Temptation

Temptation does not walk on legs
As long and thin as giraffe stilts.
It stomps like an elephant on eggs
Until it's churned a mess of guilt.
All the old men are full of denial,
As if that's all it took to be godly.
The Office is an empty trial
And determination works, oddly,
Better than love, if all you want
Is to know physical love, riches,
Hatred — sick powers of the tyrant.
I love how the hair shirt itches.

Six Lake Shore Haiku, September 2026

Haiku, 9/9/26

I think each wave is

New — unlike any other —

But I’m not a wave.

Haiku, 9/10/26

The lake horizon

Is a perfectly straight line —

It closes my eyes.

Haiku, 9/11/26

I watch the lake shore

Through bare trees and square windows —

Water floods the house.

Haiku, 9/12/26

The wind’s strong today —

Gull flotillas ride the waves —

Vanish between them.

Haiku 2, 9/12/26

There’s no more to say

About our time on the beach —

The sand says, “Go home.”

And from September 19, 2022

All gray and white, gulls,

Lake, and clouds. The banished sun

Slashed the horizon.

Rondeau for Ruth, on her birthday, 9/16/26

He knew euphoria the day they met.

He’s often felt so between then and now.

Was it the shy smile or searching brown eyes

Or how her eyelashes would lower and rise,

Like glinting perfection taking a bow?

How could any-day simple chance allow

Strangers meeting to result in a vow

And forty years devoid of pain or lies?

He knew euphoria the day they met.

His eye is protected by her eyebrow.

Their two hearts beat with a whisper and wow,

Not felt, but heard, always in sweet surprise.

No thought between them arrives in disguise.

They will never fail to remember how

They knew euphoria the day they met.

Two Haiku

Haiku, 9/12/26

The wind’s strong today —

Gull flotillas ride the waves —

Vanish between them.

Haiku, 9/11/26

I watch the lake shore

Through bare trees and square windows —

Water floods the house.

Haiku, 9/9/26

I think each wave is

New — unlike any other —

But I’m not a wave.

Haiku, 9/7/26

I sweep spiky beech

Tree shells from the lake house porch —

Shih-te laughs at me.

Note: Shih-te is an eccentric Zen figure always depicted with a broom and laughing, usually with his friend Hanshan.

Two Stump Speeches

“Some chose to run, many to hide

Inside their temples and rooms,

Where every one of them died

In incendiary tombs.

I ignore the mourning fog

Outside and inside my mind,

Hand in hand with Gog in Magog

And all the rest of my kind.

“What are these floods and fires

And stupidity admirers

(Viruses in a cracked petri jar)?

How can I fight the coming war

We’re already losing day by day

As I run, slower and slower, away?”