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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.

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.

Poetry

Shame

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The Wounded Angel 1903 Hugo Simberg

 

You quit.

For years after,
I wanted you back.

At first, I was willing to make any sacrifice,
Change any foible within me,
Deny every quibble I might invent.

In trying to open to others,
I knew I was still searching
For some 2.0 version of you.
Unspoken shame lives darkly in that truth.

Shame remains, a sniper in the night.
It does not look at me with liquid blue eyes.
Or if it does,
They are unblinking
Like a shark.

Today, I have a different love,
Together now for decades.
Through the whole panoply of feelings
We have traversed dead lunar landscapes,
Navigated oceans of tears
Which would have consumed you again.

Shame abides.
Mine is uneasy and refuses to rest,
We co-exist. It’s like owning a mean cat—
Tail switches like mad some days, ears laid flat.
It murders songbirds at night
But does not gift them to me as restitution.
My shame is a mercenary stuck tick-tight.