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Thursday, December 29, 2022

Rock

Even the soft are hard,

The boulder or the shard;


The pebble or stone, all scarred

With the stylus and the cloth


And the wings of the moth.

Still up the mountains thrust


Into skies of water and dust,

Then crumble at last to sand,


Until the flatness of the land

Betrays no fleck of bone,


Nor relic of brick or stone,

And no one left to be alone.

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Orchestra

Musicians are made of music,

As though there exists a music gene.

For accomplished artists, it's no trick,

But benefit of exquisite training.

You feel the presence of votive force.

The notes, even the shaping of line,

Are pleasing, like a poem's off-rhyme,

But talent, not music, is their source.

The players make of air a force

That governs the fluidity of time.

They understand that beauty is fleeting,

That this song, now, is their only chance,

That perfection seldom knows repeating,

And thrust at our hearts like a lance.

Thursday, December 15, 2022

Melody

The orchestra is silent,

No vibrating instrument,


Nor air, sweet or dissonant.

The players left the stage


Striking one note — of rage.

An object of odium,


The conductor sits the podium.

The composer’s score,


Scattered on the floor,

Will not be heard anymore.


Thursday, December 8, 2022

Hate

A black and bloody flower

Blooms in the hearts’ bower,


Its scent poisoning the hour.

Its thorns, proliferating pain,


Stab the heart again and again.

Words wound us without stint,


Hot soughing winds by dint

Of battering the heart’s cage —


Like a billion moths of rage

Demanding the end of the age.


Thursday, December 1, 2022

Insomnia

I wake at two. The dreams rewind.

The day now past is redefined,


Its cracked and slipping gears grind.

Remembering will not bring sleep


And to hell with counting sheep.

Getting up to read only prolongs


Alertness — as do regretted wrongs.

You try to empty out all thought,


But find what’s unwillingly sought;

What can be quickly flung away


Returns in images you cannot say.

Soon you’re even more woke up,


Like an overflowing coffee cup.

You change the me from you to I —


That’s worse, like the grasping “my.”

Take all these memories and desires


And drown them in oceanic fires.

Breathe deep until thought expires.


Thursday, November 24, 2022

Number

The number of dates

Ever proliferates.


Each, pinned down, waits

Until all are done —


One and one and one.

We wake and sleep and wake


Without the slightest break

In the dropped mirror


Of each memory’s error.

I remember tomorrow,


Waves of it, row on row,

Just within my reach


On this particulate beach

That myriad suns bleach.


Thursday, November 17, 2022

Dreaming

Dreaming isn’t thinking,

That hypnogogic sinking


Into the unblind unblinking.

Its images are un-clocked


Memories, mostly mocked

Distortions of what we are now,


Hurt children crying “Ow!”

We meet there the half known,


Not projected but shown

Us for no intelligible reason,


A fifth, black and white, season,

If wish fulfillment, unfilled,


Or a silent movie unbilled.

Though occasional nightmares


Will scare us with dead stares,

Only awake will we, screaming,


Take for real the seeming,

Mistake the dream for meaning.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Parallel

Parallel lives will never meet.

They walk on a different street


Though both are equally fleet.

Perhaps at the vanishing point


They will end, a dovetail joint,

That nothing can pull apart,


Not a hawk, nor a work of art,

For there’s no change of mind


Can allow thoughts to unbind.

All, futile conjecture.


(Is the math of parallels pure?)

Lives do cross, were meant to,


But in sum they are so few.

So many hearts do not reach,


Not even trying, each to each.

Rolling, rolling like train wheels,


None knowing what others feel,

Each of us made of flesh and steel.

Thursday, November 3, 2022

Clock

I own a clock that can’t tell time —

Acts like an unruly street mime.


Not only does it refuse to chime

At any quarter of or on the hour,


It always runs faster or slower

Than time itself, and often backwards.


Its hands clap out nonsense words —

There are no numbers on its face.


I turn a ring to change its pace,

As though duration is relative.


Its works know no imperative,

Not like an hourglass, but a sieve. 


Thursday, October 27, 2022

The Map

All directions are a trap.

Do not follow the map


Or be caught in amber’s sap.

Oh, the body can move


With the fevers of love

Or the lifted brow of thought,


But don’t learn what’s taught.

The aimlessness of dreams


Is only the ripping of seams

On a child’s outgrown gown.


You can’t dream up or down.

So do not try to run away,


Dear one. Stand still, sway,

And you’ll not wander astray.

Thursday, October 20, 2022

One Word

There is one word that stands

Alone from all if’s and and’s,


Which has no face or hands,

Which, like a glistening bubble,


Floats above the verbal rubble,

Floats too high to be obscene,


Moving moveless and serene.

The word has never been spoken


Past teeth perfect or broken.

No tongue has been known to shape it,


Or fools’ babble to leak it or ape it.

Desperation, fear, or hatred’s keening


Can summon the word’s meaning,

But not the name of the word.


“There's no such thing! That’s absurd!”

Men cry — not quite saying the word.


Thursday, October 13, 2022

Eliot

Damn you, Thomas Eliot!

Why did you have to be a bigot?


Someday they’ll say, “Who? I forgot!”

At first it seemed a forgivable blot,


A line here and there, not a lot,

A silver string with a nasty knot.


Now it reads like an aneurism, a clot,

A stroke, or babble of a bibulous sot,


Unredeemable, no innocent mot,

But the crisis of your poetry’s plot.


Then you wrote the Four Quartets.

Your hate may be forgiven yet.


Thursday, October 6, 2022

Walking

There is little left of his hip —

Afflicted since he was a pip


In a leg brace, he would trip

On the curb, crossing the street.


He’d never been strong or fleet.

The clouds followed him


Above oceans he could swim

With a few strokes of his arms,


Setting off foreign alarms.

The highest mountains bent


Upside down for his ascent.

Only he knew where he went.

Thursday, September 29, 2022

Mushroom

It appeared beneath our yew,

A large puffball that grew 


Unseen. Then there were two.

Soft, bleached skulls without holes,


Less like the dead than souls.

I picked them up — their spongy skin


As alarmingly soft as sin.

I was frightened of what grew within.

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Magpie

A man shot a magpie on the wing.

It fell with a broken wing.


The nock snapped the bow’s string.

The man gave the bird to a priest,


Who nursed it to be released,

Then decided to keep it in a cage.


To release its gale force outrage,

The priest split the magpie’s tongue,


Expecting to hear a terrible song.

Instead he heard nothing but words,


The speech of Man, not birds:

His own prayers and curses,


And profaned Biblical verses.

The altar boys taught the magpie


To ask of everyone, “Why

Weren’t you shot from the sky?”


Saturday, September 17, 2022

There is Only One Gray

The passing of years

As we enter the gray —

The shedding of tears

(Allowed only a day),

The mending of love —

Is below and above

The light and the dark,

A singing meadowlark

Whose eye can’t be seen

Through eyelid screens,

As the daylight retreats

And tomorrow repeats.


Thursday, September 8, 2022

Close/Soon


The derecho downed

Thousands of trees,

Two in my back yard.

Both fell on our house,

Toppling chimney,

Ripping down gutters,

Driving heavy branches 

Through shingled roof.

One spearlike stem

Missed me as I slept,

By the width of my bed.

Water on me woke me,

Not the cracking sound.

It was close, but not soon

Enough to take me asleep.


Thursday, September 1, 2022

There

The nuthatches and chickadees

Are here, but are never there.

No twig, no arm of a lawn chair,

(Nothing their little claws seize)

Remains a perch for long

In each bird’s pursuit of song.

In movement they find flying.

They cannot be still for trying.

They pause only for sustenance —

The suspension of cadence

Taking air from the vibrating beak.

That is a bird’s life — to seek.

Thursday, August 25, 2022

ICE

Most winters the river froze

A foot or more thick, visible,

Before the snows came,

By crack lines that struck

Down like lightning bolts.

I could step out fearlessly,

Though the loud zip sound

Of a fissure shot from yards

Away and ran between my legs.

As I skated the sounds of stressed

Ice followed me, just as I

Chased the schools of fish

That ran ahead of me. I was

Never quite sure what they were —

Panfish, cats, bass, carp or pike,

Never more than four or five,

Sometimes only one, like a finger.

They knew I chased them

From above their hardened sky.

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Turtle

A neighbor taught me “trout-lines,”

Said they were named after trout

Having been gone for centuries,

If they ever were here to be run off 

By poisons more filthy than death.

(Even he, in his sixties, didn’t know

They were actually called “trot-lines.”)

Still some species of hardier stuff,

All ugly (why does ugliness survive?) —

Carp, suckers, bullhead and catfish —

Seem to thrive in a watercourse

The sun cannot pierce or illuminate.

The trot-line is for the lazy “angler,”

A stout length of cord with a big hook

Baited with a small fish and weighted

With a heavy lead sinker and thrown

Out as far as possible and left.

I would check mine every few hours.

Often when I was rod fishing I’d be

More intent on the trot-line because

The hope was to catch something big.

Day after day the line would droop,

Swaying in the Kishwaukee’s current.

Then the line went taut and walked

Upstream. Dad was mowing the lawn

Behind me. I shouted but he didn’t hear.

I pulled and it didn’t seem to resist.

Its head became visible by the pier,

A visitor from prehistory, carapace

Ridged with green diamond shapes.

I tied off the line, went for my Dad,

Who helped me haul the monster up

Onto the bank. “Snapping turtle,”

He said. “They can be dangerous,

But they make great turtle soup.”

He tied it to a tree and ran away,

Leaving it to wander, but thwarted,

When it came close to the river.

Dad returned with a hatchet and stick,

Offered the stick to the turtle’s snout,

Which grabbed, crunching on it.

“You’ll see. He won’t let go,

No matter how hard I pull.”

He meant to chop off its head,

But the beast did let go and bit

My father’s pinky. Blood everywhere.

Dad did take its head, swearing,

Breathing hard, then he threw

The turtle, head still biting the stick,

Hatchet, trot-line, all into the water.

As he walked away, he shouted,

“No more trot-lines. They’re too

Damn dangerous for a little kid.”

I told my neighbor, who said,

“I’d call him a damn fool, wasting

Good turtle soup, but I don’t say

Things like that to a neighbor’s son.”

Thursday, August 11, 2022

DAM

The dam, built on the downstream

End of town, chevron shaped,

Concrete, with blocks of broken

Concrete laced with rusted rebar

Below, to break up the flow

Of only an inch or two of water

(Though some 80 feet wide),

Muddy, greasy green and brown, 

That slid in a silken sheet over its brim.

We used to dare each other to walk

Across the top, on a foot’s width

Of flatness, the water boiling

Around our naked feet, slipping

With each step on a thin layer

Of algae. None of my friends fell,

Though many others had, breaking

Bones and stabbed by iron rods.

The sliding fall was fast. Some died.

(Today there are warning signs

And fences to forestall foolishness

Masquerading as youthful bravery.)

I tried it once and turned around

After shuffling only five feet across.

I suffered the humiliation of jeers,

Though my feat wasn't surpassed

By my peers. Like water, it passed.

I fished for pike beneath the dam

And forgot I might have joined them.

Friday, August 5, 2022

SKY

We grew up in a small town

Near the smoke, dirt, and rust

Of the factory across the river,

The mud and coke-filled waters,

The drowned dead Dutch elms

Fallen away from rooted ground,

The century old iron trestle

Fenced off from foolish divers,

Floating carp and suckers,

Still gasping, twitching,

Unable to just drown and die.

A mountain of discarded tires,

Seeping sulfur, so slow-burning

They hissed streams of boiled air.

Such we’ve done everywhere.

Look up. The sky, cloudy or

Cloudless, storm-clouded,

Or spiked with myriad lightning,

Transfigures all into a paradise.


Thursday, July 28, 2022

The Age of Aggravation


I can handle anxiety today

With a pill and a sip of water.

It comes from nowhere

And has little reason to exist.

Yea, I worry about this and that,

The bomb and global warming,

Without thinking, concentrating,

Like a deer in summer hiding

Its does though hunting season

Is an unrealizable future.

I like to think that all is well —

I mean the essential things,

From family to home and work —

I could explain why I’m right.

Then why is everyone so angry?

I refuse to recite the reasons.

They are invisible chimeras 

Of fear, corpses of inconsequence.

A few mad apples, rolling, legless,

Without sense or innocence,

Which won’t die before they rot.

What we used to call ideas

Are now ravenous ouroboros.

Oh, such satiety in aggravation! 

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Bread

I drew bread from the shelf,

As so many thousands have,

A simple act for a simple meal.

I thought, from this one place

The uncountable have been fed,

From here, this grocery store,

Where the shelf is never empty.

And not just once — I have

Performed this act of grace

So many times myself, I wonder

That there’s any more for others.

Would I take the last loaf left?

We have all done far worse things.

It wouldn’t be a crime, of course —

Someone must be the last to eat.

I could say, “There’s more bread,

Perhaps, on shelves in other stores,”

Succumbing to rationalization.

There are now thousands lined up

Behind me, waiting for me to choose.

Has every one made up their mind?

If you were me, what would you do?


Thursday, July 14, 2022

The Error Of Innocence

It’s impossible, a contradiction

Of being, a false manipulation.

The mistake is in not knowing,

Like a child mimicking a curse,

Without any idea what it means.

At four I once told my brother,

“I wish you would go to hell,”

Then added, “no, don’t go to hell.”

Hell being no more than a word —

Yet I was vigorously punished

With a dozen stripes of a strap.

Some think we’re not born innocent,

Like the lion, the viper, or the lamb,

But by some withheld benediction

That can only be lost in the learning,

Which in itself taints the newly-wise.

The veins in a sick hand, febrile

And limp, are not guilty till lifted.

“The only truly innocent are dead,”

Some say. No greater lie ever said,

Because even they are burdened

By all that has come before. Not sin,

Not ignorance, but the spoken word,

The lie given breath willingly,

For no other purpose than my own.

Thursday, July 7, 2022

Terror

A man in a dirty undershirt shouted

“Hey, kid!” from an upper window.

He held a pistol aimed at me and laughed.

This was on Main Street north of downtown

On a bright afternoon in August. I ran.

His laughter, like gun shots, followed me

Even around the corner. Why was he?

What was he? A drunk? A criminal?

Was he contemplating shooting himself

Because his girl had run away from him,

Her letter crumpled in his other hand?

Maybe the gun wasn’t real, a water pistol.

His laughter sounded friendly in my head,

Not taunting or meant to humiliate me.

He might have bumped his head on the sash,

Because he had gone quiet so abruptly.

Was he now bleeding, whispering curses,

And might come down and chase a kid?

It was the hottest, most humid day yet 

Of a long summer, and he was suffering,

Perhaps, so pointing a gun at anything

Took his corruption out of mind for a time,

The liquid and noisome, atom by atom,

Putrefaction of a few once-pure thoughts.

How can the mind see him now, 60 years

Later, when he’s been dead for 60 years?


Thursday, June 30, 2022

The Curvature: Speedboat

The river runs straight behind my home.

An iron factory spews coke down stream

And the ashes and willows were rippedw

Into the water by a derecho last summer.

I sit with my sister on a concrete pier.

Tomorrow is her wedding day — resignation

Is a philter poisoning her halting speech.

The speedboat comes like a swarm of bees,

Yellow with long stripes of scratched black.

A man waves as he passes and ignores

My gesture to move right to deeper water.

He passes under an iron trestle and turns about.

Now he’s much too close to his right shore,

Is soon airborne, a flightless bird in flight.

(He’s hit a partially submerged concrete pier.)

The boat, now vertical, drops him backwards

And hits him with its stern as it comes down.

We hear shrieks like seabirds, see flailing arms

Try to move him toward the opposite bank.

The boat is caught in a tight circle and strikes

The man twice more before moving downstream.

My sister and I push a canoe into the water 

And try to paddle toward the thrashing man,

But the churning, circling speedboat blocks us.

People on the other shore wade in and grab him.

He has no entrails and they watch him die.

The speedboat continues to circle — as my sister

And I return to dock — to circle and circle

Until it runs out of gas and courses straight,

As though the steering wheel has been unlocked

By the empty tank, unbending its curve,

So the boat can crash, vertical again, on land.