Saturday, December 31, 2011

Polyphemus

I'm thinking of starting a series of poems based on mythology.  Have already done one on Medusa and John Barth's book Chimera got me thinking about doing some more.

      Polyphemus

1.
Even before my blindness,
my eyesight was not the best.
We one-eyed creatures lack depth
perception and are not known
for our vision’s breadth.

My world was my cave,
my sheep, and my isle, all bound
by the boundless sea. An outcast
of outcasts- my bitter brothers.
shunning me as the bitterest

Since I’d fallen farthest,
from Zeus’s favorite forger
of custom thunderbolts for
all occasions, to the one
he blamed for his own error.

Imprison the armorer
and let the killer go free.
It was He who struck Apollo’s
sons, not my brothers and me,
but what the gods will, will be.

2.
Our visitors are few,
mostly shipwrecked sailors
too scared by our stature
or anything but sobs and screams,
incoherent rapture.

Until one spoke up calmly,
modestly calling himself
No One and offering me
the gift of wine. I promised
to eat him last – as welcome company.
And my reward for sparing
his life? Sharp stick, sharper poke
and the blind rage of betrayal.
No One has done this!” I roared,
stupid straight man to a stupid joke.

Then I almost had the last
laugh, for No One had his blind
spot, too: his pride calling out
his real name- and my father’s curse.
Ill winds blew his boat from bad to worse.

But his trials turned to triumphs,
his trip became The Odyssey;
my brief infamy sparked his eternal fame.
I became the unsightly sideshow freak
who helped No One make his name.











Monday, December 26, 2011

Putting Away the Spoons

This is the last poem I'll be writing to a Monday deadline.  I'll keep posting poems as I write them, though, so keep checking back periodically. (If this is you first time on my blog, check out my earlier poems as well.  There are more than 200 of them.)

  Putting Away the Spoons

When I unload the dishwasher.
I place the spoons in separate stacks:
one for the curved handles,
another for the flat.
A bit of neatness
in this messy life.

But when my wife’s sister
came to live with us –
her blood and brain polluted
by the waste her failing liver
could not purge – my systems
were upset by her addled efforts
to be helpful: bug spray mistaken
for carpet cleaner, the vacuum
constantly clogged with debris
she couldn’t see, and the silverware
a jumbled mess until her final days.

Now, after a few years of order,
our daughter has returned home
with her cats, her lizards, and her tears
mourning her boyfriend’s overdose,
gradually getting her life together.
And when I see the spoons
in disarray again, I know a little
disorder is better than early death.



Monday, December 19, 2011

Deja Vu

I'll be ending the weekly postings on this blog next week. I did daily postings for the first 181 days of this year but find that the well is running dry. Necessity has become the mother of prevention.  I will still post poems when I write them but will be taking a break from writing to a deadline since it no longer seems to be serving its creative purpose.  Here's a poem about that uninspired feeling. (It uses the poet's traditional trick of writing about not being able to write.)

    Déjà Vu

I’ve written this poem before,
starting with desperation
hoping for inspiration
but ending with nothing more.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Insomnia

Not sure this is a poem yet.

      Insomnia

The ceiling fan is a still, dark shadow
above my bed, a crippled black spider
waiting, waiting, waiting to descend.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Curtain Call

Of course, there are tragic pairs as well: Romeo and Juliet, the Macbeths, Othello and Desdemona- but I was thinking of the Hamlets and Lears when I wrote this.

      Curtain Call

After a comedy, the cast comes out
in couples for their final bow: clowns,
servants, lovers – all matched for the moment
to smile and bask in acting’s afterglow.

In most tragedy, only the unimportant
are paired, leaving the hero to arrive
alone, unaccompanied, save for the unseen
corpse we all carry. Howl. Howl. Howl. Howl!

Monday, November 28, 2011

I Use a Computer Program to Pretend

This is what I do several mornings a week with the help of a computering cycling program.


   I Use A Computer Program to Pretend

      I’m climbing Alpe D’Huez again
      and the cyclist on the video who always
      passes the photographer first again refuses
      to take a number for his photo,
      and I wonder if he is irritated
      with his solitary suffering
      being interrupted or is he merely
      too cheap to buy a photo of himself
      doing what he already knows he did?

      Or like me, does he prefer
       motion to memory
       and memory to mementos?
       My pedaling takes me back
       more than the computer video-
       my lungs and legs beginning
       to ache as I also pass the photographer.

       If he offered me a number,
       I would also refuse since I still
       have my lungs and legs
       and my pleasant pain
       and this sweat0soaked
       poem.

Monday, November 21, 2011

Car Talk

Yes, my car's battery died, but I was able to make my way to a service station as all the electronic displays faded and the power steering failed.

         Car Talk

Why do some batteries die right by
a gas station so you can sputter off
the road and toward a service bay
while others give out on some deserted
highway without cell phone service or police
patrol? Is it pure chance or the world’s way
of reminding us that though our hands are on
the steering wheel, we’re seldom in control.



Monday, November 14, 2011

Blue Light Special

The topic is probably a bit of a cliche, the homeless on our streets.  But the other day I was struck by seeing a man wheeling a shopping cart down a city street at dawn.  The light was still dim and blue, and I was reminded of the "Blue Light Specials" that (I believe) K-Mart would run, with a special announcement and a blue light signaling there was a bargain to be had.

     Blue Light Special


The man in the old olive army jacket
pushes a shopping cart full of bulging
plastic bags down the street at dawn,
as if the city were his supermarket,
and he was searching for a final bargain
or the shortest checkout line.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Du Temps Perdu

This was inspired by something that happens to me every week or two.

       Du Temps Perdu

When my mind is full of lesson plans
or household errands, I make the final turn
on my morning commute without knowing
how I got there. Did I run a red light?
Hit a darkly dressed pedestrian? It is then I hope
and fear habit has kept me safe,
allowing me to make this journey
and not see a single thing –
the streetlights claiming it is still night,
the trash man feeding his truck our leftovers,
dawn’s dim first draft of a new day.

Monday, October 31, 2011

The Fifties

Notes for foreign (or younger) reader.  DDT was an insecticide sprayed to kill mosquitoes; such spraying has since been banned as unhealthy.  Good Humor was the brand name for an ice cream that was sold from trucks back in the 1950s. 

   The Fifties

Polio haunted the public pools
as mushroom clouds darkened our dreams,
but when the DDT truck sprayed the streets
we ran as if we’d heard Good Humor’s call–
flocking around it to play Dracula
lurking in the London fog
while we breathed as deeply
as we would on any other smoke
and laughed at the monsters
of our imagination.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Nomination

I'm not sure the Muse visited me this week, but I did get thinking about well known people with fitting names.  Here are my ruminations.  (Just a couple notes.  Diana Nyad is a long distance swimmer.  Lumiere means light in French, but not in the sense I use it at the end of the poem. It's only a pun in English.)

 Nomination

If character is fate,
can names be destiny?
Was Wordsworth born to be
a poet? Could Diana
Nyad be other than pure
swimmer? And if the Brothers
Lumiere had not invented
the film projector, would they
have written light verse?

Monday, October 17, 2011

The Inconvenience Store

Note for foreign readers (if there are any): A convenience store in the U.S. is one that is open 24 hours a day and stocks things you might want at odd hours.

     The Inconvenience Store

Always closes as you pull in
the parking lot. It’s open twenty-four
hours – but on someone else’s clock.
Even if you succeed in sneaking in,
it’s out of what you want:
ice in August, diapers at midnight,
condoms for that special date -
while what it does have is slightly
off. The milk gone sour, the cheese
suspicious, the newspapers second
rate. It’s merely there to teach
you to be patient, to plan
ahead and to reconsider
what you merely want
and what you really need.



Monday, October 10, 2011

Monday Off: Columbus Day

An occasional poem by an occasional poet.

Monday Off: Columbus Day

                                     In 1492
                                     Columbus sailed the ocean blue

He was not the first to find what was never
lost or discover what was always there
and then mistake it for what was wanted,
maintaining his own Indies till the end.

Nor was he the last to claim ownership
of the prepossessed or give a curse
with the gifts he gave, killing those he greeted
with infections not of their own making.

But he was among the few to divide
time into before and after. Though now reduced
to a school boy rhyme, he still made the old
feel new, the grey Atlantic turning Caribbean blue.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Waiting Room

A second, simpler poem inspired by the same setting as an earlier one.

   Waiting Room

is the space between
hope and what happens,
between fear and fate,
between now and when:
a place for old magazines
full of yesterday’s news
and things it’s too late
to do, while we await
the diagnosis,
the estimate,
the delivery,
the plumber,
the doctor
or whoever will
see us now.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Reversals

Just playing around with some famous images.  (Sandburg, Pound, Poe, and Frost if you're wondering.)  I'm not sure it means anything yet, but I'm having fun.

   Reversals

The cat comes
on little fog feet
then melts away.

White petals wait
on a wet, dark bough
as if the wind were a train
that’s always late.

I rap on the Raven’s chamber door
and call out, “Hiya, cutie. I’m Lenore.”

When two roads diverge,
I tromp through the yellow wood.





Monday, September 19, 2011

Memory Laps

This started with the pun. I hope it ended up with something more.

            Memory Laps

My one track mind circles the same
moments, runs round the same events –
always leaning towards the left, time
after time: counterclockwise to the past,
ending exactly where I began.

Just once I’d like to reverse my
run, lean right and race clockwise,
fast forward to a future where
I could begin again where I once
did end –

                  or better yet, break free
of all measurement to roam
with Roethke and find by going
where I need to go.



Monday, September 12, 2011

Apologia Pro Oblivio

I wrote this after leaving yet another umbrella someplace.

Apologia Pro Oblivio
                            -To the last of my lost umbrellas

Foul weather friend, forgive my forgetting
You every time it turns fair, leaving you
At some Cineplex or under a fast food
Chair. What is so expandable should not
Be so expendable, but what is easily
Carried is also easily left behind.
What can be replaced cheaply can be
Abandoned with just this second thought:
This time, I pledge to keep you close though we
Both be worn round the edges, slow to open,
And prone to sudden collapse. This is my
Compact with you since you have been compact
For me. And, perhaps, when the sun shines, you can
Be my parasol, and I, your anchor against the wind.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Family Plan

A short poem about communication problems.

     Family Plan

When you speed dial me
as I speed dial you,
we’re so busy calling
we never get through.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Easy Pickings

Sometimes things come too easily.

       Easy Pickings

Turtles, quicker than their reputation,
proved elusive in that summer lake,
swiftly sliding from their sun spots
when I rowed closer to capture them
or flash diving deep when I turned
to catch them catching their breath –
leaving only a bubble trail behind.

But in the muddy creek that fed that lake,
they turned half-ostrich, confident they were
hidden when they could no longer see.
I gathered them, still as stones – 1, 2, 3.
By the third one, turtles had lost their charm,
and my mind turned to slippery frogs,
leaping, leaping just beyond my reach.



Monday, August 22, 2011

The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet

During my childhood, I spent many summer vacations at my grandfather's cottage on this river- the longest non-navigable river in the U.S.

             The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet.
                                                        
                                                          the Algonkian name, Susquehanna,
                                                          has been interpreted to mean “Long, Winding
                                                          River.”
                                                                    Susquehanna River Basin Commission
The river widens as it seeks the sea
gaining breadth but losing identity,
its Long Winding buried in a bay.
The Chesapeake is cherished, or so
the license plates say, while its birth
waters are forgot. That which cannot
be sailed is seldom romanticized.
That which cannot support commerce
can only be dammed with faint praise:
its poisons are not of its own making
but flow from the crops that feed us all;
its rushing power was ripe for the taking-
its muddy waters now part mirror, part wall.





Monday, August 15, 2011

Pot Luck

        Pot Luck

It’s one of those nights when
neighbors wander the suburban streets
carrying casseroles and salad bowls
and store bought pies – like random
wise men bearing different dishes
and following separate stars:
some bringing their family
favorite, some trying something
new, others unloading the unwanted
in the name of economy.
With luck, such a lottery will
produce a solid meal; without it,
rows on rows of insubstantial
jell-o molds. So much depends upon
what we all bring to the table.



Monday, August 8, 2011

The Parable of the Man Cave

Heard Plato's parable of the cave mentioned somewhere I ended up thinking of the modern idea of a man cave, a place where males can retreat, watch sports, drink, and fantasize. 

            The Parable of the Man Cave

Is this what Plato had in mind:
the darkened den where plasma
shadows play upon widescreen walls,
reflecting someone’s idea of perfect
form from which the recliner cannot
turn away? Did that ancient Greek
ever picture such buoyant breasts,
imagine beer that never slurs
speech or dulls the brain
since it is never consumed on
camera, or conceive of reality
shows that defy our highest definition?

Monday, August 1, 2011

Pas de Deux

Something has always struck me as slightly odd about these supposed love duets of dance, especially the traditional ones in which the partners take turns alone on stage and stop for applause and bows.

             Pas de Deux

The ballerina’s beauty comes first,
her partner content to present,
admire, support – pointing toward her
as if she were a game show prize,
offering her a hand in her arabesque,
spinning her slender waist as she
turns, lifting her with as little
apparent effort as possible
so she seems weightless -  
like grace and form and motion.

Then comes the competition
as each takes the stage alone,
supposedly showing off to impress
their absent lover, but actually
trying to outdo each other
and win the audience’s heart:
he, leaping like he’s on another
smaller planet; she, spinning beyond
dizziness until they force
the crowd to clap and are loved
enough to come together again
for a final swirl and pose
and one too many bows
in the fading light.



Monday, July 25, 2011

Low Hanging Fruit

When I saw a redwinged blackbird the other day,  I couldn't help but think how that red spot brightly declared that bird a target for a hawk.

       Low Hanging Fruit

Camouflage I can comprehend;
blending in with the background –
changing like a chameleon
or staying still and praying like
a mantis are ways I’ve dealt
with the world.

Mock aggression makes some sense, too;
a good offense is the best defense
for hissing cats, puffing fish, and
helpless men.

I even understand playing dead,
like cornered possums, gopher snakes,
and the clinically depressed.
Sometimes no one bothers a corpse.

But I cannot explain the red winged
blackbird, the lightning bug, or the
slow flying moth always found
so near the flame. They seem to shout,
“Here I am. Kill me if you must.”

How do such willing victims ever
survive? Is it the kindness
of strangers, disdain of the easy
mark, or pure chance that lets us
evade every predator except
 the last?

Monday, July 18, 2011

Lemon Tart

This is, in part, about a dessert I had recently that was baked just a little too long.

     Lemon Tart

Yes, I like the creamy filling well enough –
citric sweetness that lives up to its name –
but I love the bottom crust the best,
especially when it’s nearly burnt but
not bitter: singed crunch that clings to the pan
it baked in and takes some digging
to get it all. Without it, the center would
not hold and melt away, like joy that is uncontained.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Memorial Day

This is actually what I saw in preparation for the 4th of July, but I imagined it for Memorial Day as well.

           Memorial Day

Empty lawn chairs have lined Main Street
since sunset, saving the best spots
for seeing the perennial parade.
Now the sunrise finds them still
waiting for the marching band’s one
performance without a half-time
score, for the Chamber of Commerce’s
convertible – complete with smiling
queen, and for the kids on bicycles
wheels woven red, white, and blue.
It’s hours before the scheduled start,
but the real parade has already passed –
as invisible as the absent crowd,
as silent as the deserted street.

Monday, July 4, 2011

The Poet's Farewell Address to His Tropes

This is a draft of the poem I didn't have time to write for my 181st entry.  I suspect it might be a bit too esoteric.  The title is an echo of "George Washington's Farewell to His Troops", except trope is a term that means any poetric technique.  I hope the other terms used in the poem become clear through context because that's the main point ot the poem; he uses the techniques as he bids them farewell.

P.S.  For some reason, this poem did not successfully posted yesterday (Monday).  Here it goes again. 

The Poet’s Farewell Address to His Tropes

     Today I must say good-bye
     To all who have served me so well.
     To you, Metaphor, who have been
     The rock, the foundation , the anchor
     The compass, the alchemy, the Muse
     And the mechanic behind all
     That I have done.
     And to you, too, Simile, who like
     A more modest younger brother
     Have ventured only similarities
     And not bold assertions
     As your more humble inheritance.
     And where would I be without
     Those closest of kin,
     Cosmopolitan Paradox
     And his country cousin,
     Oxymoron, whose amusing
     Duets produce such discordant
     Harmony?
    Then, of course, there is
    The maker of all patterns,
     Repetition,
    The maker of all patterns
    As Alliteration always attempts to attest.

    Then there are all those others
    Who are sometimes forgotten:
    There’s Synecdoche’s tongue
     And the pen of Metonymy-
     Or, forgive me, is it
     The other way around?
      Likewise, I must thank Hyperbole
      A million, million times
      For the billion, billion things
      he has done for me,
      And to diminutive Litotes
      Simply say, “Not bad.”
      But I go on too long and
      See Concision begin to frown,
      So I must finally thank
      My truest friend, Personification,
      For helping me with this address
      And beg forgiveness of Almighty Rhyme
      Whom I have neglected almost entirely this time.

      Thus end I with the poet’s ultimate inverted Irony:
      When he finally puts away all his tools
       So they are hidden well from view,
       It is he who disappears.





Thursday, June 30, 2011

A Final Fortune Cookie

    This is the 181st day if my poetry181 blog, so this is the final daily entry I'll be posting.  I don't want to stop completely, though, so each Monday I'll be posting whatever I've written that week - at least one piece, I promise.  Please check it out and spread the word about this blog if you've liked it. 
   Maintaining this blog has been a true educational experience.  I've learned that necessity is truly the mother of invention (that's one reason I want to retain a weekly requirement for myself); I've also learned that invention is exhausting.  I'm not sure I've become a better poet - yet - but I think I'll eventually learn from this experience.
   It would be great to hear from you if you've been reading this blog and enjoying (or not enjoying) it.  All I get from blogspot is stats about number of pageviews.  I can't tell if people are viewing the pages and leaving quickly in disgust or staying and savoring every syllable, so your comments would be much appreciated. (You can post anonymous comments if you like.)  I'm especially curious about the pagviews from places like Russia and Iran, places where English is not widely spoken.
   I'm afraid I'm going to end this phase of the blog with a whimper rather than a bang, a short two liner rather than some eloquent epic.  ("The Poet's Farwell to His Tropes"?) 


     A Final Fortune Cookie

The longest journey ends
with but a single stop. 

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Medusa

This one comes from an in-class writing assignment in a poetry class I'm currently taking in Chautauqua, NY.  (I highly recommend the Writers' Center here for its fabulous workshops.)  The assignment was to adopt the persona of someone from mythology and explore how things might look from his/her perspective.

               Medusa

It was no better when I was a beauty.
Even then each man who saw me
either froze or blindly fled.
And as for the gods, great Poseidon
simply seized what he wanted
then left me to Athena’s care.
She, my patron goddess, was more concerned
with her temple’s purity than my body’s rape,
and I, her priestess, became her pariah –
my punishment: these serpentine curls,
this stony stare, and statues for friends.

Now I’m worse than the sightless,
the blind who have no gaze at all.
Mine kills what it longs to look at,
making lively scenes tableaux mordant.
That’s why I’ve let Perseus steal upon me,
to safely see my reflection in his shield,
where I can also savor his brave surprise
as he finds my features both fierce
and fair. It is too late for us to stop
his sword, but I feel strangely fulfilled.
To see and be seen seems worth being killed.



Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Further Snapple Real Facts

Here is some more bottle cap wisdom, as interpreted by me.  Hope there's one here you like.

                               
      Further Snapple Real Facts


                   #868
Thomas Jefferson invented the coat hanger
and declared independence from his coat,
which now could be kept in a closet
and not on a public hook or tree.
Little did he know to what other uses
his original product would be put:
harmonica holder, car door un-locker,
unsafe backstreet baby killer.
Is this the price of liberty?

             #44
A bullfrog is the only animal
that never sleeps,
but even a bullfrog
must eventually croak.

           #36
A duck’s quack doesn’t echo:
Nature is too embarrassed
to repeat that sound.

           #50
Mosquitoes have 47 teeth
but seldom have cavities.
Blood may be better than fluoride,
but braces are better than DDT.

                         #25
The only food that does not spoil is honey,
but sweet nothings are the first words to decay.

                      #673
The average turtle can’t reproduce
until it’s 25 years old.
No wonder they’re known as slow.
They’ve got a job before they can go steady.
If only humans were also ready
to say stop even though they can go.





Monday, June 27, 2011

Snapple Real Fact #855

Here's another bottle cap poem.

        Snapple Real Fact #855
                    Vultures can fly for six hours
                     without flapping their wings

This lazy angel of death hangs over our head
Forever, motionless above until we are motionless
Below. He makes sure our sleep is permanent before
He dives to feast on our mortality to give him strength
To soar again, but as soon as he makes his final landing,
His brothers gather at his last supper to do the same for him.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Snapple Real Fact #911

I was drinking some Snapple peach diet ice tea when I looked under the bottle cap and discovered this truth on the underside.  (Don't worry, I have not been paid by Snapple to mention their product in ths highly influential blog, although product placement in poetry is an interesting idea.)

Snapple Real Fact #911
                  A cubic mile of fog is made up
                 of less than one gallon of water.

Is it really surprising that so little substance
can cause so much confusion when a misplaced
comma can send soldiers to their deaths or
politicians can base a whole campaign on
a bumper sticker and a few little mis-dividing cells
among millions can bring the whole body down?
So many of us are so healthy except for the one
thing that kills us, like a cathedral collapsing
despite all the faith in the world because one buttress
is a few degrees off and the center cannot hold.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Health and Well Being

Another poem inspired by having a physical.

               Health and Well Being

Yesterday I went to my ontologist for my annual metaphysical.
After weighing my thoughts to see if they were as heavy
as they were dense, he asked me to open wide and say “Om”
while urging me to breathe in through my ears and out through
my id. Then he measured how far I could stretch my
imagination by asking me to picture a caterpillar sunset and
decaffeinated love. I nearly strained my credulity but knew
I was almost done. A quick check of my moral backbone
and after I refused a bribe, he handed me my hat.
“Is that God over there?” he suddenly exclaimed. “Who?”
I asked but turned around anyway. “At least I made you
look,” the ontologist smiled when I turned back – and so did I;
my reflexes were still sound though I wonder whether God has my back.





Thursday, June 23, 2011

Anxiety Dream

I just had a physical.  The next few poems will use that as a starting point.  (A version of this poem got briefly posted earlier by mistake.)

Anxiety Dream

I had forgotten to study for my blood test,
so I tried to cram the night before.
First I ate all the healthy food I could:
oatmeal to lower my cholesterol
mixed with bananas for my potassium
and liver for the iron.
Then I exercised like a fiend,
removing the clothes that hung
from my exercise equipment and doing
fifty jumping jacks on my treadmill.
Finally, I acted with discretion
and did not share so much as a knitting
needle while my sex was so safe
it was as if it never happened.
I was still worried, though.
Who knew what trick questions
the lab would ask about white
blood cells
or HDLs?
Then I woke up in a cold sweat,
relieved that there was no blood test
until I remembered it was
a colonoscopy instead.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

I'm Going to Sit Right Down

This one may be too obscure factually.  Let me know if you can understand what's going on without the notes I've added.

                    I’m Going to Sit Right Down

First, there’s the moment of pleasure:
a bit of personal mail midst the junk!
Then there’s the sense of the familiar:
I’ve seen this handwriting somewhere before.
And finally, the realization –
this is my handwriting, and I’ve lost
another contest or am due at the dentist’s,
equally painful prospects which both require
me to address myself – like the condemned
man being asked to tie his own noose.

Or perhaps they’re merely trying to save postage
so they can add it to my prize or deduct it from my bill.
But, no….God, just once I’d like to send myself
some better news and make believe it came from you.


Notes:  The title is a reference to an old song, "I'm Going to Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter (and Make Believe It Came from You)."
The occasion of the poem is receiving a self-addressed stamped envelope informing me who won a poetry contest I had entered.  (It wasn't me.)  The poem describes the stages of discovery I went through after bringing in the mail.
My dentist is wonderful (and reads this blog), but he does make me address my own appointment reminders and as wonderful as he is, these reminders are still not my favorite pieces of mail.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The Fourth of July: Chautauqua, NY

This is based on a 4th of July tradition at Chautauqua, audience participation in the holiday concert.  The first time I attended, though, I didn't know what was going on.  I hope the poem makes it clear.

     The Fourth of July: Chautauqua, NY

We are given paper bags as we enter the amphitheater –
as if we had forgotten to pack our lunches or are in danger
of hyperventilating during the concert. When we get to
“The 1812 Overture”, though, we are instructed to blow them
up and then pop them on cue, so the hall will resound with handmade
thunder – the gunshot sounds we made in the school cafeteria,
a harmless prank in those pre-Columbine days when trench coats were worn
by grizzled, hardboiled detectives, not pink-cheeked snipers
Now we await our chance to be the cannons’ roar and wish that’s all
there was to war and all that was left of rocket bombs was the faint
fireworks that glimmer over the lake like temporary stars.

Monday, June 20, 2011

The Children's Museum

This is an older poem, but it's one that means a lot to me.

           The Children’s Museum

My first Sunday as ex-husband-to-be
and every-other-weekend father,
I took my son and daughter
to the Children’s Museum.

We had fragile fun there: trying on
policemen’s hats and firemen’s jackets
too big for children, too small for me;
making giant bubbles that burst
sooner than we hoped; working levers
to lift weights larger than ourselves
while an inaudible clock ticked away.

Then came the strobe room where man-made lightning
pinned momentary shadows to phosphorescent walls,
My son kicking like a kung-fu star.
My daughter doing her best pirouette.
All three of us in mid-air holding hands.

Flash. Freeze. Fade. Flash. Freeze. Fade.
Until it was time for us to go.

Now my son the astronomer, following other stars,
is a something of a stranger
even in his mother’s house.
My daughter the ballerina has finally given up
her dancing dreams to face a future
without choreography. And for me,
the sun has become a manic strobe,
blinking by the days, the weeks, the years.

Flash. Freeze. Fade. Flash. Freeze. Fade.
Until it is time for us to go.



Sunday, June 19, 2011

If the Ontogeny Recapitulates the Phylogeny

In plain English, the title refers to the theory that the development of the individual in the womb recreates the development of the species, so that human embryos supposedly have gills at one point and a tail at another, as if they are recapitulating the evolution of the human race.  I wrote this poem based on a memory of high school biology before discovering that this theory has been discredited and has little to do with Darwin's theory of non-linear/multi-branched evolution.  I hope, though, the poem can diverge from science and still get at an experiential truth.

     If Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

then gestation is evolution writ small
as the embryo compresses eons
into nine months, moving from mere
amoeba to gilled fish to fingered fowl
to tailed then tail-less monkey – each stage right
on cue in this Darwin-devised drama.

But who wrote the second act in which
this process is painfully reversed?
First our faces become as wrinkled as
an orangutan’s perched top a chicken’s
neck; then our breathing’s as labored as a
beached fish, and our consciousness shrinks till we
are confined again to a single cell.

Beckett took over where Darwin left off.



Saturday, June 18, 2011

Crew Rest Area

Just flew from London to D.C. on Tuesday.

     Crew Rest Area

Mid-way across the Atlantic
the flight attendants put up a
mysterious tent over a
section of seats and disappear
for a much needed rest- except
the curtain frequently flutters,
as if they are doing more than
sleeping: serving each other
roasted peanuts or otherwise
satisfying their own needs for
once while the passengers are left
to fend for themselves, and the pilots
doze and dream of landing on clouds.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Meet George Jetson

Public restrooms are becoming so automated that I was reminded of the old cartoonshow set in the future.

     Meet George Jetson
                 In the airport restroom

The toilet flushes when he’s finished
and the faucet flows as soon as his fingers
are in place. Same for the foaming soap
dispenser and the high powered hand dryer
that hurricanes upon wordless command,
mushing and morphing his flesh, trying to
transform him into some new creature who
doesn’t have to use the bathroom at all.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Danish Modern

Stereotypes are both true and false.

     Danish Modern

Their words contain letters
they don’t pronounce.
Their language contains words
they seldom say.
Their furniture does just what
it needs to do:
simple, sleek, stylish
and slightly cold.

All this makes perfect sense
until I see everyone relaxed
and smiling
in the King’s Garden
this sunny Copenhagen day.

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A Taste of My Own Medicine

This poem explains its own context.

    A Taste of My Own Medicine

I’m taking my morning pills when I start
to cough, and the water threatens to climb
my throat and come out my nose – as if
it were a laughing teenager’s Coke –
but I manage to hold it back and taste
instead that acrid snort you get when
you gasp for air before you’ve surfaced,
and, for a moment, I’m back in the pool
at the Wilmington Y, where I learned to
swim, naked as a babe (who they say will
act like fish instinctively if you have the
heart to dump them in the water.) Back then
swimsuits were forbidden us Young Christians,
as if we were all innocent Adams that summer
before the fall. I was a Tadpole, aspiring
to be a Minnow – mostly older boys with hints
of hair under their arms and between their
legs. One of them offered me some candy
in the locker room and laughed when I discovered
it was a Dog Yummy. And now, as I gag
on a half-dissolved lozenge, I wonder
if that jokester was the snake in my Eden
or just one of the me’s I did not come to be.


Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Slippers

Our host in St. Petersburg asked us to wear slippers inside his apartment.  I hadn't worn slippers in years and began to think about them. 

  Slippers

Soft-soled stepping stones
between barefoot and leatherbound.
Loungewear lovechild
of sock and of shoe.
Backless, strapless, breathless
silken hushed bedroom sound.
The something more comfortable
we can all slip into.
Foot friendly shuffle board;
full boot’s first sketch.
The lightweight toewarmer
even Fido can fetch.
Fuzzy pink or classic cordovan,
bunny-eared or elegantly spare –
they’re one thing that toddler,
scholar, dancer, daughter, grandfather,
and even Hugh Hefner can all proudly wear.


Note:  Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine and is known for lounging around his mansion in robe and slippers. 



Monday, June 13, 2011

Rewinding the Russian Museum

After working our way through the Russian Museum of art in St. Petersburg, we had to hurry back past everything we had seen to get to the exit.

    Rewinding the Russian Museum

The 20th century comes to a dead end
just beyond Soviet realism
after we have spent the morning
walking through the previous eight.
Some rooms are closed for refurbishing,
so we have to go back the way we came.

As we quickly reverse chronology
and hurry to lunch, patterns emerge
in what we speed past. Portraits mostly climb
the social ladder – beggar to artist
to merchant to nobles – then also scale
the walls salon style, piles of plump princesses
and dashing dukes. The heroes also change:
Communist infantry give way to charging
cavalry then medieval knights midst
landscapes that gain and lose detail, becoming
more then less then more then less like photographs.

The saints march in and out as well, disguised
as workers and soldiers under Stalin,
cloaked in irony with the avant-garde
then bathed in glorious light until we get
to the 12th century again and golden-haired
angel Gabriel gazing wide-eyed with wonder
and sadness toward all the ages yet to come.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Painting Poems

After going to several art museums, I began thinking of the connections between painting and writing poems.

    Painting Poems

Sometimes I work with watercolors.
A few fresh strokes and a line is done;
any more would only muddy the meter
and lose whatever had once been won.

Other times I work in oils:
Layer upon layer, word upon word,
writing and rewriting each line or verse
tying to better what had once been worse.

I’ll let you decide which type this is,
whether these wandering rhymes are art or chance –
the random stumblings of a blind man
or the choreography of a dance.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Playing at the Palace

I wrote this after visiting Peterhof and seeing the trick fountains.

      Playing at the Palace

Peter the Great was a practical
joker. First he had his people
build his city on a swamp.
Next he had trick fountains
soak his guests at Peterhof.
Then he promised his son a
pardon if he returned to Russia
where he tortured him to death.
Only a monarch makes such jests,
mocking all until his final breath.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Watching Russian TV

This one is a sequel of sorts to the end of the last poem.

                           Watching Russian TV

I tune in on the middle of an American
movie, which would be confusing enough
since I haven’t seen it before
and since John Cusack and Morgan Freeman
both seem to be bad guys this time,
but what is worse is each time they speak
there is a Slavonic echo –
not quite dubbing,
more like spoken subtitles
so that, since I don’t speak Russian
and the English is half-obliterated,
I can’t sort out the double and triple
crossing plot – plus with the Russian added
it now makes it sound like the KGB
is somehow involved.

I can make out the occasional pazhalsta
or spaseeba, two of my four Russian words,
in the dialogue, but since there is a lot
of shooting going on, not many people
are being polite. Eventually, John saves
Morgan, and Morgan shoots some other
bad guy. Then John Cusack is at a picnic
with what seem to be his family
but formerly appeared to be
his hostages.

They are all looking happy
until something comes on
the radio, John’s brow furrows
with concern and
the movie ends
and I’m left wondering:
Why do all the plot twists
come in languages
I don’t understand?


Thursday, June 9, 2011

The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul

This cathedral has an incredibly tall spire.

                                          The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul

                                                                                   Saint Petersburg, Russia
                                   It took two saints to inspire such a tall steeple
                                   to reach nearly half-way to heaven with its own
                                   impressive, ungainly elegance – like the awkward
                                   grace of a giraffe or the absurd dignity of lofty Russian
                                   army hats that make the soldiers on the street look so
                                   large and official – and so much like kids playing at war.

                                  The golden spire has been hit and singed by lightning, but
                                   escaped the German bombs during the nine hundred day
                                   blockade of what was then Leningrad, despite being
                                   at the bull’s eye center of a fortress and a prison.

                                   Now the city is saintly again since Communism has fallen
                                   or has put on a different mask. Saint Petersburg once more,
                                   as its namesake founder had intended – but, then again, not quite
                                   the same: McDonald’s, cafes, and sex shops interspersed among
                                   the palaces, churches and museums. A TV tower now stands
                                   taller than Saints Peter and Paul, making the unseen
                                   even more visible.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Time and the Teacher

This is the first post from my travels in Europe.  I did not have time or consistent Internet access to post things then, but I did write a few that I will post the next several days.

                                                     Time and the Teacher

                                         He mostly measured his days in periods
                                         or question marks and seldom in exclamation
                                         points. 8:10 and classes commenced,
                                         11:40 lunch, 2:20 sports-
                                         all with the regularity of bells
                                         that would make Pavlov proud.

                                         Then his sabbatical came along
                                         with travel through eight time zones.
                                         His watch band broke in London,
                                         so he carries time in his pocket
                                         where he can’t see it and stops
                                         calculating when he should be tired.

                                         For a while, he rises with the sun,
                                         first in England, then Denmark,
                                         but here in Saint Petersburg, the early
                                         summer sun never sets at all. Now he
                                         sleeps without darkness and awakes only
                                         when he wants to write a poem.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Cactus on the Acropolis

When I was in Greece many years ago, I was surprised to see cactus growing on the Acropolis.  It is a plant associated with Westerns and cowboys in America, so I began to mix classical Greeks with American cowboy movies in my mind.

                                                     The Cactus on the Acropolis

                                           makes me imagine tumbleweed as well
                                           blowing across the stone orkestra
                                           of the ancient theatre of Dionysus
                                           where Aeschylus and Aristophanes
                                           circle each other and then square off,
                                           six guns slung from tooled leather belts
                                           wrapped round their gleaming white togas.

                                          You know, Kid, character is fate
                                          Aeschylus sneers,
                                          his hands hovering over
                                          his revolvers’ shiny pearl handles.
                                         Cerberus barks in the distance.
                                         Those saloon girl Muses peek out
                                         from behind the marble pillars.
                                        Thetis drags her young son Achilles
                                        by the heel off the street to safety.

                                      Smile when you say that, Butch,
                                      Aristophanes replies
                                      and spits at his opponent’s feet.
                                      The Muses gasp; Thetis clutches
                                      Achilles close to her chest.

                                      The tragedian just stares
                                      at the dark spot in the dust
                                      and then looks his enemy in the eye.
                                      This town ain’t big enough
                                      for the both of us he snarls.

                                       Neither one of them sees
                                       the sniper on the roof.


Monday, June 6, 2011

Poet-Teacher Conference

While waiting to talk to a poetry teacher about my poems, I suddenly realize I felt like a parent right before a teacher conference about his or her child.

                                                               Poet-Teacher Conference

                                                          I must say, it is a delight
                                                          having your poem in class.
                                                          Very bright, very clever, very creative…
                                                          but he is also quite easily distracted
                                                          and sometimes jumps from subject
                                                          to subject without getting his work
                                                          done, pursuing every stray image
                                                          as if it were a rare butterfly
                                                          drifting past the classroom
                                                          window and then leading him
                                                          to airplanes or old friends or
                                                          god knows what.

                                                         Also, I’ve had to warn him
                                                         about casting himself as the
                                                         class clown. Fun is fun,
                                                         but poetry is serious
                                                         business, and a well-wrought
                                                         couplet is worth more than
                                                         a verbal hand fart. Still, your
                                                          poem is quite popular with
                                                          the other verses- if popularity
                                                          counts for anything. I just wish
                                                          he would stop “borrowing”
                                                          things from them. I can’t tell
                                                          you the number of metaphors
                                                          I’ve caught him “borrowing”,
                                                          and then he claims they were
                                                          his own to begin with
                                                          before he returns them
                                                          all bent and mangled.
                                                        
                                                         I think he just wants to fit in,
                                                         which is understandable at his age
                                                        -after all, he is only a first draft-
                                                          but he must realize his own
                                                          full potential and make
                                                          all this facetious imitation
                                                          the road not taken.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Undiscovered Country

Here's one downside to having dog: you outlive them all except, possibly, your last one.

                                                         Undiscovered Country

                                                 One-by-one, my dogs have run ahead
                                                 as scouts to sniff at rank mortality.
                                                 They’ve shown me how to grow
                                                 grey and stiff and deaf - and doze all day.
                                                 As pups, they took pride in giving me
                                                 the sticks they scampered to fetch,
                                                 while I took joy in their giving,
                                                 but once they staggered into a deeper sleep,
                                                 they could bring nothing back to save me
                                                 the twitch and whimper of my own dreams
                                                 or the darkness of that final fetching.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Exit Stage Right

This is based on a friend's anecdote about how she discovered her character on stage.

                                                             Exit Stage Right

                                   The young actress first found herself on stage
                                   standing in front of a fake kitchen sink
                                   as she instinctively chose the best
                                   potato for her imagined husband
                                   in Anne Frank’s secret garret.

                                  Later, the not-so-young housewife found herself
                                  surprised by the small potato in her hand
                                  she had been absentmindedly peeling
                                  for the man who was not the husband
                                  she had imagined -- and realized
                                  it was all an act.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Slug Fest

Srping is here, and so are the slugs.

                                                     Slug Fest

                                        The stale beer attracts the slugs and they drown.
                                                                                thegardenershelper.com
                                
                                  Lured by the promise of free drinks,
                                  this army of traveling stomachs
                                  bellies up to Milwaukee’s Best
                                  and drowns itself --
                                  and whatever sorrows
                                  bare, unaccommodated
                                  snails may have --
                                  in a watery bier,
                                  unwept
                                  and without a head.