Five Years Ensconced

Dusted rose tenderly traps tectonic
plates borne of Her arousal,
near breakfast time the sentinel sleeps silently missing
breath languishing from parted lips
lingering longingly,
two Magpies maneuver molasses skies
framing the Alaskan Range.

Sea shale succumbs to titan tidewaters
tantalizing toes.
Sentinels watch here, hovering, waiting, immortal to all but wind,
water and time. Dying like us
eventually. We live though through time, traveling tempestuously
toward that which we seek. Sometimes found,
sometimes not.

Beholding the bruin bounding beyond bowers,
fear rushes silently inside, moments hang immortal,
Turning, turning, turning.
Lichen weeps anxiously atop the dome the bruin roams.
Hearts hearken to one another—we both fear.
Away, away, away!
Boyish bellow because, I breathe.

Black pearls gleam through me, mid-morn sun stolen by looking glasses,
entrancing, the muse reminds, she demands attention.
Warming to allow the Copper’s rage, always coming--
Coming, always coming, break-up brings boons but too slovenly,
so I wait withering, wonderful, wistful. Wanderlust wakes
like the sunlight always coming,
always waiting.

A Dental Haiku

Eleven bells, chair
time opening gaping maw
novacaine loving

Red Robin

Thoughts of robin red
landing deftly upon rubble,
rumbling rotors and greeting wings
fluttering hearts awaken.

Mothers watch black bags
stuffed, zipped, and tagged.
Packaged in parking lot rows.
Sons and Daughters from
backyards, barns, and bowery.

Yet they arrive, robin
Red-breast bathing in
first washes of sunlight
that Awakens Springtide
blades. I cleanse my duka.

This place− my past,
my present, my future.
Hiding pastel eggs, peeps,
kites, and some coin
for the children to find.

Springtide beckons forthwith,
holy, spirits, shamans, and witches
collide. Awakened. Coexist− women
and men, farm-boy and homey,
we must hang together: or hang.

The King and His Court
loft tridents with arbalests;
Do they see the dead
like Moms do? Through
corn stained fingers.

The garage stands
decades wise, rough-cut
lumber that grandfather
strung. I wonder when he
accepted the world's wrath?

Melrude and Mud Cookies

I sit in a pub in Melrude with two friends
enjoying the warmth melting my iced
Jeans, wet now, I shiver watching Buster shake
off the snow we just missed on the unnamed
lake with northern pike perfect for pickling,
canning jars, water, salt, vinegar, onion, garlic.

The pizza comes, not Vi’s, or even Dominos
but it tastes like lobster and porterhouse, cheap
beer substituting vintage vino – Bordeaux maybe.
might this be what a spoonful of rice taste like
in Darfour, or Haitian mud cookies— water,
mud, and vegetable oil mixed then baked on rooftops?

Four thaw in the kitchen sink stinking through
the cinnamon and cloves simmering on the stovetop
with their shard jaws smiling at an inside joke they
whisper secretly to one another about the stainless
glaive I hold-- ready to separate flesh from the souls
to soak in salt and water, white vinegar added just for fun.

Not like the souls looking for orange roughy heads
discarded down stainless chutes reflecting Sugarloaf between
the wings of seagulls, beyond the turning terns. Rounded
faces hungry for fish head soup that most of us
would not think of boiling in our kitchens creating
finned stench, stovetop simmering— Grandma’s lutefisk.

Starving Haitian grey tongues begging for better.

A Gruden in the Hand is Worth A Noll, Walsh, or Belichick in the Bush.

Jon Gruden has been fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Zygi, pal, sign him now. Not for this upcoming season. I know, that’s already in the bag. Jon will want to take a season off. He will spend some time with the kids, the wife, or the garage. You know, all those things that living ten months a year for twenty hours a day in a luxury office tucked in next to a room stocked with iron and cardio-machines would not allow you to do. Maybe Jon will get in a few rounds of golf. Maybe Jon will stain the deck. Maybe Jon is interested in catching monster Minnesota walleye, and piling up a couple nice swamp bucks (Jon, shoot me an email, jeffgregg@jeffgregg.com, I’ll hook you up). Maybe we will see him on ESPN veritably waxing and waning in time with Boomer, TJ, and Key. There is plenty of dead air, get rid of Coach, no one likes Ditka anyway.

This is when you seal the deal for next year, Vikings. Mr. Wilf. Sign. Him. Now. It’s time to take a step from the stoically pale eyes of Bud, the Sherriff’s Putsch, the Tice Debacle—we haven’t had fire here since Tarkenton ran Van Brocklin out of town (Uncle Burnsie doesn’t count because all that muth&%#@^ker sh&%bag son-of-a-biatch could do was swear).

The homicidal doll is cliché, I know, but it’s true. Chucky would be embraced by the true Viking’s fan. Not the ones that sit on their hands and talk in hushed tones. Not the corporate muckity-mucks holding court for status and deals. He will be knighted by the fans I know. Dyed in the wool, they wear Carhart and hold Masters, drink Grain Belt and read tomes, they run Cats and wear mascara, groovy chicas and dudes, cops and teachers, dirt bags and saints.

The Vikings must have Gruden. Can you imagine him being behind the controls of Adrian Peterson? Sure, he might run him into the ground, I would put the health over/under at two years with Gruden running the show—Cadillac where have you been? Dickerson, 2105 would be in danger. Pounding AP thirty-two times a game behind a pulling Big Poppa Hutch will wilt weak sides like the romaine lettuce in my crisper. I don’t know why the hell I ever thought I might use romaine as tuna boats to help cut down on the carbs. And, he would be coming into Frazier’s Viking’s version of the Tampa Two, with a well seasoned yet young playing pack of rabid dogs. If I believed in matches made there, Heaven just might exist in someplace other than fairy tales and Stephen King films.

Zygi, SuperBowl XLIV, Miami, F-L-A (as Lou Reed would sing about Holly), 2010—I will buy my plane ticket tomorrow. Send me an email to let me know you have him on the payroll, jeffgregg@jeffgregg.com, I promise I will not say a word. Northwest will be booked, or is it Delta now, who knows what teetering on the brink owns what failed giant now-a-days.

FU Theodor Geisel

I have always wanted to have a stuffed Lorax in my house. No, not a nice cuddly stuffed animal, but the real thing. You know they are out there. Cryptozoology is right on the verge of making a big announcement. I expect it on the National Geographic Channel sandwiched between Whale Wars and The Dog Whisperer any day now. His flaxen bushy mustache, golden orange coat, and quizzical look he would stoically pose next to the bookshelf in my living room and ignite conversation.

"Where in the hell did ya find that?"

"Beyond a dying patch of Grickle grass in the hollowed out trunk of an old Truffula tree."

"I thought all the Grickle grass and Truffula trees were gone."

"Nah, just a nasty rumor dreamed up by some PhD looking for something to publish. Industry did do some work in keeping the resources viable."

“Interesting. I guess even the makers of those Thneeds have an economic interest in the
systems well being."

"Yeah, I suppose. And they give the PhD’s something to study.”

“Seems like a win-win to me.”

“Yeah, but the two sides have their heads so far up their collective Sneetches that they will never come together to find a real solution."

"True."

"Beer?"

"Sure."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, now today I have a new goal,
I search out a Lorax to vanquish it's soul,
I'll look in the Birch, the Maples and Oaks,
I'll look in daytime, the sun, and the rain when it soaks,
Searching and finding and you will soon see,
To the all the extremists I say, "bite me."