Pretend

I rub your back, I stroke your hair
pretend to listen, pretend to care

you fake a headache, pretend to weep
pretend to quickly fall asleep

I pretend it doesn’t bother me
I go downstairs and watch TV

With Wooden Bats

we all wore simple baseball hats
and played the game with wooden bats
with old worn sneakers tied in knots
just pick-up teams in back yard lots

gloves made out of oiled leather
rawhide laces held together
and even if they didn’t fit
we somehow made the best of it

home plate, a square drawn in the dirt
first base was someone’s extra shirt
we hit the ball and ran the bases
with dirty hands and sweaty faces

we taught the young kids how to play
made lifelong friends along the way
those many days in summer fields
of playing ball ‘til daylight yields

Late November

Steel grey skies
outline naked trees,
the earth littered
with debris of summer.
A few procrastinating squirrels
frantically scurry,
looking for anything
to hide away for later.
The smart birds
have all found hiding places,
the smarter birds
have all gone south.
It’s coming, oh, it’s coming

Collateral Damage

not fighting for pride
they took neither side
just happened to be in the way

with no wrong or right
it wasn’t their fight
but sadly got caught in the fray

no caskets, no flags,
and no body bags
no headstones to engrave

no rites, no prayers
no kin, no heirs
just buried in one mass grave

round after round
mortars pounding the ground
‘til everything rattles and shakes

through deceit and lies
each side denies
that their men made any mistakes

there will be some loss
that’s par for the course
is all that the leaders can say

but in the end
they will all meet again
perhaps on atonement day

The Twenty-Ninth of August

the images are flashing by
they stream on my computer screen
while TV too, plays out the scene
and rain keeps falling from the sky

while people stare and wonder why
Mother Nature must be so mean
a hurricane they named “Irene”
still rivers rise and people die

as trees uproot, their branches fly
a gentle brook, once so serene
now cuts an angry, wide ravine
all I can do is just stand by

the bridges that once stood so high
made crossing rivers so routine
as crumbling banks and rocks careen
then disappear before my eye

I just watch and testify
water levels we’ve never seen
churning like a mad machine
go find a place that’s safe and dry