Poem: March 27, 2019

So Little, So Much

Writing a poem is a prayer
to understand first, and then to be understood,

to examine the world with a microscope
and then place it on a map,

to open your ribcage and grasp an organ
and then place it in someone's lap,

to create a tiny dictionary that will become,
at its best, a constellation,

to get up in search of legroom
and find yourself doing the foxtrot,

to whisper the aching question,
and to be a given an echo in return.

Poem: March 26, 2019

Meditation

You might think I'm joking (Mr. Schedule and Routine),
but I really like the idea of being idle and thinking
quiet and lingering thoughts that percolate over
the course of days, steeping in themselves, getting
better with age. I like the idea of laying in bed
all morning, the cats at our feet, waxing philosophical,
or of long walks in state parks with nothing to do
and no pictures to take. I like the idea of canoes
on long rivers and riding for miles on our bikes.
I like to imagine walking down the slow ages of trails
and listening, listening, with no words to be said.
I like the idea of loitering on the front porch at night,
maybe with a book or practicing the guitar, and you
on the swing, sipping wine. And I like the idea
of making love all night, returning to one another
over and over in silent conversation that gradually
melts into the light. I like the idea of sitting still
and of lying beside pools, of passing time working
puzzles or meditating or sitting motionless by a fire.
I find it easy to romanticize a simple and peaceful life,
and some part of me honestly aches to say that
that is who I am, or at least, who I aspire to be-
Siddhartha content beside the stream and beneath the tree.

Poem: March 25, 2019

Inner Life

Driving to work this morning, headed east on Walnut,
I had the pleasure of seeing an enormous, beautiful
full moon low in the sky between the buildings and trees
on either side, and I thought how the moon would seem
to float like a balloon in a tunnel and make a lovely
photograph if it weren't for the power lines crossing
every several feet overhead, which had the visual effect
of slicing through, or worse, tethering the moon, and
I tried as I drove to spot the perfect location and angle
which would allow an unobstructed view, a realization
of my imagined scene, but for the eight or so blocks,
it wasn't to be found, which could be a point in itself,
but isn't my point for sharing in this case. I'll explain:

We seem to be overly concerned with productivity,
with getting efficiently from point A to point B.
And we have aligned our many resources more and more
over my lifetime to some end that appears to value
a small number of measurable outcomes (money,
grades, followers, speed) and devalues more complex
ways to experience the world (the beauty of imperfection,
the wandering journey, the slow and unstructured nature
of dinner conversation, play). And don't we feel lesser
when we don't have money? And don't we feel guilty
if we waste the day? And we've built a world to make
sure we are always connected, giving away our attention,
constantly entertained, and leaving no space to be idle,
for our minds to lie fallow and grow richer through
recovery, through the earthy unfocusing of our eyes.

I didn't have the radio on in the car this morning.
I was just driving, and I saw the moon floating so large
over Walnut like a balloon, and I played a game
of perspective that might not have ever been played
or might have meant nothing at all, except that I wondered
why this happened, and then I thought about a John
Berryman poem that said "Ever to confess you’re bored 
means you have no Inner Resources." And I thought
about lunacy, and it occurred to me that maybe
that's all wrong. What if boredom is our inner resource?
What if we've forgotten the gifts of feeling bored?

Poem: March 24, 2019

50 Writing Prompts

Write a poem about...

• ...a time you bought gum.
• ...a community of boogers and scabs.
• ...the sound of the rain filling up your basement.
• ...a kitchen appliance that wants to be a tree.
• ...the time you felt like stapling something.
• ...the entire contents of your junk drawer in 3 words.
• ...the moon, using only 1-syllable J-words.
• ...how you feel when you are out of clean towels.
• ...the many reasons today's music is stupid and boring.
• ...a moment when your eye unexpectedly itched.
• ...the many menacing shades of yellow.
• ...ennui, but in a cheerful way.
• ...the lesser known health benefits of cigarettes.
• ...Easter, but don't mention Jesus or bunnies.
• ...the intricacies of soap.
• ...a conversation you've had about who's picking up the kids.
• ...yesterday as if it was today.
• ...what makes you the same as everybody else.
• ...your most powerful lesson from your first week of life.
• ...vegetable shortening.
• ...the consequences of being such an awesome dancer.
• ...Harry Potter, using only quotes from the second movie.
• ...a mole you've recently noticed.
• ...your least memorable yard work experience.
• ...a dream you've had that included a monkey, a backpack, and a map.
• ...telephones that will uplift the entirety of humanity.
• ...a time you wrote a poem that was taken out of context and used against you.
• ...the anxiety of adulthood in a way that appeals to children.
• ...fidget spinners.
• ...a tattoo you deeply regret in excruciating detail.
• ...your top ten pogo stick anecdotes.
• ...the time you came the closest to yelling, "Bingo!"
• ...a box that isn't really a box because it's broken.
• ...the beauty of Germanic languages, written entirely in French.
• ...blood-born pathogens.
• ...the last man on Earth's access to quality health care.
• ...your password. Be sure to use lots of details!
• ...the wetness of water.
• ...your take on the last episode of Seinfeld.
• ...someone you admire. Be as vague as possible.
• ...the civility of apples.
• ...something you've never experienced, but hope to one day. 
• ...seven.
• ...how you approach filing important papers.
• ...why no one ever sends telegrams anymore.
• ...a pamphlet you once saw.
• ...your car in the voice of an owner's manual.
• ...the duplicity of tube socks.
• ...recycle Mondays.
• ...the day after a coupon expires.

Poem: March 23, 2019

Self-Delusion: A Metaphor

I'm not much for bananas, but they remind me of the sun,
of looking out on afternoon beaches from worn wood decks
and drinking rum. So some days at the grocery store,
I can't help myself, and I buy a bunch, still green at the stems
with the optimistic promise of a shelf-life, and I imagine
myself pinching the peel at the bottom and slicing one
into my oatmeal or ice cream, but of course, I don't. Instead,
I bring them home, and they hang like a tropical postcard
on the corner of the baker's rack and turn brown and draw flies
until someone sensible makes the call and puts them in the trash.

Poem: March 22. 2019

My Son, An Appreciation

When I was a kid, my dad was always
picking up odd jobs to supplement
the income he earned as an assistant
professor. It was as common to see
him in a painter's cap as it was
to find him in a tweed jacket and jeans.
He painted houses and helped build
other people's decks. He could patch
a ceiling, snake a drain, or install a fan,
which is to say he was capable, a handy man.
And one day when I was maybe 10,
he took me along to install a new washing
machine at a house in a gated community.
The job probably took half an hour,
but he left with an envelope that held
fifty bucks cash, and in the car, Dad
tapped my head with its white edge
and said, "Let that be a lesson to you.
There are people who will pay
good money to not have to learn
how to do something for themselves."
And mostly that lesson has stuck.
I mean, I've fixed a vacuum and hung
a light. I know my way around
a paint brush. With help, I've built
a bookcase or two. I've sealed leaky pipes.
So when you mentioned the other day
that you were late because you were
working on your girlfriend's car since
replacing the part would only cost
ten dollars and the job was pretty
straightforward to do once you borrow
the right tool, I had to smile and
appreciate what you've clearly become:
capable like Tom, your own handy man.

Poem: March 21, 2019

Archeology

I like the spaces that run a little wild
or that persist in the gritty corners
of life, like the downtown Y that used
to be part of a high school, with its yellow
1920's yellow brick walls and edifice
that still reads "Gymnasium C.H.S."
I like late night laundromats and
rundown barbershops or any place
that still uses its original radiator,
the places you can find represented in old
postcards or black and white pictures.
I like the buildings that have legacy
ashtrays still built into the walls
and historic bars that haven't hardly
redecorated in the past century.
I like a place with some asymmetry
and a patina you can scrape with a nail.
Even our backyard with its chainlink
access to the gravel alley and the T-shaped
iron post that once anchored the clothesline
hints at the people who did their best
here before us. Those folks, and us,
and this plot of land since 1922. None
of us with the means to completely
change what is here or even maintain it.
We take our hand-me-down home
and make it our own with the occasional
coat of paint or ripping out of carpet.
Spend time a few blocks from larger
institutions and miles from suburbia,
just down the street from the big churches
and universities and government offices,
and you see the way the human tide
collects itself at the edges and under
bridges. You see the benevolent neglect.
Somewhere an abandoned bicycle
tells a story, tells a thousand stories really,
to anyone who takes the time to look.

Poem: March 20, 2019

Reinforcement

Some kid looks you dead in the eye
and pisses himself on purpose because
he doesn't want to be in your class today,
or maybe it's some other darling who,
for the fourth time this week, is licking
his pencil and wiping it on the new girl's
arm, like all over her arm, and her parents
barely speak English so explaining to them
that their daughter is being victimized
by the the gross kid who doesn't get that
this is not an acceptable way to make friends,
or explaining to them that classrooms can
be sticky places and that they didn't
adequately prepare us for this scenario
in teacher school isn't even remotely likely
to make sense, even if the district listened
for once and provided the interpreter
that we requested at the beginning of the year,
and maybe if they had to spend even
one day dealing with what we do, they
would understand what it's like to teach
in this day and age rather than spending
their time coming up with new ways
to make our job harder. I mean, what do
they do down there anyway? They're
definitely not listening to the people
on the front lines which isn't even the worst
part of all of this. What would really help
is if these parents would just raise their kids
with the basic skills and social graces
to at least be functional in a setting where
there is so much curriculum to cover before
another damn round of state-mandated testing
that, no, there isn't room in the school day
to "be creative" or "have fun." Wouldn't that
be nice? To maybe, just maybe, step back
and realize that everybody is stressed out?
And now they want us to collaborate
and "focus on the work" in teams, but you
tell me when that is going to happen when
just this morning I had to cover bus duty,
then make copies because the copier
was down again yesterday (and I was not
about to go spend my own money
last night, making copies at Office Depot),
and then the kid peed himself. Peed. Himself.
Right before reading block, and I'm trying
to air out the room, deal with the kid, and
wipe up the mess with paper towels I bought,
and yeah, I'm pissed because it seems like
no one cares that I've got 12 out of 28 kids
with diagnosed ADHD, and at least 3 more,
who have it, but whose parents refuse
to have them tested because they "don't believe"
in medicating their kids, even though they are
demonstrably incapable of sitting still or
of paying attention long enough to even
complete a single math study guide, probably
because they are allowed to be in front of
a screen at all hours of the day and night,
which explains, if you want to know the truth,
why I've had 3 full-blown panic attacks
at work this semester, and it's not just me.
Look it up. The use of anxiety meds and
antidepressants among educators is for real
at an all-time high. I know of at least eight
of my colleagues alone who can't make it
through the day without prescription-level
help, and most of the time, I seriously wonder
if it's even worth all of this when society
clearly doesn't value what we do, because
if they did, they'd pay us more, but they don't
because they're all cheap bastards who
don't know the first thing about it, and who
just want to dump off their kids like school
is some kind of cheap day care, and I,
I want to know what you're going to do about it.

Poem: March 19, 2019

1977

I remember we lived in an apartment in married housing
on the campus of Michigan State University because Dad
had taken a research sabbatical, which meant that we
had been transplanted from our Victorian farmhouse
into a 2-bedroom space made of cinderblock and linoleum.
On Halloween my sister and I went down the rows
of our quad in the costumes Mom had made- Kristen,
a five-year-old Princess Leia with hair buns made out
of brown yarn. And I was Darth Vader, my mask crafted
from foil and cardboard and papier-mâché, so much
cooler than the plastic costumes the other kids wore.
Everything was Star Wars that year, of course. The world
had just been shown something bigger than itself, and I
wanted to own every piece of that future: action figures
and trading cards, bedsheets and lunchboxes. And all
those new words to play with, like Jawa and Tatooine.
Suddenly, there was so much more to be knowledgable
about. That kind of mythology makes an impression.
But so does a year-long sabbatical in a college town.
I remember that year of my childhood better than any other,
walking to the International School between walls of snow
piled four-feet high on either side of the sidewalk,
giving myself over to my first kiss with a girl named Jennifer
from Hawaii, hidden from view in a huge concrete pipe
on the playground. And meeting Magic Johnson in a park
near campus and realizing how little I knew about
the passions that sports can engender (what a turncoat I
seemed to my classmates the following year in Indiana).
I remember learning the word fuck from a precocious girl
from London who also explained that this was something
flashers did when they opened their trench coats to one another,
and then learning that her apartment caught fire the next day.
And I still think about making friends with the neighbor kid
from Thailand who always wore denim coveralls and
laughing like mad because we called testicles balls and
they called them eggs. And this is all really just to say that
new experiences make new neural pathways, and in 1977
my nine-year-old brain was laying down the synaptic
equivalent of the interstate highway system, across which
I've traveled back and forth ever since. The landscape
of my mind is a terrain built by potent forces: infatuation,
exotic cooking spices, epic conflicts between dark
and light, smart-mouthed heroines, emergent sexuality,
the sudden awareness of what I do not know, and
the wonders of language, how it feels in my mouth.
I return to these spaces again and again, and so
I suppose that it is no surprise that I find myself
so easily attached to you. Born in 1977, perhaps you
were encoded with the contours and markings
of the map I have been studying since my life began.

Poem: March 18, 2019

Clouds

I painted clouds
on my daughter's bedroom ceiling
with a sponge, making
random, stippled shapes
I hoped would inspire her
to imagine
the transient forms
we search for
on the warm, idle days
we tell ourselves
we enjoyed when we were younger-
the faces of old women,
mountain tops,
a dancing giraffe,
or the splash from a dolphin's tail.
I hoped to recreate
the surprises we discover,
the wispy treasure we find,
when we look up at another world
from just the right angle.
But that was 10 years ago,
and I find that the effort
has produced
diminishing
returns,
given how static the shapes are,
and the room converted
most days
into an office or guest room,
and besides, I wonder
if this has all been a dream.
I've noticed how rarely we bother
to look up.

Poem: March 17, 2019

St. Patrick's Day

Today, I wore bright green socks
hidden beneath my black jeans
and dress shoes, first to my daughter's
elementary school play, and then
to a birthday party with twenty
members of two families, and I
can easily admit that the socks
were a silly choice made out of
the habits I built in my childhood.
I may be forgiven, I think, for
wanting to be part of the fun, even
if most of the kids, my nieces
and nephews, wouldn't think
to pinch me, or even care to check
to see if I am in compliance with
a cultural agreement that none
of us fully understand. I'm not
even sure why, at 50 years old,
my questionable Irish heritage
matters, even in light of my
love for Notre Dame football
and my lapsed Catholicism,
which truthfully, seems just as
quaint or maybe hopeful. Perhaps
we do what we do for all the same
reasons: to give shape to our days,
to belong together through shared
symbols, and to enforce some rules.

Poem: March 16, 2019

Balance of Power

I used to be jealous of those guys
who were so confident and smooth
and charming with the ladies,
the kind of dudes who had stories
about their sexual adventures
and careless conquests. Those guys
always seemed to have the girls
hanging on late into the night.
And in the mornings they'd spare
no detail, scattering the crumbs
to us lesser mortals, offering
a masters class in the dark
art of seduction, making it
look easy like a formula-
t-shirt and jeans, unbuttoned
Oxford, eye contact, I recall,
was very important, Drakkar Noir,
The Cure or New Order on the stereo-
Like magic, they said, guaranteed.
And at eighteen you look hard
at that kind of power, the balls
to just go up and grab what you want,
and you wonder about your own
deficiencies, but you never think
to ask about those beautiful girls
or what was lost behind closed doors
in those dark negotiations.

Poem: March 15, 2019

A God To Swallow Us Whole

Write a poem about the ocean
and how it seems to breathe,
inhaling us toward the edges
of its dark and restless lungs.

Try to explain its strange power
to orient us all like sunflowers
to the sun, staring, staring,
at the stacked coastal palette-
blue, grey, tan, white- a gradient
in the light until the sun drops away
and the sky twists upon itself like pink
and orange paper, crumpled to create
its rough and fleshy evening texture.

Remind me how we feel, stepping
closer together across the hard sand
and being taken in an ankle-deep gasp
into the mouth of the cool, salty tide.

Tell me how the wind blows
like insistent whispers across
our bodies and about the lights
we might see blinking on the horizon
like a will-o-the-wisp. Tell me how,
even now and from so far away
we ache, we ache to follow.

Poem: March 14, 2019

Lesson Learned

We all have someone who has tapped our breaks-

a person who slowed our roll just as we were getting started.

For me it was this guy my freshman year in college.

I couldn't even tell you his name. Just a guy. We'll call him

Peter. Who was in my Intro to Acting class, and who said,

"You don't even know what a beat is? Jesus Christ! 

I thought you said you had acted!" And I had. Eight shows

in high school (the lead in 4). A couple of side projects.

I won a couple of local awards and had my picture

in the paper. I'd even had inquiries from a different school's

theater program. They said I was good, so yeah, I was

a little bit excited to continue on in college, keep up the love,

but in a critical year of redefinitions and the darker water

of deeper ponds, in the moment where the rubber hits

the road, some skinny, pale, curly-haired dude in a hoodie

can roll his eyes and change your reflection in the mirror.

I dropped the class that afternoon, too afraid to face

what I might not become, and you could say this is

a story meant to illustrate failure and regret, but to me

it is an origin story, the rock upon which I build my church.

Be courageous, my children, and create! Believe today

that the risks you take are worth the trying! Take heart!

For you will only grow in your good works!

Poem: March 13, 2019

Edna's Limitations

Okay, to start I feel I need to say
that all of us deserve to be happy
and to realize our various potentials
in the forms that they reveal themselves.

We should, in short, be allowed
to let our freak flags fly,

except

that the selves we nurture don't come
with the guidance systems or good judgement
that prevent our private Hitler's from storming
into the Poland of our friends and family.

My high school dean put it this way:
You have the right to swing your arm,
but your right ends where my chin begins.

I think a lot about that.

I also think about Edna Pontellier,
a literary hero who woke to discover that life
can be confining (especially for a young wife
and mother in the early 1900's), and that
our efforts to realize our innermost desires
are not likely to be well-received if
our innermost desires will be disruptive
to the tranquility of those around us.

*I should pause here to point out
that I am no monster. I see the unfair conditions
that informed Edna's rebellion. I empathize with her
pain in a universal sense, while also recognizing
the privilege with which I make my observation.
Some of us carry more anchors than others.

Edna was disruptive, and society,
as you might guess, was not impressed,
and a modern reader might watch in wonder
at the many quiet ways in which the walls
of Edna's Victorian world closed in.

But are we so different? We have walls, certainly.

If, for example, I were to suddenly decide
that nudism and goat farming were essential
to my happiness, I would likely discover
that people have questions and concerns
that they are not likely to keep to themselves.

Or if you were to sell the Camry
and use the proceeds to launch a massage service
for children, you might reasonably expect
that there would be pushback from some quarters.

That's the rule of a functioning society:
It errs on the side of the many. It softens
our sharp and pointy bits.

But is society today more or less confining?

In Edna's time to cut against society's fabric
was to trigger a thousand subtle alarms-
the knowing glance, the disappearance
of opportunity, the nuanced conversation.
The stark choice of the artistic soul
was to conform or to walk out into the sea,
and either choice was suffocation.

Which seems unjust to us today, right?

In our world, we say, everyone's opinion matters
and can find its way onto multiple noisy platforms,
on which who we are doesn't need to be hidden.
We can always find an audience to cheer us on,
to knock down our walls instead of pushing them in.

I imagine Edna would easily find a sympathetic
audience today on YouTube or reality TV.
They would write in the comments or tag her
in their feeds. You be you, Edna. #YOLO!
And she would fly on her unclipped wings
and smile, affirmed in a silo of her adoring fans,
never refined by society's abrasive surfaces,
never forced to consider her life through
the eyes of her children, or the filter of her neighbors.

And yes, there would be the negative comments, too.

But how easily do we dismiss opposing views
as the voices of trolls, the nothing of fake news?

The slick surfaces of our lives ensure our freedom
from undo influence, and from the inconvenience
of confronting our blindspots and fallibility.

We all can swing our arms and soar
across our own empty skies.

We can fly so much higher and discover
for ourselves the places where the air,
like the water at the ocean's floor, is empty
and inhospitable to life.

Poem: March 12, 2019

Blessed and Meek

I like the Christians who aren't so sure,
the ones who don't need to be so right
that they treat their faith like an equal sign
or their approach to the world as a binary
choice in which 1 is always good and
0 is always evil, and the logic of life
is a procedure to be completed or
a program to be debugged and run.

I like the Christians whose questions
neither need nor expect answers and
whose answers take the form of
Spring days and open doorways.
I like it when they are comfortable
to wonder and suspect, to accept
that the infinite is a puzzle in which
the pleasure is not in the solving,
but in our inclusion in its breadth.

I like the Christians who are inclined
to listen in quiet spaces and who enjoy
their own patient progress toward the end,
the ones who are not hurried or convinced
they are called to herd their fellow humans
down an urgent and delineated path, who
make their way their way and pace
themselves home with their own metronome.

I like the Christians who enjoy
their service to the uncertainties of life,
who sing when it's dark as much
as they sing when it's light and who
can forgive, just forgive, without
having to correct. Who can let
others' transgressions fill less space,
who can choose to linger on them less.

I like the Christians who can look at this mess
without raising their voices in righteous anger,
without choosing the instruments that measure
and divide, without building fences, and who
instead see a world where kindness is found
where it is planted, who do not condemn,
but tend their own gentle gardens.

I like the Christians for whom life
is not merely a transaction negotiated
on their behalf, with terms and conditions
codified into hardened, infallible doctrine-
a balance sheet of debts owed or a
warning of pending litigation- but for whom
life is a daily walk on a winding path
toward the sunlight that is sometimes hidden,
but that is trusted to be there.

Poem: March 11, 2019

Intention

Each day I try to remember
to text my wife and kids
a little message that might
suggest simply that they were,
at least for a moment,
the center of my attention.

I might say, "Happy Monday!
Hope your week is starting well!"
And I mean it. I sincerely do,
but what else would you expect
from a husband and father of three
who holds down a steady job

and participates in the affairs
of his local community,
who is responsible for others
and for the success of projects
and for the smooth functioning
of critical long-term systems?

To spare a thought for my chosen
mate and for those whom I had
a role in making might not be
the least that I can do, but let's face it,
it isn't the most that I can do either.
It likely seems mechanical at best.

In a perfect world, my attentions
would flow forth like a river
of inspirational parenting and
idealized love, rather than occurring
sporadically, if dutifully, through
the checking off of items on a list,

but every day can't be Christmas,
and the days of easy romance
cannot be sustained without
self-delusion and magical thinking.
Life is a flood we try to control.
We do what we can do.

I only hope that my tiny gestures
that find their way into the stream
of their individual days, like paper
boats that float past and disappear,
will be equal to the treasures
that I've promised them in my mind.

Poem: March 10, 2019

Sleeping In

Midnight, Emerson
rests against my hip and purrs
me back toward sleep.

My dull, heavy mind
opens and closes like eyes
or like a heart beat.

Sleep is a sinking
into another self or
swimming back to shore.

My consciousness drifts
closer to solid land like
the tide coming in.

Then, reality:
light through the slats, you snoring,
my bladder is full.

Poem: March 9, 2019

And Now I Drive a Minivan 

My early cars were real adventures,
a rogue's gallery of handed-down junkers
making their final stops before the tow truck
and the scrap yard. There was the yellow Nova
that my parents had driven across the country
and that smelled like wood smoke when I turned
the heater on in winter, followed by that red
1975 Ford pickup with the manual transmission
that was scary as hell if you found yourself
stopped at a red light on a hill- a half-ton
tank that was just as likely to roll backward
as to make it up the hill- but at least I learned
how to signal when the blinker didn't work,
how to duct-tape a leaky hose and how
to diagnose the puddles I left in the driveway.

The Mazda was my favorite and she hung on
for a while: long enough to enable my first job
delivering pizzas, long enough to haul my stuff
to college, and long enough to bear witness
to my first through fifth traffic tickets. Damn,
that zippy little GLC felt like an extension
of myself at 18, when in the summer heat
I would crank open the moonroof and slide
in a cassette- the fuzzy sound of the Police
pushing at the limits of the speakers, and
I had those fake switches that I bought at
Spencers that were labeled Ejector Seat
and Rocket Launcher and Booster Engines.

That was a car you felt like you were wearing,
less a vehicle than a pair of jeans, ripped
in all the right places and with pockets full
of empty bottles, cigarettes, books and old maps.
It's a dirty kind of love you feel driving
around in the uncertain teenage streets, and a car
like that will pull you places, race your heart.
The rattling power of the driver's seat feels
as solid and real as heartbreak, as consequential as curves.

Poem: March 8, 2019

The Mirrors We Are Given

My 10-year-old daughter received a lovely note home
from her Math teacher yesterday. The purpose
of which was to report on her impressive progress
in mathematics, but which also included the adjectives
"beautiful", "determined", and "kind." The total package.
One can imagine a life full of possibilities and free
from the usual limits that hold other people back
based on the content of this note. My girl, the triple threat!
The combination starlet-inventor-humanitarian!
The rare, true artist and polymath celebrated in her own time!
The humble, hard-working, and charming mother of nations!
A Renaissance woman and servant-leader! Our best hope!
And, of course, she is all of these things to her mother and I,
so it seemed appropriate to share her teacher's words
with her last evening as we prepared our dinner together;
and this is where we spot the poison in the cup:
my daughter said, "I can't believe she said beautiful. I'm not."

Poem: March 7, 2019

A Place for Everything

I, like you, can fill my days
with a thousand forms of architecture:
the digital curation of photographs,
the perfect summer playlist,
the reorganization of closets and drawers.
Our whole lives seem to be the movement
of things, the mixing and remixing
of what manages to linger, not fall away.
We buy new dishes or rearrange
the bedroom furniture; we file documents;
we leave some books on the shelf
while letting others go; we sort
the dark colors from the brights;
we collect for a while and then we ask,
"Does this bring me joy?" And what if
if doesn't? Letting go isn't so simple.
We have spaces to fill, and logic,
as pleasing as it is, becomes transient
in the shifting emotional landscapes
where we arrange our collections.
This is how we define ourselves.
I read a poem and copy a quote
into my notebook or you stow away
the winter clothes until next October.
And through the years we fill our museum,
each of us wandering the many halls
and traveling exhibits of our own museums.
Isn't it uncomfortable to wonder
what happens to this work when we are gone?

Poem: March 6, 2019

Woodpecker

This morning Sophia and I heard the staccato
echo of a woodpecker somewhere near our house.

It's strange how a sound can delight us
because it is both familiar and unfamiliar.

We forget too easily that we are part of a world
to which we are capable of listening,

but there it was: the urge to pause, to put down
our backpacks and go looking up into the trees

for the source of this seductive percussion,
to go meet the new neighbor, as it were.

And what if we had followed that thread?
What if we had stayed home from work and school

to listen to a woodpecker or to catalog
the emergent sounds of late winter?

How long would we find ourselves outside,
feeling the sun and chill mingle in the air?

We're not accustomed to unstructured time
or practiced in the process of discovery.

We hardly ever find ourselves sitting still,
so it's easy to imagine that our wonder

would have its limits, that we would easily fall
back inside our schedules and our tasks at hand
and the familiar ways we choose to name our time.

Poem: March 5, 2019

Open

I learned today that 2019
will include both my first
colonoscopy
and my first flash mob,
which while not connected,
do not seem entirely separate
either, the news of each
arriving within twenty
minutes of one another,
and let's face it, each
likely to require the same
combination of trepidation,
midwestern work ethic,
and morbid curiosity.
I bring to both ideas the wary
spirit that I bring to most
new things that fall outside
my daily routine and which
have the potential to be
equally healthy and
uncomfortable. I sigh
and say things like,
"You never know..."
I'm not the guy who runs
away from experiences,
but I wont' go looking
for trouble either.
But sometimes we know
that adventure will show up
right outside our door,
making itself too convenient
to avoid, and in those cases
I figure a certain amount
of Stoicism is required.
I doubt either activity
will make this year's top 10-
my awkward relationship
with public dancing
has only grown more stilted
over the years, and if
I were inclined to examine
my insides through the out door,
I'd likely have done that already,
but life, I've learned, tends
to be better, if when prompted,
I say yes instead of no,
if I at least play
the gracious host
to unexpected guests.

Poem: March 4, 2019

A Poem A Day

I challenged myself to write a poem a day,
to routinely step up to the gumball machine
and twist the nob to its terminus,
to lift the door and discover what is there-
Some blue metaphor or orange onomatopoeia.
You take what you can get.

Some days a poem will come right up to me
and eat from my hand, pose for a picture,
or stroll with me through the park.

Other poems are more playful.
They invite me into a flirtation, a romp
in which I am the "it" that chases and seeks.

Some poems are ghosts with a mercurial
sense of time. I feel them nearby, and hear
their noises in the next room. You feel them
as they are passing through.

A poem can also be an overheard bit
of conversation on a train that passes
so quickly and only startles me in retrospect,
and then I can only chase its broken pieces.

Which is better than the poem I have to fish for
with all of its preparation: selecting a spot,
baiting a hook, or in desperation, casting a net.

I prefer the poems that have been here all along,
the old clothes I've worn for years, that I've torn
and mended, and that have survived. I like
the way they smell and I remember every stain.

Poem: March 3, 2019

What's Lost

Clarity is good.
We want clarity in the form of, say,
stop signs
or pregnancy tests.

It seems to me, though, that some things suffer
from abundance of clarity, or rather,
from a correctable absence of mystery.

For example, I would like there to be
more hidden compartments in things
whose purpose is left to the imagination.

And I would like to see an uptick
in the impractical. More ornamentation,
flamboyant clothing, and bad ass cars.
Anything that suggests, but doesn't tell a story.

And while we're at it, I'd like
to see a bit less transparency
from most of you on social media.

It would be nice to be left to wonder about
what you like and dislike, your history
and current relationship status.

To not know might invite a conversation
or might at least curb the temptation
to preemptively install virtual walls.

And wouldn't life be more interesting
without the mostly mechanical assurances
of saying "I love you" on the way out the door
or "I'm looking forward to seeing you"
whenever we make plans.

I mean, there might be exciting consequences
if we leave more room for doubt.

If, for example, school was less defined
by the concrete corridors of measurable outcomes
and looked more like something with a bit of quicksand
or the occasional dark alleyway or approaching storm.

We might find that we've kicked up a bit of silt
into the settled clear waters of childhood.

I understand that we all benefit
from water filtration and thermostats and GPS,
from the sterile environment and quality standards,
from best practices and the shoulders of giants.

Clearly, some things are best kept at bay,
or viewed through the pristine lenses
of observatories and microscopes.

I just hope to call to mind the romance of shadows
and remember the opaque pleasure of stained glass.

Poem: March 2, 2019

Architecture

To write
is a form
of delicate
making,
a taking of
architecture
from mind
to page,
from blue
print to
breaking
ground
similar to
stacking
playing
cards to
form a
house,
leaning
paper thin
ideas against
one
another
in pursuit of
a whole,
each card
located
and pulled
out of the dark
vortex
of the mind
and given
flickering
life, set
in some
lean-to
arrangement,
and you can
stack a good
number
of words like
a tower
before
the nature of
their juxtaposition,
or worse,
the weight of
their totality
necessitates
editing,
which can feel
like the moment
someone opens
a window.

Poem: March 1, 2019

Who's in Charge Around Here?

50 years and nearly 6 months have passed
since my mother pushed me out into the world
in the late summer of 1968, which I am
given to understand, was an eventful
and turbulent time, not just for mom,
but for America and for the world at large.
I couldn't really say, not having specific
memories from that time, but it seems
to be the historical consensus nevertheless.
I'd like to imagine that such an auspicious
beginning might indicate that I am a man
destined for great things, brought into
the world to change it, to make my presence
known through daily examples of impressive,
unparalleled acts and original thought.
But then, there were an awful lot of us
born that year, what with all the free love,
experimental drugs, and social tensions
that I suspect must have driven people
into the temporary comfort of each others
flowered vans, and beds, and arms.
And I have to say that I haven't noticed
anything particularly grand or remarkable
about my fellow quinquagenerians, however
delightful that distinction may be to say.
We don't seem to be any more or less likely
to be people of destiny or heroes of the day.
I'm not so much accomplished as I am
shocked to find that so much time has passed
without fanfare or even any real accounting
for how my five decades have been spent.
It makes one wonder about management.
What's going on up there that 50 years pass
without any form of performance review or
value-added assessment or measurement
of perceived return on investment, or even
a simple cost/benefit analysis of the effort
and resources devoted to maintaining me.
I mean, I'm not saying I haven't been doing
my job, or suggesting that there have been
consistent failures or customer complaints.
I just think it might be nice to know
that someone in a supervisory role takes
the occasional moment to check a box,
to note that my time on Earth has been shown
to be productive, professional, and highly effective.

Poem: February 28, 2019

Out of Your Mouth

You put the fun in fundamentalist
and the gun in begun, and I bet
you put a tan in Satan and
the can in French Canadian. And
that girl has a twinkle that seems
to wink, suggesting that she puts
the hair in chair and the lashes
in clashes and the ow in power.
Ask and she'll say we put the us
in muscle and calculus because
I'm known to put the ink in think
and, yes, I put the miles in smiles,
and both the leg and the ego in LEGO,
and the pass and the ion in passion.
I also know a guy who puts the tit
in petition and the tat in potato who
has friends, Tom and Mat who put
the tom and mat in tomato, and
all three put something in cucumber
that...um...goes without saying.
And I heard your sister puts the dang
in danger and the oh in O Holy Night.
And there has to be someone who
puts the ex in extreme or feels
the deep and abiding loss in floss.
I like when I find folks who are
as near as the near in linear, who
stand out like the spark in sparkle,
or fire my engines like the lust
in luster or the must in spicy mustard.

Poem: February 27, 2019

Alexa...

...help me find my keys.
...play "Hotel California" but make it sound like it's on vinyl.
...empty the litter box...oh, AND the dishwasher. Thanks!
...bake brownies. Immediately.
...tell me why the hell the shower faucet is still dripping.
...order more Silly Putty.
...set phasers to "stun".
...does this look infected?
...what's a six-letter word for Amazement? Fourth letter is "D".
...make a decision: Bacon or Sausage Patties. Not both.
...astound me.
...please explain to Leslie that we don't need another cat.
...wake me at 4:30 AM, but don't really.
...pretend we're in a zoo and I'm a monkey that escaped.
...set thermostat to "bask".
...define "urgent".
...what the hell was that?
...try to keep things in perspective.
...write me a song that includes the line, "It's sort of like a donut."
...do that thing where you act like the guy from that movie.
...gird your loins.
...tell Siri I expect an apology.
...what did I come in here for?
...hold this for a sec.
...prevent hangovers.
...cover your ears.
...take a memo...To: Taylor Swift. Re: Cease and Desist.
...how many push-ups do you think I could do?
...guess who.
...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
...how about you put on that slinky thing you wore in Vegas?
...remind me to take the trash out, figuratively.
...put that back where you found it!
...shush, you.