CLASSMATES
We started the
computerized chainletter
from the democracy
of old age,
divining hazy images from
the irromantic past
and a clear peer into the
hypothetix of a future tense,
Floridaward or whatever
other Sunbelt utopia,
tottering in aimless shuffles
toward a new canasta game,
nutz enough to live
past one hundred
or the eternity of
one more year.
**********************************************
NO PLACE LEFT THAT'S NOT
DRAINED AND WRUNG OUT
Hitching cross country,
perpetual globe-trotting,
wanting to see a different
landscape, different people,
travelling in a widening circle,
that is, wherever I went
was just like home, or at least,
the last place I fell asleep.
It's the same with love,
or I should say lack of it,
the indelible memory of it
tattooed on the back of my brain.
I'm shackled to vagabondage,
too old for youth hostels,
too young (and too poor)
for the Golf Coast putting greens;
once it was a game of Musical Chairs,
but now it's just me.
**********************************************
BALLOON SICK
Oxygen flows slower
to the sleepy brain,
masochistic euphoria
exponential to distance,
to altitude dreams
above deflated fields
the size of postage stamps,
the airport's runway
a shrinking hieroglyph;
More! More! Higher
and even higher still,
into the darkening heavens,
bright lights dimming,
the distant past far down,
small and silent.
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