February, Week One

Day 1 

Dad Comments on Science

Science is science, everyone agrees,

but not when I’m dissecting the lab cat 

as the instructor munches a tuna sandwich 

at his desk. It’s a guy thing, 

Dad says, no edgy delicate stomach 

survives in the woods; gutting a deer

or a cat in my biology class

is science for tough, brave.

Day 2  

After Game Party

No cheerleader, I play

clarinet, march 

in formation at half-time, 

get the crowd moving.

After game time, party

time, no invite for the band,

but I’ll be the guest of honor,

toast of the town. Tomorrow

I’ll be the joke I won’t get.

Day 3   

Winter Trial

We endure talk 

of guns and anarchy, but sleep 

easier than they did 

when Pasternak took his stand 

for love over bullets in the streets. 

No death at our door, 

no one coming for us in the night, 

no flight to the wilderness.

Rain, sleet, snow — 

Lara waiting for Zivago, love

watered by weather of winter

and revolution. We root

for the mistress and the wife,

the sadness, what passes as solution. 

Dr. Zivago writing poetry

for his love, his country of tears.

Day 4    

NOTE: In this poem I use three foreign phrase for "our children" here: batoto yetu 

nos enfants, and unserer Kinder

Batoto Yetu (our children)

Nos enfants, unserer Kinder —

What can I teach,

what will you remember?

Should I look at your math,

check the figures and the work

or that plotting graph?

I’m inept, feel like a jerk

with formulas and numbers,

so that plan’s just berserk.

Dear children, I will instead

show you proper manners,

how to get along with Fred

the guy with the horrid laugh

you want to strangle, beat 

or drown in the bath.

You should be nice, polite

even when you want to shout

run screaming into the night

at his creepy cackle, his guffaw.

You’ve got to smile and say,

can I get you anything else, sir,

Batot yetu, our dear children —

Be nice no matter where or when.

Day 5     I chose a haiku for today a form I normally do not use in my writing.

Snowflakes swirl our town

covering the streets and shops;

homeless man crying.

Day 6  

Ars Poetica  #47

Battle two types of creation

says Jung, the inner voice

the outer one. There will be

prisoners taken, innocents sacrificed. 

Don the armor of verse — grab a sword 

for the bloody fight. Poets 

take up the banner and lead, no matter 

the torn minds of critics

who say poetry is deceased.

Run headlong into the fray,

shouting in iambic pentameter:

you will not break the back of poetry!

Do not languish on the bed of introversion, 

don’t be asleep to the world 

of extroverted techno-play

where everything is a meme, an avatar.

You can still make a line come alive

like Bishop, make a fish exist in real time

for his own grunting weight, his foily eye.

Revise, revise, revise!

Mended mirrors of verse can save you.

Day 7   

Flaneur of London

He reads the notes in the margins of the city, 

scribbles graffiti on the walls of the sky, cracks 

open every bottle of wine.   from an earlier poem, “The Flaneir”

On the bridge over the Thames

as I hurry from Embankment

to the Poetry Library, a voice 

interrupts the verse I’m constructing

in my head as I walk across:

‘ello, Queenie!

It’s Simon, rough sleeper and critic.

In the pocket of my coat, trashy

b-grade novel, half sandwich from Tesco, 

Earl Grey tea, baggie of kibble.

Woofer, his shepherd, sniffs my fingers

and rumbles a thank-you. Simon

says I look first rate today. I’ve stuffed

a poem in the book at page 73. Tomorrow

he’ll tell me that line 17 is a fright. 

By night he wanders Embankment, 

whores and thieves doing their deeds in darkness. 

Simon, flaneur of the Thames, 

eyes lowered, invisible, carries no notebook, 

recalls the details to share over the tea

I bring him on Tuesdays, 

the good wine I slip him on Saturdays. 

‘ello, Queenie!