Diaspora I saw a family at the Seven-Eleven, Crammed in a U-Haul van A worried mother trying to calm her Children, support her Old Man Her strength betrayed by A painful stare and shaking hands The children were bright-eyed With anticipation, Their father distracted By fear and dislocation His eyes showed concern Over his new destination New grapes destined For post-modern wrath Flowing with the current Down empty global paths Spending the last of meager savings On Pepsi and gas In search of that remaining mill job, A chance to survive, To be self-reliant like his father, To keep his family alive They pulled away from the curb, Took a left and disappeared Cold Front Doughnuts, And Coffee. Sunshine and The wind. Early morning Paper. And you. Your bright Smile Connected to tight Shoulders Trying to Shrug off The chill. Adventures in a Dark Box, Part One The pelican flies on the leeward side of the wave, parallel, in search of food. His concentration is intense. He flirts with the curl of the wave but never gets hit. Should he spy a victim he strikes, the meal swallowed before the poor fool knows what happened, before the wave reaches out. So it is with the hunter and the hunted. Life and death are swift and over before fully realized. It is easy, indeed cheap, to honor the hunter, but what of the virtuous hunted? What about he who spends his life running from the other? There is honor for the hunted. Even game deserves a glory other than transfiguration into trophies or meals. To be the target, the victim, is worthy of some greater recognition. I know. I am the hunted. Fear is my companion, solitude my reward. Although I run, I welcome death or escape. I don’t differentiate. The pelican is low over me now, his Concentration complete, the taste of blood fresh on his tongue. He stays just ahead of the wave but I elude him, dodging into side streets, down alleys, in and out of the subway. He will dedicate his life, his career, to my capture. But that is of no consequence to me. I only am what I am: a runner, the hunted. I will return to the depths, back to my homeland and far from his intensive gaze. And he will sit, like a fool on a lamp post, in the dungeon he calls his office, smoking cigarettes and drinking chicory, thinking of me, hating me, wanting my life. I swim beneath a fleet of trawlers in Kansas City, but they don’t know me. They have bigger and better sandwiches on their minds and menus, but I’m shaken just the same. I should stay here in this anonymous lair, but I go on nervous and frightened. Meanwhile, the hunter flies low, scanning just below the surface with his impeccable eyes. In a bar outside Dallas I feel his presence. He is in the room, I know. I duck into the back room and blend in with the crows on the fence, knowing he will keep his distance from them. I hate to use another’s prejudice in my defense, but politics is often that way. The game is busted up and I am pushed through the back door. He sees me from across the room. I should run but instead I stay for the fight. Ironically, he disappears from sight and I meet a mysterious dark haired woman. Despite the adrenaline, I take my time and chances with this woman. She is all I ever dreamed of and things I could never imagine. She listens to my stories with a look in her eye that both frightens and excites me. She chain-smokes menthol cigarettes and holds my hand. I have never met a woman such as this, yet she is all too familiar. We leave and swim over to Al’s All Night Diner for corn and coffee. Al keeps a clean diner because Barracudas are banned. We are welcomed, however he keeps a close eye on me. By now I’m nervous again because I haven’t seen the pelican for a while. A cat fight breaks out behind Al’s and we decide to leave before the madness spreads and we become infected. On the way home we see two wrecks and get a speeding ticket. We hitch the rest of the way with some old-timer on his way home from a long voyage at sea. He talks incessantly, and I get nervous and ask to be put out at the next light, which turns out to not be a light at all but the moon, which I’m beginning to believe is the culprit for all this excitement and cautious bedlam. Meanwhile, the mysterious dark haired woman has become quiet and contemplative. Even her smile has changed, reminding me more of a stone or some other cold, inanimate object. We get out and proceed to swim upstream. After a while I can’t take it any more. The struggle is too much for me. I drop out. I move to the Village and write poetry and play guitar. The woman lays curled at my feet purring and reading Chaucer. Eventually, even this begins to wear on me so I go suburban, vote Republican, get a gun. Knowing this would please my grandmother, I write her a song. The mysterious woman is restless and asks me to follow her, to where I don’t know. Later that night, when we finally arrive and I think my luck will change, I discover she’s not a woman at all, but a pelican in disguise, and not just any pelican but old Lucifer himself. He swoops down before the curve of the wave, hungry for the kill, whispering in my ear, “Check-Mate”. Iron Ore and Dust, Formed and Scattered, and More. There on the shelf in my workshop it sits. Defiant, independent, determined to be around Long after we’re all forgotten. It’s a fortress, a treasure chest, Paw Paw’s old Toolbox. It has been with me up and down the Right coast. It has been used. It has been relegated to Dark corners in lonely storage. And through It all it shuns dust and gathers No rust. It always reminds me of a man Like no other. A poor mechanic, a blue collar Hero, one who could fix Anything, even if it was the damnedest thing He had ever seen. A hard worker, hard partier, A Democrat to the end. I stood proud, receiving it as gift even though It hurt me to know he would not have the chance To use it again. For a practical man who’s time is coming To an end, tools are things of nostalgia, Better means as a gift. I was beginning my career as he was ending His. I, broke, unable to afford tools because Of being young. He, broke, unable to justify tools because of Being old. So he passed the torch on, Handing it down. He made it himself, from heavy stock, down In the belly of the Admiral Semmes Hotel. And from that Immaculate birthing it went, back and forth In the trunks of his cars: Belvedere, Studebaker, Monte Carlo, DeVille. It’s so heavy, it’s impractical. It is Harry Truman, Sitting there on my old work bench, Bottom lip sticking out, Beady eyes glaring from behind round glasses in defiance Of judgment. Loaded with rusted files and wire brushes, Dried solder and nails. Confident and proud, aware of who he is: A Baptist, a pipe-fitter, baseball fan, stubborn Southerner. And I, stubborn In my own way, lugged it to jobs, long after I could Afford better. And now it’s a Treasure, the closest thing To family china a country boy Could hope to have. There was never a gift more Appropriately given, or received in my life. It is a testament To the character that passes unseen Skipping a generation to a welcome home, a familiar spot In an inquisitive mind, under scarred hands, beside saws and Hammers, and pipes and pain. The Vision of the Son Snakes chase me. Up out of the swampland They come, intent on dragging Me back down with them. God, how I want it behind Me, but they try all The harder. They would Wrap around me and drag me Down and I could Commiserate with them, and Sweat in the thick stench And complain about the Troubles we brought on ourselves And make the Devil out of All those smart enough to Escape. Their drums beat, Folly dances and dodges Death, But Death tries all the same. And so it is with the snakes. The Higher I climb, the more they Bite at my ankles, and make The Devil of me. It is the proverbial Thorn in the side of Biblical proportions. The tallest tree in the land reaches for, But never achieves heaven. He can Never totally escape The soil of his seed. His own personal snakes entangle His roots and hold him to the Earth that is theirs, while he Endeavors for the kingdom he Knows is his.