Hard Plumbed

We ran into some complications with a kitchen appliance.

    Hard Plumbed

The delivery man tells us
he cannot replace the old
dishwasher with its solid
copper connection and no
cut-off valve to accommodate
a new and improved successor.

It was installed as if it would
last forever – like a monument
or a bank vault or a heart.

In the Dentist's Chair

Yes, I had a cavity filled last week.

 In the Dentist’s Chair

Reclining like a reluctant

astronaut abducted by masked

and goggled aliens who probe

and pry and then ask you questions

when you are least able to answer,

you must agree to pay your own

ransom for six months of relief. 

Extended Time

In the U.S., students who have been diagnosed with learning issues that make them take more time to process and produce things are given extended time on tests.  This poem takes that phrase a little more literally- and figuratively.

        Extended Time

For the following students,

each minute in school

will seem like an hour,

and the hours will take days,

while the days will drag on

forever until the weeks wear

and bear down like months

and the weekends

never come and

never last as long

as a boring lecture

or this eternal

final exam.  

Set Strike

I just took down the set for my last production as a high school director.

     Set Strike               

First, we remove what makes things

other than they are: the burlap bark,

the styrofoam stone, the painted canvas

cover – all that we pretend is real.

Next, we break down the basics,

the bones that held it all together

with wood and sweat and steel.

Last, comes the masking tape

marking where things were

and where they would be,

leaving nothing but an empty

space where it all begins

again by feel. 

Hasenpfeffer

Mostly a true story.  (I thought I posted this last Monday but just found it saved as a draft.)

                                               Hasenpfeffer

                               The night of the big game, I ascended

                               to the P.A. booth, chosen to spot

                               the rival players for Mr. Sosebee

                               on that wet and rainy Friday.

                               Time after time, I couldn’t pick out

                               a number from the muddy pile, but

                               Mr. Sosebee would still confidently announce,

      “Hasenpfeffer in on the tackle….Hasenpfeffer

       on that catch…four more yards for Hasenpfeffer.”

       It was the last time I was asked to be a spotter.

                               After the game, I found my friend Steve

                               still in pads and cleats in the locker room,

                               staring at the cracked concrete floor.

                               “That Hasenpfeffer killed us,” he muttered.

                               “Don’t take it so hard,” I said.

       “He does that to everyone.”

                               

Climate Change

Just a brief thought about meteorology - and other things. (This is not a reflection on the current state of any relationships.)

            Climate Change

Something hangs in the space between us

and traps what little heat we have,

making our storms more fierce and frequent

without clearing the air for good or bad.  

The Secret Annex

There's one secret we all keep from ourselves- or try to.

                    The Secret Annex

           

            When I took my then teenage son to see

            The Diary of Anne Frank, I assumed

            he knew her story, but found him near

            tears at the end as he asked in disbelief,

            “After all that, she died?  She died?”

            And although we know that’s the ending

            of every tale, still we cry incredulously,

           “After all this, we die?  We die?”