Poem: July 31, 2019

Sestina

Friends, we can all decide to write
something beautiful, relevant everyday.
Some notion or joy we ache to place
into the world, some wisp or trace
of ourselves that we want to leave
behind us- a garden, a gift, a fingerprint.

Our words are our written fingerprints.
We touch the world when we write,
and create impressions before we leave
life unnoticed behind us, so everyday
our words take a shape that others trace
when we've gone on to another place.

Our writing is our voice given place,
and as identifiable as a fingerprint.
Ours. Drawn by hand. Not traced.
It is the means by which we write
out who we are, our everyday
passage, the falling of our leaves.

We forget that any moment can leave
a mark, a dent, can grab and place
us outside the dull and everyday,
can return to us our fingerprints,
our eye color and DNA, and write
chapters we'd forgotten, left untraced.

Because life passes, leaves only trace
amounts of itself in our minds, leaves
so little that if we fail to write
it down, we easily lose our place,
as if we'd rubbed away our fingerprints.
Imagine all that we lose everyday!

So our vigilance becomes an everyday
act of investigation, of carefully tracing
the valleys and ridges of our fingerprints.
We open our eyes wider, we leave
nothing unexamined, and we place
our pens to our paper and we write.

Forgive the inky fingerprints we leave,
since everyday we lose another trace.
We lose our place, ourselves, unless we write.

Poem: July 30, 2019

On Shuffle

Every morning he wakes with a different song in his head.
Nothing he can explain. Nothing he heard playing on the radio
the day before. Nothing he can link thematically to his dreams.
Just a new song. Every day. Monday could be Katy Perry.
Tuesday might be The Kinks. Whatever. You get it. Just a new
random song, playing on a loop, following him from sleep to
consciousness, echoing in his skull, almost at a distance, like
he put his quarter in the box and started to walk away. And he
never wonders Why Sinatra? Why Tupac? Why Sweeny Todd?
What would it matter if he could explain it? It's just something
nice his brain can do- Start every morning with music on repeat.
He has no desire, no real reason, to peek behind that curtain.

Poem: July 29, 2019

A Few Thoughts on Being 50

At this point, I think I want
my doctors to be about my age.

I try to be humble, but I know
when I am right.

I'm noticing I'm no less right
than most, more right than some.

My scale calls me chubby.

My wife calls me grouchy.

I feel neither chubby nor grouchy.

I find I enjoy drifting in and out
of sleep. I don't avoid sleep.
I don't indulge sleep.

I still prefer money on my
birthday and toys at Christmas.

I have to really look to see
my reflection.

My guess would be that I have
eaten more tacos than burgers
in my 50 years on Earth.

I like the idea of riding my bike.

Love is to be created.

My ego makes me work too hard.
My heart makes hard work fun.

Some things I say yes to, I ought to
say no to. The opposite is also true.

I want to be prolific.

Poem: July 28, 2019

Because

Why write a poem
except to say
that this world and I
exist together?

Why write a poem
except to see
myself seeing the world
and know my place?

Why write a poem
except as a way
of breathing in and
insisting that it matters?

Why write a poem
except to have the time
to say something that
would otherwise be unsaid?

Why write a poem
except to see
meaning in what passes,
to be sure of small things?

Why write a poem
except to leave a trail,
to create an echo, to make
some mark and hope it stays?

Poem: July, 27, 2019

Check. Check.

Everyday, a square
in the calendar, a box
in which I make lists,

make an accounting
of the box itself,
some record of self,

some measurement,
some inked snapshot
meant to, what, stop time?

Today, I weighed
a certain amount,
I completed certain tasks,

I attended a number
of meetings. Today,
I wrote this poem.

And this calendar ticks
like a countdown toward
an unknowable box.

How many Saturdays left?
How many Christmas Eves
in my parents' home?

The calendar can only say,
Check. Check. Check.

Poem: July 26, 2019

Riley and Annie

I like the way you like each other,
share with each other first,
make each other laugh.

How each of you smiles
when the other one enters the room.

I like that you tell your stories
like they are one shared story,
one point of view.

And how you team up
against the rest of us, even me.

We couldn't understand.
We'll never really understand.

It looks like a gift you have given
each other, have earned from one another.

I see it on your faces,
in how you pivot to the other.

Delight. Trust.

I hear it even in a quiet room.

The rest of us can fail.
You can be a thousand miles
and weeks apart.

But you have each other.
No question.

Poem: July 25, 2019

Folding Laundry

Socks. Warm. Paired and rolled.

Your shirt, untangled,
arms crossed and behind the back,

Mine, missing a button. Torn.
Still a little damp.

Your jeans. Those back pockets.
Worn at the knees.

My khakis unbuttoned, unzipped.
Legs folded together.

Bra and underwear, undone
and tossed in the corner of the basket.

Poem: July 24, 2019

Retelling

Strange to find old photographs,
to see your parents and grandparents
at the age you are now
or even younger.

Your grandparents working,
your parents at play.

Grandpa reading a newspaper.

Mom and Dad dancing in the kitchen.

Perhaps your family together,
at Christmas, and you unwrapping
and unaware

of all the sorting out that had to be done,
the mistakes that had to be overcome.

Strange to see familiar stories
before they unfold, to understand
some photos capture stories
you were never told.

Strange to see photographs made
before you did the telling.

But there you are, in the corner,
living life, convinced
you are the subject of the shot.

Poem: July 23, 2019

Annual Futility

A few years back we planted
Sophia's blackberry bush,
an impulse purchase, granted,
spindly and easily crushed.

The first year, we got no berries,
and it looked more like a weed,
some sad, thin topiary,
already gone to seed.

But since then, every summer,
at the corner of the fence,
the flowers have grown in number,
the berries have grown more dense.

They come when the days are hottest,
and no one goes outside.
So they ripen until they are rotten,
lost before they've been tried.

Poem: July 22, 2019

Evidence

Isn't it strange to find an unprompted memory,
as though we had opened a box or some hanging
file and found some small object (a turquoise ring,
a shell, or shoestring), some sunken artifact that
winks at us through the shifting silt. Nothing
glittering, nothing one would polish (we keep
those memories safe in the case and bring them
out for guests). Instead, something as common,
as everyday as an ink pen drawing on a canvas
shoe or the feel of bicycle gears shifting into place.
We only save so much, so we might wonder why
this small thing of all that has been lost? But now
found, we keep it, because it belonged to us.

Poem: July 21, 2019

Heat Wave

Seven a.m. and already 80 degrees,
a wall, something you have to push
yourself into, a day that already has
the jump on you, that glares down
on you, that licks its lips like you are
the frog in the pot, a day that would
pin you to the ground. You know this.
You know there's not a thing worth
doing, not a job that couldn't be put off
for a day or two. Best to just stay put,
behind closed doors, dim the lights,
and listen to the AC hum its hum.

Poem: July 20, 2019

Compartmentalize

Yesterday's poem was dark, so
today's, I've decided, will be light.

Something dressed in summer white
and bathed in early morning light

like air, cool air, unconcerned
and flowing gently through my hair.

Some light snack of something fresh,
something gathered from the garden-

light on calories, low in salt, but
nothing there to kill you, nothing

to run away from, no shadows, no
sweat, just the sun settling on the skin

and a still, deep and courteous river
drifting past and whispering, Sunshine,

Ignorance. Ignorance is bliss.

Poem: July 19, 2019

These Are Dangerous Times

And here we are back to Yeats
and his dreadful second coming,
the center being pulled despite
itself out to the fringes, flying
off the wheel, driven mad in
the cacophony, happy to find
just one side of the coin, just
one end of the knot to hold, and
of course, such noise fuels the
passionate intensity. We are all
the worst of us when none of us
can hold two opposing ideas
in our heads and imagine the
possibilities. To think that both
blue lives and black lives matter,
that love is love and God is love.
Does love matter, here, in this
moment when fear slithers and
constricts like a snake, or like
a blindfold, and spines go rigid,
and armies assemble around
the banners of words until they
are torn and scattered by the
great beast, the orange vortex,
the lord of lies. Until nothing
can matter because anything
that matters can be feared-
a police car emblazoned with
the stars and stripes in black
and white within the vigilante
skull of the punisher, a kid at
dusk, on foot, black hood up-
and any word can be made to
sound absurd or seem a threat-
social democrat, religious
freedom- when sneered into a
microphone, when chanted in a
crowd, and it's not like this
wasn't here all along, inside the
bottle, underneath the rugs, and
dripping through our history,
eating away the pipes. A lot of
things turn up in a storm, and
a lot of stuff gets broken or lost.

Poem: July 18, 2019

Hero's Journey

The challenge is not the obstacles,
not the 9-headed monsters,
not the boiling red lakes,
not the many cuts or betrayals,
or the knotted puzzle to be solved.

Any of us can divert mighty rivers.
All of us have slain a thousand dragons.
We've outwitted giants, and given
our jailers the slip. We've broken
free of tentacles, shaken ourselves
free from the hypnosis of satisfaction.

We've crossed our seas
and earned our scars.
All of us. Always.

Our challenge is not overcoming.
To live is to overcome.

Our challenge is to free ourselves
from the notion that we are the only
heroes, that the world is ours to save,
indeed, that the world can be saved.

That this story was ever written
for us, if it was written at all.

Poem: July 17, 2019

Reading with the Kids

You read to them because it's intimate,
huddling close together, just before sleep,
around the bright pages, breathing the pop
and crack of familiar words, reciting together
the incantations that bring the images out
of the pages and into the space between you.

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave had
twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave...

And you read to them because in this circle
words detach themselves from your lives,
unstick themselves from the ordinary and hard
surfaces, and they become objects to stack
and rearrange, ideas to be tasted, sounds
to be smeared like paint, laughed at and erased,
passed back and forth, kept when they resonate.

Sophies love tacos, you say.

And for a few years, it's a lovely way to play.

Poem: July 16, 2019

Machine

Amazing, really.
What the body can do.

Not so much
the auto-pilot stuff
(which is also amazing,
all that breathing
and beating and
digesting.)

But consider the rest.

Consider standing on
one's head or turning
cartwheels.

Consider recognizing
the tones of cherry
or pepper in a glass
of red wine.

Consider sketching
an object- a bus or
a rose- from memory.

Consider singing
or keeping time with
a tambourine.

Consider pedaling
a bicycle, or flying
a kite, or sliding
into third.

Consider dancing
in all of its forms.

Consider wielding
a hammer or a knife.

Consider lifting heavy
objects, or running long
distances, or jumping,
yes, consider jumping
up or across.

Consider how we
convey a thought with
just our eyes,
just our hands.

Aren't we beautiful
and interesting and
fun to touch?

Poem: July 15, 2019

Renewal

In the parking lot across the street,
they're washing the orange-yellow
school buses. I count five of them
with buckets and rags, buffing out
the bugs, scrubbing up the wheels.
Someone with a spray bottle walks
the aisles inside, bringing the green
vinyl back to a shine. Even the black
rubber matting will be freed of its
sticky glaze, and the crumbs and bits
of paper will be vacuumed away, so
that a month from now our children
will start the first day of school in
what feels like a new bus, free from
all that happened before. Unspoiled.
For at least one day, there are no
broken crayons, no frayed edges on
the folders, no rips or stains, nothing
lost, no half-empty bottles of glue.
Every notebook is clean and nothing
has been written down. Anything is
possible. Everything can go our way.

Poem: July 14, 2019

I Get Up First in the Morning

Not because it isn't a burden.
In some ways it is, just as
anything that requires our
energy is a burden. So much
easier to stay at rest. That's
the law. But most nights I
set the alarm and most
mornings I swing my legs
over the edge of the bed and
engage the gears of my
autopilot until I find myself
somewhere in the middle
of my morning process,
brushing my teeth or feeding
the cats, suddenly aware of
the quiet that lives here in
our house, that fills the house
when we are sleeping, and
forgive me, I covet this
empty aloneness, this hidden
solitude. I swim in it with
long, slow strokes, I breathe
it deeply, I climb to the top
of it and look about. I am
the king of shifting light and
new shadow, the secret
emperor of silence, master
of all that is undisturbed.

Poem: July 13, 2019

We Need a Code Word

So that one day, if I missed you
while sitting at my desk at work,
I could text you that word, and
we would both know it was time
to gather our things and leave
early for the day and meet at
home where we would throw
together a suitcase, leave out
the big bowls for the cats, and
make arrangements for the kids,
and not an hour after my text,
be on our way to some quiet
place with decent food and a
view of nature, and I would be
just yours and you would be
just mine for a night, maybe
a weekend, and wouldn't we
smile and remember to hold
hands, and wouldn't we look
more closely at each other, and
wouldn't we fall back in together
like a sigh, and wouldn't it feel
just like cool water on our skin?

Poem: July 12, 2019

Funny Texts to Send Followed by "Sorry. Wrong Text."

- It's still bleeding.
- Yogurt THEN whiskey.
- Your secret is safe with me.
- I've always thought that purple was naughty.
- A necktie. In the kitchen. Just sayin.
- It happened again. Only this time there were two of them.
- Do you have a shovel and a big tarp?
- Well if you didn't like the oil you should have said something.
- What the hell was that?
- I think it's pronounced TWAH, not TROYS.
- How do you know when you've twisted it too far?
- Commence Operation Invisible NOW!
- I AM in the alley. Where are YOU?
- Well if you do it, you'll have to have something bigger than that.
- Three? Are you sure? They're only supposed to have two.
- It's there, but I think it may have gone bad.
- My finger is on the button.
- What was the name of that ointment?
- I'm telling you, they haven't said a word. This might work.
- Just throw it away. No one is going to miss it.
- On the clock and running hot, baby!
- C'est pourquoi j'apprends le français, mon amour.
- I think the word you are looking for is MAGNIFICENT.
- Remember that time Randy broke the toilet with a broom?
- Why is it ticking?
- I think I really messed up.
- Well if they didn't want people doing that, they should have posted a sign.
- Is that a third nipple?
- I can't believe the windows were open the whole time!
- Not after last night.
- How many colors...or should I say flavors ;)
- I tried bleach. I'm telling you, it's not coming out!
- Seven, but you have to really want it.
- I smelled that smell again.
- Do you think there will be an investigation?
- I could write a book, but it'd never get published. LOL!
- Are you in position?
- And that's why we use the label maker they provided.
- I thought you picked it up. What if someone finds it?!?!?
- Let's just chalk it up to "experimenting".
- Did you get the masks?
- Safe word = brioche.

Poem: July 11, 2019

A Poem for Sophie Who Is Eleven Today

And aren't you funny, so suddenly tall,
all arms and legs and long, blonde hair
and brown as a summer bean, and girl,

dishing it out as good as you get it,
and laughing a different kind of laugh,
like you know things you didn't before,

and full of ideas that slide outside,
way outside, the lines, all original and
sideways, like you have something to say

that is strange and swirling and big,
bigger than yourself, bigger than all
of us, bigger than you've ever been,

and, look out, I can see this confident girl
is about to tell a story that may not end up
the way it started out, that may be bigger

than the page, and that will twist the world
around her in some crazy knots, and won't
that be a carnival for those who get to watch!

Poem: July 10 , 2019

Just Playing

There is something about watching
those guys play guitar, when they
get real comfortable, when they
settle in and maybe bow their heads
and close their eyes and smile, no
strap or pick, no furrowed brows,
just leaning into what they're playing,
and their hands just glide between
the chords- G, E minor, C, and D-
like they're swept into a stream, like
there isn't anything they need to think,
just chasing each other around some
playground like kids and losing all
track of time as if the sun isn't going
down, as if the streetlights won't
come on, as if it might never be time
to go inside and wash up for dinner.
Just playing, just playing, and just
staying there as long as they can.

Poem: July 9, 2019

Pinot Grigio

I had this dream last night
in which I was sitting at
my desk which, of course,
is not my desk, (but who
can account for such things
in dreams), and it was early
enough that I was among
the first people in the office,
but Velinda, my boss, was
there peeking over the edge
of my cubicle wall to ask
a question, and that is when
I saw that there was a glass
of Pinot Grigio, still cool
with condensation, right
there on my desk, which
(I don't need to tell you)
is not allowed in the office,
and really, could not be
explained away; although,
dream-me made a go of it,
despite my own surprise
at the wine's existence,
there, on my desk, next to
the lamp, and even though
the dream continued on to
include many more settings
and multiple interactions
with a variety of people, I
woke up thinking about
that glass of wine, and I
thought about the story
Dad tells about looking
down at his desk one day
and seeing that he had two
lit cigarettes burning in
the ashtray, and knowing
in that moment that it was
time to quit. And that's a
hard thing because that glass
of wine looked delicious.

Poem: July 8, 2019

Multilingual

They're hard to talk to
when the've grown up
and found their own
rhythms, and let's be
honest, there isn't that
much to talk about, but
you crave it- some big
fantasy in which you
sit together, solving
the problems, laying
bare the self, drifting
nearer- a true meeting
of equals in which they
find you as interesting
as you find them, but
then, that's not the way
it's ever been, when so
much of your time was
built around direction
and instruction, and
the clear distinction of
who was in charge, but
they don't need you to
tell them anything now.
They've heard all of
your stories. They're
telling your jokes to
head you off. They like
referring to you by
your first name as if
to say I've got you 
figured out. And none
of this is mean. At least
it doesn't feel mean, but
distance, distance is
mean, and you can see
we all struggle with it.
So, you have to learn
to talk in new languages:
the art of the shared
meme, the recommended
song, the asynchronous
text exchange, any
strange, new way to
hear their voices.

Poem: July 7, 2019

Game Night

The five of us gathered
around the kitchen table,
leaning in, studying
the board and plotting,
checking our cards, each
convinced we have it,
some edge, some secret
path to victory for red
(mine) or black (yours),
just hoping for one lucky
draw, a little more time
inside this shared square
fantasy, this imaginary
world that can, briefly,
contain all of our hopes,
command our collective
attention, keep us all
within its cardboard borders.

Poem: July 6, 2019

Just a Thought

What if, instead of a casket in the ground,
it was an old steamer trunk in the attic?

Or a small, tethered dirigible floating
just above the herb garden?

Or a bunk in a sleeper car on a train
that winds a long, slow loop through
wild and mountainous terrain?

Or what if it was an old brass trophy
on a bookshelf in a grand library
where secret societies meet?

Or in a jewelry box in the inside pocket
of a Jazz Era tuxedo that you keep
hanging in the back of a wardrobe?

Or in a canteen that hangs beside the door
on a screened porch in an abandoned cabin
that looks out on the overgrown trail head?

Poem: July 5, 2019

Phantom Limb

There isn't much to miss about smoking.
I remember the stale breath, carrying
the smoke around on my clothes, the extra
stops at Amoco every day and a half, and
managing the butts and ash. But still at
night sometimes my fingers itch and I
stick my thumb between the index and
the middle where I held the soft, wet
circumference of a Camel Light and I
give a little flick, and I remember the bars
at two AM, the whiskey and confusion,
the hope and ragged jeans, the low hunch
of confidences, the gesture of a light,
the long pull, the click and scratch. And
you can't tell me smoking wasn't cool.
It was so cool. I know because I was there.

Poem: July 4, 2019

Life Is Beautiful

The brief candles of
4th of July sparklers
are always disappointing.

You just get them lit,
maybe give them a wave,
and it seems they're out.

Just a crunchy bit of wire
for the kids to burn
their fingers with.

But the glow they make
on a kid's face, the shadows,
the sparks reflected

in their eyes, the white -hot
light.We'll keep firing up
those sparklers, we'll light

them up all night.

Poem: July 3, 2019

Voyeur

Not everyone shuts their curtains at night,
and in the right moments, if you are passing by,
you can see new possibilities, other ways you
might have lived your life, some different style
of furniture you might have chosen, some pet
or fixture you might never have considered.

Each lighted window is a display case of life's
artifacts: the fur coat, the unicycle, the rag doll
and walking stick, each an exotic alternative.
Passing through a neighborhood is a visit to
a strange museum of otherness, a series
of human aquariums filled with flickering
flat-screens tuned to channels you never watch.

Dioramas of domestic lives, family dinners
on strange dishes, the drama of a different
everyday- some pixie-cut girl in blue jeans
shouting up the stairs, hands on her hips;
three little children in pajamas, jumping
from couch to easy chair; a young couple,
painting their kitchen; a man in a jersey,
backlit in a doorframe, leaning on a crutch.

Nothing is much to hold onto. The starts
of a story, something to wonder about and
maybe look up, enough to make you want to
stop and stare, imagining what it's like to
smell their food, to put your feet up on the sofa,
to hold her hand in yours, or to know where
that door leads. But, of course, you don't stop.
We are only given one life. To linger there
would be to take what isn't yours.

Poem: July 2, 2019

Self-Centered and Halfway There

Here's the thing about being
in the middle, in the thick
of it, in between: you are
a long way from the end and
too far in to quit, and you
wouldn't if you could anyway

because, in the middle, you
are the center, the crucible,
the primordial source,
the great, gravitational force,
the conductor of the orchestra.

Everything radiates from you.
Everything is attached to you.
Everything originates in you.

And in the slow and crushing
stillness at the center of the storm,

you have reduced your variables.

You have a good chance to be
the last gray lump of clay
still stuck to the center
of the wheel when everything
else goes flying across the room.

Poem: July 1, 2019

What We Don't Know

To make a study of love
is to grow comfortable with
the limits of one's self,
which is to say, to follow
the arc of all learning.

In mathematics, we move
from one plus one is two,
through cruel subtraction
and division, eventually
to a calculus whose formula
fills rooms, and whose
solution eludes, even breaks
minds, sending us back
toward our accepted truths.

And in language, the same,
we grow from what we can
name- nouns and verbs- Go,
Dog, Go- See Jane- to more
descriptive, emotive words.
We add our negatives, our
plurals and possessives, our
many synonyms for touch
until we are lost in poetry
and compound-complex
sentences, and at a loss,
we learn silence and pause.

And just as musicians must
progress through repetition
from the plinking, tapping
at middle C and the squeak,
the missteps of flute and
violin, we move through
muscle memory toward
chords, both major and
minor, toward duet and
round, toward quartet and
the dream of symphonies,
most of us in awe, helpless
in the face of it, happy to
have mastered only a fraction.

We learn to feel love like
we learn to feel history. We
begin by accepting the lessons
we are given- Washington
and the cherry tree, manifest
destiny- until we see we've
been suckers for a story,
until we learn to separate
the facts and the truth, and
the lies we tell ourselves and
we fall in with philosophy
who wants us to know nothing.

Or we approach our love
like a scientist. At first, only
through our mouths and hands,
tasting dirt, squashing bugs,
until we learn dissection and
protocol, testing and retesting,
drifting further into theory,
away from the familiar and
known until all that is left is
to wonder, to stand at the edge
of our ignorance and smile.