Don’t Ask
Poems by Rob Neal
Air Support
Aging foils past triumphs of my body
No more slam dunks or Iron man races,
Just riding my bike with the comfort seat!
No one turns their head to see if I’ll crash
My wife doesn’t make me wear a name tag when I leave,
I’ve got a lot left sir!
Dragonflies seem less certain of my prowess
Sensing a soft vibration while coasting down the street
A dragonfly pops up right beside me
Cruising along and checking me out for thirty yards
Then buzzing off to catch bugs,.. or maybe watch other bikers,
Which of my movements signaled the need for air support?
Are there squadrons of dragonflies waiting assignments
To keep humanity in balance?
With what though? Do we look so out of whack to
Warrant such attention from these flying creatures?
My asking also answers, and doesn’t that work better
knowing that for millenniums animals have known we need their support.
Birdsong
My left foot quickly hides, the last part of me exposed
First I hear the bullets, then see his blood
Dozens bang and thud the house,… what did he do?
I hear the lovely birdsong he waited for each morning
Smell the warm bread ready for slicing with his tea,
Later, school lets out to violent streets
Five more children in pieces this week walking home
His brother makes it home today, but the blood drains away
The empty chair, the cold bread to mop up the red stains,
Come back little birdsong, you can sip his tea
Dear Earth
Your beckoning intimacy scares me,
What do you want?
My dissolving soul?
A daily drip sliding out to sea.
Meta mind comes to the rescue,
Keeping me safe from believing
Our lives depend upon
The sweet tangle of you and I
Breathing as one.
Lie down
In the soft light and early warmth of the day Away from emails, smart phones, jobs, …..people
Just let me lie down, ….maybe in the willow tree
Gawking at life, like I did as a boy,
My house needs a Spring cleaning,
With open windows and doors,
Letting the sorrows blow through,
Come in, I beg the sun
Naturally
Birds fly
Seals dive
Deer leap
Clouds float
Suns erupt
Men fight
Women cry
Hearts stop
Summer Deck
That bird call jetting through the air signaling its neighbors
Bugs crawling through deserts of dust and canyon like crevices
A stray cat staring at me with cold fear, her primal instincts on full alert
Butterflies darting, diving, at last finding the needed goods
The blue dragonfly fighter pilot taking down the enemy mosquitoes
Now…. a warm, late Summer breeze rises up, lifting the circling hawk
Is this a special day or am I just awake, finally noticing where I live
I could decide to join in, claim my place in this symphony….
Or can I? Do I really have a choice to be here or not?
The horse in the nearby pasture breathes the same air as me.
Suspects
When the fresh raspberries were missing this morning
My whole body shook with dismay and fear,
Approaching the refrigerator my mind saw them resting on my cereal,
Then nothing, no bowl, no berries.
I leaned into the chilled air, empty, wondering
Why choose calamity, indifference, contempt?
It starts like this…… thinking a minor crime harms no one,
Candy bars slip into pockets before sneaking out the door,
Breaking into waiting lines becomes a habit, a sport,
An illicit victory.
Are others mere pieces on life’s game board, Easily tossed away…………
What news of the suspects we ask?
Too many to follow says the officer.
Now the sirens alert our ears, …..are they closing in?
We hear the car bombs exploding, see the planes crashing,
Gasp for air as the roll call of innocent victims flashes around the world.
Do secretly gobbled raspberries foreshadow this violence?
Where do any of us begin our way in this world?
The dogs bark at our heels chasing the smell of bad choices,
We know though, it’s never in doubt who we are
Even as we keep changing the channel looking for
New hopes, new dreams, new mirages,
Please, please don’t show us our own reality show,
That’s not us we swear, our identities are mistaken, no, no!
We couldn’t be the people we fear, despise, incarcerate, bomb………..
Sunlight makes no demands, favors no souls, illuminates all that we know,
Even our darkness hiding, and the mirrors revealing the suspects.
The Decades
At five I quivered……then kept moving
Six brought mortality trickling down my throat,
Just one third left…..
Now I’m lining things up,
A mission, a healing, a focus,
No more apps, devices, reality shows,
Only what matters most…..
The passing train bellows nearby,
Signaling a long ride, approaching a distant end.
Seconds Away
Each day, there’s a moment, ….when I’m just seconds away
from either sainthood or infamy, …finding the deeper layers,
letting the light take hold and spread, or relenting to a villainous calling
Scenes flash across my mind …..
Serving food to the homeless, then gone…
Shooting all the ideologues, gun smoke rising
Either way, my truth slowly peels open, a chance I might care enough to act maybe wish my beast could escape,
“Give up you bastard” an inner voice says, there’s no hope for this world!
….that paralyzing fear in my bones,
the dissonance crowding my brain,
an arrow piercing my heart,
This death spiral started at the beginning, not knowing we would trap ourselves,
feeding off the unending frenzy of madness, taking us to the brink of immolation,
Now, ….. look at the children engulfed in pure fun swinging, running, laughing, creating
with no idea of the screams rising from
everyone around, and soon in them,
Can my violence bring a slice of justice,
can serving others save anyone, …..even me?
