THE COURTSHIP OF ROBINS

It's a dance all right
but it's not
a snuggle-up-a-little-closer
kind of dance.

It's more like competition,
a scrappy, chirpy
chase-me-okay-I'll-chase-you
avian ballet.

All of it is prelude to
a tempestuous
wild-and-wicked-flitter-flutter
culmination.

That done
they build
a nest.

JERZY

They called it "the cooler"
which was the refrigerated room
in the dairy where I worked those two
summers. Chicago in the sixties
was the Richard Daley era -- remember
the ‘68 Democratic Conventions? --
and seminary students got a view
of life unavailable to most pastors-
to-be. Jerzy spent his entire day
in the cooler, coat zipped up to his
throat, gloved hands flapping against
thighs for warmth. He liked to talk.

His Polish accent festooned tales
of World War II and how, during
the African campaign, when Kate
Smith visited the troops and sang
"God Bless America," he broke down
and cried like a baby. The summer
help took turns assisting him, grateful
for a respite from the heat
of the packing room, equally
grateful for listening to his chatter.
My first time in, he said so
you gonna be a priest? So then,
you Cathlic, Looteran or Protestant?

I tried to explain and failed.
It didn't matter.

THAT DAY ON THE PLAYGROUND

That day on the playground
when Benny Miller got
knocked to the ground during
a pick-up soccer game we thought
his scream was mostly for laughs.
He did and said lots of things for laughs.

My leg -- it's broke he yelled and when
Skeet Shelly, who had knocked him down
said you're just shittin' us Benny
and grabbed the leg and gave it
a hard twist and Benny's face
turned white we were pretty sure
that if his leg hadn't been broke
before it sure was now.

NON SEQUITUR: A CAUTIONARY TALE

When you are just a kid
and your father tells you
how once, when he was
just a kid himself, an eighth
grader, and he grabbed
the arms of a tyrant teacher
who threatened to thrash him
and you see the smile
on his face and hear the pride
in his voice, you can't help
but fantasize about doing
something like that yourself
and maybe something you say
gives it away, don't be surprised
or dismayed when he tells
you that he doesn't ever want
to hear that you got in trouble
for getting involved in
that kind of nonsense.

WHAT MAKES IT WORK

What makes it work, in nearly
every good poem, is a word or phrase
or even a well-placed pause, that jumps
out and thumps you in the gut or
ignites a spark of recognition
or even lifts, however slightly,
the hair on your scalp.

Unfortunately, this poem
does none of those things.

COFFEE HOUSE POETRY READING

There were eight of us.
All of us wondered,
though none of us said it,
why anyone in his or her
right mind, would want to sit
and pay attention to anything
we had written. But they did
and applauded politely when
we finished. Which was nice.

But all eight of us wished,
though none of us said it,
that they, every man
and woman there, had
sprung to their feet
and cheered and cheered and cheered.

CONTEST CONTINUED

The grey thief who plunders
my backyard bird feeder has returned.
Tail aloft and twitching, he cocks
his head, apprising the new situation.
I've moved the feeder farther out
the branch, strung another baffle
on the cord. I doubt it will succeed.
I am contending with a relentless robber.
His appetite will doubtless prevail against
my latest stratagem.

            Is it time to quit,
to acknowledge, at long last, that,
as in life, there are inevitabilities
we are helpless to resist, like
the slow but certain erosion of our flesh,
the mounting accumulation of loss,
the certainty of grief?
Perhaps. Perhaps.
But if the furry bandit wins again,
maybe I could . . .