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In Ecuador, Iulia butterflies drink the tears of turtles,
Los tortugas have nothing to gain by allowing
This appropriation of their emotion.
También, they have nothing to lose.

The Ecuadoran mariposa have la vida dura, the hard life,
Surviving on reptilian pain,
Turtles are hard shelled indeed,
But at least they can cry.

What a difference a fluffy tail makes!

Why just the other day
The wife and I stood watching as you
Scampered through our garden
Cutely bit through the stem
Of a large sunflower
And adorably dragged it home to eat

Much as you have done with our
plums, figs and oranges
Whose half-eaten corpses
You then pushed out of the
Tree onto the hood of my car —
Sploosh-plonk! Ruining the
Paint and littering the yard

Stupid squirrels!
I have murdered your cousins
For far lesser crimes
Crossing the threshold
Into the space where we live
Is a Capital Offense —
At least when you do it
In the dark of night
Sporting a scaly tail

But a fluffy tail, big brown eyes,
And daytime habits are
Keys to the lock of human tolerance

Why just last night my wife
Brought in from the garden
The most luscious
Momotaro Tomato —
Or at least the half
Which your gnawing had left —
Bleeding and gouged
Like the back half of a
Seal after the shark is finished

We frowned and then, with a
Shrug, sliced off the ragged edges
And used the rest in our
Pasta.

"There's enough for
All of us," I said.

"Stupid squirrels," she said.

Stupid squirrels.

Napili Bay
And all its blues
From teal to cobalt
To indigo
Is a poem

The gecko’s
Upside down dash
To wrest a moth
From the air
Is a poem

The nearly naked
People on the beach
Young and supple
Flabby and flaccid
Each and every one
Is a poem

My daughter’s hand in my hand
Ice cream sticky on a
Muggy afternoon
Is a poem

The gentle breathing
Of my love in bed
Scarcely heard
Above the surf
Is a poem

Why even this handful
Of black bones
On white linen
Is a poem

O Creative Heart!

How Infinite Are The Ways
That Thou Might Mine Praise
For the Tiniest Hint of
Criticism?

How Deftly Dost Thou
Use Thy Mighty Powers
Of Perception and Imagination
To Transform the Angel of Admiration
Into The Dung Beetle of Disapproval?

Truly, Thou Art the Great
Alchemical Inversionist
Who Turnest Gold Into
Rat Bait!

The writing of a sonnet is a pain
That hammers words to fit like blocks of stone
And once it's done the poet feels no gain
For rigid form is cause to stand alone

The modern world throws scansion to the side
To join the midden heap of form and rhyme
Though rhyme persists with clumsy stumbling pride
And hurried steps and couplets out of time

Do poems rise like waves bewitched by shallows?
Or does the loom of language weave its cloth
On ragged frames, on oak trees or on gallows
Or are our words borne, wavelike, on the froth?

Thus poetry has rid itself of form
And passion drives the poet through the storm