What Have They Done to the San Francisco Bay?
What have they done to my Bay
It's yours too you should know
What's been done didn't all happen
Wednesday November 7,2007
The Bay has been shrinking for years
The edges keep getting filled and built on
There's parts best not to get too close to
During low tides - - it stinks
What stinks could be
The effulent that's flowed and flowed in - -
Could be thousands of car tires
And larger machine parts
Know someone gone missing - -
They could be stuck there too
Along with
God knows what
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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July 1 2009***Giving His Boots a Rest
He is resting
In a comfortable Library chair
With his boots and jacket on
His backpack is nearby
He's reading today's paper
And has three plastic covered
Magazines stacked on the floor
To read next
He's in from the cold and rain
He's in where it's warm and dry
He's been to the men's room to
Wash himself and his socks and shorts
Wrapped in a plastic bag
He'll dry them later
Now he's trying to get his boots to dry
They're damp and well worn
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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05-09**SYMPTOMS of Being a Poet
What does one do
If one finds oneself
Suffering the symptoms
Of being a poet?
Try to gargle aloud
Uttering gargling sounds
It may cleanse the contagion
Before it enters your system
That's all you can do
Once the rest of the symptons start
You feel it in your head
It pounds in your herart
Your forehead feels warm
You cannot sit still
Words start coming out
Pages and pages you fill
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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Playing Hurt
Personally I never had
To play that hard
Flag football
Did not require
Taping of wrists ankles ribs
Mouth-pieces knee braces
Post game ice packs
Help getting up
And out of bed
The next morning
Shake it off
Back to practice
Our daughter played basketball
First co-ed Boys/Girls club then
Through her second year
At the local junior college
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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Faith in the System
'Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism. The fore-going generations beheld God and nature face to face; we through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy the original relation to the universe? Why should we not have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs...
Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust in the perfection of the creation so far as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.'
Ralph Waldo Emerson
------
Now that we know
For certain two main ways
Of getting exposed
Coetaneous
By merely personally
Coming into contact
With it
Inhalational
Breathing it individually
Into your
Very being
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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A Poet's Work Is Never Done
What's keepng me
From writing better poetry
(Beyond not finding a word
That rhymes with orange)
I don't see myself as a poet
No one has granted me a license
I have however somehow
Learned how to wheedle words
Out of my head
Onto a blank page
I'll admit I have had to
Kick them around a bit
After they have landed
Some had to be kicked out
I was sad to see them go
It was like having to fire
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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12-07-07 No Poem Here
Just an observation on the anniversary of the failed intelligence that led to the US being unprepared and surprised by the attack on Pearl Harbor. An estimated loss of American lives that day 3,400.
It was also on this date in 1917 that the US declared war on Austria-Hungary.
I write this in light of the recent reevaluation of Iran's nuclear capability and intentions. Two articles in the London Times today reflect that we haven't come very far since 1917. 1) 'It should ceretainly not be the basis for declaring peace in our time and welcoming those nice Iranians back into the global family....(Iran's) proxies and friends in Hezballah and Hamas and among the Iraqi Shia extremists.'
2) new threats of Balkins conflict - -Serbia made threats of war with the breakaway province of Kosovo.
I have no poems about this. I went to bed last night after watching a re-run on TV of 'I Robot' staring Will Smith. Neither this fiction nor my reflections on reality this morning give me much encouragment for positive developments in world peace.
Thanks. I just had to let someone else know.
poem by Tom J. Mariani
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BANG! You're Dead
Games we used to play
With sticks and cap guns
We made noises with our mouths
Of shooting getting shot and dying
There was no crying over who got shot
You could argue that you were only winged
It was not the farm
You bought
'I'm just grazed! '
We could holler
Reload and keep firing
Ammunition was free
If you could scrounge soda bottles
For rolls of caps - - - your saved those shots
For close range for the noise the smoke the smell
For the rest you'd just yelled BANG!
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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2008: Nothing To Talk About
She sat down in the booth with her drink and her number
Her lunch was cooking then they'd bring it to her
She looked so alone elderly with washed-out color of hair
Then he caught up and sat down across from her
Looked to be her son or about that age
So thin with a dirty pony tail counldn't sit still
Few words no smiles he looking left and right she down
Her tray came nothing for him he can't sit
Tells her he's going to look for a store
She tells him Lucky's is just across the street
Standing he looks out the windows
Like he doesn't know what direction to go
Then he's gone and back quickly bought nothing
Still can't sit asks if it's OK if he goes back outside
She looks so lonely no one to talk to
When he's here or when he must step outside
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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First Trip To The Ranch
I had a lot of questions
Duriing my first trip
I'd seen picutres
Heard stories
I had never been
My uncle's car was loaded down
I'm not sure how many he was expecting
We were carrying enough food
To feed them all
First time I had ever been
Off the main highway
Off the last paved county road
It'd been a while since
The last stretch had been graveled
Slow bumps last leg of the trip
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poem by Tom J. Mariani
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