Into the Valley 

After Gil Vicente 

I go out into the valley,
out into the valley, I go,
where a nightingale 
sings of lost hope.

I go out into the valley,
where bitter lemons grow.
I go out into the valley 
where my rosy cheeks 
have enough of the sun.

There is no fruit for
my labor. There is no love.
I go out into the valley,
out into the valley I go,
as I sing of false hope.

My gentle skin burns.
I’m too pale for the sun.
I go out into the valley
where the nightingale 
sings the saddest of songs.

*

57 Going on 60

I am not
only alive
and in the present,

I am not
in the future 
and the past is gone.
My memory 
is the worst of all.
I might as well be dead.

I have two years left.
I have one toe in the grave.
That is the future.

I may not have two years left.
Who really knows?
The present is fleeting.
The past was a blur.
And I never believed 
in the fountain of youth.

*

Moving Around 

I hide at night
in a home by
a river of
debris and mice.
Of Mice and Men,
I read that book.
I used to love
The Moon is Down.
Moving around 
makes me so tired.

*

Bundle of Dreams 

I was born 
and I will die.

I will die
and I will have dreams.

I will meet
my grandparents 
on the other side.

My hair will
grow long again
and I will be young.

Isn’t it great?
This is one of my dreams.
I have a bundle of them.

*

Words

Words betray me.
I leave them stranded in retaliation.
They get dirty 
with no one to tend to them.
Blank-eyed, they look 
at me with numb attention.
Their false smiles sting.
The words convince me to take them 
back. In a stream
of consciousness the words
start a poem
on the importance of second chances.
More poems come
out wrapped in barbed wire about
America’s wall.
I take a mop to the blood on the page.
I can’t clean it.
The killing has been going on for years.
Our life, our lives
are fed to the black night in the desert.
Off the rails, a
would be leader peddles fear to his lot.
My vote and 
my words are my most useful weapon.
I take a pen.
I write down the story I have to tell.
Nobody can
stop me. I must keep faith in myself.