Perspicacity

  Perspicacity

Who will win this fight
between foresight and
forgetfulness?
In what safe place
did I put my will?
Where did I hide
the emergency key?
In which notebook
did I write this poem’s
perfect end?

Jogging My Memory

     Jogging My Memory

Somewhere between walking fast
and running slow,
I circle the block with my dog
and remember winter track
when my high school coach
said he’d run us until
we puked, and I got so anxious
I skipped the running
and went straight to the puking.

What stupid things our minds
do to our bodies.
Now I’m past sixty,
my high school coach is dead,
and I’m thankful
I can run at all.

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.

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.

Organization

Are many compartments better than one big bag?

                                                  Organization

                                  The more pockets in your purse
                                  the more places you have to look
                                  for what you’ve lost.

                                 The more places you’ve been
                                  the more precious memories you have
                                  to get mixed up.

                                 The more memories you make
                                  the less likely you are to remember
                                  where you put your purse.