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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.