Clean and Dead

The fellow down the street in the yellow house
has built a swimming pool in the backyard.
Last year he had all his trees chopped down
the land was cleared, the soil was scraped away
and a big hole was dug that stayed that way
and filled up with snow all the winter long.
He filled it with a pool this spring.  Put sod
around it.  The sod died.  I saw a dead mouse
at the end of his drive when I passed by
the other day walking down the hill early in
the morning; though I don’t often walk that way.
If you look for it you can just see
the pool from the corner of his property
sparkling clean as dawn on a summer day.
There’ll be no leaves in that pool come Fall’s winds
what with all the trees gone now.  There’s just sky
above, bits of grass, empty flower beds.
Everything else is wiped clean, clean and dead.

MY CHOICE

Death came to my door
Neither late nor early.
Death is, if anything, on time
Though I was not expecting him.
The house was unprepared for any guest.
In fact it was in a more than normal mess,
And Death I think soon saw his chance was slim
Of welcome, pleasant visit.  The hour chimed
Behind us.  I turned.  Death smiled, “My hour. Three.”
I smiled, “I should have cleaned.”  I closed the door.

Monsters!

Quiet mist and secret

Quiet mist and secret

In the morning lies

And all the world within

Asleep,  hidden for a time.

And all the World sleeping

Across the mirrored deep

Hard against brooding trees

Open to innocence or ill

Two homely structures still.

In silent shallows near

What waits?  What waits

For mist to thicken or to clear?

What waits for mist to thicken or to clear?

Creature dark and threat filled near

Hidden from the light

Betrayer of the peace of day

Friend of  fear and fright,

Or something simple slow to die

Or something simple slow to die

That hurrying a misty morn

We let our mind deceive our eye

Allowing monsters to be born.

Pass this way and wonder

Pass this way and wonder if

The mist low on the dark cool depths

Is all and only what you see in it

Or much, much more of life and death.

I Wonder What I Don’t Get

Here’s what puzzles me sometimes.
I’ll take the time to listen to a line or two in my head
Like a bulletin from somewhere about something
Smarter people than me call insight
And it will lead me to waste an afternoon
Writing down things on my yellow pad.

First I’ll stick to the neat blue lines.
I’ll even count syllables and read them
Back to myself ticking them off on my fingers,
Or tapping out a beat as I go.
Switching words. Throwing some away.
I’ll check the dictionary and thesaurus
If I can find them or remember where
In God’s holy name I last put them.

The page soon loses all sense of order
As lines and half lines of words get scrawled
Until it looks like a dryer full of wet wash
Or better yet like the tracks of shore birds
Searching for mollusks in the sand at low tide.

This I call working it out.
I’ve taken to walking away
for an hour or two, a day
or longer hoping somehow
I’d remember tomorrow
what it was that had to be said.
Take this last one I just did.

It took me some while to do
And I’m still not sure it’s through
With being written.  I think of it
When I read it over that something’s not there
Though for the life of me I don’t know what
That might be.  My wife said I should try prayer,
And, well, I have.  Then I hear stuff from friends
Who say everything from “Nice” to “Best yet”
About it and I wonder what I don’t get.

Little Dogs and Big Ones

That little hairball of a dog is down
at the end of the drive again measuring
the frontage with little hairball dogsteps;
Pacing off what he wants me thinking’s his,
and making pretty damn sure I know.

Like a Churchill he plants his front legs
wide and pushes his pushed in face across
the crack where street meets drive down by
the mailbox; his favorite spot by far
for a territory marking squirt of
canine Mason-Dixon line solution.

Come May and daffodils show up he will
too, and do his best to kill every one.
But, I figure that’s the way of it.  There’s
better spots for tulips, daffodils, bulbs
of one kind or another, around here
and I’ll make sure I find them, too, next year.

Took a lot of years fighting bigger dogs
than him over way smaller stuff than that
to realize some dogs are dumber than snot.
Some fights are worth having and some fights ain’t.

Winter, 1954, II

Winter, 1954  II

One afternoon shortly after four the telephone
in the hall rang,
Echoing all the way to the bedroom my parents
slept in.
Dad was there, snoring loudly, in his underwear,
smell of cigarettes and beer, and white sweat socks.
Mom in the hall lifted the phone from the hook, looked at it
and said, “Hello?”
The hall light was on outside the bathroom door;
a pile of clothes
On the empty hope chest waiting to be folded;
the perfect place for unfolded clothes.
Mom said, “Yes?”  Her voice warmer sounding than
the phone’s electric one
Which could be heard outside on a summer day with
the windows open
And the dusty curtains flicking out like dry tongues
of panting dogs.

“Our brother George has died,” said the tiny voice
in Mom’s right ear.
It was her sister’s voice telling her, and the little sound
was like
An axe man’s final blow to the base of a tree
Like a rip across the earth.

Mom held the phone away from her and looked
down the hall
To the room where she and Dad slept.
Dad drew another long loud breath on their bed
in the room
At the end of the hall echoing in the silence.

Winter, 1954

One afternoon shortly after four the telephone
in the hall rang,
Echoing all the way to the bedroom my parents
slept in.
Dad was there, snoring loudly, in his underwear
and white sweat socks.
Mom lifted the phone from the hook, looked at it
and said, “Hello?”
The hall light was on outside the bathroom door;
a pile of clothes
Lay on the empty hope chest waiting to be folded.
Mom said, “Yes?”
The empty hope chest was the perfect thing to hold
unfolded clothes.
Mom’s voice was warmer sounding than the phone’s
harsh electric ring
Which could be heard outside on a summer day with
the windows open
And the dusty curtains flicking out like dry tongues
of panting dogs.

“Our brother George has died,” said the tiny voice
in Mom’s right ear.
It was her sister’s voice telling her, and the little sound
was like
An axe man’s final blow to the base of a tree
Like a rip across the earth.

Mom held the phone away from her and looked
down the hall
To the room where she and dad slept
Dad drew another long loud breath on their bed
in the room
At the end of the hall echoing in the silence.

Tumble All The Way To Doggerel

(One Half an Argument)

I'll forego descent into mere prose
And tumble all the way to doggerel
While writing this below. I'll hold my nose
While I, against my better self, scribble.

Why doubt what you believe you should do?
The way of doubt is never brave;
Hesitating, wavering between this and that
Wondering whether to stir the pot
Or to add a little salt to already seasoned stew
Is no chef's move, but churl's or base caitiff knave's.

Step out boldly, bright before the darkling world!
You be the light your know yourself to be!
What matter if you crunch the smelly toes
Of the remnant few who foolishly believe
That things might just not be what you propose?
Propose?!  "Propositions," you say, "be damned!
I know this as well as I know I am."

Funny that, I thought, when it popped into my mind
And I hope you see the humor in the line.

Anyway, I think your bravery here well done
And hope you may find comfort in your One
Along with all the myriad Ones who
Themselves find comfort while proclaiming, "You
Believe in you, and I'll believe in me."

There's satisfaction free of anxiety.
Narcissism means one never says "I'm sorry;
Never feels forsaken, never wrong,
Never needs contrition or reform.

Brave light bearer be while worlds of selves
Fluttering moth-like above darkness, hell,
Eternal sing, "No one makes a fool of me!
For where I sow there I reap."
Heaps of straw upon flames they cannot see
Dark cherubim whose hymn a curdling shriek.

The Senator, Hip Deep

(With deep apologies to Lewis Carroll)

Hip deep in snow on the capital steps
The senator, red faced, huffed and said,

“This world of ours is getting warmer by the minute;
The evidence is irrefutable.
Though every day or so there’s a storm or
Blizzard it’s indisputable.
We’ll see the mercury rise any minute now,
And that’s why my proposal makes sense
Based on the plainly visible evidence,”

He paused and looked about him.  Though
The Walrus paid him no attention, the Polar
Bear, nonchalant, inched a little closer.

“This morning I have introduced a bill
To provide everyone a string bikini.
All of us young or old, fat or skinny
Will get at least two.  That way we’ll
Survive the coming heat wave due
I understand,” he looked at his wrist,
“This afternoon at three precisely.
So say the folks at Climate Watch
Whom no one anymore takes lightly.”

The last words, these, the senator uttered.

As bear jaws clamped on his head
And bear teeth sank into his neck
The snow turned a pleasant shade of red.

The Walrus, warm in his fur as a toaster,
Snorted gulping down another oyster.

The Annual Physical

The other day my doctor said, “The brain sends
A message to your bowel after eating.
Within twenty minutes of the last bite
The news has been received, decisions made
And orders given just like that.”  Except
Somehow, somewhere the message goes astray
In my case.  I thought of lines down, bridges out
And frantic traffic controllers alone
At this huge board of blinking lights, each one
A forty car freight stuck in the yard.

She took a look at my chart and asked me
How long my toes were numb.  And I thought that
Was pretty funny.  One year?  Two?  More?
I don’t know when I first knew I knew my toes
Were numb.  Who remembers things like that;
The first time in their life they can’t feel the floor?
I told her something, and she, satisfied,
Turned a page in my chart and looked again.
That was when I said, “I have a question.”
She looked up from my chart.  “Pretty,” I thought.
“Young.”  She smiled and waited.  “I’d like to know
If my chart could go into my coffin.”