Red Flag

REPEL or attract? With her, it’s the
MANOR in which she criticizes my spelling and blows her
MONEY on dictionaries to make her point, a
ZESTY personality that I find to much.

Helpless laughter

TRAWLing through the death notices, I’m seized with a
SPASM, my legs won’t hold me, I’m feeling
SHAKY all over, and giggling begins to bubble up. Very
PICKY, normally, about what I read in the paper
OWING to the way disasters, violent offenders, murderers
LEVER me, for some unknown reason, into helpless
LAUGHter. It’s a psychic-physiological thing.
HOMER cracks me up, his Iliad seems a farce. Once-
EASELled savage paintings by Goya and Munch, or the thought of a still-
BIRTH, reduce me to whoops of hilarity, the tragic made comic. You’re
BIGOTed about me but I can’t help it. I hate it that bad news is in
AMPLE supply. Here, for example, unexpected, is my father’s obituary.

Amends

SHAWL wrapped tightly against the wind as I
WRITE my apology for yesterday’s words
ALONG the river not far from here where the
DEMON on my shoulder won the argument.

Portrait of a Bygone Harbor

STEAM ships barrel in and out,
SALTY air, crying gulls matching the capitalist energy.
SLOOP more leisurely embarks.
TRUSS the rigging, sea’s bouncing today.

(I have no idea if “truss the rigging” makes any nautical sense)