Poetry

Go On (with a nod to Ezra and to Buk)

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lined in rows

Go on, little poem;
Go down the hill and get in line
With the others.

There are hundreds of you now
Trying to stand as tall and straight as soldiers
Holding fixed bayonets at the ready.
But most of you are small,
Bent little things,
Like a long rank of twisted teeth
Standing stubbornly in your sockets.

You are barely strong enough to stand
And give testimony
To how someone once lived
And raised you
In all your misshapen fortitude.

But, go on;
Go get in line,
Like old-time farmers
Leaning on long handled hay forks,
Gossiping at market.
You tell them
After I’ve gone.

Show them my crooked scowl,
My bent grin.

Stand, like strikers, holding aloft
Your placards and slogans.
Stand against the bullies and braggarts,
The privileged and the aloof.
Stand in line after I have lain down
And make a good bit of noise.

Memoir, Poetry

Bees at the End of Day

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When morphine slowed and thickened
my Dad’s voice,
he told anyone who would listen
about the bee colony
in his hospice room.
Back and forth,
they flew.
He said in his dry, dying-man voice,
“I think they are moving
from one place to another.”

Dad, deep in glaucoma,
without his glasses,
high as he ever had been in life,
watched bees
go back and forth
building,
while he was dying.

Two days before his death, Dad,
who was vain about his voice,
who some would say was vainglorious about talking,
who was not a conversationalist so much as
one who didn’t know when to listen,
used the last of his voice
to castigate my sister,
for a mass of imagined insults and disappointments
over a malignant lifetime.

She left in tears and vowed never to return.
Something sacred had broken
and it couldn’t be healed over
or sealed up, at least not in time.
The golden honey of her daughter’s love
had drained out
and was lost upon the ground.

When he finished,
and she had left,
the cancer took his voice.
And still he watched the bees coming and going,
tearing down and building;
he signed to me
to bring my sister back to him
that he might make amends.

I did not know how to trust him either.
Bees make honey
but bees have stingers.
And when they sting, they die.

For two days,
I went back and forth
to bring my sister back to my father’s death bed

And when she consented,
with steel in her voice,
and steel in her backbone,
and steel in her jaw,
I promised I would be with her.

He took her warmth in both of his paper-dry cool hands
And clutched her hand to his thin chest
near his heart.
He looked at her face and moved his rough lips
and though he was no longer taking water,
tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes
and rolled backward
across his ears
onto the smooth hospice pillowcase.

That night, he moved on–
no more back and forth.

Five years later, my sister thanked me
for being tough with her
and for insisting,
although I don’t remember it
exactly like that.

Poetry

Eye Blood

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had told my therapist
about the chilling images
spontaneously blooming
in my waking brain,
like I’m trying to scare myself,
the image trying to be the whole
jumping-out-of-the-closet gestalt.
I had assumed
gore was intended to draw revulsion–
revulsion bound to all negative.
Until today,
the pictures became more
than the puzzle.

In real life:
blood clot headed for my brain
but gets caught in my eyeball.
I can see it floating.
It is deoxygenated maroon,
shaped like a large ant or
stinging, flying insect.

It is inanimate but
maybe wasn’t always.
There, a string,
a clot,
an antenna? on one end
waving in the liquid currents as it floats.
I can’t know if it is bad that it is in my eye
(and frightening to see,
let alone what that forebodes
for the health of my eye),
or if it is good
my eye filtered it out of my brain
and saved me from the stroke
I might have had today.

October 28, 2019.

Poetry

Getting the Story Straight

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When they get here,
Won’t they be surprised?

There was nothing we could do about Luke.

He told the story he was told,
No better or worse
Than any of those TV evangelists
or any journalist who has drunk the Kool-Aid.
Wouldn’t he be a piece of work in the blogosphere?
Or reporting for Fox News?
Old Rupert would get a kick out of Luke.

Journalists like to think of themselves
As guardians of Truth.

Luke says Satan invaded me.
But how could he know?
He didn’t talk to Satan,
And he certainly didn’t talk to me.
I’m not a primary source in his story.

The Truth, which needed guarding,
was something quite different.

Read the story again;
You’ll see what I’m talking about.
The teacher knows so much in advance.
He knows there’s this local contact guy
with a jar of water
Who knows where the group will eat the Passover.
He knows the house;
He knows the room.

During the meal
He knows he is about to suffer.
He knows the “betrayer” is seated at the table.
He knows about Simon (that ass-kisser)
He knows about Peter (that weakling)
He knows about the swords.

He told them to pray,
But I was there.
We drank wine instead.
And it wasn’t that “new” wine you hear about today.
That’s an invention of Temperance Societies.
They drank wine because the water would kill you.
They passed out.
He told them they needed a sword.
Anybody know what happens when you mix alcohol with weapons?
But he did heal the ear of that guy who got cut.

He gave me the final cue
To do what he told me
When he asked,
“Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?”
It was all set up the week before.

I did what he said to do.
I was just following orders.
I guess that’s how I got here.

But you don’t hear any of that in Luke’s story.
You think he might have omitted that part on purpose?
Family values and all that?
Then why the swords
and the ear
and the blood
and all the whipping
and scourging
and thorns in flesh
and nails hammered through flesh
and spears piercing flesh
and all that blood and gall and vinegar?

Matthew had it a little different.
He was more like the CNN of his time.
He tells it as though the teacher knew it all in advance.
(And he did.)
But he makes it into some kind of supernatural mumbo-jumbo.

Matthew did a little research,
But he didn’t get it all right.
It was only ten pieces of silver.
I asked for thirty
But they negotiated me down.
The price didn’t really matter.
A little revisionist history never hurt the drama of a good story.
And he had a little trouble with point of view.
He talks about how the disciples went with the teacher to the garden
And how they all fell asleep
And then records what the teacher said in his prayer,
Which he couldn’t know if he was asleep.
He was a disciple, wasn’t he?
And if he stayed awake to witness the teacher’s prayer,
Why would the teacher chew him out for falling asleep?
And where was I in this account?
Wasn’t I a disciple?
Wasn’t I asleep with the others?
Doesn’t that give me an alibi?
And he told this same story twice.
Doesn’t that give me two alibis?

But then I kissed the teacher,
Just like he told me to.
And then they arrested him.
And then the ear got cut off.
And then the teacher put it back on.

And after that, where was Peter?
Was he around the campfire in the courtyard, like Luke says?
Or was he inside the priest’s palace with the servants like Matthew says?
Either way, he was certainly the bitterest weeper of the bunch,
that coward.

But how does my story play out?
Did I realize what I had done
and immediately throw the money back at the priests
and go hang myself,
And then the priests bought the potters field, like Matthew said?

Or did I take the money
and buy the potter’s field myself,
then fall down and all my guts gushed out like the prophecy says?
Real estate transactions
certainly were different back then.

I don’t even remember,
It was a pretty long time ago.
But I know this: Luke wasn’t even a disciple.
He wasn’t there.
Just another reporter,
Like Wolf Blitzer
Or Geraldo Rivera.

All I know now is that’s when I exited.
And here I am.
Just waiting.
Somebody’s going to have a lot of explaining to do
On Judgment Day.

Memoir, Poetry

Grandpa’s Workbench

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Gravestone for Frank Roderick Marsh

My grandfather said,
“Always buy the best tool you can afford,”
and
“Don’t try to get by with a substitute.”

He didn’t own a pair of vice grips.
He told me he couldn’t figure out what they were for.
Anything they could do, he had a better tool.
He had fixed-span wrenches, boxed and open,
he had crescent wrenches in seven sizes,
he had reversible ratchet sockets
and maple handled nut drivers.
He had left handed wrenches,
specialized wrenches bent at precise angles,
wrenches with heads gamboled on universal joints,
and everything duplicated in metric.
He had pliers but I was never to use them on bolts.
Pliers were for compressing spring clips,
twisting wire,
for replacing hose clamps
and breaking dried plugs out of the spout of the glue bottle.
He always used WD-40 as a solvent, never as a lubricant.

His son, my father, was born in 1928,
just in time for the Great Depression,
and those tools had fed Grandpa’s family for six years.
He could no more throw a tool away
than burn a fifty dollar bill.

He had dozens of screwdrivers.
Some had broken or chipped.
Grandpa ground them down,
reincarnated them with a shorter shank
or transmuted them into a scribe or an awl.

Sometimes, on overnights,
after supper,
while Grandma cleaned up the kitchen and washed the dishes,
Grandpa and I would go out to the garage.
On his immaculate workbench,
which must have weighed 800 pounds,
he would show me how to raise a wooden curl as fine as an eyelash
using a spoke shave,
or how to hack out wooden handles with a draw knife.
or how to build drawer slides with a matched pair of hand planes.
or how to sharpen a plane iron on a whetstone and
how to de-burr the edge with a strop .

He showed me how to use my thumbnail as a guide
for the kerf of the crosscut saw,
how to use a bow saw,
a coping saw,
a backsaw.

He looked over my shoulder while his bifocals slid down his nose.
The wire cage of the single bulb lamp shone from behind him.
The smoke from his Pall Mall curled up past an eye, an ear,
into the light and the wire cage.

He never, not once, said, “Wait until you’re older.”

Poetry

It’s Entropy, Baby

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This is another old poem, but I found a link on YouTube to an old video I put out years ago. If I were to record it again today, I’d pick a moderately slower tempo. (and my new gravelly voice.) It’s a good poem to put out on one’s 69th birthday.

 

No matter what you build, it all comes crashing down. No matter what you want, it all goes out of round. No matter how you sing, you make a discordant sound. It’s Entropy, Baby and it’s the law of the land.

It all spills into disarray. It all breaks into pieces. It happened to Sister Teresa. It happened to Jesus. As much as we want to keep breathing, eventually it ceases. It’s Entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust.

The universe is collapsing in upon its point of birth, or else it’s evaporating  away from the center. No matter what we do In our little stay on Earth, we end up evicted like A delinquent renter. It’s Entropy, Baby and it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust. And we’re breaking up the band.

Energy flows to where it hasn’t been. No matter how much you have, you always need more again. Feather, fur or fin–you die, you rot, you pay the wages of your sin. Your molecules go out. They don’t even know each other when they meet up again. It’s Entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust. And we’re breaking up the band. On a subatomic level

Everything goes to hell Given enough time. My effort to keep the rhythm raises hell with the rhyme. When I pay attention to the rhyming, the timing falls apart. Everything goes to hell. There’s arrhythmia in my heart. It’s Entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust. And we’re breaking up the band. On a subatomic level they need your parts again.

Sunshine singers say, “Look, it’s bright.” The sun comes up and spreads the light. The rain that falls on the grave in the spring brings grass, and leaves, and there’s life again. But it’s Entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust. And we’re breaking up the band. On a subatomic level They need your parts again. ‘Cause it’s entropy, Baby.

The elements that bring back the new life will erode my gravestone over time And the granite will turn to sand. Even the conquering worm becomes dust motes in the sunshine. And children who play in the sunshine will grow,  break their hearts, break their necks and die all alone. It’s Entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land. Everybody turns to dust. And we’re breaking up the band. On a subatomic level They need your parts again. ‘Cause it’s entropy, Baby. And it’s the law of the land.

Uncategorized

Of Plums and Iceboxes

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Rudimentary robots on Mars
grind through sorrel dust
on a quest for the next higher ground
or large boulder field.
One drags a frozen wheel
As it limps toward the sunlight.
Far overhead,
another robot
discovers erosion patterns
and evidence of great floods
in delta fans of effluvium
and not a wisp of water in thin air.

But here
two bananas have gone just beyond ripe
and when I peel them
they release plumes in the kitchen.
I slice them into a bowl
and drench them with thick cream.
I spoon them.

Uncategorized

My Pack

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Older and retired-er,
I feel my status erode.
If I admit it,
I’ve never been the top dog
in my own pack before.

So now, my three sister-dogs
and I
maintain the dog network
that probably runs for miles,
at least on this side of the rivers
and lakes.

We know in advance of
joggers, packs of bicyclers,
I don’t know why we care about them at all.
But we dutifully chuff and huff
responses and signal boosters
and pass the intel along down the line.

We know about too loud ATVs
and stealth animals in the woods,
but the full sound and fury go forth
if there is a dog doing dog
inside of my area of responsibility.

I remember before I was older
and retired, ….

but, no, there’s too much thinking about nothing there.

I’ll stay here on a one-acre plot.
My eyes are shortened by the trees,
but my ears go out about 300 yards
(or meters. I piss on the distinction.)
with good distinction,
and my nose can do a thousand more than you.
A thousand anythings.

All day we receive messages
along these channels
and send the intel on down the line.

I trust what I see, only some,
I trust what I hear a bit more,
But what I smell is the truth.
The truth often stinks.

I live this life in captivity in exchange for
my taste.
Here i will be fed, and in exchange
i will offer the benefit of my eyes, ears and
the Dog-given power of my nose.
It’s what I do. It’s a good gig.

Poetry

Sit Still

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Common frogs mating

 

As light fades
over the pond.
Frog song emerges;
one, then two,
five, then twelve.
Dozens sing.
Hundreds harmonize.
Thousands send an acoustic aura.
The musical swells
rise and fall,
synchronize,
then fall apart.

Each male chants,
“Come. Pick me.
My genes are splendid.”

And the females too,
hasten to frogsong
sung seasonally plumb.

And still,
if she is seized
from behind,
rough, rude thumbs
hooked into armpits,
she sings again:
either, “Yes. Yes,”
or “No, release me.”
Wrong breed?
Wrong species?
Deformed sperm?

Males release, mostly,
if told to.

The sound is not a murmuration.
(I looked it up.)
It is more a susurration,
rising
and falling–
a weak repeating pattern
that screams
into the otherwise
still night–
“Seize me.
Spill seed.”
Afresh, the cycle begins.
Sit still.

Memoir, Poetry

I celebrate the life of my father’s mother’s father: Francis Marion Cox

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I can remember
near Memorial Day
of 1955.
My great-grandfather Cox,
(just Grampa to me)
has me seated in the car
up front with him.
I am sitting as tall as I can
in order to see out the windows.
Grampa is driving through the center of town,
three traffic lights then as now.
The first light clicks to red
in front of the courthouse.
Grandpa rolls to a stop next to
a skinny man
wearing an army barracks cap
in the cross walk.
The man, much younger than Grandpa,
nonetheless familiar, says,
“Frank, where’s your Poppy?”
Grandpa always looks pissed off,
Like he’s chewing something tough.
But he pulls two dollars
from his shirt pocket,
hands them to the man in the cap.
“I want two, Melvin.”
He gives me a glance.
He doesn’t smile,
He looks like he got stuck
with some duty
beneath his station.
He lays both paper flowers
on the dash.
He drives one block and turns right,
drives past the Post Office,
makes another right
into the parking lot behind Beech Market.
He stops the old Dodge,
takes a paper poppy
And twists the wire stem
around the middle button on my shirt
He does the same to his own.

I remember he placed his higher,
where he couldn’t really see it
but others could.
The VFW had completely
occupied our downtown.
I didn’t know then
that
the poppy was a protection racket.
It was a cool poppy.

Grampa always smelled of tobacco.
The poppy didn’t smell like anything.