Good Listener

I do not want your secrets
involving me in plots
I cannot resolve,
pages you insert with tape
into my breathing novel,

No,
skipper,
I do not ignore glaciers;
sleeplessly I miss them; I maneuver;
I swerve.
My hull is secure;
my boltholes
impervious.

My gentle jokes
and smile censor
and scare you.
You melt.

I ride the high way
above the muck
of tabloid friendships.
I haven¹t chased an ambulance
in years. I will not turn
a head to gawk at a wreck
on the side of a road.
Aversion
avoids misfortune.

I am your pundit, your Sunday edition,
off beat, in an office of my own
where my door of course
remains always open.

Tadpole On A Lily Pad

Splashed with a single drop of water onto a lily pad
the tadpole panics
to learn how small the world can be.
Once a great pond overwhelmed him;
since birth he¹d fought the odds for food against the millions like him;
for days he¹d wondered if the fish might pick him out of all though
the tadpole¹s oneness matters only
to himself.
With no rivals now nor monsters,
he tests the bounds of a bubble;
he swims perforce but the laws of physics
will not reveal the rest of the universe
until he exhausts the possibilities.
The sun repeals this tadpole¹s tiny world.

SWAN DIVE, or THE HATS

The day after my Rootie Kazootie beanie
rolled in a tube to me from NBC
(three-tone xylophone on the package label--dum da dum),
I moved fulltime into hats
and so naturally
crammed my grandpa’s fedora
down around my ears
after Sunday dinner and walked
the red skeleton walk he laughed at every Tuesday night
‘til Aunt Lucille
screamed, “Papa’s hat!
you’re wearing? You’ll be as bald as him
by midnight!”

Hat away I flung
(in later years like a frisbee I’d say)
and cried amok
my fingers feeling for spots
amidst my flattop.

“A joke. You know she’s a tease,” said mommy
holding me. I heard her smiling,
but all I saw was Lucille’s frown; she shook
her head
in empathy of despair
for all that would be lost.

I tugged loose running
past my grandpa’s hat
in the pot of marinara sauce
to the basement toilet
where I pulled out Rootie’s beanie
from my pocket
and set it forever firmly
on my scalp
like the hairless boy
Danny Kaye loved
enough to create
the tale of the ugly duckling
for in the movie.