March, Week 3

This week's poems stretch from a wondering about the birth of snowflakes to tongue-in-cheek looks at war, gun legislation, and a quirky musing about St Patrick. Also included a poem about my recent scary adventure in the hospital. 

Enjoy.

Day 15

Malevolent Queen

The earth’s the right place for love...

        — Robert Frost

What did Bentley see 

in his lens? Before the lacy flakes

sublimed, he froze them for us in time,

gave us a pattern for winter, a pretty way

beyond the grumbling over shoveling 

and plowing. No two alike he said,

a miracle of Nature. Conceived 

at 30,000 ft, Nature’s killer queen

colorless brutal beauty, falls 

so softly we don’t suspect

her malevolence. 39 million tons 

of snow can fall in a single snowstorm, 

energy of 120 atomic bombs. 

She’s a clever chameleon, reflecting 

like a prism what we want to see.  

But Earth’s the place for love, 

so we revel in white and soft,

turn our freezing faces into the wind, skate 

the problem. Light a fire, snuggle 

together with a glass of merlot, 

watch destruction fall one flake at a time.

Day 16

Seaside Flâneur

She is not anchored, 

not at home

except on the beach, 

in the roil of surf and wind. 

She is all sand, sky, spume 

that rises beyond the jetty. 

No longer young enough 

for even a sidelong glance

by young men sailing

frisbees along the strand, she

is a seaside flâneur, sees how 

they pose, turn each move into bait 

for the gene pool, sees the preen 

of every tanned girl’s stretch 

and turn in answer to their call. 

She remembers the scent of summer 

on her own legs. What was once 

hers: a hand smoothing oil 

on her thighs, the space between

her breasts, and warm lips 

against her hair — 

she hears the ghost:

Acker Bilk’s swooning clarinet,

Stranger on the Shore.

Day 17

St Patrick

Ah, Pádraig, ye were, in truth, a Scot!

Dragged off to the emerald isle

at tender age, made slave in Antrim,

tending flocks and roused to prayer —

you felt neither snow’s sting nor rain’s 

malevolence. More than a hundred

prayers you made, the spirit alive in you. 

Were there not petitions sent up 

for you to fix The Troubles 

between Orangemen and Green? 

Who alive now remembers 

your passioned quest in Ulster, 

in Meath, in Munster? Yea, all forget, 

bombs going to shrapnel in trash bins, gunfire 

reporting all night; yet no help from you. 

Are you then a lost Saint, fit only for drinking 

and a merry break from Lenten burdens?

Where now is your holy power? When did you lose

your way to save history? Would you have kept

your popularity if you had charmed the snakes 

from Medusa’s head, averted the asp 

from Cleo’s breast or Exupery’s royal tot? 

Ah, Paddy, the Irish still want you as their slave,

forgetting you are, after all, a Scot.

Day 18

Common Pastime

It’s normal to bombast,

to heckle and jeer,

tomatoes and rotten lettuce

ready to be flung

at the heads of state, our neighbors,

colorful expletives and slurs

flying from the tongues

of pastors and plumbers,

fishermen and flower vendors.

It’s our constitutional right,

our common pastime. Guns

too our right. Don’t we all live 

for the day when six year olds pack 

not just lunches but semi-autos?

Heckles will pierce, not just feelings,

but lungs and hearts. Peace 

is so damned unjust after all, 

something for sissies.

Day 19

Break, Break, Break

Valentine’s Day 1965,

a break in his voice, a zip

of energy I feel through the phone:

I love you. I miss you. 

We should date other people.

45 years now, married to those other people,

we break up over and over, just for fun.

Day 20

Propophol Rhapsody

At the edge of my mind, a rhapsody:

cellos, oboes, violas, a trio of flutes.

Michael Jackson took too much,

left in a wrong-headed thriller.

It runs through my IV now, puts me down

for just a moment; I’m off then 

in two jolts, trying to stop my heart

running in crazy circles.

The prince waits 

just beyond the curtain, praying 

we will tick on together

as we planned. I don’t feel myself go

or come back. I wonder where I wandered. 

Snow falls as it has been doing all night.

Day 21

Panda & Ernie

Nothing left from baby days

no stuffed animals, dolls; books

gone too, yard sale finds gone 

to mere memories.

Her mother, always tidy, never one 

to wax emotional over things, 

emptied her room 

of what might need dusting:

ice skates, ballerina jewelry box,

photo albums, Panda.

It took her years to find a set

of Judy Bolton mystery books,

and years of resentment over losing

Panda built a permanent wall 

between them, late apology

half-hearted and hollow.

In 1981 came Ernie, black and white

and growing old with her, his fur

loved to a fine patina. 

Mothers, keep everything, 

let your children choose. 

Mostly, don’t have yard sales

when your daughter is away at college.

March, Week 2

Day 8

Carbon-Based Pronouns

He shouldn’t worry about breathing 

out CO2. After all he’s carbon-based by design.

He is 70% H2O and getting dehydrated.

She should stop littering, smoking, dumping

plastic along the roadways. She ought to collect 

cans, bundle her cardboard, be a recyling queen.

We should take briquets we’ve bought for our barbeques,

make something useful: put them in mesh bags

to absorb fridge odor, in the composter to make it work.

The cops should start issuing tickets for littering, 

stop the jam of garbage in the storm drains,

leave speeders to their own ends, refocus on trash.

He shouldn’t worry about breathing

because if he and she and they and we don’t act soon

we will have no breath left. Carbon burns.

Day 9 

White Smoke

When I was a child, I thought as a child

ballots in the fire, surprise! 

No College of Cardinals’ chemistry sets,

but magic 

from the Very Hand of God,

 
       telling them, telling us;

burning forth a name.

A name, blown forth from flame,

like the name of Harry Potter

in the Goblet of Fire, a name for all

to see, written perhaps in the blood

of the dead pontiff. A mystery,

like the Holy Blood, a chalice of names

 
      only one survives the flames;

only one survives, a new name.

White smoke after days of black,

when I was a child, I thought as a child.

Now I am grown, and now I know

it’s the science of secrets, the science

of mystery, the science of magic tricks.

only one survives the flames;

what name is in the stove today?

Day 10

Σ 

a beach umbrella chaise

bent, folded over to make shade

for the mermaid who seeks shore

and a rest from salt, which makes

her dizzy. Such a chemical

that coats her hair, frizzes it beyond curls,

that makes her voice husky 

when she sings, that stays on her tongue

gives her a sore throat. Salt and brine. 

She is not staying long —

only moments before she will dry

to a crinkle, end up like Lot’s wife,

a statue on the sand, looking back

on where she could have been queen.

Day 11   

Closet Pantoum

There is nothing in my closet to wear.

Everything seems to have gotten smaller.

I am on the brink of great despair;

I stifle the urge I have to holler.

Everything seems to have gotten smaller;

Is it the condition of my dryer?

I stifle the urge I have to holler

and pull out huge clumps of my hair.

Is it the condition of my dryer?

Should I call the Maytag repairman

or just pull out huge clumps of my hair?

I have no patience with my wardrobe,

Should I call the Maytag repairman?

Can he fix my problem right away?

I have no patience with my wardrobe,

it just might be I need some outside help.

Can he fix my problem right away,

stop the clothes from shrinking?

It just might be I need some outside help.

That is what I have been thinking.

Stop the clothes from shrinking?

I  just want to start with something new.

That’s a better way of thinking.

Maybe shopping is the clue!

I fear the problem’s too much pizza;

I’m on the brink of great despair.

I’ll eat more salad, skip the pasta,

because there’s nothing in my closet to wear.

Day 12

Critics

The heck with all critics. Really — 

grab them by the hair, 

throw ‘em to the ground and make them pay. 

They never pay homage to poems, 

or send novelists a few kind comments 

for originality. There’s nothing original 

about a critic. One cookie cutter 

pressed into the dough

over and over and you’ve got critics

to bake and dust with the sugar they demand

from everyone who writes. The heck 

with publishers too, and the pimply-faced 

grad students they hire for a pittance to reject art,

and the editors who let this go on, certain 

that there is genuine art to be had

for contributor’s copies and a brief bio

in the backs of their journals. 

The heck with them all.

Day 13

Falling

stars, meteors, asteroids can

be out there in the daytime sky

hidden, secretive, with a plan.

You could ask the triceratops

what to look for, what’s coming —

except he was summarily stopped

by something bigger than himself

driven into the rock and shale.

So you now have to help yourself

to figure out what’s on tap

as the latest in oncoming disasters.

Total annihilation, a deadly slap

of tsunami waters on the land,

or fire in the sky from ancient rock

raining down to wipe out man?

Stars so beautiful, meteors flashing

across the blackest night,

until you realize they will be bashing

everything, including you to smithereens.

Day 14  

Rod Serling

Submitted for your approval:

two-headed Martians, green men

with bad intentions. Planets

visited, strange civilizations better

than ours. A land of shadow

reached only by imagination. 

Enter a dimension not only of sight 

and sound, but of mind: time

and space open for exploration.

Up is down, down is off to the side.

You’re in the zo-un. Your house

not your house, but a portal

to exploration. Travel a wondrous

journey, find the sign post up ahead.

There’s a place of shadow, ride 

the dream there and relax.Confused? 

Tell them everything Mr Serling, 

as time spirals into gray. Color

tv is on the way. Next week a little man 

will get his wish: permanent

residence in the Twilight Zone. 

March, Week 1

Day 1

Your Birthday

for Richard Wilbur, 

on the occasion of his 92nd

Bees are asleep still underground,

Drowse yet in borrowed nests in trees.

Wait for the signaled day to sound

The flowers from their winter freeze.

Some say the maple sap is brash

Enough to wake the buzzing hoarde,

Urge them awake, the sleeping masque:

Workers to serve the queen her board.

The sun its zenith seeks above;

Light’s longer in the sky today.

Listen through the birthday love

For cheering sounds of birds at play.

92 is just a number,

Slow fire lights o’er your pages yet.

Life goes onward to its embers

With po’ms that we won’t soon forget.

Here’s my wish: felicitations

Of this day and more days to be.

I’ll raise a glass, celebration

of  a life well writ with poetry.

Day 2 (March)  

Utterance

If a child is murdered, a boy 

or girl, someone’s baby

once upon a time, it is not stuff

of fairy tale or make-believe —

nor is the finding of the body

in a nearby woods 

or in a schoolroom

a cause of action by the press

to sell papers, advance

the reputation of reporters. 

It is the gasp of the fly

on the wall, his green foil eye 

terrible with the sight,

it is the business of the owl 

on the branch calling

forth some kind of shudder.

All natural things

mourn these lost ones, for all

are murdered just a little then.

Decorum should turn us

speechless, until the poet 

comes along to show us 

our own violence,

our own dark retinas 

where the color

of bruise and congealed blood

is somehow a fashion. 

In one moment

we are in the dock, hung

in shame for our own failure. 

One heartbeat from empathy

not close enough for us 

to protect these ones

we say we love beyond all else. 

The poet utters what we cannot,

the images too sharp that it might one day

be a boy or girl of ours, leaving us speechless.

Day 3  

Found Boy Poem

He was found in the woods, covered with leaves

and alone. The medical examiner wouldn’t tell

his mother about the maggots or the nest

of hornets in his hair. It would sting too much.

Better to let him be her perfect un-murdered boy,

clean him for viewing, wash his hair, sew

his eyelids shut to hide that his baby blues

had been pecked out by marauding crows and ravens. 

Mothers know the way their boys’ eyes flicker a little

just before sleep. Whatever his eyes saw

in those woods she can never know. Even now

her dreams play scenes of picnics and ant farms

and games of hide and seek in the birches:

You’re it! Catch me if you can. 

Catch me if you can;

All-ee all-ee ox-in free.

Day 4   (a villanelle)

Hanging

in your office closet, garlic cloves;

temperature and humidity perfect 

secret for keeping vampires away.

No hats or scarves or gloves

but these aromatic secrets,

hanging in your office closet: garlic cloves.

No boxes of letters from lost loves

photos or romantic trinkets,

the secret for keeping vampires away

hangs here in mesh bags above

the stacks of paper for your ink jet;

hanging in your office closet, garlic cloves.

No cooing of sweet mourning doves,

no Hitchcock birds to make you sweat.

Hanging in your office closet, garlic cloves

swinging from the closet bar, love.

Your preservation tip most will not get:

Hanging in your office closet, garlic cloves,

the secret for keeping vampires away.

Day 5  

Umbrella

Bumper shoot, bumble shoot, brolly. 

Wind squalls the alleys

and upends the ribs, sucks rain 

into my face and hair. 

He pulls his trench coat tight

around me, smooths wet hair

from my forehead. A glance.

What use is this invention if not 

to keep me dry

to keep us hidden?

Day 6 

Church Boy, Town Girl

At the edge of town,

behind the Baptist Church,

behind the church bus they smoke, inhale

unfiltered camels. Church boy

wearing Jesus Saves tees, town girl

in a yellow sun dress,. He presses her hard 

for a kiss; she blows smoke circles 

with her eyes closed. She knows what’s next,

like her mama told. Watch out for them

churchy boys, they’s the devil. They take

what they want and let you go.

Still as a broken clock, she waits.

Inside the church, singing:

and the walls came a-tumbling down.

Day 7  

NOTE: This poem is written (respectfully) in old South dialect

Selma Freedom Day

Sunday —hot as pepper, 

humid as wet wool,

no one cares about they feet.

Big ole blisters, a price so small

it’s no care, no care.

Mama and Pap, they brung they little chile

so he gonna see it all, see Doctor King

and all them folks, hear ‘em singin’

all along the way, singing a freedom days

and such when that chile can go anyways

he please. Mama and Pap, they canna

wait t’ see it too, see them folks

and hear that song a freedom. All gussied

up in Sunday best, all tall and prideful

walkin’ and singin‘ — they gonna be free,

they gonna be free like the birds and the grass

that grows wayever it wanna grow. No mo’ 

I tell, no mo’ pushin’ and shovin’ to the back,

no mo’ callin’ him boy. That chile gonna be 

Mistah, you heah? He ain’t gonna be no mo’ boy.

Sunday, hot as pepper, humid as wet wool.

And nobody’s gonna ever bring out no hosses

to run us down no, suh. Not never again.

Nobody’s a-gonna put them dogs on us, no suh.

Sundays, we gonna sit in church and sing. We

sure gonna sing that freedom we got that day.

February, Week 4

Day 22    

Think About Later

It’s easy to sink to name-

calling, grab a flaw

of your beloved, famed

in daily life; cause a foofaraw

of epithets to fly the room

as you undo your bride or groom,

leave her or him quite undone

in the wake of your irksome

temperament.What might come to be 

the atmosphere when late that night 

you head off to bed? You may see

how ruinous this foolish fight

when you cross the pillow for a kiss,

are rebuffed of bedtime tenderness.

Day 23   

Visiting Carnton Plantation*

In the shadow of the battlefield,

you cast your form long

on the grass below the monument 

we both admire. Evening, 

yet here we are, alone. Together 

we might seem a pair in the place

where some grand battle

once was fought, where famous men

laid down their lives, left wives

and children for a cause. Have you left 

someone behind as you stand in my sight 

tonight, cause my heart to go faster

to its own demise?  Lowered eyes

cannot but betray the shake

of my hand on the leaflet I hold

as I read the names of all those men

who came here on another night

to die. You turn your glance

away, and I die a little too, gather

up my sinking heart, carry it away.

*Carnton Plantation was the site of one of the few night battles of the Civil War

Day 24    

At Midnight

Celebrate pale ash fluttering on the grate,

a flake that Coleridge saw

as nighttime friend as much as he saw 

his son in cradle resting; calm and calmer

still his mind for poetry. 

We who write the long cold dark of night

and have neither ash nor calm, wander

all alone in frosty words that swirl

both outside and in,

but will not come to flutter down.

Paper may burn for Coleridge, 

but where for you is the match to strike,

the pictures to capture from the storm

that rages on outside? With a quiet page

on your lap like a blanket, just begin.

Day 25  

She Said

It’s true, that the rumor

has gone viral

on the internet, that her name

is out there, ruined

by a boy who got no

when he insisted, when she

resisted his plan

to have his bawdy way

with her body. It’s true

that no one stopped him as she had 

stopped him

behind the bleachers

after the big game, when 

all of them drank 

from the bottle someone brought 

in a backpack. She’d agreed

to the kiss he planted, said so

with a kiss back, but pulled away

when he reached for more

under her skirt. She said no.

In less than an hour, 

she was a whore on Facebook, 

even though she’d said no. 

Day 26    

All of this

is true. Just ask the girl 

left alone with her books, alone

under a tree avoiding play

with the neighborhood kids, 

ask about when she escaped

into a world like Alice’s

where dreams talked

to her over tea and card games, 

where cats’ grins shine, then disappear,

where riding hood is her sister

and she marries the wolf. True

is what she sees in the mirror, eats

a bite of tallness from the edge, drinks

from the bottle on the glass table

in the corner, fits through a keyhole. 

Betrayal is not an apple, not one

poisoned by a witch or held out

by a serpent in a garden.

All of this and a prince who always finds 

the right foot for the glass shoe,

and rides a white horse from his castle

just to kiss her on the lips. Nothing 

of this is true, you say. The girl laughs, 

turns the page, sipping from her golden goblet

as you slowly, bit by bit, disappear.

Day 27

Email

The habits of correspondence have been broken,

left in rusted mailboxes along rural lanes

to rot, to be eaten by weevils 

or the occasional squirrel

using its domain for nesting. 

There is nothing

for your heart there. Nothing 

to carry to the house.

Nothing to send to the fire.

For God so loved his own voice

that he tied our tongues with twine

and sealed our letters with wax, leaving

only science, and that under suspicion.

How comes this letter now,

the one from the war, or the notice 

from Defense telling

the bad news so unaffectionately? 

Just yesterday, roses twined the post, 

and now thistle warns 

off the man on foot with his sack of woe. 

The message comes in ether, 

charging with protons, electrons, 

a circling frenzy of dates 

and time of death. These are the benefits

no one wanted, not even at this speed. 

No ink to blur with tears, no sinking 

to the knees distraught in front of the postman. 

Only trembling fingers, on a keyboard 

that gives back no touch, 

its click impious, a wound that leaves 

no mark, nothing to wipe away. 

Day 28       

Cough Syrup

Laced with drugs or plain 

not kiddie pink or acid green

with a drink-cup-cap

my thoroughly modern syrup.

No more Mommy smile:

there there, swig it down now my dear

school day tomorrow!

Laced with drugs or plain, my syrup.

Easy open cap—

No worries about poison then

just germs to pass om

unless you stay in bed three days.

Call the doctor, call

and he’d come over to your house;

yes, make a house call

for a shot and some cough syrup.

Laced with drugs or plain

from the drink-cap-cup —

no doctor to make a house call

swig it down now, all the way down.