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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.