inputs
the whole billow shifts

weighty matters

to be more precise
force equals d-rho/d-t
but Newton still works

higher functions

natural pilots
soar just fine without O2
others need to think

priorities II

nurture connections

through the years of loves and deaths

bury your regrets

priorities

a child's not like us
much of what we need can wait
he lives in the now

6/21/10

the dawn's first thermal
shaking trees in our campsite
turned out to be wind

over-reach

Obama, amok
ordered al-Awlaki killed
without Due Process

KISS

a rag and a rock
beat three amateur plumbers
to plug a hot tub

partition function

Robin Williams taught 
 God showed her sense of humor 
 rationing out blood

sure thing

only Death and Taxes
that's your only guarantee
sex is optional

published

a box on my desk
a book with my name on it
who the hell wrote it?

morning cup o' joe
kashewashewashewa
Barry sorely missed

violent legacy

walking down the road
a pistol in his pocket
Clint Eastwood shot me!

Glacier Point II

Drowning in sorrow
Nordic iciness abounds
fly home naivete

Glacier Point

moisture conspires
waders Leidig required
now, pea-soup Funston

Funston

fogbase rising up
300 feet of playground
can I stay below?

land sculpters

white rivers of fog 
spill slowly down to the bay 
 glaciers of Marin

another era

What drugs couldn't do 
 the passing years accomplished 
Dennis Hopper's gone

extrajudicial

Presidents who can 
 kill enemies without trial 
 will kill critics, too

prosaic

clunky liturgy 
 for an illiterate age 
 plays to children's souls

OD

Twenty-one years old 
 a champion bull-sides 
 couldn't ride the horse

big guns

people with smart-phones
 may be like sports-car owners
 they're compensating

mutual admiration society

Among novelists 
 reviewing each other's works 
 candor would be rude

quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Massey and BP 
 grew fat in the Cheney years 
 unregulated

tools change us

Aristotle griped 
reading destroys memory 
he'd hate the iPhone

nurturance

The waitress scolds me 
 'you need something green with that!' 
 just like coming home

un-principled

Powerful allies 
back Sudanese genocide 
 as long as oil flows

bad mix

Guilt and shame and sex 
 the same nasty casserole 
each generation

just hold your nose..

Even for monsters 
 vigorous advocacy 
 is a lawyer's job

lost in translation

Perfect translations 
preserve ambiguity 
 or would if they could

soft white

Everything's covered 
 in a film of silica 
 zippers dread this place

buy low, sell high

Ride your launch thermal 
 as high as she wants to go 
 love the lift you're in

growing bigger, not up

Now the kids squabble 
 over who got more coffee 
 dynamics don't change

dark ambition

Like Milton's Satan 
 Dick Cheney made his own hell 
 in which he might rule

Sierra shakhrit II

 Humphries, Basin, Tom 
 each don tallesin of snow 
 to greet the sunrise

Sierra shakhrit

Humphries, Basin, Tom 
 each in new mantles of snow 
 to greet the sunrise

shredding

The noise of snoring 
 tears the fabric of the night 
 into worthless scraps

ambiguity is fun

Riding hang gliders
 sounds sexier in German 
 they might be dragons

Exult

Homoerotic 
 tension and the fear of death 
 drive Joe Quirk's novel

launch prep

Gnawing at this shrub 
 with these puny hand clippers 
 Sisyphean task

Memorial Day II

Errant scraps of snow 
 clinging to the launch at Walt's 
mock  the calendar

listen to the wind

Aeolian harps 
 sing when vortices peel off 
lee-side of their strings

lennies

Gazing up the range 
 space-ships hover at Big Pine 
 I'll try the valley

Memorial Day

inglorious day 
 Lionel logged our longest flight 
 not quite Manzanar

basic needs

Stuck on a snowfield 
you can still run out of ice 
 if you're hypoxic