Kierkegaard’s Swiss Army Knife

Not an especially deadly weapon,
It had many other uses:
Flaying an apple, carving a lovers name on a tree trunk,
Cleaning your nails are but a few examples
Of the life and work of your garden variety swiss army knife.

We bought our knives at the corner convenience store.
I remember the smell of sawdust that pervaded the place.
This time I wasn’t buying cigarettes for Dad.
We were buying admission to “cool”.

Now, so many years later,
Sorting through the remains
Of our all too brief childhoods,
We puzzle over the improbability
That we have both retained
This piece of history.
These twins of incipient manhood
No longer resemble one another.

I have continued to live in the city,
Using my knife to cut string on occasion
And pry a jar of marmalade open.

You have whittled hearts and initials
On tree trunks, and cut cactus for dinner,
Traveling where you please.
No surprise that our knives attest to different journeys

Why should we find it strange that the religion
You and I thought we shared
Has been modified, like the knives, by our handling,
And the spirit that you call god differs from mine.

Predawn

In shorts and a T-shirt,
I feet the warm breeze,
That brings the sounds and smells
Of the sea. Reefs reduce the power
Of the incoming waves to soft, caresses.
They arrive as friendly guests. They quickly subside
Into the porous welcoming sand,
Or drift back to Gaia.
 
I'd forgotten the predawn enchantmernt.
Verdant hills rising to cloud covered mountains
That today will offer a vista of rainbows,
Touched by the showers that accompany the towering arching colors,
While those of us who will move in the sun
May stand spellbound wishing only to hold the moment.
 
Now, before the sun rises, frigate birds 
Ride the unseen swells of the trades,
On wings that know the dance and waste no effort,
But hold these hunters aloft, indifferent to gravities pull. 
 
Palm and Banyan trees live as neighbors of the ocean,
Finding the salt water air to their liking.
The trees are barely visible, while the mountains
Slowly surrender their hold on a sun that will soon change
The quiet predawn to a pace that thrives in the daytime energy.

Generations of men have followed their fathers to the sea,
Earning sustenance from the ocean's bounty.

Lights, at bow and stern mark a troller's casual progress
To be retraced before nightfall.
Other lights mark barges, some carrying freight
From distant ports, their cargo essential 
To the million people on this island of Oahu.

 
 
 
 
 

MoveOn

MoveOn

I blew it!!
Thinking a short video received from MoveOn,
Covering a bunch of social issues with which my “Conservative” friends might agree,
I’d sent the email to a few of them .
Responses varied; most bordered on
Crosses burning on my lawn.

One questioned my sanity, and said he had not opened it.
A second cancelled our dinner date and has not called since.
A third, not responding, probably countered the contamination
By destroying the infected computer and putting pins in a very ugly doll.

How would I have handled a Fox video
Showing OBama’s outrageous minister,
And suggesting Barack had shown a complete lack of judgment
And lacked patriotism (no lapel pin)?

I’d like to think I would not have cancelled a dinner.
As to the rest ...I’m not sure.

Conversations with my Mother

She smiles brightly,
Much too brightly.
Confusing me with her deceased brother,
She asks if I’m going to Mom’s.

Once an independent thinker,
Who “planned” starting a family,
But not until she had saved enough money and bought a piano.
She now says little, does not read,
And watches, uncomplainingly, as a care giver
Turns on a 40-year-old rerun of “Bonanza”.

Will I store her and avoid,
As I did with my father,
Consideration of choices?

Forensic Accountant

Tired of police, detectives, lawyers,
Secret agents protecting our borders?
Talking to ghosts, reading minds,
Heroes all, stopping dastardly crimes.

There remains only one crime sleuth                        
Who doesn’t change clothes in a telephone booth.
He carries no gun,
But when he approaches evil doers run.

No TV shows promote his work,
They think of him as merely a clerk.
But when on the case
The Forensic accountant shows a determined face.

Going through records, spotting the error,
On the job the man’s a terror.
Yes he is the man
Tracing bills like nobody can.

Finding the voucher or telltale check,
Building a case that’s certain to stick,
Risking his life and pen,
Catching the fox close to the den.

Surly, with the right cast,
A melodrama would last
Year after year, that’s certain,
As each new episode raises the curtain.

With computers and software
Designed to put victims, unaware,
At disasters door, while thugs in wait
Are set to suffer a terrible fate.

Not knowing our man’s on the job.
Let’s all hail this most precious of slobs,
Toiling away with keen suspicion,
Our Forensic accountant, with no recognition.

Negotiating

Lightning rips the air, posing as a twisted stick
Illuminating the night’xs black menacing clouds.
Again and again strikes search the sky,
A savage nightmare seeking a pitiful innocuous victim.

Rain ferociously striking the fuselage creates a deafening roar,
Overwhelms the noise of the man-sized jet engines,
As the aircraft is terrifyingly buffeted, up, down, down again, harder.
Seat-belts keep us all from crashing into overhead storage space.

What you might ask, am I, an atheist, doing?
NO, I have not soiled my pants.
NO, I am not praying.... exactly.
I am negotiating.

It goes something like this,
Listen, I start, you and I have had some disagreements.
Yes, it is fair to say I have shown contempt on some rare, OK not so rare, occasions.
Surely we needn’t review ancient history at such a perilous time?
Look, if you just stop the wings from jumping around...
Aieee!! that was bad. Are we going to crash?
Am I going to die?

How about you showing the mercy and forgiveness you claim in your CV?
Please put us down nicely, right about now would be good.
I’m sleeping now, right?
This storm is imaginary, right?

That last bump wasn’t as bad.
The rain must be subsiding, I can hear the engines.
How about if I leave you in peace
And you reciprocate?

So, we have a deal?