Three year old Nora and I walked to the pond today.
We brandished a slingshot to ploop stones.
Deer tracks littered quotation marks
over the sandy approach to the south end.
We found bleached bones in a handful of gray fur–
unlucky young opossum’s night path crossed mother Red Fox.
The jawbone, with most teeth still intact,
was declared “Dinosaur” and ordered for collection.
We also collected three interesting rock samples.
They are polishing each other in my right pocket now.
The sun appears to rise in the eastern sky, increasing its angle of incidence from the horizon.
My window is on the SW side of my house, above ground level. I sit with my shoulders perpendicular to the glass.
#1 At what angle will westbound and downbound rays of light correspond to the angle of inclination on the rear window of that SUV parked directly west of me so that its glint prevents me from reading?
#2 As the sun appears to rise in the clear sky and arc toward the south, at what time will the beam be so deflected as to permit me to continue my book?
#3 Can I apply this geometry to my SSW facing passive solar heat collector that, until now, has been content to sit in shade every morning?
#4 Is this poem worthy of the distraction?
Show your work.
America,
What are your touchstones?
What is it that allows American arrogance?
I don’t say that judgmentally.
It’s able to simply sit like a toad in a puddle.
It’s a toad. It’s in a puddle.
In this case, the toad’s the truth.
In another case, it might be the puddle.
Lately, a lot has been said about guns.
Is it guns? Is that a touchstone?
You could make a case.
Lately the case seems very gory, and hate-filled.
Guns seem to have something to do with racism
and kind of sideways religious intolerance.
And hate. It’s rolled up into a
Tangled confluence.
Is it money?
Our money or will anyone’s money do?
Or is it the system that delivers the money?
Or is it the people to whom the system delivers the money?
I get lost in the hierarchy.
Seems like a lot of hate in the world about money right now.
Or maybe it’s the system that makes Americans hate.
Or the people who the system works for.
It’s kind of tangly too.
Is it freedom? I love freedom in America.
Freedom is great. More freedom is greater.
I’m free to do anything I want in America.
I can walk down your street with guns and money.
And I can say hateful things at the top of my lungs.
That’s freedom and it takes
a thousand Hell’s Angles spending money on guns on the head of a pin
to keep us free.
God bless Hell’s Angles.
God bless freedom.
At six he still finds it possible to lap-sprawl.
But now his shoulders hang off one side,
His knees off the other.
He throws his head and cub lion’s mane back.
I see the sure pulse in his neck.
His kick is strong when I tickle.
This will all be over in a couple of years
Or sooner.
Giggles give way to needing referees on the field.
Fathers urge their sons onward.
Grandfathers are willing to steep a few moments.
I’ve been all three.
I’ve been saving this line to use in a poem for more than a month. Today I decided it is its own poem.
Spring Weather Forcast
“Look, PopPop,
it’s raining out
snow water.”
Two More Days
As capricious as Spring can be,
I think she has come round again.
It is Friday.
If sun & cloud & wind conspire,
Winter’s back is broken.
The evidence is here:
-Monday’s grass strains two shades of gray-green away from winter sere.
-A single tadpole madly flagellates the big pond.
-A dozen robins rape each other all day in full sunlight.
-Buzzards spill air to pick the bones of winterkill.
A few days before April 1, I decided to do 30/30 (30 poems in 30 days of April) for the first time in any long time. So, two days in, I don’t exactly recognize this voice yet.
1 of 30 April 1
Two Poems Walked Down the Street
Arguing.
“You already agreed!” said one
“Love is what we are after.”
“Yes,” said the other. “But not the only thing.
You know, food, shelter, some other things too.”
The first poem dug his bare hands into his pockets
And shrugged his shoulders into the wind.
A cold rain had begun to spit.
2 of 30 April 2
Is The Afterlife a Road Trip?
Nothing feels as real
as being on the road.
All the rest is like reading old People magazines,
Or watching a worn-out, re-run sit-com.
The transition between is perfect.
One minute, lying there
In the hospital,
On the couch,
Maybe in the middle of the road.
It hurts to breathe.
The spine has turned to hot wax.
And SNAP!, that Olds is
Purring down a fine 1960s asphalt
Black ribbon snaking out of the mountains,
Maybe the sun is rising.
Only a little breeze but, of a sudden,
The Olds is a convertible with no perceptible
Ground vibration. Smooth.
It is a perfect world for motoring:
Gravity works about the same.
Inertia is identical but —
No friction. No turbulence. No angles,
Except the chrome.
I, like many of you, have been consuming the Olympics. I’ve been delighting in Mr. T’s tweets. I’ve grown a strong new respect for figure skating. And then…and then…and then someone’s nipple was exposed! Her discipline and focus prohibited her from stopping the routine to put the costume together again. And yet, if you have never heard of French ice dancer Gabriella Papadakis before, odds are pretty good you peeked at her boobie this week.
I think it kind of exposed that old Victorian (or worse, Puritan) attitude of many Americans. We want to flirt with the idea of nudity but we so want to judge the nude. I decided to take the opportunity to resurrect an old poem’s audio to try to re-teach this lesson. Everyone’s body is just variations on a theme.
Looks Blue
(6:28)
Yeah, I know. This is an older piece. Kind of makes me think of hippies and beatniks. Not quite enough to consider hep cats or zoot suiters.
The last time I saw you was February, 1969.
You surprised me at my apartment.
You were dressed in your white drug store uniform.
I don’t know if the tie was hung on the doorknob,
(or the sock, more likely since I didn’t own a tie)
but my roommates stayed gone that afternoon.
I had been watching you for three years.
You had the most wonderfilled lips,
with a muscle car boyfriend who had been around all the while.
You came in and we drank juice.
We talked in my hippy bedroom about Dylan.
We kissed to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.”
We talked/touched on top of my tee shirt and your stiff nylon
Until your boyfriend sounded long anger in the street.
You looked afraid and pleaded for me to stay while you left.
I wondered about you for weeks – remembered.
The snow melted. I heard you were killed
In your car by a freight train at an unlit country crossing.
If you could plant
neat rows of
honey clover
in red East Texas soil,
it would grow
full vocal chords and
lips to whisper at night
about gators and
water moccasins
in the damp bottom lands.
They would be Brenda’s lips.
The voice would be low and
quiet and
husky from whiskey.
smarsh