Poem 52

I only let myself write this poem on three conditions:
1. I will not say "mellow".
2. I will not say "fro".
3. I will not say "happy trees".

Honestly I got this idea from watching I Love the 80's on VH1. That makes me pretty lame.

For Bob Ross

It was the kind of thing you
couldn’t sell, maybe five bucks
at a rummage sale:
a painting of a waterfall,
evergreens, and mountains.
He made it in half an hour
on an easel set up with
white like a window into snow
against the black curtain.
With a blade
he cut black swipes
onto a horizon.
He sprouted bristle-point
leaves with a wide brush
on trunks he planted
in the foreground.
In time a canvas melted,
revealing a season.
The whole act so common to him
that he’d talk you through it,
as if he persuaded leaves from dirt,
encouraged land to mountain.
Each wonder so easy.

Somewhat-Justifiable-Schedule-Change Laziness

I've started coaching again, and as a result, my schedule has been out of whack, but I'm also not working on much writing. I'll be back...soon...

Poem 51

This poem is still pretty fresh, raw even. I've tweaked it a bit and am actually satisfied enough to publish it. The idea came while driving past churches on Sunday, and I had another little flash about it that night.
I don't think I would have written this poem unless I had been thinking about Heidegger and technology on Friday.

Easter Service in the Parking Lot

Below the steel cross
with the white banner
visible from I-90, cars
in the parking lot, and along
the street leading to Crossroads
Bible Church gather
for communion of weather
in white-bordered pews.
Multitudes of them
line up at the edge. They
sit among regulars
displaced from their spots
by early arrivers.
As if they had guilt
built up after Sundays in
garages and apartment lots,
cars have come by
force of consciences
dressed in suits or
floral dresses.
A Lexus,
the Ford Explorer with slouched fender,
generations of Toyotas,
at least twelve Civics,
have become like holy sepulchers. Now
they wait for owners,
to clatter out in loafers
and heels on rainy pavement.
For this hour cars have together
in fellowship under clouds,
light poles, crosses,
they mingle and wonder
at how much to-do
their drivers make over one guy
who took three days. They almost chuckle,
the cars,
whose owners will
resurrect them as usual
with the key and adjustment
of knobs.
Such miracles,
witnessed daily,
in the name of getting somewhere else.

Poem 50

I did pretty well in high school biology, but the genetics unit was a bit of a challenge for me. I couldn't tell you the difference between anaphase and telophase without looking it up, but I still know the difference between mitosis and meiosis (Thanks Bill Wagstaff!). It struck me how our cells spend so much time dividing, that at our smallest level of aliveness we are never still.

The part in this poem about cells dividing came from another poem that was foundering in my practice file for a while.

Moving Out

Bleach hands, cardboard hands,
they’ve taped and labeled
and signed a new lease.
Now they roll the rented dolly
stacked with the TV
up the ramp to the truck.
I repeat the trip for kitchen,
bath, CDs + DVDs,
and other boxes: harvests
and seeds of rooms.
Each fits somehow,
even the last junk boxes
I leave open in the back
because, who has time?

I shutter the truck, lock,
and go back in for
a last look at
carpet scarred by furniture
pressed into the fiber.
There are fewer wounds
left after scrubbing
and checking.
The gash of dust
between fridge and counter
closed as the vacuum
attachment soothed.
It was easy to let the place hurt
these years, now
I apologize with floor wax
and Windex.
Can’t be too thorough:
I massage patching
compound into the wall,
healing the wound
of a thumbtack.

Strange how we
leave places, how cells divide -
secret divorce we file for
on day one.
We grow by falling apart,
and hoping genes left hurting,
will mean new agreements.
The charts of the phases,
mitosis, chromosomes,
we learned in school
showed two of everything
before the split, like
for a day or two,
new keys meeting the old
on our rings.

Poem 49

I'm not the first to notice the proliferation of tip jars. As a former tipped employee, I can't blame folks earning minimum wage or slightly higher for putting the palm out there. Starbucks is such a place where I don't mind tipping; I tip if a guy makes me a Manhattan, so why not a mocha? I'm never sure how much to tip though, and it usually depends on how many singles I have. If I have none, I won't throw in the coins. If I have a few, I might tip a buck on a two-dollar beverage. I can't say this sits well with me, but I go with my gut and hope it works out.

The definite article in the title is intentional.

The Starbucks

Above a green apron and
framed by headset
his grin suggests mochas,
the new cinnamon dolce latte,
and yet I order drip coffee.
“Room for cream?”
“Sure. Yes.”

He trades my five for cup and change.
Ashamed of my bare order,
I add a dollar to the tip jar
like some kind of sweetener.
The sound of a nickel
and pennies hitting glass
would clatter over
steamer and grinder, I fear.

Too much?
Perhaps it will cover for
a woman who only uses debit,
or the teen with sweatshirt
and three bucks.
Or maybe it's time to let go.
Cash shrinks these days,
a dollar blending into quarters,
dimes with falling markets.
One day it might trade
at the value of a smile.

Getting my groove back

I haven't posted jack squat here in over three weeks. I wish I had a good excuse, but all I have is hope that I will have something next Monday. Please bear with me.

Currently, I am getting my ass in gear to write more

Poem 48

I wrote this poem off of an exercise suggested in a book on writing poetry. The idea is to take a quote from a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and write a poem that sort of goes against the "Show, don't tell" admonition. I came up with this fictional piece, which I'm actually satisfied enough to post. I looked at the quote in a way that is sure to be out of context and almost certainly wrong in its interpretation but which made sense to me in a way.

I have no idea where this hike is actually taking place.

Spring Break with My Daughter

“Old men were once young, but it is uncertain if young men will reach old age.” –Democritus

“The banks of the stream
keep it to one channel,
but with time, the river remodels
its course. Look at the walls
of this canyon; you see?”
my daughter announces
as if it’s been 30 years since
Geology, and for me, it has.
I can relate if the rock wonders
where the time has gone.

It must seem big to her,
the scads of years
to pry apart rock and leave
enough space for slow water
along the trail
and us along that, walking,
two hikers in jeans, boots,
the sweat of people who
spend the week indoors.

Jenn stops to swig water
and I look up through
sunglasses at the
sandstone and grass running
up from our low crease.
“Imagine how many years
it took to make this.”
“Yeah, when I was your age,
this was about three feet deep.”
She smiles, the dad-is-funny
grin: we’re getting along.

When she drove home
instead of to the beach
two days ago, I thought,
What can I pass to her
on a Spring break better
spent with friends?
And I thought of mine
back then laying on a beach,
trying to get laid,
mostly trying. Hard
to say it, but that’s what
I think college is for.

Monica made up the guest bed.
I thawed steaks and spent a vacation day.
Last year Jenn came home
and we had it all planned,
but that wasn’t sophomore year
when a kid is supposed to be
sleeping till noon
on a seven-beer hangover.
I’d like to ask her what’s wrong
and why she’s making good choices.

She clicks the cap back
on her water and claps her hands,
“Let’s keep going.” She starts.
My knees are reminding me
of the already three-mile return.
We stomp on down the trail,
another force tearing the canyon deeper
into earth, aging at every step,
all of us wanting to say,
I’m not sure how I got like
this, but I’ll tell you the story.

Poem 47

Here is another poem written in syllabics; I can't remember what number the previous one was. This one has seven syllable lines alternating with six for no reason other than that's how the first two lines went.
It typically takes me a lot longer to put together one poem like this, but on the plus side I can only hem and haw so much; I've fiddled with a free verse or five much more than I did with this one.

VHS to DVD

The machine hoards the disk and
waits, guessing the space left for
my grandfather’s old movies.
I slip from the cover
the old VHS cassette,
which carries, like echo,
my mother at the beach, her
head small behind large sun
glasses, a diaper bulging
her suit. A fast forward
later and Grandma blows out
thirty-eight candles. If
you watch until the static,
Grandpa drives the new boat,
nephews play croquet outside,
Mom dances, white dress on.

Ten years ago we paid a
man 40 bucks to spin
five reels onto cassette
tape; he went to church with us.
He seemed like a wizard,
putting this all to one slim
plastic box to sit on
the cabinet shelf, resting
against exercise and
old cartoons. I think of how
we once watched the tape and
slid it back in its slip case
like Grandpa putting books
on the shelf after bedtime
and leaving the hall lit.
That light projected shadow
on wall and floor: big shapes
he said were nothing, sleep tight.

When will we watch family
shadows at the Legion hall
dancing on a new screen?
The record button sinks in
to the remote control.
I pass on the stories with
plastic, as if etching
the things once more makes them last,
the signal fading, soft.

Poem 46

It's a new year, and I'm beginning to pull myself out of a winter slump in writing anything. Thanks for coming back.
I wrote this after hearing some piano music from the French composer Erik Satie. I don't get as much classical music as I should, but the three short pieces under the name "Gymnopedies" really got to me. I think it gives this poem a somewhat French feel to it. It's not a lot, but I'm able to post it, and in a dry spell I'll take what I can get.

After Hearing "Trois Gymnopedies"

What rain as fallen
left the parking lot
a constellation
of damp specks.

A Mazda,
two Subarus,
stand watch.
Their antennas
rattle.

The wind blows
more drops
from the awning
and branches
of winter trees.

It is how the air
mourns the lost
leaves here.
January, a warm
week, and
the rain wishes
for the leaves again.