Forgive and Forget, says Who?

To remember too accurately and be to evildoers unforgiving
is as bad a curse as any that may befall an innocent.
And yet, why forgive those who do not ask to be forgiven?

I'm thinking in particular of the guards of Treblinka
and soldiers like them of every race. Orders are orders,
and those who blindly follow them are stupid to say the least.

You who tend to forgive easily,
consider this, does God always forgive,
or does He at times dispatch straight to hell?

If God always forgives,
then He will forgive me
for not forgiving my oppressors.

I'm thinking particularly of cowboys and Indians,
who bloodied us badly while we went about are business.
sweeping tepees and skinning the buffaloes.

Ghettoland

the same route to and fro
where you are
once we were

pass freight yards and graffiti
pass tenements in mish-mash

existence neath the smoke stacks
of shops now closed
and jobs shipped since to China

Writer's Entry

She's married to a writer.
He's married to his craft.

He writes: I behave like a writer
even when while I sleep.

The hard part is fleshing out characters.
Once I'm on, I can finish a play in a week.

He writes: No two people see a play the same way.
Plays can't be explained in a line or two.

I do alright in summoning dialogue.
I'm a flop when it comes to marriage.

I'm on my fifth.

Simple 26

What's all this huffing and the puffing about
the panic to catch the 6:30 suburban?

The ruckus fades
life moves on

Now and then,
a near forgotten memory emerges

Port of Call

Behind the curtain,
I blushed pink in the forbidden
until a taste of brimstone hit me
in the you-know-where and why.

For all the tea in China was it worth it?
The ship's doctor would opine;
"Let us trust in penicillin."

Moon Rock

I'm whispering to inform you,
we're packed too tight down here
in a slithering glacier, 40 below.

For 100 thousand years,
it's been snowing pellets on us,
crystals, volcanoes and avalanches.
Can you hear us? Can you dig us?
We're closer than you think.
We're in your genes.

S.O.K. - Save Our Kind.
We're not what you'd guess.
You might be amused.

Desperate X Wife

At 3:26 of a dismal, Weehawken morning, the call was received
while I stared absently at the Manhattan skyline. Fourteen minutes later,
the call ended as abruptly as it had started.

Terms of separation were agreed to that quickly.
Wife of 12 years could keep house and the Carol King collection.
Eleven of the 12 were excruciatingly boring but there was a child between us.

We had another thing in common beside the 12 stations of the cross and the kid,
we had married too young. The divorce was decreed in Santo Domingo
which shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti.

How's that for a geography lesson. Across the street from the lawyer's office
was a lowlife bar, the kind you see in south of the border movies.
Cornelia and I shared there in Santo Domingo our last margarita.

How's that for a Meryl Haggard ballad! We popped a coin in the jukebox,
and danced in Santo Domingo one last bolero. The locals seemed amused.
I read their thoughts, "These gringos dance like elephants."

"One more for the road?" I inquired of the ex Mrs. Wellington, meaning;
let's have a banger -- meaning; let's have some rough and tumble sex.
She declined.

Boy, did she decline. She declined steep and hard.
Mutual acquaintances informed me that she took up with a toy boy type,
probably something she picked up in Santo Domingo.

In any event, Cornelia took sick
and eventually died of AIDS.
How's that for a kicker!

Luck of the draw, I suppose had spared me,
which brings me to the question;
What is chance and what is kismet?

Conclusion: A stranger entered
may have no exit,
but to exit.