sometimes I wonder (revisited)
Sometimes I wonderif she ever existed.
—found poem
Sometimes I wonder
if she ever existed.
Only a smile now
a gesture
copper hair flashing
she fades even in dreams
artist in the supermarket
She stands in the aisle like reverse Stendhal:frozen, her hand extended over the mound of apples.
Apples push into her like the fists of a lover
knocking at a locked door, urgent, juicy, plump.
It's always like this: fruit overwhelms, vegetables
scream longing; fresh trout imagines a sizzling grill,
beef lounges in a marinade, ready to sear.
She wants to paint, to cook, to knead warm
transit
Night. City street after rain.Early autumn leaves cling to the pavement
like wet hair on a waiting face.
Amber and blue incandescence
lies in pools for walking entrances,
performances and exits,
as the occasional soloist mimes
man walking alone on the street
concert
engine idle just beyond theancient boathouse
river calm and waiting silent
to the weed beds
and the spaces vast, beyond
ease the throttle slowly forward
hear the engine twist
inside the music
The part I sing in our quartethovers above or below the melody;
often it sounds like the French horn.
The Lead's note sounds familiar;
the Bass is the solid foundation;
the Tenor lilts above all, thrillingly;
my part, the Bari, fills it all in.
cocoon
Inside the silk threadsis what will come:
beautiful wings,
gleaming reds, yellows, blues,
curves and strength,
the freedom of flight
instead of plodding,
gnawing eating.
lotus eaters
This is the first in a series I started a while back. I should write a few more on this . . .everyone on the street was
somewhere else
listening to music
words from another time
another place
after
She used to purr when she leaped onto the bed;I prefer to think of her arrivals.
I could read her expressions through the fur:
glad to see me (and usually was):
relaxed eyelids, fur sleek off the face;
impatient with my stupidity:
Mauve and Gold
If a god were eating strawberriesWhen that sunset happened,
I know he'd stop in mid-bite
With red sweet juice dribbling
Down his chin onto his toga
And just stare and do a god-thing:
driving home
The sun set just before we turned west onto the roadthat curved into the pure black landscape silhouetted
against the absolutely clear tangerine and indigo sky.
As our headlights revealed and dismissed the familiar
meanderings of this riverside route and its clusters of cottages
On being mistaken for myself
Photos never lieexcept when they must,
with a minimum of mendacity,
tell welting whoppers
about how egregiously old
the old codger has become.
I have studied photos
taken years ago
that make me look
what was left
First they took away the all moneypoured it into the government trough
and they fed the war in Afganistan
but still that wasn't enough
so they crucified the artists
and they stood around and laughed
around the sun
We have gone around the sun almost once together
strange thing is
***************it looks exactly the same
from
*****every
***********side
the only way to tell which side we are on
is to look at our
**************clocks or
***********************calendars
but looking at the sun reveals nothing
I have the feeling
****************though
that if I look at you
something will tell one of us
which side
**********of the sun
*******************is coming up.
the day the furnace bust
The sun is shining bright enough
to make our cat think that it must
be warmer outside and I am just
about to agree ‘coz the furnace bust.
I don’t even want to think such stuff
My wife and the cat and I are tough
but it’s twenty below, and that’s enough
to make us fear this could get rough.
I bought some heaters got out some stuff
like multiple sweaters and the old ear muffs
in case the repair guy calls my bluff
and tells me repairs won’t be enough.
And so we’re waiting shivering gruff
for repairs and heat and other stuff
like whether the news is bad enough
that we’ll rue the day the furnace bust.
going ga-ga
In the eighteenth century
thirty-five was deemed to be
minimum age for a senator
for only then was one mature
seasoned, in fact, senior.
As I will soon double that age
I should in theory be declared
a double-senator who is
double mature and double smart
double- seasoned, in fact,
double-senior.
I recently took on the task
of posting a poem for comment
in zeugma discussion list
— simple, you say.
Ah, but let me tell you:
I had to send it four times
to get the indentations to show.
(The third does not count
because I mis-addressed it)
How’s that for a debut?
Now if I divide the four sendings
by my double-smart profile
does that mean I appear
only twice as stupid
as I should?
Ga-ga.
There’s nothing like a bottle of Madeira
in our house on campus
Mark was the sophisticated college guy
with a posh English accent
living in a tiny room all by itself
at the foot of the stairs
he was immaculately groomed
wore an Ascot
smoked a pipe
and read Greek and German
my roommate and I were
freshmen
he a hick from upstate New York
I a sophisticate from
the north Ontario bush
we had gone to Mark
to ask what he thought
we should buy to drink
on our first university dates
There’s nothing like a bottle of Madeira
he said
would you
buy it for us
since we’re not twenty-one
we said
volunteering to pay for it
he said
There’s nothing like a bottle of Madeira
and agreed
we were so excited
heading out with
our bottle and
our girls
I don’t remember the date
I sort of remember the girl
and the bottle
but I do remember how
two guys had to
help me up the stairs
to my room well after curfew
and how I wanted
to go up horizontally
and I remember how
hung-over we both were
the next morning
I think I agree
There’s nothing like a bottle of Madeira
el niño
stuck my finger out the door
pulled finger back pretty fast
cat won’t go outside
kid’s tongue stuck to a steel pole
breath froze like a thunder cloud
talk is of wollies for the rest of the winter
good thing too
month ago
palmy breezes shirtsleeve weather
global warming got a boost
politicians rolling up their elbows
going to fix it arrogance
on a scale of one to a million
where one is normal weather
and a million is planet pulverization
this winter ranks about a ten
yawn
when I was a kid
we had pretty much all this
and more
I walked uphill through waist-deep snow
both going to school and coming home
my fingers froze and dropped off
heck my arms turned black
and that was in bed
we sure were relieved when summer came
‘course it only stayed for five days
worried about the weather?
chill
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