Earth-bound sprites
tall, at ease
Awaiting the breeze,
waiting to dance.
Dancers
3
The Picture
Now
They found on that black wall a picture hung
as if it swam in empty space itself,
And saw a mask grotesque and dark, ensnared
in webs of rotting filth and foul decay.
He looked away and to his friend he spoke,
"It says destruction comes, torment and pain,
All life shall suffer bitter ends," to which
his kind companion said in gentle tones,
"Do you not see the plucky weeds below,
whose green is life resisting fate's design?"
"Of course," he said, "we could invert your view,
and say the last of life is soon consumed."
"Perhaps," she pleads, "we are not meant to choose,
but thrash about all possibilities."
A picture says a thousand words it's said
but here they found just two, despair and hope,
All while the picture sends the audience
ten-thousand years of dark philosophy,
The pair of kids who dwell in black and white,
now swim in Chaos' lively sea, and laugh
With joy at never knowing who they are,
but always loving blesséd argument.
Then
The artist was dispirited and frowned,
his muse was gone, the painting uninspired,
And so, quite tired, he put it to one side,
began the tedious task of cleaning up.
While shaking out a brush of viridian hue,
it slipped away and clouds of droplets flew
Onto the half-done canvas lain to rest,
when she came in, kimono'd and concerned,
His muse, amanuensis, and kind friend,
"I heard you yelp and curse, and... Oh, what's this?"
She held the reject in the light and smiled,
"This really is provocative, so sad
And yet quite angry, and the green's just right!"
He slipped his arm around her waist and bent
His face to hers, they danced a silent turn
or two about the messy atelier.
He said, "You once again have saved my heart!"
She dropped her silken robe, and fell into his bed,
And when a week had passed, the paint had dried,
the painting hung upon the gallery wall,
With bread and cheese and wine, beside the sea,
they laughed at the vanity of Art and all.
The image is from Google Maps, showing a 3 acre
plot north of Davis, California, coordinates
38.57778, -121.78709, from a satellite photo
made January 8 2024. It was probably a burn pit
for trees culled from a surrounding grove. It and
the adjacent land have since been converted to a
field of hard red wheat, with no visible trace
left of its previous identity.
Reverie
Resting through a cold, while breathless,
he lay in a reverie of lassitude,
Knowing the pure pleasure of
a good excuse for sloth,
And, drifting into that lethean land,
saw himself lying on the sand
By a grotto, when from behind a pillar
seductively stepped a nubile nymph,
Clothed only in the breeze
and a garland of golden kelp.
As she approached, she dissolved
into a dog who shook herself
Into a storm of salty drops
while seals on their cozy shelves
Bayed and barked their laughter,
awakening him to the pressing need
To breathe and find his way
back to his blue-skyed world.
The image came from this site.
Andean Rock
The pretty engineer took his arm
at the tunnel entrance;
They walked a mile
into the middle of the Andes,
into a frigid inferno.
"We've passed the border", she said,
facing the whine and grind
Of a giant rolling worm,
flashing sparks and lightening,
as it pushed into Argentina.
They returned to sunlight and ice,
and she handed him a stone,
An unsuccessful flirtation
as he released her hand,
but kept the rock.
She stammered about sensitivity
to air, humidity, temperature,
"In a hundred years it will be gone,
unlike love...".
He shrugged and left.
The stone, grey and white,
sat for months on a shelf,
Unchanging, leaving only dusty fingertips.
He was relieved when it was lost --
A century was too long to wait.
The feldspar image is copied from
the Minerals Database of the
"Minerals Education Coalition"
First Flight
His first bold flight, a flash of blue,
he glided down a gentle arc
onto a sunlit lawn below,
And sensed the sudden shadow's cold
as feathers red above him broke
a hundred mile an hour stoop.
He felt sharp talons grip his chest,
and loosed his piercing wail for help
as chaos crashed about his world
When mother dove at raptor's head,
and father cursed obscenities
which even dogs could understand
They struck the head with clawing feet,
and screeching, pecking, flapped their wings
before the gaping hunter's beak,
Who, not so hungry anymore,
and careful of his precious eyes,
in all the grand confusion thought
It best to drop his tasty lunch
and lumber off, a wiser hawk,
and seek a less encumbered hunt.
The jays, still cursing everything,
although with somewhat softened voice,
convened a family meet above,
Where heartbeats slowed and breaths relaxed,
in tones now low and comforting,
the parents gave their stern advice,
"Don't ever hesitate, dear child --
just scream like banshee, claw at eyes,
the secret to a longer life!"
The image is a modification of
Bill Shissler's photograph
"Get Away Kid, You Bother Me"
© BillShiss Photography).
Reek of Love
He wore the shirt she met him in
for many days, a week he thought,
Then finally she dared to speak,
"Your shirt, it reeks, please wash it soon!"
She might as well have slapped his face,
and yet they still fell fast in love,
But after this, his shirts were clean,
were always different every day,
Since at the laundromat he found
a plastic bottle green in hue
Containing simple laundry soap,
the secret elixir of love.
Morning Glories
Blooms boiling over the trellis,
blue, purple, ultra-violet
Appear in dew of new sun
and drown in ink of night,
Drop to a carpet of color, fading
memories of mornings’ glories.
Sam1-4
Sam1-4 wrote from afar
(I'd never met or heard of him)
in a box of sandals, blue,
A note, quite brief, which simply said,
'Packed with pride by Sam1-4'
(sweet he thought that I should care),
And, mused I, that Sam must be
a kind and gentle working man,
perhaps a sort I'd like to meet,
Though almost certainly he speaks
a tongue quite strange, unknown to me,
like bird song mixed with clicks and halts.
In my mind I greeted him,
"Hello, dear Sam1-4, good soul!
How pleased I was to get your note."
And he replied, "My dear new friend!
How fine it is to hear from you!
You are the first one to reply."
And so we garrulously spoke
on many topics, low and high,
women, books and moons above,
Until the man from Porlock knocked,
(the interruptor famed of old)
who broke apart my reverie.
I know that Sam1-4 and I,
shall speak no more, and I shall miss
conversing with this distant friend,
Who, if were found, could only speak
with smiles and tears and waving hands,
as he outside my head would be.
Mona Lisa
He saw the Mona Lisa on
an ancient wooden power pole
one San Francisco chilly day,
Surrounded by a murky fog,
a thing of strange consistancy,
a soft translucent wall of air
Pushed aside his probing hand,
he tried but could not touch the child,
still smiling through five hundred years.
A crowd assembled, curious
at his pale arms grabbing air,
"What are you doing?", asked a girl.
"Don't you see?", the man replied,
"Her face, her lips, her guile and charm,
the slyness in her gentle grin?"
A boy, quite small, ran to the post,
and said, "I see a poster there.
It says, 'Reward for my lost cat!'"
They smiled and laughed, not at the man
but just the gentle joke of it,
as thickening fog spread round about.
He turned and moved into the crowd,
now silent, gray as lumps of clay,
they fade into the darkened day,
While, down the street, the boy cried soft,
"Here, kitty, kitty! Here, kitty kitty!"
The man, alone, remained distraught.
He turned and faced the splintered post,
which smelled of creosote and tar,
and saw that she remained aloft,
She smiled at him and knew his soul,
his secrets, sins, and failed loves --
naked, though still clothed, he shrugged,
He walked away, his eyes held low,
and, guided by low booming horns,
he found himself at water's edge,
And took the ferry waiting there
across the cold and choppy bay
to an empty house so far from her.
Chaos
Chaos writes with windy pen
on dunes of sand and frothy sea,
cirrus clouds aloft, and then
Erases all before we see
the transient text that's hid therein.
She makes a breeze beneath our door
and tricks us with her icy chill,
freezing feet both rich and poor,
Whispers with a voice quite still,
while scuttering frost along the floor.
Carefully mounded garden leaves
spout up in twisting jets of air;
she throws them up into the eves
And casts them down upon our hair;
confusion reigns while she deceives.
She moves the air in many ways,
a gentle touch, a typhoon's blast
slanting rains from storms just past;
She whimpers, rages, laughs for days,
the words she babbles forth don't last.
So, though the message can't be read,
still, it's plainly understood,
that Chaos birthed our world and said,
"My work is neither bad nor good,
in fog you stumble, then you're dead."
Phoenix
His mother told him many times a bird most striking had appeared in the window at his birth, How calm she felt the last hard push which shot him forth into the world, as red and yellow feathers flared.
... In the woods, the fire burnt out, an old man left the child there with tales of gods aflight. The boy had felt the ashes, cold, startled at some thrashing wings, seen glints of color in a tree. ... His guide was pointing to three birds, flying through a sulfurous cloud at craters's lip where they fell dead; The hiker sensed a whir and saw at vision's edge a brilliance fleeing molten rock. ... On his walls were pictures -- quetzal, peacock, red macaw, golden pheasant, scarlet ibis; His questions lay in ancient myth, memories shimmered through his day, his dreams at night kaleidoscopic. ... She was above him, rouge and gold, nuzzling hair with avian kisses, feathers falling over him, And sang, "Miss you so, love you so!" He felt her answer brush his cheek, his last breath smiled, and then he flew.
Calendars
He never found a calendar
he couldn’t keep —
Museums, Mens’ clubs,
Bornholm, Bay homes,
Cathedrals, Cats,
Gas stations, Radio stations,
Candies, Cookies,
Doctors, Drugs,
Insurance agents, Actors’ reps,
Pols, Celebs,
Pinup girls, Weber grills,
Alliance Française, Esperanto Youth,
Night school, Preschool,
Elder Host, The US Post,
“Dates, steaks and apricots,
shipped to your door”,
“Pigeons & Crocks,
and much, much more”,
Endless lists,
guarantees
that time persists.
Cobalt Blue
As he walked,
he thought of cobalt blue,
And the many acquaintences
who knew it by name
And admired or even
loved it.
He thought about their isolation
in this affection,
Their membership in a group
that never meets,
Diffuse and unknown
even to their own selves,
Secretly united only by
joy of observation,
Who regale it
in their vases and walls,
In the folds of curtains,
feathers of a forgotten bird,
At dusk the edges
of distant mountains.
Some are illuminati who know
the truth of the hue,
That, absent cobalt blue,
only vacuum would exist,
With occasional photons
or other-ons
Racing from each other
at the speed of light
In the slow entropic-death
of a cobalt-blueless universe.
He realized the planter beneath
the garden wall
Asserts his existence,
that all is here and real,
That he can stop holding his breath
and breathe once again,
That the race is slow,
and oblivion infinitely distant.
— Cobalt blue is both a color and a substance
(cobalt aluminum oxide — CoAl2O4). The
nature of our universe predicates the existence
of cobalt, aluminum, and oxygen.
Metamorphosis
Every night, when they went to bed,
she spun a cocoon about herself
of blankets, sheets, duvets,
While he slept adjacent,
clinging to the edge,
strangely content,
Knowing that, in the morning,
she would emerge,
spreading her wings,
Fluttering him
with love
and scrambled eggs.
Adult
He was stiff and ached
from the dares of childhood
and near-misses of youth.
He remembered being seven,
able to run faster than
anyone in the whole world,
And knowing with certainty
that, when he grew up,
he would run even faster.
Ode to an Old Shirt
You were a gift
with a slogan
across your chest.
“Talk Bizarre” or
something close —
all that’s left,
After many
detergent cycles,
is a faded Z, and
Many holes,
tears and
sagging neck.
Once worn often
every season,
you performed well
In the manner of shirts —
kept out cold,
blocked breeze,
Shielded skin
from sun,
sponged up sweat.
But “Bizarre” gave you
a long life
and many conversations,
That was your
unique attribute,
your elixir of youth.
And now, wet
with soapy water,
you push and pull
Across a filthy car,
Z forgotten,
no longer bizarre,
Suffering the
mundane fate
of a rag.
Limericks for John
PTH
Peptidyl tRNA hydrolase
Eliminates cellular toxic waste.
In the heat, cells will die
With a cough and a sigh,
By John’s lethal mutant erased.
Sea Turtle
There once was a sea turtle carapace
In the basement of Menninger’s ediface.
In the middle of winter,
The museum did whimper,
And the shell swam back fast to its starting place.
Frogometer
What a wonderful thing the frogometer,
Diabolical quasi-voltameter.
When a frog sees John enter,
The amphibious sprinter
Breaks records and hops a kilometer.
Rattleback
An amazing thing is the rattleback
Spins merrily left with a tiny smack —
But to physicists’ surprise
Natural laws seems like lies,
As it even turns left with a rightward whack!
Limericks in honor of Prof. John Menninger,
who finds them the highest expression of poetry,
on his 90th birthday.
Ghost Tree Sirens
The sirens sit in a green field
and warble him to death
with the sweetness of their song.
Homer, The Odyssey
Ghostly beeches in Winter’s crisp
spread ochrous wings,
and siren call,
“Come, we beseech
and implore
and beg and sing —
Leave the path and
tramp the muddy ground
through ferns and leaves.
Come beneath our wings,
our pale protection,
our comforting arms.
We’ll guard you
from loblolly ghouls
with heaven-piercing stems.
We’ll lay you down
with softest rotting logs,
and moldy turf,
And moss you over
with fairest green
like dripping sponge.
The anxious squirrel
will race over you
and rest content.
The worms beneath
will squirm in peace
and fear not the crow.
By us, you will
sleep forever
in Eden’s forest.”
— Photo is a “ghost tree” beech
in a loblolly pine forest near Chapel Hill, NC
Mole Kid
When he was small,
he burrowed
to the bottom
of a sleeping bag,
at the foot of his bed,
under piles of clothes,
searching the beneath of things
for quiet answers
to questions he
could not ask.
They worried, but discovered
one day
his eyes peering out
from sofa cushions
and gradually
he emerged
into the world above
with squinting eyes
and questions flowing
from his tongue.
He became
a golden youth
arms wide, embracing
the wind,
as he ran for the
pure love of running
sucking air
in great gulps,
singing, in
bassoonic voice,
quavering ballads and
booming hymns,
and mole became man
dancing with friends,
in a circle
of perpetual surprise.
Johnny Dollar Died
We thought he would die
in a hail of bullets,
Or forced over a cliff
by a villain’s car,
Or poisoned by one too many
jilted blondes;
But, instead,
he married, had kids,
Retired rich
and grew old.
His memories faded,
but on his death bed
He gasped his last words,
“Expense account total, zero.”
Johnny Dollar was was the star of one of the longest running
radio detective shows ever, “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar” (1949-1962, 886 episodes).
Here, courtesy of the Internet Archive, is a sample:
Monsters
After flying all night
over the Atlantic,
he deplaned,
while children ran from him,
screaming, “Monstre, monstre!”,
in Danish falsetto.
He examined himself
and found nothing grotesque,
aside from a few
bumps and wrinkles,
tired eyes and
an unfortunate reliance
on flat California English;
nothing terribly scary.
And, then, the barks —
he turned and saw,
close on his heels,
a pair of bulldogs
on leather leashes
with day-glo pink collars,
and, as he petted
the slobbery giants,
he felt his newfound monsterhood
sadly slip away.
Leaves, Children
Leaves, star-like,
beneath the maple,
Levitate in breeze
and pinwheel
Across my path,
bouncing, hopping,
Child souls
in single file,
Giggle whispering,
“Lookit! Lookit!” —
Cartwheeling
little show-offs.
Ginkgo Leaves
Falling ginkgo leaves
Golden yellow cover earth
Like butter on toast — Yum!
Oak Leaves
He gazed at oak leaves
whose serrations recalled,
As a young child
in Humboldt County,
He’d seen, in the back of
a logger’s pickup,
A beat-up crosscut saw,
rusty, splintered handles,
Unused for decades,
but still displayed,
A sign saying
he could if he had to,
That old ways persisted,
stubborn as ancient oaks.
Glass
An image formed
on the pebbled-glass shower door,
A pixilated pattern
of brown, cream and rust,
Until she moved and spots coalesced
into hair, breast, knee
Which morphed with each movement
into scores of brief bodies,
Each a different screen,
a chaotic movie of opaque beauty.
Rock
The boy, nine years old,
walked down an alley,
steep, dirt and weeds.
His toe caught a rock,
round, palm-sized,
and set it skittering;
…and, a miracle happened,
he had a thought,
an original idea.
The rock could be
over a million years old,
maybe a billion!
The past had been
an unreachable grayness,
far behind him,
Only the moment
was of consequence,
was of any utility.
Yet, now the past
had slammed into him,
bruising his foot,
While remaining unchanged,
lying still in the sun
a few yards away.
He picked it up,
held it in his hand,
held eons of the past,
And knew that when
he no longer existed,
and was long forgotten,
Indeed, when no one was left
to kick a thing
or have an idea at all,
This rock might still lie
somewhere, unchanged,
resting in sunlight.
He kept it the rest of his days,
from time to time noticed it
and remembered to think.
Doughnut
He sat outside at the table,
reading the paper,
Glanced at a bird in the
sun-splotched branches,
Then saw on his plate
a doughnut, decorated,
Where none had been
when he sat down.
—
No one near him, nothing above,
he seemed alone,
But knew it was not a miracle,
by the silence;
Miracles are loud and brash,
earthquakes and disco lights,
God wants to be noticed
when violating physical law.
—
He heard a wee giggle
from the grass below;
Pushing back the tablecloth,
he saw a shining face,
Crazy tussled hair, red
as a Neanderthal’s,
Becrumbed grinning lips
and chocolate cheeks.
—
He ate the doughnut with coffee,
and pondered a revelation,
That God is a secret, slithering arm
of a young child.
She escaped from her cave and ran,
crowing across the lawn,
Filled with certainty, and joyfully
ready to save all mankind.
Last Words
The old man stared
through a bus window,
and grabbed her hand;
“Mary! The colors!”.
She was not Mary
and saw nothing.
His grip hardened,
temple throbbed,
and forehead dripped.
He mumbled,
“It’s all so beautiful”,
and she understood,
as his hand fell away.
Apple Sun
He glanced fleetingly,
unintentionally,
at the sun, and saw
an apple, covered by
a veil of golden threads
crossed by yellow rivulets
of molten metal
and surrounded by
a white-hot corona
of fiery rays.
But the apple beneath this
splendor
still showed its redish skin
and a bite in its side,
made by crooked teeth,
and he realized that
either he was stark raving, or
God needed an orthodontist.
Haiku Convergence Suite
475
Pebble, sleeping
on sandy dune — thudding wave,
Wake up, rolling stone!
675
Butterfly sat on face
of sleeping child — now old man,
dying, flapping wings.
565
Blue heron with frog,
hapless agony, tongue
kisses death’s feathers.
585
Face of symmetry,
perfect beauty cultivated,
always forgotten.
574
Ripe mango falling
through black and green shaded limbs
to child’s hands. Joy!
576
Child’s tears puddle dirt,
grass, flowers, sand, hole in earth,
father sleeps forever.
575
Swing rising, falling
girl, giddy, laughing, begging
“More!”, flying angel.
Zoomies
He knew our cats
don’t kill us at night
Because, anciently,
we kept only those
Who stayed kittenish
while growing,
Which suggested to him
why the sudden four-foot leap
With rocketing and zooming,
through the house,
And racing through tubes,
skittering balls and blocks,
And scaling great heights
of furniture.
He diagnosed a clear case
of kitten insanity.
Before him, man-mother,
feeder and protector,
They chase invisible mice,
butterflies and beetles,
Play with long-gone
siblings
While hallucinating
an infant past.
Receipt from Half Moon Bay Inn
Rummaging for a pencil
in the glove compartment
He came upon a receipt
for two nights at
Half Moon Bay Inn
and he paused,
So still as though
catatonic,
Finding himself
once again
Eating, making love, smiling
with her
That colder-than-expected
June weekend,
When he bought a sweater
because he’d known
He wouldn’t need a coat
at The Coast
(after all,
it was nearly summer!).
She laughed and loved him
for his certainties,
And he replied in kind at being
always young with her,
So near the bull’s-eye
of his complicated
Requirements of love
by which one moves
Along an arc
of ageless youth
To a predictable end
fearlessly,
As long as they
were together —
He started, startled by
a squirrel on the hood,
Peering through the windshield,
chittering “Are you OK?”,
And discovered
a pencil in his hand.
He grinned,
and tossed it back,
No longer needed,
as she rapped on the window,
Bringing him herself
and a girl’s sweet smile.
Man in Sunflowers
He suffered a private madness,
the question “What am I doing here?”,
always lurking, clinging,
An affliction unrevealed
to others, friend or otherwise,
a boring, trite obsession.
Corn and wheat sped by,
muddled worries interrupted
by a solitary figure in sunflowers,
Shabby, in dark hat and overcoat,
looking, eye level, at a single flower,
staring, in turn, at the sun —
A half-second snapshot
instantly replaced by more
corn, wheat, sunflowers.
“What is he doing there?”,
he thought, knowing it
was already unknowable,
Knowing he was neither
bored nor offended by a
worthy but unanswerable question,
Knowing that he was,
finally freed
by the third person, singular.
The Racket
The racket next door
drove her indoors,
But, he found it
oddly comforting,
A concert of
sawing, pounding and
Screech of nails
pulled from wet wood.
He remembered his father
making similar music,
And knew, had he been present,
he would have found
Some excuse to visit
the young man next door,
And offer to make it
a duet.
Lullaby
Come back, my dear —
back to your soft, warm bed.
I will wrap you with my arms
and press away fears.
Let Hypnos do his work,
and float you over flowers
In terraced fields waved
by the sea’s blue breeze.
After your sleep of sweet oblivion,
a day of bravery comes.
Dragonfly Trail
The trail to the dragonfly
lies narrow and
Teflon-smooth,
Frightening when black-iced
by freezing fog
or sleeting snow,
But, twice driven,
a carnival ride
of breath-holding
To the four-winged creature
of crystalline eyes
sheltering lovers
Who’ve had bravery
thrust upon them
in the cold.
Cormorants
Silent fishing philosophers
cling to Baltic rocks,
await the perfect wave,
Then struggle aloft,
skim and dive,
seeking sardines,
While ignoring taunts
of herring gulls,
omnivorically fat,
Lazy eaters of sea rot,
insistently screaming,
“Play! Play! Play!”
Rituals & Immortality
He always set up coffee
for the next day,
As though insuring
another day,
Or the coffee would be
wasted.
He remembered his
friend, Philippe,
Declaiming about Descartes’
famous axiom
As they skipped along
Toronto streets,
“It has a corollary —
‘If you know, you are alive’.
It’s a kind of immortality,
no?”
Once again, the memory
stirred his thoughts
As he held his hot,
steaming cup of life.
The image is a detail from
the portrait of Rene Descartes
by Frans Hals (Statens Museum
for Kunst, Copenhagen).
Barnaby’s Thistle
As he walked,
his hand touched
a beautiful flower
and bled.
He saw St. Barnaby’s thistle,
and wondered if
Barnabas had ever brushed
against his namesake,
And, if so,
was he
divinely protected
from the golden needles?
His hand began to itch and
he thought of Barnabas
who argued with his mentor
and was slowly forgotten.
In his obscurity,
did the saint ever ponder
yellow flowers as these
with crowns of thorns?
Quantum Cat
When a black cat
escapes
on a moonless night,
He’s a bottle of India ink
spilled
on black linoleum,
Spreading over the
entire neighborhood,
everywhere and nowhere,
A diffusion the man in pajamas
and worthless flashlight
soon discovers.
At dawn, time reverses,
the ink retracts
back to its vessel;
The cat springs through
the opened door,
heads for the couch.
Being everywhere
all at once
is always exhausting.
Things Still There
Things were still there
where most should be
and some should not;
A rising red lily
in its speckled forest,
open mouth singing;
Dirt, freshly hoed and raked,
the odd squirrel hole
and impatient weed;
A dandelion seed
drifted, buffeted
by thermal fingers;
Trees — Fig and orange,
abundantly giving
and eventually messy;
A roach on its back
once prayed for help,
desiccated in summer heat.
An old man reclined
in the shade,
surrounded by green,
Wondering if he were content,
tempted by beauty
and the risk of joy,
When the upturned creature
said, “Be careful,
I am a mirror.”.
To a Plowed Field
Ripples of earth
floating on water,
Sinuous ridged edges
merge into symmetry,
Land square-framed
by mud and reeds,
In your moats and brooks
tadpoles graduate
to heron-speared frogs,
Wrigglers hyperactivate into
buzzing flight
to blood feasts,
Gopher snakes glide,
Zen-like, without
much thought at all.
Reaped and scraped
at fall’s end,
Asleep through winter’s death,
you await spring’s glory
And a face-lift returning
your furrowed visage.
Danes before Five
The Swede told him Danish
was so difficult
its own people can’t learn it
until they’re five.
As he pontificated,
his very young children
happily played house
with babbling little Danes.
How can that be? asked the man.
Oh, quite easy, replied the Swede;
Until they’re five
they just speak Scandinavian.
Sleeping Cat
The cat insinuated himself
between their paired bodies,
Momentarily interrupting
shared sleep.
Readjustments followed,
small shifts in alignment.
He compensated in turn,
flowing alongside them,
Gracefully threading
their dreaming postures,
A lethean stream of
nocturnal bliss.
Nose
The report said,
“Mildly deviated septum,
otherwise normal sinuses.”
He remembered age four,
excited, impatient,
Standing 3 steps up
a concrete porch,
Holding a celluloid tube
of tiny candy balls.
He’d seen older kids do this,
even sharing once,
And now his chance
to pry the plug
With wild fingers,
only to spill everywhere —
His haste-driven dive
to reverse the effects
Of gravity on plunging spheres,
found his nose resting
On the sidewalk below,
where he bellowed bad luck.
Soon, clinging
to his mother’s neck,
As she wiped
his blooded face,
He complained only
about broken fortune.
His nose was quickly forgotten
for a lifetime,
Until x-rays penetrated
his memories,
Of sweet loss rolling away,
yet still desired.
Memory Number One
He was 4 or 3,
at the edge of memory,
When he saw a dead possum
in the road.
For 80 years it visited
his thoughts;
Nothing before —
not a mother’s loving gaze,
not a father’s good cheer,
Just a tail carelessly touching
a bloodied nose,
And two button eyes, staring
at god, at him,
at nothing.
Egg
Egg tottering,
nest ruptured by careless wind,
future flight’s dashed promise,
embryonic wings unformed.
Bird ghost’s
first and last airborne arc,
parabolic to slate below,
shattered shell and yellow stain.
Surprised child
stops, curious, then home
crying in fear, chased by
angry mother cawing grief.
Colors on a Morning Stroll
He saw, on his morning walk,
a house with cobalt walls
and pink eves,
But, on drawing closer…
the eves became brown
and the walls, gray.
He thought about imagination
and the word ‘image’
almost within it.
He had, as always, a goal in mind,
but this route was chaotic,
random with bias.
He chanced on a stick
in a gutter,
long, straight, lanceolate.
And imagined two spears,
one pink,
one cobalt,
Except the pink was really
like a filet
of wild Atlantic salmon,
And the blue was
like sparks of
violet and green.
He saw two knights
rushing each other,
red pike, blue pike…
And stumbled at the sign,
his goal,
“Matmor Rd”.
Mata mor,
mata moro,
kill Moor.
He drifted to the Crusades —
his fifth-grade teacher
described their futility;
Yet, he later read
about the 200-year
Kingdom of Jerusalem,
Probably not so futile
to the knightly order
for a long time.
She also remarked
on the Moorish failure
in Iberia,
But, the Caliphate endured
600 years, three times
my country’s age.
Images returned —
the Knight Templar,
the Saracen knight;
He thought
perhaps that
was the whole point,
To impale each other
on beautiful lances,
salmon and electric,
Autumn Trees
Would it be lying
to speak of autumn trees,
specifically, the Plane,
Looming in plains so strange
as resemble Mars
or Enceladus,
When in fact we see
in plain sight
the Plane itself?
Red Souls
Almost-touching orbs
cruel Fate’s separation
Frustration of joy.
On Yellow
Despair of yellow if you wish —
The taint of
choleric bile,
Midas’ daughter,
snow pee,
jaundiced eyes.
While Orpheus’ golden lyre
went to Hell and back,
sunlight echoed on dayend clouds,
towheads ran on Baltic sand,
dandelions colored my hand.
Jacob’s stairs still ascend
— presumably to Heaven —
But who waters the geraniums?
Taste of Wild
Yes, it’s better than glass —
a hard, cold
divide from reality.
I can feel the breeze,
rain falls and I am wet,
squirrels fear my smell,
jays rail at my presence.
But, there’s still this matter of
nylon, a millimeter thick,
a soft cage of unwanted
domesticity.
Primitive Creature
Early morning fogs rose from the river. He waded through an eddy of warmth swirling slowly between bank and goal, a heavily wooded island, cloud hidden, Spanish mossed limbs penetrating opal curtains. He felt time evaporate a hundred million years as he entered the past earth. and knew the river damp smell was once familiar to a dinosaur, that nothing had changed, that his particular world's sights and sounds were truant. Reaching shore, he had no idea how close he was to the nest of guarded eggs, as she burst forth through fog, the Great Blue Heron, screaming in the very rasp of God, a cry so terrible that he became a wee twitchy creature, scurrying to evade scaly winged masters of this new world.
Lunar Eclipse
"I'm sorry about the Moon...", he said.
"Oh! What an interesting sentence!",
she replied,
smiling with unexpected delight.
Love illuminated them
in the recovered lunar glow.
Demon Casters of Asilomar
The Demon-Casters of Asilomar,
in the great lodge room,
huddle before fire,
Ess-word mutterings float,
"...sssalvation...,
...sssatan...,
...ssssin...",
potent, frequent
"...Jesssusss...".
Bowed backs as
shields,
Stares as
needles, knitting,
White thin lips as
prophet, knowing,
But no
blue eyes on the
lurking heathens
(who suck your soul),
No
flirtation,
temptation,
touching the
unwashed.
This is a joyless,
serious pursuit,
Saving the world.
Red, Blue, Yellow
My friend, the under-employed artist, sold photos to the Sunday edition of the paper. Strictly freelance, not a regular job. “Shoot anything but put three kids in the middle, in red, blue and yellow.” The formula never failed. Every Sunday, $25. It paid the rent.
Gutter Fish
I worked nights in Brazil, photographing stars. Coming home one morning, I found the neighbor kids gathered around the curb. All year, a trickle of water
ran beside it, starting from a neighbor’s farm and moving down through the prosperous community below, eventually draining into the Rio Potengi.
“What’s up?”, I asked.
“Fish!” they answered.
They were on their knees, giggling, hands in mud and water. I walked over, expecting floating toys of sticks and leaves, but saw little flashes of color. A child’s cupped hands held a small, brightly hued fish darting in a bit of water.
I knelt beside the rivulet and saw hundreds of tiny finned creatures slipping through fingers of little people delighted by their beauty.
I lived a few degrees from the Equator. These were tropical fish, the real thing. They weren’t in an aquarium in a doctor’s office. They lived free in their home, my gutter.
Also Chaos
A ripple spreads from a Kansas tornado,
and the wings of an Australian butterfly skip a beat.
That would also be chaos.
The image is the Australian Amnesty Butterfly — click on the link to learn more.
A Shave in Natal
Living in Natal, Brazil, was time travel. Evenings, we strolled and conversed lazily, danced at the social clubs, visited the dying in front rooms, surrounded by friends, and went to the barber for a shave — hot towels, straight razor, funny jokes and a rubdown, all for a dime, like an old movie.
Once, I was having a haircut. A man with no legs came in, selling lottery tickets. He maneuvered on a roller board, head about knee high. Everyone knew him. A few bought tickets, and he moved past the line of chairs where he waited. Why was he still there?
The barber to my right finished a guest and turned to the lottery agent. “Same as ever, José?”, who nodded. In a fluid motion the barber lifted him from board to chair. Question answered — a customer, like everyone else, and a frequent one.
A sheet billowed out and was pinned behind his neck, steaming cloth applied, and the conversation continued without break. A few minutes later, towels removed and face skillfully shaved smooth and clean, followed by a brisk massage. Second puzzle — the barber was in no hurry and the next patron seemed happy where he was. Gossip, sports, politics, weather flowed as ever in that global mens’ club. José smiled and chatted, a member in full standing.
I was done. My barber spun me about to face the grand mirror on the wall of every barbershop. “What do you think?”, “Looks great!”, universal query and response. My eyes strayed to the salesman’s reflection, head level with mine, great sheet before him down to floor. Puzzle solved. José sold them lottery tickets and a chance at riches. They sold him a shave — and added legs for a few minutes every day.
Winter Words
On cold winter mornings in Santiago, I wanted a typewriter — I looked at the machines in the repairman's window each day as I walked to work — There was winter prose, trapped in the keys, waiting liberation — I always passed by, never entering once — All that English still languishes cold in Chilean solitary.
Waiting
Waiting is gray and cold even in summer — Jorge waits in line two hours a day — And Norman says when he's in line he's doing something wrong — Queue shortening, fruit ripening, tank filling, baby entering world, life ending, most tedious of all — Always in the future, unfulfilled anxiety.
Waiting to See a Movie Alone
Friends, lovers and enemies are the line — Alive, feeding itself each other's memories fusion of parallel parts, forming and reforming during lifetimes — I intersect an instant and live a series of isolations in a queue alone forever and quickly forgotten.
Two Old Cats
Two old cats live with me, as healthy as two year olds, each patiently hating the other and loving me these many years — Universal constants, I should have named them Hubble and Heisenberg.
Things at the Last Minute
Rolls, babysitter, medicine, coffee, you're on my mind — Try to work, talk, talk, talk, you're still there — Checks, flowers, books, (once, you wrote to me) Cook, dishes, pack, eat (your eyes across the table) Tired, exhausted, lonely, sleep — bed.
The Tree
A spruce of some sort, dense with painful needles — Somewhat taller than the six year old who had taken a sudden interest in something other than a Star Pine bent double with its weight again in ornaments — After twenty years, that scent of indoor conifer was ecstatic.
Talk and Snow
Today, I talked and talked about bacteria and other little things — I talked and talked and talked while snow fell outside, silently, gently, adding onto itself, blurring my morning tracks, burying my car, erasing colors, blacks and grays — I left my white board covered with red circles, blue arrows and black words, And entered my white world, soft white mounds on flat white planes, white sky, white air — Speechless and lost.
Sunrise Satori
Sun layered gold through green onto black snow Christmas morning — Gwyneth, dog supreme, loped silent snow paws through light and dark of forest dawn — Saw bear lumbering to winter sleep, bobcat, spruce bough settled, with curious gaze — Gave chase at imagined nothings floating in air ice great dog noises snow-muffled making silence silenter — Finally circles into white nest, smiling at bear protector, who dreams of crazy cat, who laughs at dog below — Three creatures sensing a brief perfection — right place, right time.
Solitude Returned
Now, I have this solitude returned, once so prized, a moat childhood's monsters could not cross — Even you are now repulsed and flee.
Slippery Sax
"Crystal White Detergent" -- that's mine. 'That's nice', he blew, no words. You knew just what he said, with that two-note thing, biting hard, filling cheeks, screaming tearful logic, love, much chaos: 'Pale wrist submerged'. 'Beat that', he blew, and I, with uncharacteristic hesitation, I ...groped, my halleluahs submerged in reverent suds in detergent discovered on a mental counter. One last challenge, he blew again: 'I cannot do this, cannot cannot Kana...' ...who tail-waggled in, knowing her wordless name, tootled in puddly notes lazing low around his feet. She lapped up sounds and loosed me, forgotten -- I was no man again, and he won, no words against my slippery syllables. -- Eric Kofoid & Kelly Sullivan
Sidewalk Sand
Oblique sun, end of day — Sand on sidewalk casts perfect needles at my feet.
Shrinking
"You must have someone from then — a trusted aunt or uncle? a family friend? Who might remember more clearly, more objectively what happened?" No one, not one from then that I can trust, who knew me, who won't tell.
Salty Ride
You decided not to dance, Instead, toured this salty valley Added your tears to our great lake — Missed us while not wanting us — Thought I missed the point, And didn't know I was in the car with you.
Rose Day
Last week's flowers wilted, petals fell, water fouled, thrown away with scraps of food — "One bud" and she added a fern leaf, crinkly wrapper, red bow and smile — Warmly taken, coldly received, Rose lies ignored on sunny table, expanding, spreading, trying to be seen.
Purple Paper
Purple paper comes in scores of shades — An inifinity of purples is no surprise — But paper? ...who needs twenty five kinds of fuchsia folios? I just need plain purple and can't find it!
Oregon Juncos
Black-capped bandits in from Oregon, Scattering last year's leaves, Scaring the cat (white as snow lying about him), Jumping, pausing, darting — chaos makers — "Look, Aelric!", then gone, daddy's a liar — What's in that mass of cherry limbs that draws you back each year?
New Month
First day, last month — White snow, black shadows — Something moves, sun freezes my hand.
Lost Poems
Ten years ago, I moved from Salt Lake to California and lost neighbors, views, streams, opera, a packet of poems from 1996, and so much more — but, last week I stumbled across the poems.
It was exhilarating and emotional, like coming out of a suicidal coma and finding life is wonderful after all!
Well… a little like that. Maybe just a touch, for this very specific event.
Hmmm… To tell the truth, life has actually been quite interesting this last decade. The discovery was a bit of a rush, a stimulant, an exhilarant, a mood elevator.
A better metaphor: Imagine that you discover that the little toe on your right foot, which you thought you’d chopped off with an axe 10 years ago, has all along been folded in a peculiar fashion under the other four toes, and that a little clever autochiropractic manipulation pops it right out — now when you prance on naked tippy toes around the house, everything feels just right.
More like that, perhaps, than the suicidal coma.
See them here, if you wish, but, for the most part, they are raving doggerel. They are purposefully scrambled. Do not try to find any thematic continuity in their arrangement.
Morning Anger
-- with apologies to Bryan Singer The worst is remembered longest, this cumulative burden overwhelms in time — Such as, my morning angers, swirling out of evaporating nightmares, diaphanous, beloved — These fifteen minute irritations parade twenty four hours through your brain Like typing "Guatemala".
Max
He looked like a stiff wind might blow him away, White hair on bent white body, Wrapped in flannel and painful age — "See that man, Daddy?" — Who is he? "Max, Daddy! That's Max" — What does he do? "I don't know — He belongs to the school" — Suddenly, I fear the bricks might crumble if Max does not return.
Love Hat Memory
Troll phoned after twenty five years and asked about the hat — I happened to be staring right at it, recently discovered in my child's closet — A nameless Mexican beaurocrat was moved by a tale of the hat as gift of a dying lover and lost on a train — He took pity — in two weeks a beaten package arrived, hat intact — A Mayan heart believed and a lover was realized — My friend, sensing some universal urgency, knew it was time to resurect this dead young woman, never born — Her love undending, shielded me from sun and rain.
Ligature
Someday, Aelric will push A against E, tuning identity with historical precedence — The good king's ancient stone pressing down his bones has his letters that way — The story and sanctifying sound of "ligature" will spare him and his name — Who argues with dead royalty and a long word?
Jeff
Jeff can't tell me why he looked through me for three months, seeing only fog in thin air, Fears my future, says he'll fly me out, or I'll force him back to Salt Lake City, Teeters on the edge of brilliant insanity, Sees light in the Will-o-the-Wisp creeping along the runway.
Guys' Night Out
Big guy, papers and coffee, notebook, scribbles — Little guy, cookie crumbs, chocolate, curled up under coat — A week's wait, it's good and no need to talk about it.
Glass & Lies
I extend phone line across bench Talking science to a liar — Outside calm, inside chaos — A flask, empty, falls; sudden sound, discordant bells — No anger, just broken glass sparkling on floor.
Gita, Leg Warmer Supreme
Cat on legs while writing — minor distraction, major warmth — Purring massage thrown in for free.
Gita Goddess
I prayed to Gita cat a simple request — Speak into her ear as she sleeps, Work a small miracle, just this — Gita said, "Yes, of course" — The required rituals, stroking, rubbing, tickling, warming, I did them all — "Patience", she purred, "Just wait" — I did, and learned again, they lie, these cats, When they say they're God.
Frosted Glass
Glass over pastry; scratches, hundreds, intersecting like frost -- Pies and goodies in soft focus, visual effect provided by Anxious hands dragging hot cups for years towards craving bodies.
First Bath Solo
Tonight, my boy bathes for the first time alone — "Daddy, get out, but you can leave the door open…" Don't worry, I'm here — "Daddy?" Still here, Honey — "I love you… I'm done…" I'm not leaving, you're safe — "I'll dry myself, but let me see you first…" I'll be here a long time, until I'm imperfect again.
Ezra's Sleep
Today, you try to fool me — standing shakily, hobbling toward me with a smile, Cataract eyes saying, "Much better now, really — younger feeling, like old times." You scream in pain as I touch your side. In we go, pills from my pocket into your mouth — You drink deeply and for once I let you eat anything you want — You lie next to me pain replaced by tired euphoria — Two hours of childhood dreams and you never knew when the needle touched your vein.
Dream Flight
It was always simple — tip forward, feet rise from floor — A sensation between tickled stomach and blushed face and levitate — The trick was finding that feeling and letting it spread from chest to temples — Once aloft, direction was effortless, speed erratic, and a view green and expansive — My dream child flew alone, warm, safe, fearless — I remember this well, with envy.
Dog Self
New dog, eight weeks into world, three days from mom — Cocks head in question, consults cat, prefers my child — Knows self with so little doubt.
December Warmth
Snow, gone warm Pacific front — rained all day, Seattle clouds in Utah. "Cold", she says — "But, we walked without our coats", I say — "Yes, but it's wet and gray, definitely not warm, cold enought, and I feel the way I ought to feel — The way I would feel if it were thirty degrees colder."
December Dog
Good friend,
old black beast,
lying in snow,
rises with pain —
Tail waves "Hello!"
and continues:
"You're here at last —
You'll never guess the battles —
first, birds, then
squirrels, then
kids walking by —
Repelled them all —
It was work, let me tell you
but things are safe now
for you and her
and the kid
and the cat."
"Another day" thinks God,
"You get another day —
Just keep talking, friend."
Decaf at the Coffee House
For the privilege
of sitting now and
sleeping later,
I drink this cup
of bitter stuff,
foul from neglect --
Medicine not for
mind or body,
But known to cure
a social disease.
Conversion
I notice her eyes,
glistening, fixed,
Her smile, surrendering,
Her joy in listening --
I hear him say
"…spiritual growth…"
in his white cable knit sweater,
advertising on front --
"…Christ…"
in his pressed French dungarees --
"…impact on our relationship…"
in handsewn English boots --
I see tears in her eyes,
and he goes in
for the kill.
Coffee Cliché
A good poem and
a dollar twenty three
will get you
A tall French roast and
a sleepless night.
Chance
"Another chance" thinks one —
"A forgiving nature" thinks two,
and then forgiveness
becomes last chance —
It's probability and numbers —
Love, an equation.
Cell
Small pulsing complication —
I cannot see you,
But spend my life
peering into
your insides.
Cat Carpentry
Cat claws my patient work —
I hiss —
But she works also,
has her own shapes
frozen within
my unfeline forms.
Bookstore Concert
Rush to bookstore concert —
Arrive on time,
musicians forgot —
Two hours' reading,
perfect performance.