Poetry Window Poem of the Week

Introduction to our poetry window, featuring for the next year the selected poems of Johnny H., an East Village poet currently waiting for a publisher. We like his work and are sure that many of you will as well. The poetry window is a real window, at the front of our store. The poems are in a well lighted place and can be read at any time. Not a bad destination if you can’t sleep at night. You can send comments to poetjohnnyh@yahoo.com   Poem of the week:   

   In the Scheme of Things

What is a cocklebur waiting
For a bear that never comes
What does it do the day
But wave in the wind
At the end of a stem
What nature is this
To have gifted a purpose
Crafted a means
Assigned proper tasks
To chloroplasts and sun
Was it better that one day I,
Yes a mammal with no hair
To speak of
But new jeans and argyle
On a clumsy path
Through loblolly pines
Become a raison d’etre

 The following poems are Poems of the Week from our archives of Johnny H poems: 

     Getting Bored With Yourself

The earth is running out of presents
That can’t be true
Just one more
Surely vast seas
Can grant
Just one more
Supersize
Maybe just one more
Little airplane
Taking me to a last bird
Just one more
Sighting is all I ask
They are so colorful
A dash of red on the wing
Stop the grumbling
That’s all I ask
It’s annoying
Just one more present
I will be on my happy way

 

        Frailty

Woman I feel your eyes upon me
Waiting
Not necessarily for me to stray
But for a stray word
Betraying a longing
For that which I cannot share.

 

   Old Time Religion (Western Version)

Holy Spirit
Not so terrible for a non-believer
To invite into his heart
If only to show around
Holy Spirit has never made war
By itself or with itself
Nor have angels good or bad
Taken a hand where it was not written
Flown up or down
Where it was not imagined
If you have to choose a train
To chug along a rambling line
It might as well be one
Where you can get off
Whenever you want
Choose your own story
Choose your own end.

 

      There Are a Million Stories

The endings are not all happy
Like the transactional one
Where the robin pulls the worm
Converts it to energy
Flaps off into the warm
Brooding breeding
Then, when the wash is over
The bird, the worm,
All that gave of themselves
Make amends.
No, not all are like that.

There are cases like Sally Straw
Who married into money
Beget three without a thought
Of what an amend might be
For what or to whom
I paid for my Gucci bag she said
And so should you
Then died unceremoniously.

 

             Certain Farmers

Where have such men gone
Who trailed their oxen with a stick
Who woke candle alone
For all of how many years
Begetting no one,
Only the thought not the act
Of procreation,
In the market stalls
Looking askance, away
From fine linen dresses
Lest the golden legs are bare–
Their own, of bristled hair
And dark ploughing maps,
Masked by burlap trousers
Sewn together from pieces
With tremulous fingers
Over fading nighttime embers.

They give no errant thought to the land
That is not already the whole of
their conception
They have lived not a life
But that which is a disassociated guise
Yet there is a life
The brain still demands;
All thought chafes under carpet
Of undirected rage
Of disappeared longing
Of silent words.
Once, old years ago, they fed the world.

             

               The Angel of Your Nature

I should caution you before I grow and come out
Or better yet, before you join together to make me
That though you may rightfully augur my potential
As a bloom in your otherwise unadorned woods
There are as your native voice has already said
So many too many more than enough
Flowers and trees in the name of humanity.

Take it from me being, seeing from where I am
It is absolutely okay to choose the other route,
And as you walk in those woods
With the breezes and tiny disruptions
Springing from unknowable places
You have my permission to brighten the world
With the love you already have.

 

         My Beauty Fair

You see in a mirror what I see.
I see no flaws
Except in the way
You scrutinize
Which like makeup
Obscures my humble view.

 

      Brownie Instamatic

At the stern
The side of the frame
Picked up the oar drip and wake
Not the frog on a lily pad
She’d wanted me to conjure
So we switched
I was happy looking at her back
Feeling the pull away of the
Stream below the surface
I became occupied with
The hum of skimmer wings,
Pond circles from distant incursions
The inflight mating dance of the darners
Switch again, she said, I got it.

 

   Living With the Spectrum

I did not like you very much
In the way I like other people
But I would reach for you
The way I would them
As close as you would have,
With love, for
Whoever could say if
You were the same in and out
Or that you would be like this
All your coming years
Or that you were not already
Inside somewhere
Screaming please have me
This is me.

However we have sailed together,
I do not know you
As I know the errant tides.
Though I can watch you
Like the rising moon, if
Said orb were to reject
Its reflective glow
Consign us to Neptune’s dark
You could hold your truths away
Run your circles
Around my reaching hand
I would still hear you
In eternal revolt
Looking back at me.

 

  There Are Those Who Do Not Stay

Some move quickly through life
Sowing as they go
Planting expectations beneath our feet
They share our sunshine
Break bread at our table
Say 1000 words for us to hold
They give us the pictures we find
In unexpected places
When we reach out
They move on

           

                   The Translator

She has to pick apart what Elena really means
Probe the vicissitudes of Dante’s depths
Draw serendipitous renderings of meat–
Which to season, which to braise
Name the pink from where the juices flow.

She draws no conclusions of her own
That are not otherwise extrapolations
She cannot look heavenward
To find her inspiration
That path is always worn.

Unless the words arrive on waves
When the surf is standing up
Her never indulgent insights
Metamorph bit by bit
Like Virgil’s
Or wake in the morning
Just like Gregor
Walking along the ledge.

 

Dark Secrets, Original Sin, How to
      Skip Purgatory

When your dark corner
Taps your shoulder
Tugs your hem
Asking for a moment
Or so to share
Don’t concern yourself
With the wellness check
Information can’t escape
From a swirling black hole

Too important to ignore, though,
This dark side
Whether you like it or not
(Usually not)
You must humor such
On occasion
If only to shake it out
Fold it up
Put it back in the drawer.

Your catechism is a good thing
To forget, though,
Those wanton lessons
Of original sin,
Certainty, irreversibility,
Limbo babies.

A patch of darkness
A spot of tea
Your blouse
Should be put in the wash,
Gentle cycle.
A steeper transgression
Not to worry too much
The warmth of a friend
A passing shoulder
Will talk it away.
Even the worst of the worst
Fragile human take note
Dispensation awaits.

Dusting the corners
When it comes to that
Remind yourself
There are no wretches
We do not know
But a higher power, one
Not what you think, but
A simple log in the woods, yes
Unknowable as it is
This place is yours
Among the black birds of winter
The frost on the trees.

Make the forest your home
Whenever you like
Spend all of time
As much as you need
Under golden glow
Not from a heaven

An infinite away, but
A mere 93 million miles,
Eight minutes by air,
Dawn rising to shake hands,
Mingle with,
Its affable congregation
The ever branching maple leaves
Over your head.

 

 The Traffic Circle With a Happy Ending

It was a lone pigeon
Started out that morning
Trying to cross the rotary
Looking the one way
The only way
Its neck with a crick
Could look, unfortunately,
Not the way the traffic flowed.

God has taught it to dance
For a reason and has built
A curb on which to practice
Still, 9 AM rolls around
God’s messenger weary,
All hope worn.

Except there’s a car
Norwegian metal,
Devil paint primer
Gorilla glue welds
Driven by a sorceress
21 extended years old
Late for work
At the mortuary
Now in orbit around the rotary
Catching the bird’s eye
The one closest to the road.

Short story from purgatory
Bird hops in
All forces enjoin
Circe circles
The traffic circle
Bird hops out gleefully
Onto a moment of grace
Exactly 9:15
As the crow flies over.

 

               Postcard

80 years ago someone I don’t know very well
Except that she licked a green stamp
Was in Essaouira writing to someone named Hen
Who I do know was back in Chicago teaching
The final days of classes
After which she too would spring
Whatever that meant back then.

I have been to Essaouira
I have seen green stamps and olives
It was maybe 40 years ago
And now my son is there
These kids do not send postcards
For all I know he is surfing the beach and sand.

In the Medina in Essaouira is an outdoor cafe
They do not hassle you in the souks
An arab told my friend and I
You do not point your shoe while sitting
Dogs are dirty, flies not so much
Flies on the olives
80 years ago and 40 and today
There are still things to write.

 

 Fledgling

The some day has come
When the one day I said
I would then find the way
To do what I should.

I am glad you are with me
The way that I wished
That one single day
For this singular one.

Free will is so great
It makes me at ease
To know I can have
My wits here about
When I make this one
Great leap up, out,
Away from our tree.

 

    Sugar Maple In Autumn

The easy way out
Is through the leaves
Your feet are lighter
They ran the numbers
Orange picks you up
Though just a bit
There are thousands
Of orange every square
Of the round
Orange together are
Enough to get you by
However tired, gaining
Mechanical advantage
Over friction only, not gravity
You would never float
For this you need the red.

 

                      I Was

Who will walk where I have walked
Who will contemplate that tree
Will I have worn this path just right
That they will wonder
Just who this would have been
To have marked the clay
In such a way
To invite them on their stroll.

Speaking of that tree
Will a blackbird borrow the nest
Then pass it to its kin
Will thunder come
And winter snow
After I am gone
Will the news look
Favorably upon these hills
Will my children want for me?

 

          The Weight of the Commons

The bluebirds that did not
Migrate for the winter
Stacked in a pile
Of relative warmth
Do not when stomachs rumble
Take a vote to see
Whose turn it is to buy
And whose to fly,
Nor were they part
Of the industrial revolution,
Mining fossil fuel
Not an option
To ward off the night,
Just the feathered underside
Of the one above
And the slow heaving
Ever weighty carapaces
Of surrounding equality.

     

 

               Second Date

At the event horizon of the ember pit
The foil-wrapped corn glinted.
Our shadows cast by the Coleman
Walked up and down
The pink scaling birches,
An unanticipated pleasure,
Having chosen this soldierly wall for
Its roots in the bank of the creek.

She was at the water edge
Rinsing closet dust
From my silver camp utensils.
Both the creek voice and hers,
I realized in our back and forth,
Were unfamiliar yet settling.

It came upon me that the robins
Without notice or care
Had begun their evening rest.
A screech owl toyed with us
Sounding just once,
A single syllable at that,
This the end of dusk.

We were left with
The dissonance of the forest.
Though the lack of resolution
Felt troubling and welcome,
It was at the next moment
That she and I at the same time
Started discussing the tent
And whose feet should go where.

 

     Playing Bird House in the Rear Seat of a Ford

Before I knew about bird song
I would walk past
Street trees and woods
Until my ignorance
One night suffered
Your red-painted finger
Held to your lips.

I am now aware of the birds
How they call to one another
How they speak of the rain,
The approach of the night,
That there is an interval
Between calls
With a grand purpose
Whatever the purpose
I have learned how
To walk through the quiet.

 

          Bed and Breakfast

They told me the first rose of Sharon
Was set to open outside my window
During the fortnight of my stay
Your visitor they called it
The good kind
Because Sharon are variegated,
Beautiful
Enter beneath the moon
Stay but for a day
And on the next
Another will take its place
Like freshly cooked breakfast
At the jalousie glass
The dirty dishes swept away.

 

          The Death of the Flowers

The hotel wedding hall was a bold choice
The theme was one sure to endure
How could you not bathe in angelic bliss
Where the bathtubs have no rings
The motor cars were selected off the rack
For the sole purpose of contrasting
With goldentail jets
That carried guests through continents
Inching beneath their feet.
Decadence, an uncle blared, to glares
Reflecting off full length mirrors polished
Curving about the walls silken covered
For the dance of the bride and groom.

It was the flowers the children
Carried into the anteroom
Which gathered no heed.
After all, who has not seen
Violets nodding by the roadside
(On the bank where the wild thyme blows,
According to the most famous poet ever).
It would have been easy to miss
The rapt of the wild
Had one not watched
The arriving bus stoop
To discharge the reverent children
Had one not listened
To the whispers of how they had watched
The prop plane rumble to the airfield
In a glide over the mangroves.

As is the nature of glorious events
The day bowed out to the night,
The hall was watered by speeches and
such,
The most modern of sounds were piped
through the floor.
Light, unfortunately, was shed beyond the
fence
Disrupting the evening flowers and the
animal matings.
For this intrusion the wedding guests
received
Yet another of dispensations common
Since the large leaf first cupped our nature.
Motor cars arriving at the gate
Idled and thumped as the rain began.

 

Sorry I Tripped On My Way Down
From Olympus

With the boy it’s as if he never
Learned to make oatmeal
When I know he can and has
Here he’s not even late
For the bus leaving town
I am not only stirring the oats
For Odysseus trip
But asking if he wants
Apples and brown sugar
And do you need a water bottle
I have a silver one here
I happen to not need
Even though I leave tomorrow
For the desert and shrub.

Sure, he says, in the beauteous
manner
The Greeks take their myths
By the way do you have another
Of those ziplocs
I tell him
I got this covered
(The way he says it)
And you might need
Nuts and crackers
For the stop in Calypso.

I am thinking even grown kids
Have special genes from the gods
To get their parents to ladle
And parents have genes too
Switched on when removing
The training wheels
Off golden bikes, now
Imagining horrendous events
That happen on buses,
Like starvation and quakes.

Why am I making your food
I am old and you are young
It should be the other way around;
Though if I were headed for Troy
You would not think
Of a shiny water bottle,
But let me suffer glory.
How does this work
Do I wait till the nursing home
And for me to ask
Did you remember
To bring me my teeth
And for you to tell them
He wants oatmeal for lunch.

 

                Wonders

Why is it when my daughter was born
When she first came out along the rail
The only song I could think to sing
To her in my arms
Was the ABC song crazy
Because Broca* was dark
If I had known then what I know now
Of the fire that grows from embers,
Of the loosening of the tongue,
Of my dusted space now granted
In her neatly ordered place
I would have hummed to the violins.

*area of the brain that deals with language production and comprehension

     

     On the Ending of a Relationship

What is better than quick-falling snow
To bring all to a close
Perhaps instead kind songs
Of your cage-ed birds
Granting you forgiveness for the latch
For your crying out during the night
The holly branch tapping on the window
glass
Your knees drawn up under your cap
Your reservation, then resignation
Calling now don’t go back
In the inner heart there are no witnesses
But wind entering through the chimney
flue
Mourning the demise of the snapdragon
seeds
There shall never be another summer
Like those that passed
This chorus the choir sings with you.

 

      I Suppose You Think You Are Special, Lady Jane

My father with his egg nest hair
Would turn hungry
Middle way through night shift.
My mother would wrap a sandwich
Like my brothers on the floor
In brown sleeping bags
A cookie, an apple and pear
Wake me the infinite daughter
Tell me to heat water on the wood stove
Tell me to stop watching it sputter
Hopping on the sides of the pan
Tell me over and over take it off the flame
Like I was some parrot learning words.

The blue night was making its rounds
The ice nymphs had come and stayed.
My job was to dash angry water
On my mother’s car lock, then mine
She would shout watch the paint
Hurry up get in before it freezes.

She would look at me, not her driving,
The tires thumping along the road,
Why do you think your father calls you birdy
Why are you wearing your spring coat
You wonder why you’re shaking
Not the heater vent
Leave that alone.

She would not see the deer in the yards
At least one deer in every yard
Sometimes whole patches of deer
In a country of yards
Antlers nosing at the fairy bushes
Coaxing into snow play
The pixies and the pucks.
She would tell me stop my warbling
And my drumming
On my father’s black tin lunch box
With blue thermos inside rounded top
Wipe your window she would say
You are making nose marks
The sun will come up in blotches.

I could see into other cars, not she,
Kidnapped children with open mouths
Screaming words, not breaths
Beating their fists on the glass
Trapped in boiling vats
In red-tinged cartoons
I would flap hope
Put your arms down
She would say
What are you doing
You’re going to rattle your brain.

I am to this day
A nightingale
My perch is song packed
My claws play open my red thermos
Morning steams into the office
I sense envy around me
I was stolen, I tell them
As a matter of hubris and berries,
It’s a good thing I was.

 

              1564-1616

What are you thinking about
When you read
The year he was born
“To” the year he died
I know the first thing
I (am) self-centered think
Is at least I am alive
Not like him
Even though I am not
Famous enough to
Have someone reading
Those years and the dash
At least I am alive.
Sorry. Now I feel ashamed.

Then I remember it’s something
That happens to everyone
(Though not everyone yet).
So far in my life
Having reached the dash
With not even a story
In the book
Let alone a special moon
That did not fall on a
First night
When I was not there
The typesetter did not bow
His head in respect
When he did not
Read my name
Which he would not
Have remembered
Anyway.

 

                      Free Will

The sun shining through a maple leaf in Ontario
Exposes a map of cul-de-sacs and feeder streets
To men at the throttle of the fission machines
Who pen in reminders in the margins of doom.

That very sun lights up the ears of a hare
Nosing on a hillside seated just so
In a field of birch out in North Michigan
A west breeze flattens his fur,
Though only a fraction and bronzed in the mix.

Red rock crabs like golden embers
Cling to ancient spills of lava
Life and death in the Galapagos Islands
The currents run together
All at once and always.

Nudibranch marigolds warn away harm
Though the clownfish, wishing not to fight,
Live among anemones, resting on the reputation
Of the stinging nettles of their host.

We, maybe nature maybe not,
Love to spend hours
Thumbing through Geographic magazine
Pointing our apps at Polaris in Ursa
Thinking of peace,
Planning the future.

       

           Epigenetics

Out of bare hand
With gold wedding ring
The buffet attendant
Feeding a spotted guest
The mouse jaws collecting
The spaghetti strand
Trailing him back
To the soda machine
Hold-down bolt chair of his
Surrounded by drops
Slurping sipping
Flickering paws
Working the pasta
Of ancestors
Before he was begot.

His eyes keen on her,
Not self-consciousness
But adaptation
Not beholden to man
But to community
Of ancestral genes
Turned on by closeness
Spooning with cave dog
Waiting to see
Weathered kind hands
With harvested straw
Pasta to be.

 

    Why I Walk Through

The sun engraves
A hot obtuse angle
Circumventing curved walkways
Sneaking in
Lighting bachelor button
Bobbing heads
Stringy stems
Scattered leaves
Peeking out the pedestal cracks
Of the temperance statue
In Tompkins Square Park.
Pigeons eye
Crows slink
Empty spirits rise
Over carrion, over dust
The ragged caps of faded pastel
Wave you to
The next station
Accompanying musicians
Of a cross gender singer
Nodding in time to their words.

 

      The Hazards of Being

      Beneath the Flight Path

They extend those long legs
Push off into flight
Good for them, though
We are forever marked
With loneliness.

The wind calls out
The currents arrive.
They relax
Those straw limbs
Into the lice
The ground
Is laced with dander.

The beat of wings
Is felt in China
The weather changes.
Everywhere.

 

Winding Through the Renaissance

It was so simple then
One day at a time
No two point painting halls,
Naked sculpture or windexed glass
No labels to read
Just real pastel people,
Pale complexions of true love,
Walking on cobbles outside
An actual Globe Theater,
Hounds of the spartan kind
Wending amongst odors and trash.

At night, over Toledo
The hills brown and green
No need to question
The artist intent
His view and the brush strokes
Or memorize the year
As the year was the year
That everyone knew
Over the city of Toledo
At night
Back then.

Artemisia Gentileschi
Painting Judith
And her maidservant
Going for the throat
Did not know if or however
500 years later
You would stop and stare
Or run from the blood
She may have thought of you
She might have cared.

Leonardo, neither, did not pause
To rest his feet
Get a bite to eat
And check his phone
Painted guelder rose,
Drew Vitruvian man
Kept devising till he made
The most visited woman on earth.
Now so might you
Move on give other people
Their turn at the smile.

The Renaissance was not
Such a big deal
To the people back then,
More like each day
A breath mint
Medieval old pyres
Burning down
They would shrug and say
This is just the beginning
Of the modern world
Why are you whispering so
They would ask us today.

 

              Homefront

I am waiting for my son to return from
the war zone
I need to show him what I found in the
trash room
What I discovered they have been doing
for some time
Probably since he was a boy, before he
was sad.

Behind all those barrels someone has
been making honey
The combs have filled and emptied
through many cycles
The city is peaceful, guarded by tiny
two-tone males,
Looping off on my approach, business
when I leave
Ensuring I do not alter their work-ed
equilibrium.

The sound of the room is such that the
anonymous hum is the room
The floor is glazed over, trapping
microplastics
There is no flag upon the central
quarters of the queen
I have never felt unsafe.

 

    The Deer With Huge Eyes

We are both from that
Same seven year brood
But you made it to moose camp
Playing dodgeball with our birth mates
Is where you gained the alacrity
To salsa to the side
From flung acridity
And learned the words back
Which is why you lie
On one side of the bed
On your elbow
Expounding with the locution of Cicero
While I prefer the way the moon
Crosses the window
And walks across the lake.

 

           Storm

Outside the window frame
Is black as the stove
For minutes at a time
Then the flashing disruptive
Lightning and St. Elmo
Crackles bluing confidence
Skirting a lonely gap
Here our burgundy chimney, there
The neighbor’s silver antenna, then
The laundry poles
Suck spark into the ground
Natural phenomena
Father points out
At the moment the cow’s eyes
Flash green and green again
Permanently, indelibly
Onto our devil-washed walls;
The red eyes of rats, though,
Skirt sideways
Exit the frame with a flicker.

   

         My Beauty Fair

You see in a mirror what I see.
I see no flaws
Except in the way
You scrutinize
Which like makeup
Obscures my humble view.

 

        We Bring Gifts

How was it the early explorers
To this current land were so brave
As to trowl among mermaids
And walk dark forests
Run by dragons and melon heads
Peacefulness was strange
Armor plated vests were permeable,
Given slings and arrows of uncertainty
The present men had written no maps
Of past infractions or atonements
Our brave anglos faced the strangeness
Of cities whose names
Lacked civilized alphabets.
Boreas and Zephyrus blew,
In from the north and west,
Conjuring monstrous forces
To defend the gold
Move on said these new men
Let us show bravery to the savage realm.

 

       No Rebels Allowed

A poodle strained at leash
In search of her, she
Who the runway
Had abandoned
Left at the roadside
In a black Miyakian gown
Waiting for a primered BMW
To autobrake and glide
Onto white pebbles.
Known for haunting looks
Over her shoulder
And the stories of her
As a child playing with dust,
As an adolescent
Rescuing pink lobsters
From steel pots,
Melly, aka Christina K,
Was last witnessed
In a thrift store purchasing
A knurled empty bottle
Chanel Number 5.

       

     The Island of Broken Birds

On the fourteenth day at noon
Angels from the angel world
Fly in each to each
On the planet swing
Bearing buckets and the mending
Working in the heat
Haversacks of salves and brushes
Cotton-tips and tea
Scrubbing out cloacas
Rehabbing shivered songs.

At precisely one on the clock
Bearing tubes of written notes
Messengers land foot by foot
On brooms of seagrass straw.
Novitiates taking up the rear,
A blessing here, a prayerful there,
Clearing out the curbing cracks–
Tooled peanut shells,
Dull coats of tangerines.

Extant bewitched community
Far away from Ithaca,
Fishes of the sea your friends
Don’t you remember this
And how it was,
Resurrected in the lore
Atlantis has not gone away
Strong birds still need to roost.
From time to time
A lone albatross shall pass
Though high up near the moon.

Memory nests
Of filament thread
Crooked in dogwood trees,
Ancient language
On the breath
Waiting for dictums post.
Day birds into bedpan night
Night birds into day.

The word upon a time
Travelled out and out by wing
Now it sends by divination
Thespians at play.

 

         Quantum at a Distance

They made a one decimal point error
In the theory of relativity
They just figured it out
My cyclotron bicycle
Slammed me against the wall
Not even immediately
But yesterday.
The drapery hardware
Rattled the curtains.
I picked up the phone
To tell you we just cannot
Keep seeing each other.

 

      My Soul From Out This Shadow

I never once thought or dreamed
That a starling would one day
Bump my window pane
To make friends
With my Nevermore statue
Sure did wake me up
To the wonders of nature.

I did of course what you’d have done
Raised the shade and let him in
Told the bird I’d been pondering this
How all of life was one big fix
It side-eyed me then powered up.
Of all the busts on which to light
The ruddy streaked bird chose
High above, where the currents run fast,
None other than Casandra,
Took up perch on her bloodied axe.

Guess what I said to my guest.
This:
You have a name
You, like me, we all have one,
I am waiting here
For you to speak
Nevermore, I wanted to say,
To point at my own fake raven,
To prompt, though I knew one thing,
That starlings are everything
But not cliche.

And This:
I suppose it is of a lost love
You are waiting to hear,
My starling interloper,
How she came back
Just to leave again.
Why I sit here with my tea pot full
Scones untouched
Stomach silent, throat unslaked.
None of this, I will have you know
You may as well return thee
To thou Plutonian Shore.

 

       The Inheritors

They eat death and life
Even their own
Even the bones
When hungry enough.
You have to give them a hand
The beautiful creatures
Tiny rose toes
Flashing litter and swill
Even as they trip you
On your way to the gaol
Your mortal big mouth
Posing at night.

Though some may rule
With capital fist
God bless the hierarchy
His present to earth.
The masses have tongues
Flicking and pink
Hiding never hiding
Waiting to lap up the cast-offs
Of the hearts and the spades.

Bottom to bottom
Bone upon bone
Ripped open trash bags
Flesh of the pig
Earth into earth
Resurrection of clay
Some day one day
Mounded skeletons
And dust
Leftover shadows
Of barons and chairs.

 

         I Will Have Been There

Maybe we will sit around one day
Laugh about broken poems
What is it called
You know the word
When you long not for the past
But for the future
Not daydreaming.

Maybe this is all there is
One undeveloped thought
Reminding you of another,
The subliminal part of living.

 

                   Birding

The convenient thing about a bird
Is they will never correct the record
For example if you report
Bird number 534 is off his food
Due to a missing mate
He is more likely
Rather than divulge
Your lack of insight
To sweep the walk
Then turn himself to song.

 

     A Proper Education

I learned to walk they tell me
Watching the snorkel birds
Slice beneath the wake.
I said my first conjunct words
With a musical laugh
Chasing a burrowing vole.
I developed second sight
Next to Saturn and Jupiter
Aligned with the waning moon.
With one grand bow
Love came to me
Splashing in the bath.
If I call to suddenly change our plans
Please accept I have passed a tree
Whose feet have been so bound
That I had to turn around
Sit with it
Listen to its leaves.

 

  Enter Through the Gift Shop

She lived in a museum.
Her house was a museum they said,
Ochre coated door knob
Opened the hall of the sun.
The diorama in shadows,
The one moment
The singular event of her coming of age,
The day of the night
When childhood disappeared,
She sitting before a platter of eggs
With him
In the rear of the diorama
Lit by a single candle.
Rest to know
The eggs were curated, shellacked.

 

                Mimesis

Six men converged from all directions
According to the news
To lift a Honda CRX
From the limpness of a boy
Or so they said at first
Finding not a boy
But a crow whose limb was broken
Who had learned from watching news
Just what to say and how
Jack in the trunk
Jack in the trunk

   

          Workers of the World

Classless society
Bird rule
Corvid committees
Grain sorters
Equal amounts
Even dispersal
Ledger marks
Lids snugged
Tiny clips.

Before time
Visionaries visited
Staked out
Nameless kingdoms
No borders
Measured wind
Rose water
Soil of rose
Birds today
Communist yellow
Communist red
No fealty
To opiate gods.

Shreds of nest
According to need
Eggs the joy of the masses
No questions
No one to ask
All gather all build
Festival of harvest
Not one day one day
But eternity
Under corvid guidance
Syndicalism celebrated
Not practiced.

 

      A Mere Being

It is your eyes opening
To watch the clock
Your arm probes
The empty bed
Your memory
Of she who was there
You who are searching
For the sheet,
For your dreams
Casting all away
With sleight of hand.

The dog licking your face is also you
As are your commands
For which he waits
And the bowl you will fill at seven
That he will empty by seven-o-five
You are your old sock with the tennis ball
Your alarm clock that did not go off.

Who are you if not she
You left so many years ago
Who is awake time zones away
With your picture
Creating lesson plans
For her class
With chance lines
That came from an afternoon with you
Could this too be your dream
She is living with familiarity
That she does not otherwise recognize?

Who are you if not your children
Also stirring in their sleep
Warm because
They work hard
Your direction their fortune
You in who they are
We will not mention
As it has no need for mention
The connection between
Nurturer and child
Is an oft unspoken one.

You are your neighbor
Who gave a wave
Yesterday and with whom
You stopped to talk
And ask after her hospital
How the treatment has gone
Who you did not see
Glance over her shoulder
As you were walking away
To your own house.

You were for one moment
The other day
The kind person who veered
Off the sidewalk into the street
So as not to disturb the starlings
Tearing at the scented bread.
Though you were only photons
In a side eye
Instantly forgotten
You were goodness of their world.

You are the friend you will be making today
The new person at work who comes to you
You were the nth-billion person
To be born ever
As you will be the nth to leave
The earth will be you.

 

         Genesis

Mystery is an unwoven life
Waiting to be sewn
Back to front
Side-stitched
Onto grand cloth
Rolling off the creator’s bolt
You plead fealty
To whomever.
You place your palm
Up on the table to be read
Down for the ruler to slap
You wait for love
Music waits for a storm,
Art for an accident,
This poem arises from ashes.

 

       Atrial Septum

Through the wall
As she often does
My unknown neighbor sings,
Tonight of a love
I’ve tried to forget.
She carries her song
Room to room
Next to next
Fading in and out
Doors do not close
Except from behind
My ear presses
Against drywall
Two by fours and studs.

You are on your own,
The love had said,
The last time we had met.
She pointed to a distant light
One I did not know
You should stay in the quiet night, she said,
Write a poem about this beach.

My wish is simple enough,
For every man ever
To be blessed by sounds of joy,
To celebrate morning
For the return of sun
Night for the calm it brings
To animals walking about.
If this wish cannot be met
Then I yearn only for the thistle
Inside my heart
To be fortuned by
A dab of honeycomb
That I am visited now and then
By curious pollinators.

 

       Other World

They discovered a body beyond Pluto
This is true I read it in the news
It has been out there all this time
Will they bring it back
What should we expect
The body will not be like ours
It has not seen this wicked war
Temperatures have changed
Man is less caring of man
Women of simple treasure
Will they bring it back
To this era of baubles
Rinse it clean of purity
Prop it against our sullen walls

 

         The Purple Wheelbarrow

The child had well practiced manners.
She carried her dishes to the sink.
The yellow countertop hummed.
The backsplash was tiled in African violets.
Though each flower presented 1/3 size,
The aggregate was forest-like in breadth.

The book came in a shopping bag.
The foster mother unwound pink wrapping.
The child returned,
Politely pulling her chair into its place
At the shiny blue oilcloth covered table,
Upon which the book was a sugary topping.
The farmer on the dust jacket
Was the same color as the child,
And the foster mother as well,
And as things so happen
There was a wheelbarrow a deep shade of
purple,
By chance matching the backsplash violets.
Trees in the foreground came to life as
trees do,
Casting the morning into shade.
The humming took on melody.

Where did you get this, the child asked.
The tree canopy began to blow,
Leaves peeling away,
Across the dust jacket onto the oilcloth,
Waltzing beyond and below,
Onto the floor of black and white linoleum
squares.
Some leaves were yellow, some orange.
A stray bee ponged off a white hive,
Caught in whirls of room air,
Ironically settling onto a plastic honey jar.
The jar had a bee label,
A wide lid for the honeycomb inside–
Drizzle for muffins and toast,
Which the child had earlier folded up and
eaten.

The novelty wall clock,
Antiqued over generational changes,
Was scuttlebutt of its own.
This reliable time-keeper,
A period piece with facial tones–
Puckered mouth, bakelite eyes,
A nose once thought cute
(Though over the decades humor had
devolved into cliché).
The tail wagged on the quarter hour.
The family had never moved the clock
Except for that time every rare moon
When painting the wall with rouge tinted
lacquer.
The tail at this moment came to life
Casting a shadow over a shadow.
Look at that clock, the woman told the girl.
Look hard.
Over and across the beaded eyes
A slurry was seeping, rancid oil,
One could say the color of the leaves.
The tearing function of the clock
Had never worked in all the many years.
The foster mother tended the dishes.
The bee and child faced off.
The purple wheelbarrow lurched and began
to move,
Creaky at first, then, feeling its mettle,
Proceeded over the ridge, past the barn
Along a path heading out into the sun
It stopped at the hedge, next to the farmer,
Who bedded the deep tray with orange
leaves,
Into which he loaded yellow squash,
Then rested back on his shovel.
The song in the room was modern,
Coming off the radio, also rouge colored.
The child brushed away leaves and opened
the book.

You Are Beautiful

Upon hearing this country band waltz
I know that I too can love and lose
That you too can be loved and lost
We must first take the other’s hand
Pump up our hearts
Find us a moon
Walk to the beach
Squish the soles of our feet
Take a stroll in the sand
Imagine each our own creature
Asleep in the wake
Awaiting each their own creature
To swim by with a glow.
The only difference here being
That this is a fickle river
Not a welcoming sea
Not the yard of a boutique place
But behind a Travel Truck Stop
On the night of an absent moon
You did not call me prince
At midnight on the first of May
But hun at 4 AM
On whatever day this might be.

              Sunset

This is not ten years of change
I remember right over there
How the blue stringy tide
Would walk out,
Unveil the blunt rock
The hippopotamus
Why does the tide stay in so
I don’t understand this at all.

That used to be a porch
I remember it was yellow
Rough hewn board I know
Though even in this dusk
I should still see yellow
Why is the frame but a shadow
With no chair left to sit?

The spray would come down
An offering from above
Why is the air so dry and still
It was summer then
And summer now
Just ten years past
How will you turn the sea around
Stir the sky’s complacency?

Your hands do not grasp so much
The way they did back then
Ten years time is not enough
To parch your skin
And loosen your hair
What has this place come to
What has taken away the walking birds
That used to catch the waves?

 

   The Metaverse

A home for old people
Who at last unshackled
Free to roam
And prevaricate
Chose to gather at the fish tank
On the lower floor.

Simon is a betta fish
With a chill persona
The guppy twins
Are a perfect community species
The neon tetra
Spent her life in schools
The suckermouth catfish
Lost her teeth
Wrapped in a sheet
On laundry day.

 

     Friday At the Moon

Dancing girls come dance
Dancing girls come dance
Friday at the moon
Night of night
Of all the nights
Leave the heels at home
Roll ‘em down roll ‘em down
Show your pretty knees.

The war is over
The war is over
Men are coming back
Forget the news
It isn’t true
Friday at the moon.

Paint your lips
Dot your eyes
Bring along a friend
Let one bus pass

The next one goes
They marked it with a sign
A dancing girl
With rouge-ed cheeks
You know it’s just for you.

All are welcome
All are welcome
The end.

 

           Starling

I bet you’re hungry right now
Thinking of double clutch fries
Strawberries with cream
In fact I see hunger
In your double black eyes
Two feet clutching
The high tension line
Mmmm this is so so good
But Silly Fellow,
It’s flambe
Nothing you would want
Since your surrender,
Your return to primitive
Paleolithic
No salt at all costs
Vegan Gluten free bird diet.
The crust is fabulous, darling,
You just don’t know!

 

     Creation of the Commons After the War

I am permitted entrance but once a year
On which day I am politely greeted
I have learned the path through the part
The grass opens for me though sparingly
I know the trees I must not brush
Over which creeks I must step
And the brooks through which I may wade
My trousers are in a tall cuff
My arms are at my side.

My penance is a brown suede satchel
A year of hope and prayer
Drawn, though I am no artist,
According to dictate
I have been asked to bring
Depictions of children at play
Extrapolations of innocence
The details of games
Further thoughts on reconciliation.

The woods have been washed of color
For I am not a reporter
Nor a witness
This subliminal ground views the other
Of course with greatest suspicion
But also with pragmatism
Not of priest and sinner
But of folly’s creation.

I make my way through high thorns
Respectfully recusing my pain
I become unsure of time’s pass
As the sun is washed as well
I find the stump with scar-red top
Where I have sat year on year
One time sick, the others not
The tree remains in grief
With which I will stay the night
Returning just before the new sun
Brightens this.

 

    The Third Water Tunnel 

Orange shirt buffalo men
Climbing down our street
One whose name
I could not catch
The sandwich hand
Two fingers on a rung
Suspended back like that
Telling someone named Buck
To send down the cable
Either along with the winch
Or using the winch
Jack-in-the-box head
Into the box.

Indian land
Manahatta in the woods
Wild creek running
Woman fallen
From the sky
Council of turtles
If she is to live
And in a tree
Such tree must be planted
First and foremost
Along the planned route
Of the third water tunnel.
Negotiations simmer
As the “rope that talks”
Descends past
Farms and estates.

   

     Walk With Him

Eternity is made
From words at bay
The hymn that carried
My father to his rest
I did not catch the name
I have only what
The graveyard cat
That caught the mice
Was called
Alyosha
Who my father
Walked with
Through the gates
While the embodiment
Rubbed against my leg.

 

      Crow About

Rogue crow
Palled up
To see
What made me
Made me tic
Made me exclaim
Made me kick cans
I said,
I should teach you a thing or two.
However smart you are
You know not what you miss
The way you are
You will never enter
The gates of heaven
Tough to fix, as
You have no hand to take
So we will have to arrange
Things differently
Just for you.
Before prying out termites
Say three hail mary’s
One nevermore
Take this mickey finn
An hour before bedtime
Learn to dream in color
Reduce the minutes wasted
Flying from point A to B
With a more direct route
And most of all
Stop staring.

    

         At the Vanity

The flickering light
Calls out
I had promised days ago
To put a new one in
Thank you for mercifully
Granting a pass
Though probably far from your thoughts
Pencilling your eyebrows
With the new color you showed me
The same one Janice uses
I still do not know the answer
Does it make you look younger
Nor do I know how it could
Or how I would tell.

I am in your mirror.
I do not wonder who you see,
I know.
Not the one
Who bids you confidence.
You are watching yourself,
In others’ eyes
Those judgmental unforgiving
More often nameless than not
More often women than not
Competitors for plump
Lips and chins
Blushed lupus cheeks
Smooth needled foreheads
You know all the supercili,
Yet you join the fray.

It does no good
For me to praise
You hardly listen
Do not hear
Or if you happen to hear
The words are on
The next train out
A new one sidles to the curb
I could spend a day of days
It would matter none.
Today at the hardware store
I will pick up
One pack of 60 watts,
One of flower seeds.

 

     Love Between the Leaves

The book, from 1825,
The title not important,
A missive of heart
Laid into page 220/221
Sat on a library shelf
In settled New England
In the state of impartiality
Never checked out
Never read
Never rebound
No book reports
Decades of hinterland strife
Babies and old people
Everywhere
Cycling through
Posthumousness and prenatality
Never giving a thought
To the book, to the library
To the middle of nowhere.
New writers overwrote
What was witnessed within
Casting said titleless work
Into inquietude.

The letter, however, ripened.
Nehemiah and Mercy
Begat Eleanor and Oliver.
Eleanor and Homer
Begat Emma and Joseph
And three others
That died at various intervals
After childbirth.
Emma married
Into genetic non-diversity.
The Brother’s War
Claimed most of what
Remained
Of twice-over miscegenation.

All is not to say
The love in the letter
Was not real.
Because the love did carry on.
Just outside the writing window
A tree grew,
In the hollow of which
A pair of flickers nested.
On the morning
Of wagoning the estate
To the newly christened library
Fog that had settled
Over the path
Shifted up the mountain
Drafted evenly
Through the forested cover
Dissipating at last
In whirling wisps
Into a large field of peat,
Harvested years later
When the land was settled,
Repurposed for balneotherapy
And growing blueberries.

 

          Bath Time

Now that hell froze over
Your mother will come looking for you
Tell her you are waiting
For the stars to fall
When the stars do fall
Tell her you are in the middle
Of your favorite cartoon
That under no circumstance
Will you leave the room
As long as road-runner lives.

Flash-forward sixty years, boy
Tell the IRS you thought they knew
That everyone everywhere waits for you
Tell them checks bounce
You can write another
Not to worry
Hold your horses
Just thirty days more
Give a guy a break
You know that I
Would do
The same for you.

 

       Predisposed to Spells

I do not know much about spells
Except the one inside every sparrow
Gripping a branch beneath
With loaded springy feet,
When though an minute alight
Through eyes and ears(!)
Intuits my slowing approach
Tincture white and tincture black
Magic makes its flight.

Let us try an experiment then
Today I shall intrude
From another way
Following the creek, say
Not the sidewalk,
With you at my side, say
Nearing the lilac hedges
Growing low and sparse,
Sparrow should intuit
From hearing the talk of lovers
(Words not of sighting birds)
That a spell is here and now
Already in the works
And think not to fly away.

Love can be
Contrary to belief
Meat and drink
Potion and plum
Lover can be gone
The body here
Or
Love can not be
Meat and drink
(Nor potion nor plum)
Lover can be here
Though body gone.
Then again
Either can be true.
This I know because
For fifty-nine seconds
This morning
I thought
Only of me,
With that sparrow,
In flight.

 

     You Have Come Around

Back when my father was a god
I came to him
With a jagged thorn.
He slid me down
The plaster wall
And with heavy palm
Subdued my anxious hand.
“For the next one minute,”
My father said,
“I am not your father”
But your doctor
You with your finger lame
Look out the window
Not at me
Think of blackbirds
Flying away.

Sulfur smell of a farmer match
The devil my father did softly say
Waving the needle
Through nether flame.
Yes I looked
How could you not
Gaze at the thorn’s retreat from hell
Wonder at the wisp of blood
That followed it out.

That was then and this is now
You seek me here my son,
Grandson of my father
Your bloodied arm aloft,
Running the same blood
As mine was then,
And his, his,
Though
This not the gift of a barberry bush,
Though
One for which your father
Will set your chair against the wall
Say to you to watch,
For blackbirds,
And soldier past the styptic sting.

Life moving along as it does
My son,
Wearing its stops and starts
For this eternity now
Let us both sit still,
Me with my scars
Yours to come.
Happily I watch you safe at home
Resting with your lesson learned,
Listening to the blackbirds
Calling your blessings
As we watch the sun go out.
The warmth you feel,
The wrap’s embrace,
Hold all close across your chest,
Like once I swaddled you.

       

          You Are Blessed

If you are wanting for birds
First find the birds inside you
Remove them one by one
Name them for their colors,
Their bird sounds.
A passerine may look at you askance
Where did you come from
Where did you winter?
Not to worry this
You, like the birds,
Have always had your song
You are of earthen colors
Your change
Is the continual movement
Of the planet’s crust
You are from
Where they are from.

 

        I Put That Stove There

I plopped that plastic children stove
On a bare spot in the woods
To wait and see
If a hidden creature
Would make some use.
I did not expect a casserole
Nor a cup of tea
Just that some furry one
Might curl up for warmth
Behind the drop-down oven door.
I did not plan for the branch to fall
Or snow to fade the paint,
Mushrooms to nudge the feet,
The green to climb,
The wind to pontificate.
I only aimed to reciprocate
For the useful bare spot
On my children’s toy room floor.

 

      Where There’s Life

When at first the mouse grew cancerous
The pups would come around sniffing.
The tumor began curiously as a depression,
The hardened surface without hair,
Doing little, though, to deter the fellow
From foraging speckled kitchen counters,
Albeit discomfited.

Through many sundowns
It was business as usual
Though occasionally the wrong step
Brought a shooting pain.
The adults would angle away
Especially as the tumor grew,
A wobbling side-saddle knot.

One night the defect brought on
The greatest distress
Becoming jammed
Under the refrigerator
In the motor casing.
The mouse knew by instinct
The downside of vocalizing,
Also that morning was near,
When the children head out,
Seeding the floor beneath the table
With Life cereal,
And the irony of it all.

 

       As Long as the Sun Will Shine

When you were clay
The orange sun
Announced its presence
Through stretched tegument
Said I will be your guide,
Will bump you up
Fast like the mint plants
I have this in mind
For you to follow me
Across the sky

Sun:
Patient while your father
Exercises his potter wheel
He is a good man
To guide your youth–
He and a series of base pairs
In two linked strands
Will form your respect for others
And especially for animalkind,
Having its own ride
In the carnival.
He will teach you
That water is a gift
And to choke up on a bat.

You will be my emissary.
At eighteen
I will watch you fall
From your motored bike,
I will cast the shadow
On your ambulance
I will brighten the lobby
Of the morgue
I will push through the clouds
Over the memory grounds
You are to stay with me
Together we will
Bring our light to all.
     

        Yogurt

Go forth
Yog-hourt
Mighty one.
Suleiman the Magnificent
Dispatched you
To save the bowels of the King
Go forth into the night
Your maker’s bengal fire eye
Watches over my dark kitchen.
     

          Mascara

The best thing about
The flat seeds wafting
In August
In waves
From the tree
To the ground
Is the birds think
You threw them there.
You get credit
And they like you.

The alternative,
An east wind day
Spreading the seeds
Far and wide
Someone else
Gets the credit
You have to start
All over again
With just your good looks.
              

         Not For Us

Before you send me emojis
Please consider
My thoughts of you are infinite,
My love happy and sad
All sorts of happiness
And more kinds of sadness
Filigreed in between.
When we part
I live and die,
Smiley face and scream.

 

        Picking

In the picking meadow
I listen to my math daughter
Point out apples
To her engineer boyfriend
The red/green are snappy
The totally green ones sour
Need more brown sugar
The small apples prep-time
With a standard cost equation
Are more than made up for
By three dimensional sphere packing
(Into the picking meadow twenty dollar
All you can pick picking sack).
The slightly bruised ones are ready
The flavor is right there
Get some.

I watch the two move on to the Autumn Crisps
Unnoticing of the hovering, collecting, gathering
Warning yellow-jacketed wasps,
In my ignored observation
The team name and mascot
Of the boyfriend’s institute of learning.

The sack as everyone knows
Must be filled to a rounded top–
For this meniscus they choose Jonathans
I learn about the perimeter,
About medium-size guard apples
Not limiting the height of crown,
Nor restricting three dimensional space.

At the end,
On the way to the car,
My daughter hugs the bounty to her chest,
Upbraiding me for knowingly plottingly
Wearing the same red flannel shirt as she.
     

           Go Back to Nature

The brown puffed tardigrade
Living within the tangled feet
Of the green-needle bonsai
Along the silver shore of mirror lake
At the jutting-in point
Of finger creek
Looks at wandering you
Over her impervious shoulder
Or at least discerns through it
Your annoying umbrage
Interrupting the previously steady
Jewel waves of sun.
     

       The Passing of the Elm In Tompkins Square Park

I remember a time of the elms
Silvered stitched and golden green,
A variegated quilt over the park,
Reflections of blue tarpaulins,
Whispers of Revolutionary Catalonia,
A hum of wind through leaves,
The echoes of American rock, punk rock.
Also woodland rhapsodies
Song of the mujeres libres.

There had to have been children
Dancing with bottles
Because I remember the hydrants,
Spraying windmills
I do not remember children,
None younger than Vickie and I.

An IRA soup kitchen,
French onion the soup of the day
The alternative,
From over on Avenue C,
Unfortunate soup,
Not vegetarian.

Tonight, in the dark
There will be children,
Scootering the walkways.
You will be able to hear,
Listen closely,
Tents flapping,
Daughters of syndicalists,
Bowls passed around.
There will be quiet, too.
Vickie died at 52
Breast Cancer.
Blue is the color of the elm
Glucose, Oxygen, ATP.
       

         Urtica

I touched a stinging nettle
Just the other day
Trying to make a cup of tea
Don’t worry it went away.
Reminded me of better times
When I crashed my red car
Into the public Sherman tank
In the town square
Surrounded by the law
That at least
Was an itch to scratch.       

         REM Sleep

Did you dream a robin cramping
In a tree
You must have
Something startled you
To leave my arms
And seek the wall,
That lost bedside.

You are but a form
An early morning shadow
Sight and sound
A vivid dream of mine
An arm span forth.

Are you asleep
Do you not hear my wanting,
See my shadow,
Are you not reaching for me?

If that lost wall is a lost forest
And the birds are strange to you
Hear my calling above the roar
Look for the conveyance I have sent
Traverse the distance.
   

         Walking Stick

The story of that stick
Lying in the dirt
It was a branch
Praying shade leaves
Over Saint Francis school yard
Raucous recess,
Meditations of the King.
Powerhouse leaves
Blessed by the church
Need turning about
How else to find the sun
For growth and fruit
Pollen and bees.
Dutiful branch
Breeze catching
Gracefully aging
Ten years, thirty
Moving on through
The patient cycle
Faithful branch
To faithful stick.
Pick it up.
Walk tall.
     

      Welcome

Womb baby
A month to go
How goes your REM sleep
Have you heard the wind
Of Zephyr’s sword,
The spring flowering
Of the Hyacinth
Is it this vivid dream time
Also
When you learn jealousy
When anger
Disrupts your broodings,
Welcoming you to humanity
Oh humanity

Illuminated globe of a child
Though you are shielded
By the bundling arms

Of your Pleiadian sisters
Dreamsleep is fire
Stolen from the gods
The opposite that it is
You must both endure
And celebrate.

Sixty years hence
Maybe ten
Womb baby
You will launch
Into other sleep.
Surrounding stars
Will comfort you then
Speaking this memory.
   

       Re the Dedication at #204

Seventh Street between B and C
Is just a regular street
Ginsberg and Kerouac
Took for granted
The yellow flower pots
On pastel window ledges
And wrote instead of illumination
Hallucinogens
Free jazz
Free food
Free sex.
It’s okay
That’s cool.
         

            The Internet

Why do you think we look bored?
This display boat is boring.
Where are the cobwebs,
The broken bloody nets?
Even the fish smell is piped in
Fried tenders
Trawling and docking music
We do not need the explainer
Feeding us numbers
That the real, smelly, boat
Clocked between overhauls
To erase the oily barnacles.
Come alive, man,
Introduce us to your grubby mates.
     

        On Other People’s Dyings

I had a sudden urge
To look up
My prose writing
Workshop teacher
E. L. Doctorow.
I wanted him to see
I’m writing poetry now,
To hear him calmly say
Writers are witnesses
But the catch is
Mr. Doctorow died a few years ago.

The way such an urge presents
And the way it leaves…
I mean people die in everyone’s life
Some so close and loved
That presenting and leaving
Is an unyielding wave
God bless you…
This was not that.
It was only a strange feeling.
I planned to tell Mr. Doctorow
About my search for metaphor.
Yet I was greeted by a dancing girl.

I would have shown him
Not told
Using this,
What you,
The witness’s witness,
Are reading,
Barely a poem,
Though one nonetheless,
With line breaks
A little rhythm
Plump metaphors.

Maybe the whole uncanny thing
About people dying,
Not being there anymore,
Scotch and soda aside,
Was some evolutionary process
Where we just move on,
By Design,
Our axons straight,
Our dendrites unruffled,
Run a comb through our hair
Be on our way.

The poet asks,
With little flair,
Leaning forth his cane,
I must implore
How do we keep our hands
Out of the boiling pot
Of supernatural soup
Should we just stand there
Aside, watching,
Witness for the state?
 

        I Bank With Her and She With Me

Forgive me I forgot to say I love you
I will contend, though,
We have a joint savings account
Where I deposit my words in flush times
And you yours in your unravelings.
Will you not agree we each have, inherently,
Our own approach to pawnbroking
Yours more concerned with principal
Mine with interest.

On our account
You withdraw punctiliously
As the knotted pine tree drinketh,
Upward flowing capillaries,
A being whose future
Is a canopy of birds
This season or the next or the next
Me the sunflower
Transpiring in the sun,
Pleasing a swarm of bees
Xylem stem a bucket brigade
Running succor to a glistening head
Whose future is seed
If not this afternoon then the next.

To find my love, my love
Consult our passbook
Where is written a fiduciary promise
That though I may trip from time to time
My roots are one with yours
Bound by mycorrhizal substrate
Should I arrive home
And say what a day this has been
What I really mean is
How was your day dear
I sure am glad we are growing together
By the way I sure do love you.
   

          Selection Pressure

It was at the botanical garden
Under a rock
Where we discovered
The secret of love.
Love is not a dream
But a beetle
The carapace of which
Bears a hologram
Resembling
Distinctly
A wedding ring
Not unlike the emperor crabs
Tossed back in the water
By Carl Sagan;
Here the female of our species
Not permitting the male
To crush anything that glimmers
And the male so loving her
As to subdue his inclinations
To mess with the gods.
     

      Under Heaven a Time to Clean

Nowadays a broom comes in handy
So much to sweep
All the land is covered dirty
Hard to tell if streets are left
Or roads to anywhere.
Once upon a time there was empire
That built the streets
And roads to Babel,
Free speak of empire.
Brooms, though, piled up from disuse.
There was you
There was me
We were king and queen.
Voices of the mayor
From street sweepers came
To get your car
Out of the way.
The gas has left the ground,
Moved to the air.
On foot we run through the streets
Sweeping a path in front
Like the Jains
We ask forgiveness.

     Henry the Stammerer and the Rise of Capital

The good thief manages
To wrest himself from the cross
Beneath the side eye of the king
Henry the Stammerer running
Through debris
Fortuitous
The afterlife a loaf of bread
Tucked under his arm
One heel the devil
Gabriel the other
The centurion slicing
Going first for the smile
Then the bloodholes
The Stammerer mocking
Drawing from his good life as a cur.
Henry sets a pace
Of two thousand years
His flock of strays
Lapping and tail biting.

 

    Children of the Dusk

This is for the child
Who in the middle of the night
Wakes up
Thinking about the belt.

But also for the green child
And her red dream intruder
Who the other day
Green teased about
Fat clothes
And watched red’s face
Pale like the lost moon.

For the princess who sleeps
One eye on the clock
Wishing the numbers to fade,
Let them keep the school
For themselves.

She was never understood
Nor will ever be,
Having found her place
In the first story book
The teacher ever read.

For the child of things
Weights and measures,
Not people,
The names of others
Being words
And the others numbers
There is a special green bus
To drive you away.

As for the child
Who sleeps the night through
Ladies and Gentleman
I dedicate my next song.

 

On Reading Absalom Absalom

Choose you soldier ghost
Pick one
Miscegenation
Incest
Scratch it on your stone
Bury the slab to the hilt
But just the hilt
There is a germ so loves the dirt
Another so loves the rain.
The South will venture by
You should dress your burden
Satinette and piping
The South will come to you,
Crippled and stout
Wanting to know
Wishing to hear from nature
The intractable end.

     

          Junkyard Dog

You could see the rib skin dog
Was having a rough time about it
Drinking from the flathead six puddle
Through a rainbow film of flickering oil.
I called him over
Wiped a star from his beard
Poured my New York City tap
Into a headlamp shell
Proceeded to yarn him
About my life too as a junkyard dog
At least in your telling
About tail chasing
And not coming to terms with myself
Let alone you.
Dog circled, stretched out,
Plopped his diaphanous skin down
Next to my seat
Beaten burgundy leather
4 on the floor
Flapped his ears flat to let me frizzle.
They were soft.

 

Girl Interviews

Human race
You are here
On little account
Of Alexander the Great
The balance of life
Is no different
From the balance of all things
The tiger in man
Is the tigress
Holding to account.
Humanity begins
With the interview.
Boy, you won’t hear it
You won’t see it
If you know what hit you
It is you who will be proud
Proud you should be
For having been chosen
From among the lunkheads
For a crack at your DNA.

 

      Making Love

First unwedge the concrete pillories
From your neighborhood tree roots free
Gaia and hope Athena
Doesn’t bite you
Too quick
In the wrong place

Take
Only appropriate luggage
Walk
Don’t run
Get a haircut
Flashing ATM

Say the words
Hold the hand
Draw no lines
Pet her cat

 

        One Should Walk There

We walk between the two,
The violet and the larkspur,
A woodland trail,
Towpath for a stream
Memory flowing
Passing this flower nexus
Of the well examined life.

A violet for every mood
A mood for every violet
The larkspur
Stern of motive,
Unwelcoming,
Self-centered in its aim.
Each has its turn with us.

Violet is the first of dawn,
The last at night
Her whisper is a touch.
The larkspur, in all its hues,
Calls out the storm,
Needling.
Yet both violet and larkspur
Urge us to move on.

 

      Steward

It is not necessary
Usually
To invite nature into your house.
But if nature should
Happen to venture
Into your kitchen, say,
You should either set a place
Or coax such little thing
Into a demitasse
And send it on its way.

 

What You Are Missing

Are night birds not enchanted
Sighting Arcturus
Or do they but fix
For only a wink?
How could they not
Engage with their eyes
When their spinners lock on?
You would think,
For Arcturus,
Bird eyes
Would flicker
Arcturus light
All night across the sky
If for no other reason
Than we would
With our mouths open.

 

     Flow (The Bighead Carp)

Bighead carp knows not the name
Does not think he invades
Does not feel unclean
Plies along dirty river water
Keeping it as clean as he.
The lip hook came
He knows not from where
Or that it is made of metal
Only that it is there
When he tries to eat.
The river current is his friend,
Flipping the shank of the hook
From time to time
Off the floor of his mouth
Into the water
So to speak
He knows not from where it came
Or whether the pikaia
With its primitive notochord
Also had a barb in its lip.

 

       On This Day a New Beginning

I like how the water from your dorm
Streams warm and silver
Unlike during the war when it passed
Saturated bodies on the hillside
Seeping into tin cups
With legends of fermented earth.
I am pleased that the commencement
address
Is a poet’s whose work regarding nature
Has been interpreted
As the future subduing the past,
That the natural world
Is the future itself.
This is your school–
If man happens to live on
The valedictory will be Apollo’s gift to you
Wear it warm like a sweater.

 

        The gods Around Us

I know there are gods everywhere
I can hear them chirp
And crow gods calling,
Feet planted firmly in the tool making
world.
My friend Anthony has been a god for
seventeen years
Whispering in my ear.

Why have we forsaken so
The gods of yore
When to this very day
They are out there
Flying close to the sun.

          

The Stories of Our Lives
(For Future Generations)

Often, with little warning
Time ends
With nothing written down.
That is one thing.
We may live a long life,
Too long
To write it all.
That is another.

A drawer of art supplies
Unopened, dried
White canvases
Propped against the walls
Brush swirls
Of the old masters
Ideas of the sublime.

Unfinished poems.

I with children
Have not sufficiently
Told such children
How much I love them
And have always loved them.
They do not know the stories of my life.
I who have tendered reparations to the
world
By raising such children to be world
citizens
Might best gather I and they,
Improving and improved,
Next to a pond
Wait for the fish to jump
The pond circles to reach us.

 

       When You Were Sleeping

You were beside me warm
I needed warm
You were quiet
I needed reassurance
That would not require
My imagination to dissect
So I said your name
It was my name you said back to me
But in one syllable.
I knew I was being unfair
Nonetheless I pressed on
With the happy memory
Of sitting now
Side by side
The dawn of May 25
Years ago
One beach towel
Across the two of us
With the sun on our legs
Rising to our laps
Chosen because I knew
You could not have sun in your dreams
Not really.

 

              Worries

It seems they are always searching
Looking for the right size opening
To push their way through.
Search as they may
Even sighting relief
In the canopy above
What looked like blue sky
Was only a plug.
They move on
Peer talking, nail tapping
It keeps them lubricated
Waiting for the opportunity.

 

       The Game of Living

If we could take a lesson
From inventors of games
It would be for everyone
To start from zero.
None of this The red bird
Better than the pigeon
Or humans slicing earthworms
Halving and quartering
Just to see.
A roll of the dice
Would start us off
Probabilities kick in
Some eggs would hatch
Others not
That would be fair,
Written instructions

For all to see.
How to handle bullies
In a world like this
Send them back to Go.
Pollute the earth–
Not on any of the cards.
What color are you
Your choice
Crayons of every shade.
Boy or girl
Drone or queen
Goes by the DNA.
So who invented this game
You may ask
Ask you certainly may
After that we leave our notes
We all begin to play.

 

        Recycle

One day will see
Children at play
Come across in my trash
This very fan
That fades the dew
From my brow
As I sweat through this book
About the hazards of eternity.

There will be the day, too
When the children of those children
Come upon the fragments of my bones,
My teeth,
Left outside the crematorium
To wash along the street
Because my spouse did not want them
In her living room
For people to question
Her choice of color and weight
Of ceramic vessel.

One would hope that the children
Take the fan somewhere
And plug it in
The way that children at play
Often do, just to see.

 

         In a Heartbeat

When I last saw a naked girl
She was wearing a holter monitor
I asked her what it was for
She said for her EKG
So what am I supposed to do?
Nothing, it’s automatic.
I told her eyes that I was not.
It’s for my fibrillation, she replied,
Would you like to feel? 
   

        Shelves

In our lives
We pass by
Giving little thought
Simple grey photo of Uncle Ed
Aunt Camilla
Standing there together
Dust on dust
Could it be we move through
Just watching the motes?

A visitor will ask
Who is that and what is that
Anachronistic novelty
On the shelf below
A crest of gold
A family shield
I ask them back
Anachronistic
Time which brought this here
Will pass along with it.
One day the final mote
Of our family name
And yours too
Will waft away.

Long ago
Swimming up from dark to light
We told ourselves
You must leave this house
Discover who you are
Seems longer ago,
Perhaps the irony of it,
Coming back late at night
Not bothering to turn on a light
Walking past.
   

         Other People

There are people
Who make life seem so easy
You see them at fairs
Walking about in proper dress
With proper children
Not a spot of mustard on anyone.

 

           Creep

I have a flash-bulb memory
Of the creep at the side-show
Inside the dunking booth
Rolling down off his perch
And ripping apart the chain link
The water spilling forth
The water itself reaching the crowd
Well before the creep
The crowd scattering
With creep smiles
Still wearing on otherwise perfect faces
Me grabbing up my terrified kids
Booking it toward the subway home
Feeling the hot creep breath
Up and down my back
I did not say anything to you
I yelled to the air in front of me
I was in sympathy
For you and your predicament
Your life-long struggle with inner sloth
Your undiagnosed spectrum syndrome
The ones who said the words
Are the ones you should be chasing.

 

    Rectification

How can I be inspired
By she with no loose ends
Leaving me here at Pluto’s side
To divine and probe
And turn to muddied words,
What spills from the tea press
After a long night.

Tomorrow eve
Beneath the sheets
Negative to positive
I will be sure to charge you
Jolt you back to musedom.

 

     Adolescence

Mark the calendar
Count down the days
Till the tree reaches your window
For your escape.
In the meantime
Bake bread
Bake extra for the world
For the world will judge you
Believe me when I tell you
No one can resist
Shrouds of rye
Taking over the street
They will be waiting to see
Just who that may be
Working the controls.

 

      State Park

Human gaze welcome
With conditions
At the Other’s gated nation
3 buffalo in a 3 acre pen
A waft of human breeze
Meets a simmering wave of heat
Jumpstarting the apparitions
Tilt forth to cross the Serengeti
Visions of marshmallows.

Wave crashes in at the tourist stand
Buffalo rock back and forth
Stop sideways, flatten.
Two dimensional shadow pelts
Walls of dusty knotted hides
Subdue the infiltrators.
A point of ultra dark, a side eye,
A ruminating iris
Looks not at the bag of Jet-puffed
But at you.

Tourist gleeful shouts
The door of acceptance is wide open
Even the chain link is but a door stop
You have the perfect bath soap,
Have practiced a lathering tune
Seneca comes to mind
Your master has the same power over you
As do you your slave.
Love
You comb the knots out from your mind
One marshmallow at a time.

A scolding snout
Inflated head
Shoots a braying stem
Peace treaty
Puffy treats
Fire water
Peyote
Grassland spirits
Epigenetic change
“As it affects the American Buffalo”
Gloria mundi on furry billboard
An advertisement
A bicentennial celebration,
The one eye the dollar bill eye
Certainly why not a state park
For a commemoration.
     

             Alone Nest

Loneliness is not an island
Nor is it a book.
It is not something that sneaks up,
Descends on you overnight,
Follows you home from a party.
It is not the absence of people.
Even when your dog dies, that is something else.
Loneliness did not start at age ten
Or when you left for college.
If you want to know loneliness,
One day, wearing a headlamp,
Track down a bat
Sleeping on the ceiling of a cave.
He is hanging there in the dark
Next to others hanging there.
This was predetermined.
They were born to hang.
If you feel lonely
Confront it
Welcome it home,
Party or no.

 

      Lemon Tree

Where did you come from
Lemonade stand?
Who are your children?
What a fabulous idea
Two stools and a board
A flowered cloth
Flowered lemonade.
This is the future, they say
And you are already there.
Five cents, I certainly shall
Freckled cookies
Still warm, you say.
I will take two
Yes, a napkin please.
How did you choose this tree
Of all the trees everywhere?
You say it chose you
I believe this true.
What tree would not want
The future beneath its leaves?

 

       Searching the Dust

I wish I could say
You will make it to adulthood
You and you and you
I wish I was better
At knowing.
Unfortunately
I can only issue prescriptions
Fair to tell you
That do unto others
Is weak to say the least.
I am more likely to tell you
Do not become addicted
Keep your eyes open
And your ears hearing
Gather others with you
Create
Do not be afraid
To see and hear the truth
The answers are not in there
They are out there.
Though the problem of man
May not have a solution
Realistically
It will never be solved
Within yourself
Within there is no without
Without is from where you came.

 

                       Toaster Poem

 

                     Betweenness

A butterfly flapping its wings
In the nineteenth century
Is what brought us here today
To repose side by side
And together share
The news that your pregnancy test
Was positively definitely
The bluest blue it could be.

When we repaired
That palimpsest day
To the cafe
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art
To discuss the Romantics
We did not know
That your love of Coleridge
And mine of Wordsworth
Would be the perfect clash
To give rise to the Modern
The following weekend.

Our discussion
Of how great it is
That poetry no longer rhymes
Or at least doesn’t have to
Was an excellent segue
Out of any preconceived notion
That I should have to impress you
Or you me.
And so from there on out
We began the simple process
The natural one yet so often elusive,
That To and Fro
Call and response
Always part of the natural world
Bird to bird
Bird to flock
Cell to cell,
And in the best of times
Human to human
You to me
And me to you
The highest social state of man,
Called betweenness,
For lack of a word.
It’s something one should try with his neighbor.

That day in the Met cafe
We could not have been further apart
Had one god laid claim to you
And another to me.
However,
There was a hum,
A primordial air,
I can hear it now if I try,
On the bus
On the way home.
It was not the bus
It was not me.
I rode home that day
A long chord playing in my head
That did not shift to another
For one whole week.

I have more of the song now
And so do you.
Mine is always here.
The chords may shift,
At times seem weak
Certainly it ebbs and flows.
Our species is one of thought and act
That’s just the way we are
Instinct is fallow at our side.
There is a time, though,
When we connect
That changes all of it.
To you out there
The luckiest of us
Knowing the same delight
From day to day
We announce forthright
Our miracle to you
Between us we have another.

 

                        Just Another Story