Solar Eclipse

Is the only reason men have sons
so they can pit them against each other
in wanton demonstrations
of modern warfare?

Red sons, yellow sons,
white sons, black sons
sent out to kill each other.
No wonder some sons stop shining.

My first superhero

I learned about my first superhero in Sunday School.
He was a man so strong, he was able to silence
his foes with words. He could turn the other cheek,
inspire the masses and forgive his enemies.
I wanted to be just like him.

But then somewhere along the way, I discovered
the avarice, bigotry, conceit, death, egoism, fraud,
greed and hatred that his followers embrace in his name.
I learned that Christianity was nothing more than
a tool for the elite to extort and control the masses.

So what do I do with my childhood superhero –
throw him in an old toy box with the rest of my youth?

Downsizing

is code for getting too old for life’s clutter
and fearing the end of life will come
before you get your affairs in order
and leaving a mess behind.

is realizing your days are numbered
to go through those boxes
of forgotten trinkets and photos
and plans for unstarted projects.

is wanting to extend your life
by sharing the things you valued
with your children and grandchildren
and hoping they will remember you by them.

Beat the Clock

I’m running out of time
to be a poet
or a novelist
or an artist
or an inventor
or a spiritual leader
or a philosopher
or a success.

The clock is ticking.
The years are fleeting.
The inspiration is dissipating.
The creativity is calcifying.
The joy is evaporating.
Failure beckons.

Racist America

America can never become a non-racist country
until we admit we have been a racist country
since the day the English Captain, John Colyn Jope,
landed his slave ship, The White Lion,
in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.

It’s not that everyone in America is a racist,
although many have been.
It’s that most of us are indifferent
to injustice that does not impact us.

Default Emotions

For some computers, optimism is the default emotion --
the preselected option offered by the operating system
that will always be followed unless explicitly altered by the user.

For other computers, pessimism is the default emotion
offered by the operating system based on
experiential coding written into the software.

Counterfeit disciples

Who is that politician who uses Jesus’ words
to obscure actions that contradict his teachings?
that Congressman who espouses the value of human life
even as he sends young men and women off to another country
to kill its young men and women or be killed trying?
that Senator who claims to support equality
while he proposes tax laws that promote inequality?
that preacher who believes that fetuses
are more valuable than children already born?

They are hypocrites hiding behind Jesus.

The Mellon Plan

In 1923, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, one of the richest men in America, presented Congress with the “Mellon Plan”. The first “trickle-down economics” proposal, it called for a reduction in income taxes where the top income brackets would have their taxes reduced from 77% to 24% and the lowest would have theirs’ reduced from 4% to 3%. He also proposed reducing the federal estate tax in the belief that corporations and wealthy individuals would shift their fortunes away from tax shelters and invest them in the economy.

Congress gradually enacted these tax cuts from 1921 to 1929. The Stock Market crashed in 1929.

What can we learn from that?

The safer path

We often choose the safer path.

The one that protects us from emotional pain
and offers short-term pleasure over long-term gain.
The one with fewer challenges and less suspense
and with lower hills and recompense.

Regret is the reward at the end of the safer path.

Things we talked about doing

We talked about trips together
to Wright’s Falling Waters,
Gettysburg and Valley Forge,
the Baseball Hall of Fame,
the Rock and Roll Museum,
the National Museum of Illustration,
the Smithsonian Air and Space Museums,
sleeping on Mount Washngton,
and staying at the Caboose Motel.

We made it to the Baseball Hall of Fame
before you died on me, Brian.

Revision

He has rewritten the history of his life
so many times in his mind
that he no longer trusts his own memory.

Has he ever been honest with anyone?
Was he a good parent?
Was puberty as depressing as he remembers?
Did his second-grade teacher really dislike him?
Has he ever been happy with himself?
Is he a success or a failure?

The truth eludes him.

Eulogy for Krissie

In the spring of 1966, I found myself on stage with the Beach Boys at a sold-out concert at the Boston Garden. It’s still one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

The exact chronology is a little fuzzy after 55 years, but the story begins with my younger sister, Krissie.

During the summer of 1962, Krissie spent several weeks with her cousin, Cindy, at Nantasket Beach in Hull, Massachusetts when an up-and-coming California band was playing at the old Surf Ballroom. They met the group, and Krissie started a long-distance friendship with one of the band members.

When she returned home, Krissie began calling Carl Wilson in California and talking with him on the phone for hours every day. A family crisis arose when a $600 long-distance phone bill came in the mail.

As you can probably guess, our father was not pleased. Our regular phone bill back then was probably $20 a month. He paid the bill but groused about it for years afterward.

The phone calls ended, but my sister’s passion for the Beach Boys didn’t. She bought all their records. She collected scores of magazines articles. Each time they performed in New England, Krissie finagled a way to attend their concerts. At 13, she wasn’t old enough to go by herself, but she convinced our parents that her older brother was a dependable chaperone.

Over the next 3 years, my wife and I attended 2 or 3 Beach Boys concerts a year. Krissie got free tickets for us to most of them, and we often ended up back at their hotel after the shows. We even brought our son, Brian, to meet them at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire when he was less than a year old.

It was my first exposure to a celebrity lifestyle that was both fascinating and overwhelming. Carl Wilson was not much older than Krissie. He was the youngest member of the group and a quiet, sensitive and talented young man who was overshadowed by his prolific older brother, Brian. He and my sister spent many hours talking.

The older members of the group, two of whom were Carl’s brothers, were into partying. Their hotel rooms were always full of groupies and hangers-on. Money was no object, and there was a never-ending supply of willing girls, alcohol and eventually drugs. The only supervision these five teenagers had was a road manager who seemed to spend most of his time bedding young groupies, too. It was a real eye-opener for me.

The last time we saw the Beach Boys play, Krissie and I went to the concert at Boston Garden. My wife was very pregnant with our daughter, so she stayed home. We met Carl at the hotel before the concert and went to the Garden with the band.

The Beach Boys were the biggest American band at the time, and the Garden was packed with 14,000 screaming fans. We were given chairs at the back of the stage and sat there for the whole show. Krissie was in heaven. I was in awe. The overwhelming adulation of their fans was something I had never before experienced.

The lifestyle took its toll, however, and the Beach Boys stopped touring soon after that. Drugs and legal disputes splintered the band.

Krissie and her husband, Dan, attended a reunion concert some years later. Dan was able to get a security person to pass a note to Carl, but they were unable to meet him. Carl and his brother, Dennis, have since passed away.

I always admired my sister’s determination. She was stubborn, opinionated and passionate in her beliefs. She was generous to a fault with both family and friends. She was a dedicated geriatric nurse. But the thing I will remember most about her is her love of the Beach Boys.

Krissie was one of a kind.

I wrote this for a memorial service for my sister following her recent death from cancer.

Fossil Fuel Gluttony

You smugly speed by me on the interstate
in your Hemi-powered RAM 1500 towing
a trailer laden with snowmobiles in the winter
and ATVs in the summer.

Your gluttonous mechanical entourage
consumes a gallon of precious fossil fuel
every 10 miles at 80 miles per hour and spews
13 grams of carbon monoxide per mile.

And that’s just to get you where you can
waste more fossil fuel and spew more
carbon monoxide into the atmosphere
to indulge your selfish amusement.

How will you explain this
to your great-grandchildren?

Courage

Courage is not a competition.
There are no winners or losers.

Courage is not comparative.
It’s not whether you have more
than the next person.

Courage is how you face
your particular challenges.
It’s how you deal with
what life throws your way.

Courage is crying and anger
and failure and heartache.
Courage is coping and surviving
when all seems lost.

You have no more or less courage
than your neighbor.
We are all only human.

The politics of fear vs. the fear of politics

Has the American public been so traumatized
by the politics of fear that it has developed
a fear of politics?

Will voters suffer from political PTSD
in the voting booth?

Cash Crops

Early American plantation owners
made huge profits using cheap
slave labor to produce cotton.

But they had another more lucrative crop.
They bred those slaves like animals
to produce more slaves to sell.

Too Late

How will we know when it’s too late
to save the bees?
How will we know when it’s too late
to save the wolves?
How will we know when it’s too late
to save our environment?
How will you know when it’s too late
to save your grandchildren?

Blind Fear

We’re afraid.
Afraid to think
the mighty United States
could actually be taken over
by a small group of people
who want to use it
for personal gain.

We’re scared.
Scared to admit
our sacred democracy
could be hijacked by oligarchs
who are only interested
in increasing their own
wealth and power.

We’re frightened.
Frightened to believe
there are Americans
who care only
about their grandchildren
and don’t care if ours
are left out of the
American dream.

I am

I found this poem by my son, Brian, when I was looking through some of his old papers. I hear his voice when reading it.

I am

I am an odd person with a hairy face,
I wonder how deep is outer space,
I hear the sound of a dinosaur's cry,
I see pterodactyls in the sky,
I want to be in a happy place,
I am, an odd person with a hairy face.

I pretend that I am a superhero,
I feel I understand the number zero,
I touch the smiling face of a bumblebee,
I worry for the happiness of my family,
I cry for the sadness of the human race,
I am an odd person with a hairy face.

I understand that being sober takes some work,
I say I never want to be a jerk,
I dream to find that special one,
I try to be a better son,
I hope to see a smile on every face,
I am an odd person with a hairy face.

I am Brian Edward Johnson

Rules for killing

It’s OK to kill children in war,
but not OK to kill a fetus.
It’s OK to kill a criminal who does not want to die,
but not OK to kill a suffering patient who does.
It’s OK to kill an ape,
but not OK to kill a human.
It’s OK to kill someone you’re afraid of,
but not OK to kill yourself.

Who made these rules?

Impostors

What is conservative about starting unprovoked wars?
Or passing on trillions in debt to our grandchildren,
or ignoring our crumbling infrastructure,
or polluting the environment we depend on for life,
or preserving fetuses while starving children,
or enriching the wealthy by robbing from the middle class?
Why do real conservatives allow their credibility
to be stolen by greedy impostors?

Adirondack Chairs

They gather in gaggles
on porches and lawns
some painted green,
pink or sky blue,
some carrying pillows
and standing in rows,
but never seating anyone.

The Perfect President

Many of his critics
call Trump an aberration,
but history suggests
he exactly represents
the American attitude
toward it’s role in the world.
Like America, he refuses
to admit his mistakes
and justifies his greed
by claiming American
exceptionalism.

Naming the Enemy

Each time we declare war on another culture,
we coin dehumanizing names for them
so we can kill them without remorse.

Redskin, Rusky, Haji, Gook,
Gerry, Nigger, Raghead, Dink,
Injun, Greaseball, Cracker, Spook,
Polack. Pickaninny, Jap, Chug, Chink.

We use language to turn them into something
other than fellow souls with similar dreams,
patriotic ideals, and families who love them.

The names help justify the indiscriminate
killing of soldiers and civilians
by reducing them to less than human.

SS America

The Ship of State is commanded by a spoiled boy
who steers his vessel in circles just to prove he can.
The crew collapses on the deck as the strings that move
their limbs begin to fray and finally break.
The passengers bicker among themselves whether
the captain is a demon or a grifter or a narcissistic idiot.
The survivors of other sunken vessels must tread water
until the frightened skipper knows flotsam from jetsam.
The first mate screams that fuel is running low
so the captain sends an S.O.S. to a ship lurking nearby.
No one seems to notice that ship flies the Jolly Roger
and its shirtless captain wears a knowing smile.
They don’t see the silent torpedoes coming through
the choppy sea until it’s too late for SS America.

Winter Sky

A tiny glistening speck
tears holes in cumulus cotton.
Faster than sound
it drags shreds of vapor
from a growling bear into
a seven-legged dragon and
an old man’s head.

Idiots

People whose ideas
oppose my ideas
are not idiots.
They have different beliefs.

Grandpa

When you forced your filthy penis

into your granddaughter’s mouth

you sated your demented lust

and sold your soul to the devil.

When you used her tiny body

to satisfy your desires,

you vandalized her innocence

without a shred of remorse.

When that was not enough for you,

you slithered through the branches

of your family tree and poisoned

more of your own progeny.

You’re the lowest form of human life,

a scum-filled predator with no redemption.

An eternity in hell falls short

of the fate that you deserve.

Casualties of War

Abused children are so hungry for relief
from their pain of trauma and abandonment
they are prime candidates for drug addiction,
illness and emotional disorders.
That insatiable craving for nurturing and security
doesn’t go away when they reach adulthood
and they have more access to addictive behaviors.

So America’s war on drugs is a war waged against
people who were abused as children.
Its battlefield strategy is to punish those people
for being abused by turning them into felons
and incarcerating them for long periods
in prisons where they are likely to be abused.
Like most wars, there are heavy casualties.

Blind Loyalty

Members of the military
wear blind loyalty like a badge of honor
to justify behavior that is immoral
in the real world.

A Suit for a Suit

Could I bring suit
against the Trump Administration
on behalf of my great-grandchildren
for putting their health at risk?

It would be difficult to make a case on my behalf
since I may only be around for another 15 years.
But their lives and health will certainly be harmed
by the removal of regulations that are
based on almost universally accepted science.

The health and lives of millions of children
around the world is being put at risk
by profiteers who are ignoring global warming
and environmental pollution.

Would a suit take my suit?

The American Creed

I am an American.

I have the right
to indulge my every whim at the expense of all other living things on the earth,
to accumulate wealth by any means because the end justifies those means,
to pay as little as possible for my food regardless of the impact on the rest of the world,
to consume the earth’s resources without regard for the welfare of other societies and
to waste fossil fuel and foul the atmosphere with my SUVs, ATVs and snowmobiles.

I believe
American lives are more valuable than the lives of citizens from any other country,
the welfare of Americans is more important than the welfare of other people,
the education of my children takes precedence over the education of other children,
my country should never apologize for anything it has ever done
and military might makes America right.

I am an American.

The Bully

Donald Trump is a liar and a bully.
His style of “deal making”
is meeting every confrontation
with an overblown threat
and the promise of escalation.

That’s not deal making.
It’s being a bully.
The problem with that tactic
is there is always the chance
of confronting another
more narcisstic bully.