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
footprints
[Sorry about this; I have a bee in my bonnet about senseless pollution and disposable goods.]
used to like the scent
of gasoline
on a warm summer day
watch it slosh around
as the guy rhythmically
pumped it up
into the glass cylinder
I’d pull on a stalk of timothy
August grasshoppers
sawing off a long hot afternoon
of childhood
no more
human rhythm gone
machines pump fuel
invisible impersonal
digits click off the price
and
cost is machines
spewing toxins for
on-time delivery
of off-shore disposable
toxic oil-derived plastics
and machines
spewing toxins for
the selfish convenience of
drive-thru pickup of
heart-stopping
fast foods
and machines
spewing toxins for
the inconceivable
indulgence of
individual commuting
through stressful
hours of grid-lock
footprints of our machines
are our footprints
The Morale of Weather Forecasters
A depression settled
over eastern, southern,
northern, western,
and central regions today
as weather forecasters everywhere
struck out for the umpteenth time
this season
and a bad hair day ensued.
Toast was drippy
coffee luke warm
and unseasonally bitter.
Socks will develop holes
later in the day
with ketchup on the lapel
towards evening.
Overnight we expect
restless turning
bad dreams and
a weepy start to the day tomorrow.
On the bright side
the planetary currents
had fun
behaving unexpectedly
and the sun shone
perpetually
above it all.
ooth care
Pehaps Pearldrops was first
to refer to a Doctor of Dental Surgery
as a “denis”, when
the smiling girl with bright white teeth
told me
right on TV
to “see your denis”
for “whi(t)er, smoother (t)eeth”.
Recently, the makers of
Crest Pro-Health
have a TV spokeswoman
with bright white teeth
who has told me
“After brushing my (t)eeth
I feel like I’ve just been to the denis”.
It’s as if the lack of a “t” in dentist”
makes the word more acceptible
perhaps smoother, whiter, nicer.
So remember ( )o brush your ( )eeth
with a good ( )oothpas( )e
and see your den( )is( ) regularly.
I( )’s grea( ) advice!
begin
After the grandchildren leave—
and I am certain the same was true
when their parents were their age—
our carpets, in fact,
all horizontal surfaces,
are littered—nay, saturated—
with what could be confetti,
but is more likely
small visible bits of primal goop.
I come to this
!!astounding scientific breakthrough!!
by virtue of the observation
that there seems to be no source
for this matter; to wit:
the innocent hands
are always empty and sticky,
leaving irrefutable evidence
on glass table tops, windows,
glass doors, TV screens;
the innocent faces
are always smiling and agreeable—
when not pouting, crying or screaming;
yet the primal matter
continues to appear!
ergo:
we are witnessing
an act of creation.
Theory:
as the child moves through space—
space defined as any room or universe
the child moves through—
this primal confetti
(I’m trying to keep it simple, dear reader)
forms in the string wake
of the relatively moving body
(relativity and string theory in one sentence!)
hence, the incredible amount of vacuuming
the grands do upon the departure of said
relatively moving bodies.
Thus are universes created in a vacuum.
Thus does all begin.
simple
You can trust a child
to see with the clarity of an ant
this crumb be food
to scream at dinner and throw
beet juice at a white suit
when the universe is misaligned
Oh, that children could vote.
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