October 22nd

 On Turning 50

Here’s to the ones who

said we’d never get here.

Let’s drop  the curtain, and call

the rest of this an encore. 

October 23rd

 Sprawling Gambling Scandal

“What does the mafia

have on these ballplayers,”

my brother asked.  They

all keep throwing games.  

Chuck the bartender 

replied “what don’t

they have” in this age

when everyone’s life

is one click away. 

But it’s an older story,

I think to myself, as

old as the first human.

The yawning emptiness;

the burning need for more.  

October 21st

 Some Guy

Some guy committed a crime,

and some guy investigated

some guy was bereft of life,

and some guy was beside himself 

with loss.  Some guy picked up

the phone to make a call, 

but he put the phone down 

again. Some guy waited 

and watched, but the truth

was all knotted up

like a twisted cable 

under a dusty end table. 

October 20th

 The Long Night Shuffle

The nights are beginning

their luxurious winter stretch

as the northern hemisphere 

tilts away from the sun, and 

I realize how much we depend

on the haphazard wobble

of our planet in orbit.  

Without it would there be

weather as we know it?

And if not, what would we

talk about?  Without the seasons

would there be time at all?

Our celestial wiggle

turns our rock into Earth;

our planetary boogie

makes life wonderful.  

October 19th

 No Kings

We don’t need a king, 

we need a hand. 

We don’t need ICE,

we need an ice chest 

full of tamales.  

We don’t need

another angry dude

on the internet,

we need a national

weather service. 

We don’t need global tariffs, 

we need a phone call

from our little sister at 3AM

when it seems like the last light

in the world has gone out.  

October 18th

 Jack O’ Lantern

Born on a little bit

of October afternoon air 

is all the potential

of a Saturday night;

the evening yet to begin 

is full of weird, wild potential,

like a pumpkin, smooth 

and plain, until 

a knife and some fire

enter the picture, 

and then who knows 

what it might become?

October 17th

Gendarmes

Citizens such as myself 

find themselves at odds 

at times with those more inclined

toward the rules. 

Put another way, if

a gentleperson should indicate

that they are “of arms,”

they will find me making

quick use of “the legs.”

October 16th

 A Neat Little Bow

I cooked dinner

and cleaned the kitchen

and stowed the leftovers 

away in the freezer, and

the evening was tied up

in a neat little bow,

which dramatically contrasted

the unmitigated chaos 

that was the rest of my life. 

October 15th

 DayGlo Is Back in Style for The Third Time in My Life

And Iyeisha’s wearing yellow yoga pants,
and I am 13 years old again,
and my parachute pants
are electric blue. 

If we all wear such bright colors, 
will it be easier for us
to find ourselves?

October 14th

 Lug Nuts

“I’m gonna just trust 

I did this right,” 

my brother said,

this October evening 

while we sweated lightly 

in the driveway.

He screwed the nuts

on to the new lugs,

while I thought 

about our lives. 

I’m gonna just trust 

we did it right too.  

October 13th

Monday Night

When the bar is quiet, 

the music seems louder,

and the tv a little brighter.

The drinks are a little 

clinkier, and I get thinkier 

to no particular end. 

October 12th

 Well La Dee Da

In my younger days, 

I was looking for a miss,

and your lovely, loopy

hats enchanted me

and you driving

terrified and delighted me.

Later I would find myself

looking for a Mrs, and 

your emotional intelligence 

and command of conversation

were aspirational for me.

Now I find myself looking

backwards, and in the many

different people you were

on the screen, I see many

of the ones I loved; once

again they feel next to me.  

October 11th

 CHUCKLES & CHAOS

Esta una cantina, señor,

pero no habla Espanol.

Is there something 

I can help you with,

and the phone went dead,

and I made another 

Moscow Mule, and I said

good night to Rachael

and Liv, and that’s when

the screaming started 

as two four-year-olds

disputed the ownership

of one wayward cherry,

as plump and full of

sweetness as Saturday

evening itself, lined up 

like an eight-ball

after this afternoon’s end. 

October 10th

maybe it’s true that
I was born yesterday, but
I stayed up all night

October 9th

walking by the light

of October’s supermoon

still need no sweaters

October 8th

 The End Was Nearer Than They Thought

A few weeks into cancelled flight season,

that one lost sock started a cult,

and the First Church of Hurricanes 

twisted out of El Carib, up 

the East Coast, into

the North Atlantic, where

the markets went haywire.  

The initial public offering 

of The Vatican & Holdings, LLC

was off the charts, or 

so they said, no one

could actually find the charts

or tables, or even

any of the spreadsheets

buried and hidden 

with their treasurous data. 

The National Weather Service,

accused of treachery, collapsed 

under the bad press of thousands

of TikTok grandpas grousing 

to their millions of fans.  

It might’ve been called

ignominious, if anyone could 

even remember what it meant,

much less how to spell it.  Folks

just called it a cold clammy fear

and left it at that.