365.365 - obsidian

the poem, he said
the poem it builds
it don't care what else you doin'
it forms
it shapes
it finds what to grow on
what to cut away
it don't use your fancy kitchen knife
it use that black glass
obsidian
it shapes the black glass
to its own hand
nevermind yours
and then it cuts
trims away fat
slashes off the soft meat
leaves you the strong meat
meat worn by walking
by running maybe
by getting itself into trouble
and finding its way back
meat attached to the bone
when it's done the poem
stands carved to its minimum
when you're wise you take it
just like it is
when you're not
you add frosting
beware
I have told you

364.365 - grandmother

seven times she said
"I must burn these"
and seven times she put it off
and her granddaughter took them
to her mother to protest
surely no one had ever written
such naked love and lust
surely no one had ever
done such things with her
surely she had not saved these...
these... why she could hardly say it
...love letters if you will
not to the woman they had known
her mother glanced at a few
and gave them  back
"perhaps she kept them for a friend
perhaps... well, she was young once
what is the date on those?  well, see"
the mother went back to arrangements
the grandaughter to the desk
where she thought to discard them
maybe she should just burn them
but no, maybe she would take them home
and tease a lover into... oh, surely not!

363.365 - not-sense

there is a kind of madness
in the poems I read tonight
a sense made of not-sense
like a bullet flying backwards into a gun
into the cartridge where the fire
unburns back to powder
and the trigger unpulls
the man so certain a moment before
looks confused
looks at his gun
throws it away and runs
down the sidewalk and into an alley
high on the stairs of a fire escape
a jack o'lantern uncarves into a pumpkin
then falls falls falls
to land on the man running below
who suddenly blind
runs full tilt into a trash dumpster
and staggers out into the alley
just as a car races through it
the man seems to fly
and lands hard upon some garbage cans
the car disappears into the street
the man tries to sit up and falls to the ground
a boy who has only watched events in the alley
approaches
waits til the man's eyes meet his
says "that was so cool!  do it again!"
the man laughs
and the boy who has heard that laugh before
flees

362.365 - the invitation

a man spoke with Death
some say Death answered
others say no
it was like talking to any god
perhaps he or she hears you
even more perhaps he or she answers
in a way you can divine
in any case he spoke to Death
why do you hide in shadows?
in night?  in niches?
if you came out and showed your face
if you smiled now and then
nodded to return a greeting
perhaps we wouldn't pretend
you are not always near
always waiting
we might grow accustomed to you
friendly with you even
invite you to parties
so you needn't crash them
might even welcome your arms at last
might envy one who had accepted
your invitation
and if you do decide to come out
join us in the sunlight
then maybe wear some other color than black
probably stay away from red as well
blues would work
greys, browns, lavender, I think
you might prefer yellows or oranges
come on
come out
share the days and nights with us
laugh with us
take the chance
we might learn to like you

361.365 - seen by few

two cities coexist here
one everyone sees
banking, high towers,
asphalt rivers flooded with cars
contractors, stockbrokers
car salesmen, dentists
architects, soldiers, cops
soldiers, cops
soldiers and more cops
and poor folk all in a row
probably there is a heart here
and some would say a mind
there are poets who find romance here
others who find courage and will

but I see the shadows and ghosts
another city the new builders
thought they destroyed
a white mud brick house
two walls standing and half a roof
a blue mud brick house
where half a piano lies
in half a room
and monkeys stare at humans
who invade their world
a stone tower stands
what is left from a castle
some family built
expecting the new world
to be kinder to them than the old
at the foot of the tower
someone plays a guitar so passionately
the woman in the top of the tower undresses
even though she should be
getting ready for dinner
her daughter in a bedroom
behind a wall we can no longer see
tears petals from flowers and drops them
to swirl around the guitar player

ten miles to the south
come the trucks and the crane
who think to end this foolishness forever
but are instead eternally trapped
in the amber the church bells make of time

360.365 - the new order

"it was," the Disembodied Voice proclaimed
so we all knew whatever followed must be true
"the first successful transference
of a madness to a god"
the press conference went silent
before pandemonium broke out
two dozen questions hurled at once
at the unoccupied podium
and the security guards began to clear the room
it must have been a catching thing though
Mars declared for sociopathy
Venus for nymphomania
there was no apparent change in behavior
for Loki or for Coyote
Zeus selected megalomania
Apollo narcissism
until all the good ones had been used up
and Jupiter and Odin wondered out loud
if the lesser madnesses needed to be assigned
perhaps to the lesser gods
they needn't have worried though
all the madnesses soon were gone
and there was the almost to be expected grumbling
about the arbitrariness of the selections
many were sure they could have parceled them out
more appropriately than free choice had
the world, meanwhile, carried on
pretty much like it always had
including that certain Brahmin worried out loud
when the new maladies would strike

359.365 - writing a waste

I do not know what to say
all day, off and on
I've sat and listened for the poem
today's poem, the image
metaphor, the click of thought
something important enough to write about
something someone else would listen to
and think, "yes!  I know that!"
even, especially, if they hadn't
before they read or heard it
all day, off and on
I've stared into the wrong side of a mirror
waiting for the image to appear
all day, off and on
I've listened to the traffic outside
to people passing by in mid-conversation
trying to catch a rhythm
or even half a thought
I could match with another of my own
and maybe build the clopping of horse hooves
into...  into...
tonight the wind sighs, rattles my window
knocks at the door
surely the spark of a poem hides in one of those
no, I am emptiness, a desert even a lizard spurns
if I must write, then I must write that waste

358.365 - a lesson

once, when an old man lay dying
out among the trees and the brush
near where a mighty river
flowed into the sea
his grandson found him
and exclaimed and gnashed his teeth
"stop it, grandson," the old man said
"someone will think you are a white man"
the grandson stopped his rant and begged
"grandfather, what must I do?
how can I keep you in comfort
and get you back to our lands, our family?"
the old man laughed, "I am not in comfort
I doubt that you can find a comfort for me
as for the other, are you not family?
do I not grasp this earth and make it mine
at least for the time I have left?
be still, sit down, I must speak to you
must tell you of serious things
you have not learned or have forgotten"
the young man looked ashamed
"grandfather, you have taught me much
the creation story of our people
and how our family came to be
you have taught me how to sit still
to stand quietly, to listen, to see
you have taught me scents
you have taught me tastes of many things
and how to touch and learn from my fingertips
you have taught me to hunt and to fight
to converse with our enemies
you have taught me patience with women
and the pleasures that follow patience
and the wisdom I can learn from women
if I will just hush.  what is left?
what more must you teach me?"
the old man smiled and eased his body
"to sit with what must be," he said
so the young man sat
he held his grandfather's hand
he sat and the old man lay
the noises of the forest entertained them
an hour passed, then another
the old man smiled and whispered
"perhaps you have learned"
he closed his eyes and relaxed
and after a while the young man knew
the old man had escaped
he wept then, the young man did
then did what he must to honor the dead
to honor his family and people
to honor their ancestors
then stood for a moment in quiet
and left

357.365 - unused words

but what about all the words, he said
you don't use
we sat on a bench that overlooked
a field where it seemed
two hundred kids ran around
after five soccer balls
or maybe each other
half a dozen parents stood around the field
some of them grinned
but maybe three dozen surrounded
another field across it
where two teams played dignified soccer
with referees and coaches
rules, tickets, and scores
they lurk, I said
play on a nearby field, perhaps
I nodded toward what we watched
but he looked at me, puzzled
I tried again
they're always about
playing disorderly games with each other
each ready to be a substitiute
if we run out of team members
I thought a moment
a few, of course
will probably never play
not on the real field
antidisestablishmentarianism
for instance
I've never thought of a use for it
and it's too cumbersome for play
a great dray of a word
requiring Clydesdales to pull it
all my horses are smaller
more nimble
could barely move the wagon empty
yet quite capable of moving you
from where you are to where I am
he stared at me a while
as if I should go on
then made a dissatisfied face
buttermilk, he said, rutabaga,
airfoil, Neufchatel, spigot
perfectly good words
I smiled and nodded
he looked back at the two fields
maybe watched for a while
then turned back to study me
I think I get it, he said
then stood and walked away
muttering embalmed, station wagon
elephantine, emerald, quartzite

356.365 - ancestor

nowhere do I see
the mighty armor of our ancestors
the ones they tell us of in books or plays
who led armies, won battles, thrones
and helped shape a new world
I suspect none of them were my ancestors
little men of little passions
small families huddled in small houses
sleeping with eyes tight against the night
ears stoppered against noises
hands clutching covers instead of swords
and in the daytime farming furtively
their closest kin the mice who stole from them
I hope I wrong them, I hope at least one
lost temper and used hoe as a weapon
even if he was immediately cut down
his family and neighbors woudn't think
to raise a statue to him
but mentally I sure do

355.365 - peril

I remember a clear afternoon
me and my Harley partway down
a steep hillside
what wanted to happen
was a slide and a tumble
two bodies at the bottom
neither with any way to get up
or get help
what was needed
was some traction, a pathway
despite the slipperiness
and the control to climb it slowly
with gentle applications
of throttle and clutch
defiance of gravity
long enough to get back
to the road
somewhere inside myself
I found patience and experimentation
and that gentleness
and made a way back
from where I never needed to be
except for my own curiosity
my own dare
I remember sitting on my Harley
on the edge of the asphalt
when we'd made it back up
grinning down the hillside
at where we might have ended up lying
grinning again riding the curves
of the asphalt
remembering
and glad to be back on the road

353.365 - surrender

no, it's not like giving up coffee
I don't even know how that happened
only that I spent eleven days in the hospital
getting past congestive heart failure
and when they let me wheelchair out to the car
I didn't need coffee and haven't since then
no, that wasn't easy, that was eleven days
weaning me from coffee and the life
that went with it, a life I can barely remember
almost a year later, giving up riding my Harley
was dropping it a second time on my left leg
was shattering both bones in my lower leg
was giving up highways and roads
but keeping freeways and streets
dwellings and stores, warehouses and gas stations
but never again the swell of the ground
or the thrill of an ess leaned into just right
never the smell of wheat whipping my face
nor the icy sudden scent of wildflowers waking
into spring, nor the other icy sudden dodge
of a car driver's move without thought for me
ah, you bastards, I outskilled you half a million times
and even at the end, it was my own legs failing
my own reflexes slowing that told me to dismount
and make you climb a sidewalk to kill me
or crush me as one of your own, you didn't chase
me off my Harley, I gave it up and still miss it
and still know that was the choice that made sense
but oh, when I think of what I gave up
sometimes the choice seems so wrong
I almost want to undo it

352.365 - after watching "13 Rue Madeleine"

"yessir," he confided
and I couldn't help but notice
the bumpkin in his drawl
he looked at me wide-eyed
blinked twice and nodded
"it must've been a wonderful time
way back then" he paused
nodded again and stared at me
"saw me one of them movies, y'know?
the good ones, black and white
wasn't nobody but white folks in it
and women wore dresses that covered'm proper, y'know?
was made 'bout the days when World War II was startin'
we found out the Germans had spies over here!
natcherly we had to make us a school
teach young men and women to talk like Germans
or French or even Brits when they needed
had to teach'm to lie, steal, and cheat
they was good American kids and didn't know
nuthin about them kinda things, y'know?
then we gave'm some tests and flew'm
across the ocean where they had to fool
the Brits who were spozedly on our side
'cept we could never be too sure
sometimes they were on their own side
then we had to drop them into France
where the soldiers wuz German
never did figure that out
but it must've been so
and those kids they were sharp
they knew when to talk French
and when to talk German
and they fooled folks mosta the time
'cept when they didn't and got shot
but they died heroes, y'know
you could tell
'cause we won the war
just like it sez in the books"

351.365 - Nebraska

I once thought of it as freedom
miles of emptiness
nothing to stop even the wind
a car can drive all day
and the driver not know any change
but now a friend
not Nebraska but a woman
who once hailed from there
and has been ensnared
pulled back
and kept against her will
by the state
caught in its own coils
doing evil now in what was surely designed
once for doing good
or at least preventing evil
the state bobbing relentlessly
as a pump drawing oil from a well
and people can only watch apparently
another poet sings Nebraska
and I hear his poem spoiled
instead of my hearing freedom
I see now a prison
and a jail
a bureaucrat's office
a doctor
endlessly testing and testing
for the evidence of drugs he will never find
testing and testing
Nebraska does not even need a cage
to keep the woman trapped
where would she run?
and how far?
and the doctor tests again
and still finds nothing
and the bureaucrat tells him
test again
and the days in Nebraska
run on the same
and if there is an afterworld
Kafka smiles in it and whispers
Nebraska

350.365 - why I am thankful for a world that contains Donny Jackson

not because I know
or even can imagine
how he does it
but I have heard him say
he sits with it
until it is ready to speak
he did not tell me what "it" was
but I had a guess
the essence of the poem
the hurt child
or the young woman bruised
the boy or young man
caught on the edge of life's knife
and I who felt
almost like an intruder myself
listening to Donny confide
imagined him sitting up long nights
silently beside that essence
a companion more than a nurse
a silent understanding and compassion
waiting out the bewilderment
until the essence stirred and took shape
still a shadow in darkness
but now with arms and legs and hair
a face Donny could almost discern
looked over at Donny
and shared the horror of experience
for Donny writes like I do
or like I think I do
he makes personal and clear
those times when being human
bears witness to the ugliness
the rest of us inflict
upon those chosen as scapegoats
I write what I see
when moonlight probes a diamond
I did not know I held
and for a moment what people feel
caught in the turmoil of the threat of death
reverberates in my whole heart and mind
but Donny, or I-think-Donny writes
after a similar reverberation
shakes his whole body
emotions he forgets he has
a mind wide and deep enough
to cradle another soul
however long it takes
for metaphor to grow
terror to shape teeth
and all the worst of what men do or say
to also find what makes them still human
and makes the darkness so dark
we almost cannot stand the starlight
that shows ourselves that much more clearly

349.365 - the fortune

the fortune teller sat there
embarrassed, I suppose
she looked at me
I thought I saw sympathy
but may have just fooled myself
"there will be no charge, of course"
she said, stared at the door
"but," I said, "what did you see?"
she looked at me
she looked through me
past me
"that's just it," she said
"you will pay me
I will decline
you will insist
and then you'll stand
turn and walk out of here"
she paused and touched her ear
"and then nothing"
"oh, come on!" I laughed
"do I turn left?  right?
walk straight ahead?
is there a woman?"
she met my eyes a moment
then stared at the door
"you do not understand"
she said, "I don't.
you walk out of here
then I see nothing"
annoyed, I stood
threw a fifty on her table
stepped to the door
glanced back
she stared at me and past
hands over her mouth
I ducked out of her tent

348.365 - the pegasus

the unicorn landed on the path
in front of me
folded its great wings close
stared at me
shook his massive head, horn-crowned
and looked relieved
"at least you can't see me," he said
and looked about himself
at rocks and forest, gravel on the path
maybe the moon above
barely trusting myself to speak
wide-eyed, I nodded
I pointed, touched my nose, and traced
the spiral out toward him
he looked annoyed and shook his head again
"I'm told you can't
that makes it so, it's pointless for you to argue"
I had heard managers
preachers and politicians, so knew the logic
or lack thereof would triumph
"but I can," I said, out loud, as if that proved anything
perhaps it did
"well, if you must argue," the great beast said
"impertinence!"
it unfolded mighty wings and leapt into the air
swept down those wings
and from aloft looked down on me a moment
then shook his head again
winged off away with one proud blare into the night
and I suppose
I missed whatever potent message he brought me
by arguing trivia

347.365 - final words

the old poet smiled when asked
what he would have his last words be
grinned, coughed, and whispered
"many"

346.365 - three poems

       the cowboy

culls one more horse out of the pack

rides it until it throws him

knowing, one ride soon

will be one more than his body's good for

this afternoon though, at least so far

it is the horse that will wind up broken

       a different aspect

              for Alexis Rhone Fancher

we knew one side of you

we thought we knew you

and then you shifted

the stone in its setting

and oh!

there was so much more

       anomaly

the hiker stops and stares

the great stone, taller than four or five of him

seems to rest on the sand

a monument perhaps to some vast ship's prow

that had wandered away from that ship's body

and come to rest high up on a lonely beach

this one, this stone, would have plowed miles of sand

to reach this place and tower over him

at once so still and complete

and incomplete without the vessel

that would explain such a prow

he smiles to imagine that ship also turned to stone

shaking itself out of the sand to rejoin the prow

then yells when the earth shakes as if in answer

but this time only leaves what looks

like a wake for this prow's former traveling

and dust hanging in the air

a ghost, perhaps, of the great ship still coming

345.365 - what shall we say

what shall we say in self-defense
when our nephews and nieces
or, heaven help us, sons and daughters
say to us, say, you were alive back when,
back when - and here we have to let them
fill in the blank, something important to them
and we stare a moment then look embarrassed
remembering we were drawing a bath
or hoping to get laid, or target shooting
for heaven's sake, nothing important
not even to us, but important enough
at the time that we completely missed
the bullet through that window
the riot after that speech
or whoever it was completing that painting
whatever we say they will look unbelieving
sure they will notice and attend
the significant events of their lifetimes

344,365 - red madness

I got lost in the instructions
when they told me to think green
but I was worried about a red scare
and the sirens hadn't even started
but the butterflies were turning pink
and the red squirrels had hidden away
the red foxes only came out of their burrows at night
and then only at the quarter moons
when the hounds sang their regimental songs
and the hares dashed into vegetable gardens
it was a mad time the preachers agreed
with madder times coming
and we all needed to congregate in prayers
until the hounds could return normalcy
and the sun could take back the night

343.365 - hard sympathy

the dragon does not roar

nor exhale flame

his or her eyes droop

and leak as if they wept

a dragon weep?

this alone is almost cause

to give up on my fantasies

but then the dragon coughs

deep wracking coughs

that start almost in gargles

I want to pat him on the back

and sympathize

get him some lemonade

offer a lozenge

the dragon glares at me

dares me to use my sword or lance

or get the hell out

bother him again in a week or two

this is no time for heroics

but if all I seek is deception

then do my damnedest

the dragon closes his eyes

lays down his mighty head

I hunt through cabinets

and closets until I find

a blanket I can pull over him

he mutters curses

but tucks it closer

and growls that if I come back

he'll try to remember

and if he does he'll make

my death a little easier

342.365 - sparks

fire!  light!
missing from the roil yesterday
that took me over
that dragged me under
has found its way back in
has found a corner near a temple
to dance and blaze in
shine out on the ugh still roiling
has found a crack
somewhere near a shoulder
to gleam from
defy the mess
still whirling inside
fire, light
is willing to work slowly
take back its losses
spark thought again
insist the others
clean up the mess they've made
but while it waits and demands
to dance up joy
even in taking back so little
even in beginning to bring back
balance
the leaps between brain cells
fire!  light!

341.365 - on getting suddenly sick

howling down the night
a roil of water, earth, and air
surrounded me and invaded
until I was the perfect
bad cold incarnate
then extricated itself
observed me from a foot away
smiled its satisfaction
and howled away to find
another person to involute
with these dread symptoms

340.365 - observations in wonder

we invent being five years old
maybe any age, but right now
I am hearing five year olds
making up the world they will play in
at least for the next few minutes
choosing characters
assigning attributes, strengths, flaws
choosing laws and goals
the adult of me wonders if the game
will be as much fun as the creation
but also admires the completeness
while leaving chance room to wiggle
the adult of me also recognizes
that they do the same in learning what's real
maybe they even do it as a group
I never knew that group
at five, if I remember right
I played in the woods as often as I could
but part of that was telling myself stories
trying to see the grownup world from different heights
sneaking to the edge and watching folks
trying to figure out streetcars, for instance
or how women's clothes worked
oh yes, little boys notice and notice and notice
but nobody never explains nuthin interesting
or that was my experience
growing up alien in a foreign land
so we invent and make up and concoct
and if our guesses work, settle for that
no wonder science teachers have such a job to do
and then we're thrown out in the real world on our own
with nuthin guiding us but lies grownups have told
that we can plainly see don't hold
maybe we do what five-year-olds do once again
invent, make up, concoct, try out
until we find what works and doesn't
no wonder we need law courts
but still what wonderfully inventive
explorers five-year-olds are!

339.365 - lion talk

          If a lion could speak, we could not understand him.
               Ludwig Wittgenstein

imagine it, if you please
one morning the lion chooses to speak
and whatever human attends faints
whatever the lion said, it wouldn't be
"Good morning, how are you?"
and wouldn't be gossip about Troy Larrabee
or dispatches from one of our many wars
it would be something important to the lion
his sense of honor or dignity
or maybe just a protest of his treatment
and we, based on our behavior so far
would dutifully record it, study it
pass it around, argue about its meaning
and whether he was being facetious
the lion would die, of boredom or of years
before we reached a general agreement
of what he meant and sent
the proper official to answer him

338.365 - a proposition questioned

peace, a poet invokes
the peace of the writing desk
the peace of writing
and I sit up to wonder
is this peace I feel?
I am the one who wonders about guns
who happily owns one and shoots it
cleans it, wipes it
while friends around me clamor
that guns should be taken away
from our freedoms
guns are too dangerous
especially in the hands of
whomever did the last killings
they think they know just how
to keep "those people"
from ever killing again
and well they might
if no one had any guns
then no one could stand
and kill people around him
not with guns
and maybe indeed
if you took guns away from me and mine
no one would ever think to pick up a rock
and brain a brother or a father
no one would ever pick up a kitchen knife
and drive it into a mate or friend
no one would ever imagine again
a garotte, a sickle, or a scythe
but I waste my arguments upon myself
and need to get back to the inquiry
is peace a product of writing
I think not

337.365 - dawn thoughts

how does the dawn happen? a poet asks
seriously, as well as I can tell
I think, but we have explained all that
meaning physicists have, and
pretending for a moment that
all those years of studying physics
gives me some claim on them today
I think of sun and earth, rotation
and geometry, refraction, color
but the poet answers himself and
it is none of these, something almost
medieval instead, and I stare
trying to imagine some universe
in which orange dances on tiptoes
just out of sight, waiting for the call
from some director hired for this dawn
gold popping up next, then red
and so on, and am amazed that anyone
still thinks like that in this late year
then frown and wonder if it is a metaphor
and if so, for what, ignorance, I guess
but no, ignorance surrounds us like a fog
and never dawns, as well as I can tell
so I am left with a poet and a dawn and
a serious lack of science and think,
it isn't dawn he means, it's sunset
and what follows isn't night but
the sadder darkness of the mind

336.365 - deep dive

it is, perhaps, the big thoughts
the deep ones
the ones that graze the ocean floors
of conscience
of epistemology
that I fail to have
being too busy with the particulars
the girl who died in the gutter
stabbed sixteen times
whose killer was elegantly chauffeured away
or the boy shot thirty times by cops
who confused the cell phone that he held
for a gun, or so they said
the man who walked out to buy cigarettes
and never returned to help raise his daughter
a whole society built on white supremacy
whose beneficiaries deny any exists
I never get around to Wittgenstein
or Heidegger and know enough of Kant
I think, to ever learn more
I write instead of a rooster perched on a rooftree
a boy in an attic wrapping a hangman's noose
a woman sharpening a letter opener
and let the stories wrap themselves
around ambiguities
or partial knowledges
and miss whatever pleasures accrete
to diving so deep one needs a pressure suit

335.365 - prophecy

read poems
he said
read endlessly
each poem leaves
a claw mark
in your imagination
and after long whiles
you'll turn and see
letters
hieroglyphs
glyphs without the hiero
arranged in order
so they spell out
your most twisted dreams
memories unresolved
and stories you didn't know
you had been brewing
and poems
or something like them
will pour off those walls
through your fingers
sometimes unwilling
and people will call
those results
your greatest works
or nonsense

334.365 - history books in school

somewhere in a history book
a mostly blank page stands for
cowboys chasing down cows and calves
scattered after a windstorm
shepherds seeking the strays
hoping to find them before
coyotes or wolves do
union busters beating laborers to death
coal miners armed with stolen rifles
waiting for lawmen who come to gun them down
the peaceful gathering of workers
and their allies unsuspecting
a cavalry charge against them that day
oh, children, study your history books
most carefully, some of what they say
is true, but most of what is true
is in the spaces the text and pictures
do not take up

333.365 - madness

would Freud have called her mad?
we'll never know
he lived a century ago
and mostly we know what he wrote up
individual cases
persons
unable to cope with what
people around them
knew as the real world
those persons each
had invented a world of her own
a world she understood
in which she was no more misunderstood
than in her friends' real one
some of us now say
he got his diagnoses wrong
fitting each one into
the same box he had made
I do not know
have not the training
but admire
that patient listening
that listening and waiting
for each patient to talk herself
into a new and realer world
a world her friends could live
more comfortably in
and he could shake her hand
stop listening
and work at fitting her story
among so many others
and make sense of them
of what we do and think
to find some kindness in our worlds
some understanding
that we are happier with
than even patient listening

332.365 - the opposite of knowledge

see this book?
yes, it is empty
these are the poems he meant to write
every night when he went upstairs
hid in the attic from the world he knew
he poured out ink and tears and blood
scrawled on loose paper
wadded it
tossed it in corners
we have collected the ones we found
unwadded them
flattened them
tried to read the scrawls and the blurs
tried putting them in different orders
tried to understand
tried so hard to understand
too late of course
he needed that before the night
but none of us knew
none of us knew
surely one of us
two of us
three of us
some number of us
would have done something
talked to him
or listened
I think no one ever listened
except to explain to him
what he must not say
until perhaps
there was nothing left he could say
just as there was nothing he ever found to write
in that empty book
and somewhere he found that gun
taught himself how to use it
then on the night
let himself down from the attic
he found and he killed
his teacher
the principal
his father
all of them men
he even tried to kill the preacher
but that one
dived through a window and ran away
and the boy
the young man
whatever he was
alone in that office
set it afire
and shot himself dead
leaving behind this emptiness
and so many questions

331.365 - we

are a broken people
we break ourselves
we are stupid
and proud of it
we boast of it
and we vote to prove it
but at least we
are not brown or black
we
vote against ourselves
vote for our owners
thinking
when we do
that when they are
comfortable enough
they will pass down
their spare pillows
and of course
we
will get one
probably with a silken case
we can take with us
in a cheap box
although if this world
is any promise of the next
there we will still clean toilets
for our masters
tell them thank you
and step out of their way
remembering to be grateful
to the maker of us all
who engineered a world like this
for its beauty
and was kind enough at least
not to make us brown or black

330.365 - belief

I was telling him
what few things might be believed
"for instance, this rock," I said
"you can't walk through it
if you try to walk past it
without stepping over
it will trip you"
he frowned and shrugged
"that's what's wrong with you," he said
"you try to figure out what you can believe
and how you can believe it, that's so wrong!"
he swigged from his beer and shrugged again
"nobody cares, I mean, nobody else does
y'see?"  he waited for an answer
"we believe" he paused to let that sink in
then recognized he talked to a stone
he shrugged a third time and explained some more
"we believe, everything, that rock, those swings
the street and those parked cars, the stop sign,
but we believe too what politicians say
and preachers, teachers even, it's easier that way
nuthin worries us, we hear no contradictions
then you, you come along and annoy us
a person could die your way, you should try mine"
he opened another beer and handed it to me
we watched the clouds change colors in the sunset

329.365 - a thank you of sorts

thank you, Robinson Jeffers.
thank you, Lew Welch.

in case I could not see it, you pointed it out
painted it on a wide canvas
sang it as a hymn and an anthem

it is not the world, pitiless as that is
it is what we build on it, from it
but mainly from what's in us
that scrapes at the souls of men
wears down their spines
cuts off their feet
and leaves them dragging their knees
across the pavement
the pavement they put there
allegedly to ease the wear on feet

it is men who build the strange temples called factories
and men who close them
to taunt other men with memories of jobs
it is men who taint the seas
with effluence even the ocean cannot cleanse
it is men who build great granaries
in plain sight of other starving men
it is men...
but my readers and my listeners know
even if they choose to ignore it
or dismiss it as something others do

the world provides its own backdrop of horrors
cancer, plague, the wasting diseases
but it is men who make those look puny
who daily visit tortures on prisoners and loved ones
who flay each other slowly day by day

no wonder you withdrew to inhumanism
turning your back on all we praise as great about ourselves
on all that may be great
but sometimes seems like frills and ruffles
hung on a rotting dress
sometimes seems like fringe on the cape and hood
flung over the head and shoulders of
the crueler cousin of death

328.365 - of fire and rock

the fire ran low across the ground
finding almost nothing for fuel
the low brush burst quickly into flame
the wind threw sparks and tinder
a little farther along
brush turned to ash
almost as quickly as it lit
grey powder covered the ground
as before, flame had
and before that, the dried brush
the edge of flame ran up against the rock
and, finding nothing to burn there, stopped
night fell on ash
breeze sifted it back and forth
but found no embers to re-ignite
no kindling and no spark
a poet watching from a tower wondered
would civilization end that way?
run out of fuel and spark?
leave only ashes sifting in the wind?
he shuddered and shook his head
surely not, he told himself, surely not

327.365 - a very healthy tree

look at this old tree
here where the roots dig into the ground
it must be two thousand years old
maybe three
climb up with me three quarters of the way
we barely recognize the sounds
but linguist-historians tell us
it has already separated itself
from what the Angles and the Saxons spoke
it has taken on a cast of its own
borrowing of course from the Welsh, Irish, and Scots
but also from the Danes and Norsemen
and has brambled a grammar of its own
recognizably the ancestor of our own
climb up with me again
up near the top
where the trunk
twenty feet across at ground level
is no thicker than my thigh
and sways with breezes
bends with winds
picks up African words
words from anywhere
if they be useful
we make up words from our own
and other people's languages
and even grammar twists in the hands of master arborists
two or three thousand years and still in health
still growing
still forking twisting splitting and recombining
still grafting new words and new forms
still poking out pods and berries
and shaking in wonder when a wind or breeze
brings new twigs to adhere and attach
up here and even higher is where the poets come to listen
to enliven an oldest way to communicate
with words and grammar and meanings
the tree barely recognizes so far
but will add soon
no wonder we can barely understand
our children

326.365 - absolution

a man dies and his priest
or preacher or whatever
knows that the man has entered heaven
he had declared the man saved several times
it must be so
but still
remembering a few arguments with the man
and his perverse insistence on winning
wonders if maybe this time God could forget
and send the man where he truly belonged

a man dies and his wife
sits dutifully beside his bed
she does not weep
suppresses a smile when she hears
"Stoic in her grief"
suppresses another when she thinks
he'll never black her eye again
or bruise her arm
or thunder her unworthiness
or pick at some failing he considers sin
he's gone and for this lifetime anyway
she's free of him
she bows her head and prays
that wherever God consigns her when she dies
it be another place than his

a man dies and his son
arrives too late to wish the man more life
although it would have been a mouth-only wish
his real wish that the man left him some cash
and no more debt
knowing the common practice
he sits in the living room and looks forlorn
and prays no one interrupts him while he shams
he dredges up expectations from other funerals
and invents memories to satisfy them

a man dies and his friends
gather and whisper what they'd like to hear
when their time comes
the man becomes
renowned for loyalty
for helpfulness
generosity
and faith
no one
not one of them
dares think the transformation a waste of grace

325.365 - parable

the elephant
raised his trunk and admired it
"surely folks can see
I am the only beast with one of these
clearly the gods loved me
more than others"
the elephantess
scolded
"you silly goof!
when did anyone ever see
you do something practical with that
all day you swing it back and forth
use it to feed yourself
or make that dreadful noise with it
you are so taken with yourself
you never notice
you call the lions to us"
the elephant harumphed
and swore it was not so
secretly promised to himself
if ever he figured out
how to write a sacred book
there'd be no elephantesses in it

324.365 - on the edge

he sat his horse, the old cowboy
and stared down the mountainside
the horse, never at ease with standing
unless grazing, looked back
the cowboy smiled and patted its shoulder
then turned it and looked back also
looked down onto the mountainside and valley
where he'd spent most of his life
all of it since his voice stopped cracking
he smiled and thought a moment on that boy
so eager to become a man and get on
with what he imagined life would offer
impatient with his father's farm
glad to learn a horseman's ways
and now the world had mostly outgrown
its use for horsemen, he smiled again
looked where he'd met his wife
never having imagined a wife
and where he'd buried her
never having imagined life without her
he looked at all the places that he'd ridden
and those he'd never, from here they looked the same
he'd never ridden up so far, always imagined
this new side of the mountain would look the same
he turned the horse again, looked down the new side
no, nothing looked familiar
he touched the horse's sides with his heels
began his curious descent

323.365 - smiles of the gods

he writes as if
the gods had always smiled at him
even in those days when desire
fought with itself
to make itself known
and what hid under a skirt
was as cherished as candy bars
from Mrs. Ashley's grocery

I shake my head
try to imagine
having known no gods
since I was told the Greek ones never were
and admired the Greeks for being such great jokesters
they wrote their gods' antics anyway

in any case
no gods meant I made my own way
perhaps the world and objects on it
shone brighter than they might have
how can I know?

and when the time came
that what hid under skirts and blouses
made me frantic to know
I may have lucked out
instead of going to jail I found
some books with drawings
and numbered explanations
which told me nothing really
but made me think myself wise

later wiser girls taught me there were no numbers
and I knew nothing but names
they cared nothing about

and for a while what I had thought of gods
settled on girls, holy, wise, and taunting
until I fumbled worship into love and learned
they were human as I
and though no numinous smiles floated around us
we made our own
drove parents and each other crazy
somehow survived
discovered other mysteries
but none perhaps
quite so engaging as those first

322.365 - between the lines

there are poets
their words and lines so smoothly stitched together
they resemble a fine asphalt highway
with new tires humming over them
and I ride along transported
with never a thought of my own intruding
and where the highway ends
I get off pleased, satisfied
but not inspired

and there are other poets
whose lines and words make a more cobbled road
no tires hum here
old cartwheels creak and stagger
and thoughts of mine
leap from between the rocks
scamper off in various directions
until two or three
catch my hands and drag me along with them
to a new place where I can look back at the cobbled road
or down a hillside new to me
at the foot of which children or men play
and moonlight shares the scene with the sun
and off to the side three or four trees
give shade to the skeleton standing
watching the players dance

321.365 - another omen wasted

the bird stopped the slow stroking of its wings
and fell out of the V-formation
the other birds shifted to reshape the V
and kept on flying, going wherever they headed
but that bird fell and fell and splashed
into the lake, it sank, then rose again
and floated a brief time, no dog swam out
to retrieve it so it sank again
no hunter cursed that I heard
just as I had heard no gun
I wondered that I had noticed
I mean, nothing called out that death
a bird that had flown powerfully for miles
gave out and plunged just as I happened to look
evening continued darkening and I walked home
wondering if what I'd seen meant anything
if there were some part of some story
I was supposed to play but didn't know my role
I shrugged and hung my jacket inside the door
perhaps some old one-eyed woman will appear
and demand my story, more likely not

320.365 - the story resumes

night fell
a storm crawled in from the west
lightning sprang from the clouds
and fell upon the cliffs
the mountainsides
a man on horseback found a cabin
lit by no fire
with a stable beside it
he helloed and Hallooed without answer
then walked his horse into the stable
dismounted and hung there a moment
between two worlds
the rider's and the pedestrian's
he soon caught his balance though
without thinking deep thoughts
he unsaddled and unbridled his horse
found food for it
and brushes to care for its coat
and only after the horse was cared for
plodded through wind and rain to the cabin
it was clean inside but deserted
whoever had lived here had left
but their pride demanded they leave it clean
maybe more
he found firewood still stacked
matches that still flared
made himself a fire in the fireplace
another in the stove
and slept in the space between them
but before that he sat and stared into the fire
and remembered old stories
the war on Troy and Odysseus' journey home
Orpheus' trip to hell for his wife
Joan's victories for her king and her reward
and lately the endless wars
in which we try to find a story of our own
or even a way out we can call victory
the man shuddered and went to sleep
he dreamed an enormous eagle
carried him across land after land
and everywhere below him men battled
men fought in forests and deserts
on mountains and in marshes
on plains, on steppes, and even on tundra
finally the eagle flew him out to an island
somewhere in the middle of the Pacific
somewhere big enough to farm
the eagle promised him seven years of peace
and flew away
in the morning a woman woke him
and asked where the hell they were
and how he had gotten her there

319.365 - colonial triangle

they tried the man three times
by their own rules of law
they failed to convict him twice
the third time they used a drunken judge
and a perverted translator
the man on trial had no idea what they said
or what they did
he sat through all the folderol
and only now and then shook the chains
around his wrists and ankles
only occasionally roared at his chainers
they made him stand
while the judge slurred through his sentence
then took him back to his cell
removed his chains
after a long delay
the door opened again
and she entered
he would have rushed to her
except she wore the dress and wimple
he had no such words for them
of some of their women
she had not when she spoke in court
although he had no such word for that either
"what?" he demanded and gestured at her costume
"it does not matter" she said "and it does"
he shrugged and shook his head
she had spent too much time with them
"do you see that structure they build?
they will hang you there by your neck
in 'court' they said I said
you killed that horrid man
who tried to protect me
I never said that
not even once
in all the times they tried to trick me
it doesn't matter now
this does" she said and gestured at her get-up
"they say they have made me
a bride of their dead god"
he roared frustration and she shrugged
"it doesn't matter now" she said
she fumbled with her purse
removed his hunting knife
he stared at her unwilling and unable
to defend himself against her
she stabbed him three times in the heart
then smiled and held him while he bled
maybe none of it mattered then
she had already taken poison
it worked before the guards came

318.365 - a blind woman

she taps her cane along the sidewalk
and when it encounters the first body
she pauses to find a way around it
then continues, tapping her everyday route
another and another she encounters
deaf, perhaps, to the gunshots echoing
oblivious to the bullets zinging past her
only when she comes to the grocer's shop
and finds it locked is her day interrupted
she knocks on the door, pounds on it
a bullet ricochets from a streetlight pole
she backs away and finds a bench to sit on
perhaps to figure out some sense in this
perhaps to wait for someone to unlock the door

317.365 - why I stay awake

in my dreams
I still ride my Harley
I am, if anything, bolder
I am at least ten years younger
invincible still
invulnerable even
attractive to young women
and attracted certainly
the world is as I never knew it
kind
encouraging
and full of hope
until, of course
something good is about to happen
something I worked for
the sky becomes a shark's mouth
the air a tornado
a dozen fathers surround me
a jury of my father repeated
or a hanging mob of hers
either way
they herd me toward the funnel
and my boots no longer hold me
to the ground

316.365 - after reading Donald Hall

his was the book I studied
from him I learned contemporary poets
contemporary poems
from his book I learned so much
even if not to like all he did

he writes about a Henry Moore sculpture
I think I remember it
an egg-shaped stone
sits in a cavity
inside a possibly-feminine-shaped larger stone

he sees the color of light
birds launching themselves from the ground
swirling into flight

I wonder if I could ever see that
I see two stones
in a possible expression of a pregnant moment
I am enormously moved by the sculpture
but have no words for what it means
except guesses

maybe that is what he means
maybe that is all any of us can mean
but I see stones, shaped stones, placed stones
and he sees the color of light
birds leaping into flight
and maybe that too is a moment
immanent with possibility

may this be one also

315.365 - since riding

natural sounds do not come to me now
not like they did when I rode
motorcycle or Harley
they kept me grounded in the earth
now I drive or walk
more nearly a city person
I dash between buildings
spend most of my time inside
and the world is mostly people
and loud noises
sometimes conversations
I enjoy people
like conversations with them mostly
this surprises me
I did not miss them when I rode
but now that I drive and walk
I miss the earth

314.365 - veterans' eve

Hail!
Thank you for your service.
Thank you for giving more than we dare.
Thank you for daring the rage, the accidents, the waiting, the endless times between defying death.
Thank you for bearing our lies.
Thank you for believing our lies.
Know that we meant them earnestly, sincerely.
We too believed them while we spoke them, believe them now when we speak them again.
We know as do you anyone sane knows you were not protecting us, no one threatened us.
We know as do you anyone sane knows you defended no liberties of ours.
While you were gone polititicians nibbled and gobbled at our liberties, just as now that you're back, they will nibble and gobble at what we owe you, claiming loudly they do it for your own good.
Thank you for knowing that, despising us, and still giving more than we dare.
Thank you for your service.
Thank you.
Hail!

313.365 - no conversation

I try to imagine talking with my father
a conversation
in all the years I knew him, we never did that
man to man, quiet, truth thrown on the table
like cards after a poker hand
whenever we spoke, I recognized the preacher
lying to me again and shut him out
politely waited for the words to stop
and guessed whether to say "unh-hunh"
or just nod, either way let him finish
whatever he had started on
once he acknowledged that he knew
"you haven't heard a word I said"
I grinned and admitted "not since the sermon started"
he looked away, silent a while
then told me of the church he attended then
I listened and asked questions
until I heard the preacher coming on again
maybe that day I recognized
he couldn't help it
that was the way he talked to people
I don't know if that's true
when I was young and heard him
he always was their preacher
or an invited preacher
so it made sense
was appropriate
for him to preach to them
maybe there was no way to retire from it
no path back to the world I knew
maybe he was stuck forever
out on that rock in the stream
telling the waters where to go
knowing they'd go on as they pleased
obeying him or not and unconcerned
and maybe he knew too that people
however reverently they listened
flowed on around him
regardless of his words
running where nature demanded
and their helplessness let them

312.365 - sundown sunrise

no sunset ceremony tonight
the sun ekes down until its edge
touches the horizon
then passes behind it
without the usual garish displays
without the oranges and reds and golds
the teals the blasts of yellow-orange
the sun touches down
then slides slowly out of sight
some perhaps wonder if it's too tired
if it has lost its flair for drama
if from now on it will just sneak off stage
some of us "know" as well as humans can
the recent rains and winds have washed
dust and smoke particles from the sky
so for the moment it has nothing to work with
no way to scatter the sun's nearly horizontal light
in those brave flashy colors
it's hard to talk science to a people steeped in magic
and superstition
maybe especially so if one just barely remembers it
the sun disappears and night falls like a cape
or drape or curtain, science or no
we welcome it and shiver
darkness is when we let our monsters out
some of us, we too embarrassed to let them out in daylight
some of us do not let them out even at night
but huddle under the covers with them
some few remember when we were little
and our monsters hid in closets or under beds
hid deeper when our mother spoke or fathers
but now they've grown enough they need not hide
those of us with science scold ourselves
for letting monsters persist
even while knowing we no more can help it
than we can stuff Pandora's box full again
or hush that little voice called hope
we sleep to turn our backs on what we have let loose
and in the morning welcome the sun again

311.365 - how the mind works, perhaps

moonlight flowed over the corpses
over the rifles
the unexploded grenade
just like it did over the stones
near the surface of the ground
the tufts of grass
the low scrub brush
the moonlight felt no pity
no hostility
no mourning
and no blame
it felt nothing
it simply did what light must do
it is we
who if we see at all
make distinctions
judgments
and feel whatever feelings we do
we are not governed by laws of physics only
we feel or not and act or not
and so
those soldiers who came upon the scene
did nothing to disturb it
they separated
and swept around the little clearing
we can say alert
ready to fire
but what we saw is
they separated
swept around the clearing
and out of sight
we conclude they never saw us
we live

310.365 - credo

what then do I believe?
there are planets
and I have seen most of them
up close
as robot explorers slid by
there are moons
and we have math that lets us plot
where the planets and moons will be
there are electrons
and other tiny particles we can't see
but have the math to tell
how they'll behave
probably
and there are people
but we have no math to predict
how they'll behave
those few of us who read history
think we can predict
but people fool us
some are magnanimous
some generous
most of us think kindly
sort of
but act to protect ourselves
maybe our families
and some of us are grim
sadistic
horrible
we would not need those words
except for those of us who earn them

once in a village so small
that you and I do not know its name
only that it was near a border
between two countries the villagers had hardly heard of
and had little contact with
once in that village
lived a family so poor
that when the father got sick
the neighbors feared the family would die
so every neighbor gave what they could spare
including time to cook their gifts and feed the man
including time to draw the baths and wash the children
and tell them stories
once in that village
the man began to heal
had almost reached the health
with which he could get out of bed
when soldiers came
it hardly matters from where
they didn't expect a village
so knew it was illegal
they killed the men and boys
stole food and anything else they fancied
including the women and the girls
then burned the village away

later in that war
most of those soldiers received medals
for gallantry in other circumstances
two of them became officers
and one of those was elected mayor
of his home town

the universe sped on
yes, sped
most of it moves at enormous speeds away from us
there may be meaning in that
but probably not

309.365 - what we found

the old man said
"you boys
this is the ninth day in a row
my meditations have been interrupted
by curious tourists
it's time to move
deeper into the mountains
higher"
"perhaps," I said
easily guilted and meaning to help
"you should find a less sightful place
one where people wouldn't climb to
just to see"
he looked at me
studied me and grinned
he stood and bowed
hands in namaste
"such wisdom," he admired
"anywhere I go," he nodded
"the world has something to show
the longer it takes me to see that something
surely the greater reward for seeing"
he winced and shook his head
"listen to me," he said
then frowned and shook his head
"no, do not, but nine days of talking to people
and I am looking for greater rewards
I wonder
is any seeing greater than another?"
he shook his head again and stood
looked perplexed for a moment
then jumped down off his rock
looked around and picked up a backpack
not so much unlike our own
then waved and walked into the brush
"should we follow him?" Robert worried
Ned shook his head
"whatever he experiences
that's what he experiences
if he wanted a gang of disciples
he would collect them"
not knowing what else to do
we sat down around the rock
staring out at whatever there was to see
we had not been there long
when a family interrupted
the little girl squatted and studied me
"are you real?" she asked
"too much so," I grinned
but her mother called her away
her older brother stepped nearer then
"what does that mean?" he asked
"that I'm still stuck with meaning"
I grinned and shook my head
he cocked his and asked, "do you make sense?"
"too much," I answered
"oh, you're one of those," he said, disgusted
his father called him back to the family
the parents' looks accused us
they led their kids away
offended at the likes of us
in their world
we didn't know what to make of our encounters
til Walt reminded us we didn't want to make anything of them
so we climbed toward the mountain peak
until the wind reminded us we had no jackets
we started back down to the car
chagrinned

308.365 - my friend says I complain too much of lies

what if truth came to visit
surely it would not stay
among a people such as we
so entangled in our lies
but suppose it came to visit
pat little children on the head
solemnly greet teenagers
who would resent yet another adult
telling them how they ought live
suppose it sat and visited
among our men and women
and we tried to tell it stories
but faltered not knowing how
to tell what really happened
what we really said
or what we expected
suppose, just suppose
it stirred its coffee
spoke gently of some foreign land
where it lives comfortably in exile
waiting the day when it can come and stay
but when we jump in to tell it
how much we look forward to that day
the chair empties
the cup falls to the floor and shatters
the coffee spreads out on the floor

307.365 - apparition

he held his pants up with a drawstring
he stared at me as mystified as I at him
"who are you?" he demanded, "how are you
partly here in these ruins where the river
runs blood, partly somewhere else
I can almost see behind you
some place like the fairyland the old ones tell
come!  step fully into my world
dare its winds, its thirsts, its dirt
perpetually blowing.  tell me the wonders
of your world, or better yet, show me the path
into your world
                  "I..." I stammered "I...
I thought you were a dream, a ghost
a figment of some war past, or some war now
I expected the echo of guns, planes dropping bombs
something to explain the devastation of your city
how strangely it reminds me of mine"
"don't be silly," the apparition said, "we fight no wars
not because we do not want them but because
we have no energy to spare on wars
the old ones tell of engines, fuel, water
and yes, of guns and bombs, and make them sound
both dreadful and enchanting, but we have none
we chase the green as it retreats
and those of us us who catch enough of it
live to chase another day; your world
the glimpses I see of it, has green to spare
to waste; I think perhaps yours is the old ones' world
and you one of the wastrels who would do nothing to save it
to protect it, to pass it on; if so, be damned
this is the world you left and we your inheritors"
he faded as I suppose I did
the alarm went off and unlike most mornings I rose
glad to leave my dream

306.365 - poetry

I wait
pretending to be a cove in a coastline
that poetry will fill as the tide rises
sometimes
the waves flow in softly, climb the sand
and flow back out again, barely disturbing sand
sometimes
the waves rush in and splash around the rocks
carrying away whatever traces humans have left
sometimes
the waves race in and smash against the cliff
climb halfway up its face, fall back as mist
I don't care
so long as poetry comes in and fills my heart and lungs
and flows back out my fingertips
let's change
the metaphor, poetry is a love affair
with a woman who is sometimes there

305.365 - helicopters

where could a village go?
how could it hide?
the helicopters
rose over the ridge
raised dust coming up one road
and down another
came across the jungle and the river
made a five pointed star
centered on the village
blasted the houses into flames
no one ran from
machine gunned anyone who ran
then dropped ladders
down which armed men climbed
to finish off anyone they found alive
so the three children say
who managed to escape
what was the village's crime?
independence perhaps?
failure to have a master
among the wealthy?
failure to pay taxes
to a government they never heard from
until that day?
the villagers do not say
none of the corpses talks to any one
perhaps they do not appreciate
their only chance to tell their story

304.365 - archer

the young woman
nocks the arrow and pulls back the string
holds a moment and lets fly
the arrow moves faster almost
than human eye and thought can follow
it sinks into whatever she aimed at
target or human chest
no
she is not sinking metaphoric arrows
this is not love piercing some dolt's heart
these are weapons
and so far she is life dispensing death
knowing full well
bad planning or poor luck
someday will turn the game on her
she counts on her end being quick
there are worse fates

303.365 - Christmas in this country

the tree almost stretched
the eight feet from floor to ceiling
our father had to bend over
the tallest branch to stick it up the angel
we watched him wrap the tree in
electric lights
then handed him Christmas ornaments
the paper chains we'd made
popcorn strung on thread
we watched him toss icicles
to finish festivating the tree
it should have been a merry scene
except we participated under duress
following orders, not a smile among us
and none of us touched the tree
our mother just watched
not about to get involved
when it was done he took his pictures
we had to stand around it for some of them
"smile" he would say and three of us would fake it
my brother Bill either ignored him
or had withdrawn into a foreign land
only he knew of
a land spared Christmas trees and family happiness

302.365 - the story

I remember, my friend says, before I was born
some part of my mind turns off as I sip my beer
my mother and father, my friend says, already fought
not fought like you and I did when we were kids
they quarreled, said ugly things, made no sense
then hours after, they'd make up, make love
and sure as hell, love days or weeks
before they fought again
prob'ly how they conceived me
the making up and making love, I mean
then I was born and making up got difficult
I don't know why, I don't remember doing anything
my father would stay gone longer after they fought
and then one night when he was staggerin' drunk
still smelling of another woman, I heard tell
a shadow stepped out of an alley right behind him
and stabbed him sixteen times with a kitchen knife
after the police stopped coming round and asking questions
my mother and I moved to Chicago and life got better
at least for me, I never asked about her
a week after I graduated from high school
she cut both wrists with her old kitchen knife
left me a note that said "don't you take after him none"
I put down my beer, re-thought, then finished it
he shrugged, and we both ordered whiskeys

301.365 - victory

the young man sat in the dark alley
he nursed his whiskey bottle so well
this was his third night drinking from it
he stared across the alley at the dumpster
but saw one of his last battles
the blinding sun, the thousand-year desert
mud houses for which he wondered
where the water had come from
an idle thought while he fired and ducked
then fired and ducked again
he survived but Emmet didn't
nor Billy T., Red Hanson, or Whatsisname Brooks
they fought all day and most of the night
then it was over and most of them remained
some said they'd won, he tried to see it
the enemy had pinned them down most of a day
then disappeared to show up somewhere else
it seemed a strange kind of victory
when the brass brought him home they said
that we had won over there
it must have been the same kind of victory
his brother soldiers still fought and died
where he had fought and lived
and nothing much had changed for people
who lived in that desert
except we killed more of them
and everyone was poorer except the very rich
he thought somehow in wars before his time
long before his time
victory meant something else
at least the shooting stopped then, didn't it?

300.365 - the watering can

water drips from the bottle
but not from the drip-tip
from a ledge below that
and I remember a boy
watching a lady
perhaps his mother
meaning to water flowers
from one of those old
galvanized iron watering cans
with the gooseneck
and the shower-head sprinkler
but it had a hole
just where the gooseneck leaned out
so she watered her skirt
and the walkways
and even me once
but never the flowers
nor the soil around them
I watched in wonder
and suppressed my grins
I had already learned
y'cain't tell grownups nothin'
and y'mustn't laugh at them
even today I
seldom laugh at myself

299.365 - credo

reading a poet I trust
I am struck by her faith
how solid it is
Peter should be proud
I do not trust her faith
or any other
when it came time
for me to commit
I chose skepticism
the way of science
always testing
even what we know
knowing only
what we can test
for me it means
that much of what
my colleagues know
I can say only
show me
in some ways
it is like
walking in a garden
and trusting only
the thorns

298.365 - an unrequested political poem

someone disconnected the calendar from the year
it's almost November, Hallowe'en is next week
yesterday the thermometer's mercury climbed like a stuntman
by noon, we could hardly breathe, by midafternoon
people were being taken to the hospital
or being plunged into pools cooler than their bodies
the calendar says fall has arrived, but summer rules on
air conditioners falter, the power companies complain
we use too much of their product
a capitalist wouldn't understand
but then a capitalist wouldn't understand our system
a wise man wouldn't understand our system
especially not that when it breaks
we do not call for engineers but bible-thumpers
Christians, Muslims, Keynesians, the capitalist cults
and half a dozen others
one bible or another, none of them with anything practical to say
some wise man once said
a people gets the government it deserves
to which I add
and the system it deserves
but that doesn't help much
I propose a matchup
let every bible-thumping group select a champion
and throw him in a ring armed with his book
let them bash each other til only one can stand
then load them all in barrels and dump them in Niagara
the winner can get in the barrel last
or first, his choice
and any bible-thumping dissenter can join them in their trip
then we call in the engineers and let them solve the problems
the ones they can solve
and when the calendar and year connect again
when everyone can use the power he or she needs
and has the water and food he or she needs
then we take time to reconsider
do we really want the bible thumpers back?
or is there some better way to run a world?

297.365 - mistakes

her eyes pitied him
he wanted to jump-stand
hit her, at least slap her
these were his colleagues, not hers
they had rented her for the night, hadn't they
and he did the honorable thing didn't he?
declining?
how dare she pity him!
but she had turned back toward the bar
ordered a refill
and now surveilled the room again
like she had before she walked to him
eyes focused on his
hips swaying in her prowl
ah!  she must have picked another possibility
she prowled away
he couldn't not watch
until the tug on his sleeve insisted
he looked down into deferential eyes
a pretty face, a pretty body
enticing "your friends told me to remind you
our party is over here
perhaps you should join us?"
stiffening, he felt twice a fool
and knew he would for days

296.365 - emptiness

I sit before one of those poems
in which a black dies and is
Orion climbing into the night

the poet is Yusef Komunyakaa
but it could be Donny Jackson
the imagery is intense
the words drumbeats
and the language mixes whiskey and honey
but when it finishes
emotions have been wrung
til no more moisture can be found
and they must hang
languish in air
drying past dry

295.365 - carnival

we went to the carnival, we did
we hoped to find a bearded lady
a three-legged man, a unicorn
we were still that young
instead we found a monkey in a tuxedo
who led us to a tent we hadn't seen
where a woman so disinterested
she didn't open her eyes
asked if we really wanted to join the circus
we hollered "no!" and fled
all except little Hannibal, I guess
whom we saw later
riding the shoulders of the high-wire walker
and being flipped among the trapezists
next day little Hannibal's mom said he never came home
and the sheriff never found him
I guess folks mostly forgot about him
except I know at least one of us
often wondered whatever he was up to
and if maybe, just maybe, the right answer was "Yes!"

294.365 - decorum

ours is not a proper world
a proper world has linens and lace
like the Victorians had
or people Samuel Butler wrote about
a world in which ten pounds made a difference
in which a young man might have an inheritance
settled upon him
and find himself suddenly burdened
with a house to maintain
and retainers he must provide for
a lady aunt to keep up
and a mysterious young woman cousin
he's charged with marrying off safely
he finds himself with a rattle of walking canes
and a musket over the fireplace to explain
all the while learning to wear
his new grey suit and shirt starched so well
he can nearly shave with it
ah, those are the problems to have
in a thoroughly proper world

293.365 - Sunday lunch out

we went to the fancy restaurant in town
well, the fancy restaurant that didn't serve liquor
we went there because we had company
visitors from out of town
visitors who had known our parents
before, well, before whatever had happened
that meant they sent a woman back
who was not our mother and yet was
in some way we didn't understand
and had no one to ask about
we went there because my father wouldn't risk
another meal spoiled by the woman
who had once been such a good cook
and wouldn't risk another child saying "nunh-unh"
when he told a soothing lie about how we lived
it must have been hard to be a preacher and a public man
with a family he couldn't trust
and who didn't trust him
so we went to the fancy restaurant that didn't serve liquor
and endured the being-nice ritual of lunch and manners
that sometimes won us ice cream
and then went home to get out of Sunday clothes
except my father who lived in his
and had to prepare for the evening service
outside the sun heated the almost desert air
and we scattered into it to stay away from home