BBC – What Do We Know About the Drones Over New Jersey?

Drones over New Jersey are cellos – Yo-Yo Ma bass strings humming Cantata for All Mysteries.

Aliens feeding us eye candy – peanut M&M's of light flashing red/green, red/green –  extraterrestrial Morse Code for "Take and eat, this is my body."

Their bons mots and comic relief –  "Hey, everyone, lighten up [sic]!" Let's get our Lenny Bruce on, that bit from the Cuban Missile Crisis in '62, him screaming "We're all gonna die!" into the mic, which may or may not have been hilarious at the time, or now.

Lab leak theory – distracted researches let the AI escape with the keys to dad's Volvo and a CIA credit card. Clone the car, fit it with wings and rotors. Presto! Sky's the limit!

Don't let the drama fool you. It's the holidays and we need everyone to keep shopping. Heads down at the mall folks.

Connect the dots and soon we are playing hangman, a string of holiday lights growing inch by inch until tied into a noose, draped from the gallows of suburban porch lamps like vigilante justice.

Let's go the miracle route – did we miss our cosmic cue? Flashing stars in the east above Bethlehem PA. Where are the Wise Men? Stuck on the Path train like the rest of us, late for work and PowerPoint frankincense, sipping their Starbucks pumpkin myrrh lattes.

It's Amazon after the Santa Inc. takeover. Sleds giving way to tech that strafes us with staccato pleasure packages, Rudolph the Red-Nose fly-by-wire rooster tails across the sky.

No, I  think it is the old sagas – the centenary of our man Eliot droning on about the Waste Land – Trenton, Newark, Port Elizabeth, we follow his lines like taillights streaking past refineries on the NJ Turnpike.

He says, finally, to lift up our eyes, be not severe. Shed fear, soften our hearts. Together, listen to the great, whirring Om of rotor harmoniums. The sky leads our chanting:

"Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.
	Shantih        shantih      shantih"

For Shay’s Word Garden

It’s 3AM, walking the dogs (yep), 
the riverfront hotel plays 
Mambo No. 5 on loop into the void
from its terrace speakers –

“A little bit of Rita’s all I need…” What greater
truth could a scalpel of freezing wind
cut from the body, hold up like a gift
or tumor in the cauterized starlight?

The dogs sniff the rushes for rats,
but why not find Moses this time? A basket
with a baby to lead us to the promised land
of dancing Instagram and TikTok memes, 

A prophet to part the Red Sea of pixels,
or at least walk the streets ranting
until the bars shut at four, poking
in the trash for empties.

The speakers are crooning Sinatra now –
“I Did it My Way,” but I don’t know 
at this hour what way that is or how
the wheel of night might roll me home.

Trust the dogs I guess, follow them
back to our door, bed, you. Congas
and Ol’ Blue Eyes closing like an ocean
over our heads.

For Shay’s Word Garden

Strewn before me, a Civil War of clams – 
thousands dead and dying, blue and grey 
in the November wind, their broken shells 
failed white flags of surrender.

We brought this on ourselves, though
we might not say "here I lie, clam brother
raising arms against brother" because clams
only have feet, the moaning of their limped 

tongues silenced by amputations of seagull 
field doctors. Here, clam – bite this bullet 
and wash your pain with whiskey.
Clam bellies swirl with Jack Daniels, jealous

As denial In the throat. Were we always 
bivalves, but only know it now? We are two,
no longer halves of one? Ligaments torn, 
our grit and pearls a house divided.

How will we love with two hearts, pray 
with lungs that breathe such different air? 
Our shells split wide like spatchcocked angel 
wings, roasted without thanksgiving.

For Shay’s Word Garden

I asked my Chinese neighbor
if he draws chalk circles, burns 
paper clothes, pagodas, money – joss 

for hungry ghosts in winter.
He said “do you crawl on your knees
to Guadalupe and kiss the steps?"

This morning I breathe smoke
from fires in parks and trash cans
across Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx – 

dismal tributes to autumn 
gasping for cigarette butts,
dumpster diving for rain.

My cough, the rattle of dead newspapers,
obituaries and memory of ancestors 
dry as leaves awaiting a match.

There is no circle chalked around me, 
city, the here and now. Nothing 
that can hold us sacred by much.

Parchment heroes and hierograms
torn from the book of miracles
leave a fine ash on my tongue.

Leaving the apartment, I genuflect, 
touch each station of my body’s cross:
“spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch”

As the sun rises over the haze, 
I summon my grandfathers by name:
Hans, Johannes, Axel.

What is their instruction
for penitence? Where must I crawl,
what stones must I kiss this day?

For Shay’s Word Garden

It's Halloween’s sweet tooth hush 
the morning after – werewolves curled 
at our feet, snuffling and stretching 
for belly rubs, shedding hair 
and happy animal sounds.

Our bones return to their homesick limbs
and sleepy, yawning graves. 
We soak our fangs in Polident to fizz away 
the gore. Ghosts in their BVD's await 
warm sheets from the dryer.

Shy monsters are crafting back in their crypts,
witches switched on Bewitched in the den
and practice wrinkling their magic noses.
Zombies tally their overtime pay – 
they will winter in the Azores or Belize,

Somewhere they can catch some z's 
and the sun is as yellow as their eyes.
I walk with scarecrow back to his place
among the cornrows, stand with him 
at his cross, his Golgotha.

He hands me a sliver chain his sweetheart,
the fairy, gave him when they kissed,
then watched her die against the porch light.
Love finally for him, flickering, fleet. 
Trick or treat, without answer.

Better man than I, he mounts the ladder.
Crows toss dice for his robes.

For Shay’s Word Garden

Uh oh SpaghettiOs! God grabs 
a Bounty™ paper towel
to clean up the mess.

Yanks open the kitchen’s
junk drawer, hands me pliers 
rusty with stigmata,

A jar of leftover screws labeled 
“Inquisition,” boxes of mismatched 
church bells and hunchbacks.

How is this all my problem?
Must I crawl under the world’s sink, clear 
clogged pipes of brotherly & sisterly love?

Damn it! Can I get some lightning and thunder 
under here? ”Filius canis!” Vulgar Vulgate Latin
for my blood-blistered thumb.

No way to unsee God’s plumber-butt.
Winking, hands me a monkey-wrench –
“My favorite.”

Rummaging in the tool box –
“What this?” I ask. 
“The stud finder they used 

on Jesus’s wrists.”
OMG!! Drop it like a hot
fallen angel.

Am I heaven’s husband now,
with a celestial Honey-Do list?
And how is that different 

Than any other
Sunday afternoon
with my wife?

For Shay’s Word Garden