Terry McCarty

I REMEMBER BRIAN WILLIAMS

Turn on that supposed liberal

Cable news channel

And hear the retired General say

We can take out

Most of North Korea’s nukes

While the anchorman who

Loves war so much

He embellished a story

About being in a chopper near combat

Nods solemnly

War is the testing ground,

Anchorman thinks

 

But isn’t it a truer testing ground

To give diplomats free rein

And stop wars before they start?

 

Here we are

At yet another precipice

Barely connected to land

As pebbles roll and fall

Into a bottomless canyon

PISMO BEACH OF THE PSYCHE

I keep my phone off at the downtown diner

on a quiet evening of an offseason day

as no longer radical 1960S rock and roll songs

by The Electric Flag and Moby Grape

play their analog melodies over satellite radio

occasionally overwhelmed by skateboarding kids

slamming their wheels onto the concrete sidewalk 

ROLL THOSE UNFILTERED MEMORIES

recall every good and bad moment

the exciting and the mundane 

the triumphant and regrettable 

the friends, lovers and acquaintances here and elsewhere 

roll with all the above as you read the oncologist’s report

to discover if your blood will let you keep living at home