So where do we house this arrogance? In a jar on the shelf? Perhaps, the porcelain, blue, cracked one from your mother? She shared that, as well as that need she had to better everyone around her. You hover, as she did, looking for faults in the cards I may have missed in solitaire, a game so named for its singularity. As you take things from my hands, I place those absorbed insecurities into kitchen cabinets whose color choice was yours, as well as the furniture in this sun-yellow room. Feelings are stored in wine glasses and soup bowls inherited from her that I clean. Emotions hide behind dusted photographs on the living room wall. Hers. I dare not sever them from my life. They are, as you have said, Perfect. Nevertheless, what would I know of décor? You pay the bills; I pay the price of my inadequacies with rolled eyes and demonstrated patience, as well as my clutched hands. I weary of your presents and word gifts, as you gently take my heart and instruct it how to beat better. Anyway, what do I know? Who am I to solve this complex jigsaw?
English Lit
We were Harper Leed and Robert Frosted to death that spring Dogwoods and Apple Petals dropped to the empty, Sad lawn being mowed by the lucky man on a tractor He was lit by Sunshine and cast Shadows That spread like a breeze to that classroom The wooden chair spoke of impatience Up my backside while the pleading, Repetitious voice of that tweed suit with elbow patches tore the minutes into Shreds which landed on football heros, future lawyers, and automobile mechaniced stares The window invited us in, in a way that monotonous Voice never did. The word gifts he threw at us were lost in tunes In our heads: Gaye, Mitchell, Jagger, and Lennon And my sour face never invited discourse Left alone in the crowded room, I chased the mower until it left the grounds And headed into the blessed woods Where the sounds were real and holy. At the reunion, Michael, you asked if I remembered Mr. Udal’s class and the fun we had. I wondered about the window If it had been washed and the clarity was gone His view and mine Of see and saw And knew enough now to say nothing But smile and nod while Classic rock played
Catfight
Starting with the fight in the hallway near my freshman locker across from my English class a hair-ripping, finger-nailed disagreement escalated to a face slap that split a lip We watched… guys yelling – egging them on this catfight girls backing away in groups, fingers to lips It went on forever - well into my junior year when a tiny dark-haired girl couldn’t come to school because the football team screwed her at a party. They were all laughing and talking about Vaseline and how drunk they got her. Today, their young counterparts would have posted the video on TikTok or shared it with the world on Messenger Their bragging rights measured by bonding over that girl’s branding. These Gentlemen go to math class and church on Sundays Shirts cleaned by Mother’s hands There would be talk of that girl That girl What happened to her? and the fight in my ears rang while I held my baby daughter and wondered about the blood on those lips and those cheering men.
Somewhere hate …
Somewhere hate lies so deep that all humanity is disregarded for ideology This sanctimonious self-righteous belief system – so rigid - so cast in cement - so embedded in Vishnu Schist, that even the explosion of murderous rage leaves it solidified and time carries the vitreous Outward – onward – it endures No child’s innocence or future dreams stop this pulsing, pounding anger. Cardiac spark. White hooded and Swastikaed edgy and bulleted. No documented accounts, history or Gospel, written by holy men or sinners reread over centuries Illuminate or Delineate No headline expose’ stirs a sense of guilt or consciousness in our shared soup. We step over the bones. Another building splintered and ripped More living flesh discarded with rubble Our history stamped with sleazy politicians and sex, moneyed corruption, vicious assaults, and rape. We watch TV We tap on keyboards We play As our future spins away.
Above Robert’s Farm
Above Robert’s farm in the high meadow behind the stone walls – those hand laid field markers separating crops from mystical woods – I walked. Early morning rays over new greenery and distant hills began touching lightly the fern leaves and wet stones In a clearing, a shagbark hickory graced this view somewhat solitary in its splendor regal above the huckleberries and milkweed But as the wings of the morning rose shadows moved westward and new light of this day dressed the curling bark in rich honey and breathtaking gold And radiantly, it glowed, as finches lifted from branches and took flight I sat as the day awoke and imagined each spring – a new seasoned flock separating from these giving limbs finding their own way to new skies
Covid
Today is the one-too-many time where you woke and turned on the bark of the morning news These smiling pay-for-viewing marionettes dictate protocols/suggest emotional responses with screaming red backgrounds/ shelf fears during commercial breaks /hammer at witnesses of a drowning world We are schooled for the umpteenth time about masks and given statistics. Those numbers glue us captive to people with anonymous lives and photos of coffins and graves of strangers we will never encounter with a smile on a sidewalk or a step-aside passing on a trail in the woods. Their souls weigh us down at night. Like this down-encased duvet, too warm for this smothering June. We feel their weight and cough their ashes from broken sleep which never found dreams of beach sand. The morning stifles. New Jersey humidity and buzzing mosquitos thicken the air. Commuters race to work. Cars slam short in stop and jolt to go. We are all adrenalized and angry. We are tears behind thoughts and pillars of salt from images thrust through lenses and magnified on screens blue into sleepless nights. Our shadows are cast ghosts of viruses and those neighbors we never knew. We hold survivor’s guilt and terror in blistered hands - jingle belled to bleeding. Scabbed, but open Please, I whisper, turn it off.
Seed
No more that sapling who grew from the seed dropped from the towering oak thriving in a shadow nurtured in the humus and loam of her base Now cursed for a shadow cast The aged are belittled and met with rolled eyes and twisted lips The wait will embitter The realization will dawn as saplings grow, cast their own seed, then shadows
Behind the Cedars
Behind the cedars a bitter frost coated and crusted fallen maple and small pin oak leaves these ornamented the browning grass and kept me company as their whispered sounds rustled and companioned me up the wooded side of the hill I thought how much I would miss you and kicked up a gathering of the leftovers of summer Spore marked and withered Some others torn or cracked with time Underneath something caught my eye I knelt to push the decay away and saw the green and violet holding close to the earth Somehow this child, new in the cold, but a small purple flower whose head prouded up surrounded by the intimacy of all those warming memories and sunshine that filtered through tree limbs and leaves In unwavering reticence that solitary plant endured For you, I didn’t pick it I let it grow
Supracoracoideus Contracting
a single crow rested above the talking wires and those lines of energy’s hum held extended wings unfolded in a late afternoon sun no measured rhythm of fluttering wings just taunt tendons fully extended reflecting pointed blackness a ground gust gathered below leftover autumn leaves danced into a whirlpool and whisked upward to that perched, chiseled bird tilting somewhat tentatively for just a solitary flicker perhaps a blinked start but no more, no fluttered wings She then recovered to my wonderment and admiration that bird frozen in time on the wire dried her wings
Lawnmower
That lawn mower is plowing away the morning Again - at a time for toast and coffee it is a siren, a carillon abrading the bird song and quiet with hit rocks and grumbling stuttering down the valley His wife died, this mower of a trimmed lawn Mornings must be mundane without her voice, “Coffee?” “Cereal?” honey? Instead he harvests daybreak into afternoon with thought-silencing noise, not unlike those hog boys who shatter Sundays with their bass growl and loud music groomed for Hearing Aides, which this neighbor already sports As he shuts down the machine and faces a lonely lunch and news at noon he wanders to the mailbox waiting for a word listening for her in his lengthy day.
Just Lemonade
We stand six feet apart in a line
for meat – for milk
Our friendship originated on a baseball field
Spring grass and the laughter of children
The smell of new leather gloves
and adobe colored clay, we raked
as a town
We shared ice cream leaning on cars,
which we had driven to the Dairy Bar
when we won or lost - no, it didn’t matter
It was early summer, a late spring, a low moon
and no field lights
I had lemonade and there were chips
and we cleaned up after excited children
who hopped and swung bats or got lost
in the dandelions of the outfield
The bleachers held grandparents and aunts
and uncles and dads and moms
and the eighth grade English teacher
We had late day sun in our eyes
as the ball was hit – a double
and swinging bats
and dropped balls everywhere
We stand in line six feet apart
with worrying gloved hands talking
through masks.
Your eyes are lined.
Mine without makeup must seem older.
In this new spring, the field is empty
and the stands linear and shadowed
the snack bar is closed
and any laughter is behind walls.
The adults watch TV warnings
that interrupt plans for a game of catch.
I have come to realize after seeing you
in this line that doesn’t move
that there will not always be lemons.
That sometimes there can be no lemonade.
Pitchforks and Wind
Bred for competition and consumption
The angry mob levels their eyes –
A study in self-righteous indignation
and the celebration of judgment and ridicule.
Whether through team spirit or mob mentality,
this ideology is pedestalled and revered.
The littered ground of discarded logic,
open dialogue, and rational civility.
becomes a mountain - Stung Meanchey.
The enemy stands before them
Multifaceted and kaleidoscoped
A harmony of differences and individuals
The Pollock/Krasner floor
A suppliant hat in closed fist
The ship in the harbor – waiting
Just waiting a turn
Empyrean shadowed but overheard
A vertical progression - Socrates and Glaucon
The melting pot so long ignored
Simmers
All possible permutations expired.
It’s coming – pitchforks and windblown.
A Field of Stones
Whatever happened to you
to make those rocks so big
and your throwing arm so strong?
Is that war you fight without hope?
Your battlefield, perhaps a solitary
plain of imagined cannons,
is but a field of dandelions
ordinary and tufted with grass.
But perhaps, you pocketed
your glasses and see a different scene,
one you need to prevail
in a more challenging sport
where you feel placed in the outfield
away from the applause and a stage.
There is a sky, dear one, a view of blue hope.
There are new games for your whiplashed arms
so tired from that mêlée you created
These would engage your intellect
without razored eyes or
sharpened words.
There are other paths to lead you away
from this bleak and desolate place
you have created to protect yourself.
We are all vulnerable.
We are all but flesh.
Put down your sword and stone
and take my hand
It is warm and real
although calloused from my own stones.
Death Whispered
death whispered in my ear last night
she stole in through the screen
dancing the lace curtains in
interrupting a shadowed sleep
uninvited, she cautiously happened
just a slip of darkened breath,
a shadow over the moonlight
hovering on my wall
in these diseased and weighted times
her shouts of raucous laughter
have echoed bitter down
desolate, stark streets
and garishly lit hallways
but this evening, she sweetly whispered
in my slumbering ear
as she gently caressed my cheek
and woke me with a personal taunt
a secret just shared
I lie awake breathing,
wondering, bleeding,
anxiously waiting
After The Petals Fall
Too soon after the promising bloom
of those opening blossoms,
they slumped and fell to the table top
leaving their sad lives scattered over a doily
and light beams that laughed their way
across the room from the window
This morning was broken light and scattered storms
high-blowing clouds shadowed the back hill
and intermittent rain companioned sharp
clean light after each stage of darkness.
A cool spring tiptoed through a screen left open
and blew each petal to the floor.
Your exiting words were somewhere on the ground
near the petals and dust not vacuumed since Saturday
but it was not within my want or my need to clean
up a mess that you designed for engagement.
I let the petals fall. I left the dust settle.
Before I left, I closed the window.
Coyotes
Between your snores, the night silence
is broken only by
Coyotes
Their cries distant and lonely – searching
for a partner in the darkness
or food
Unlike you, they shun the politics
affecting their environment, but
you, a news fanatic, eat those scraps
hungrily before sleeping
No summits, no mass mobs of complaint,
or rallies
for these skulking creatures
of moss covered glens
just mangy, shadowy runners
skirting and hiding under
star-filled skies
running hard – hunger-driven
and solitary
hoping for leftovers and distance
from the upright humans
who scatter garbage and leftovers
everywhere
and snore into the dawn
from behind
screened windows
casting a blue light into the darkness
Birthday
It was my birthday
And you were wonderful
in your anger and rage
Always justified
Always so righteous
candles and flame
I wonder how
you keep that “pissed off”
moment waiting
in the wings
So perfectly timed
to burn the cake
and the whole day
Another birthday
remembering that all those “Oh, good,
let’s do that” moments were yours
Never mine.
But instead we’d go for a ride, another ride
and you would talk politics or money
and I would stare out the window
wondering where the bathroom was
or what it looked like in that town on the edge
of the highway flying by
Eventually we would get home
and I’d cook and wash the dishes
You would listen to the ham radio guys
chat up the world problems on twenty meters
and then you would tell me what they said
while I read or watched TV
No flowers came.
Just a happy birthday to you
then bed.
The Four Ages of a Poet
The quiet bud in an unexplored wood
tentatively unfurled, graceful
restrained, but hungry
A button left open, suggestive
A lowered lash, hesitant
Sand between small clasping fingers
in the morning, irritating
Such a soft whisper, festering
barely heard; barely there
But present, as a territorial lord
ever-present, but not seen.
The thought persists, not germinated
Water lacking, perhaps,
alone in a forest of ideas
rooted in moss or anger or dreams
It seethes or gently stirs
as the current in a stream
or gutter
in daylight’s angled light.
Words pour, a catchment of language
impasto and ample
Lips roar from concepts uncontained
Applause dances over three adjoined words
alignment and deviance just threadbare
But sufficient and well-attended
by devotees and challengers of the moment
from swords to flesh strokes
Picnic oil in the air, summer’s music
Winter’s remaining swans, looking for ice fissures
and flying towards the sun, a burnt sienna
A cavernous troposphere of possibilities
Erupt. Flow. Burrow. Synthesize.
Fingers on the keyboard, notes on the bed stand
Incarcerated piles of words
Scrabble pieces and elder stones
reshuffled for correlations and parallels
Reemerge as one thought
One melody, an aria
Spotlighted and en pointe.
Fibonacci, villanelle, Pollocked
phrases and feelings
on paper. on paper. on paper.
A crisp, cold shard of new day
from pride’s indignation
Self-righteousness spilling
A current - Direct Retribution
The pride of grammar tweaking
editing mirrors and pundits
into a language unknown or overdone
Meat for the many, ignored by populations
of cell phoners, iGens, TV viewers
commercials and gimmicks
But - no Mozart
or padded footfalls on mossed rock
or gentle rain.
A razor blade of anger and expression
turn words inverted, translated
by critical liars and then lost…
And oh, the fifties – engendered
by a backwards view and a winter’s wall
Hostile pens and sharpened lines
Dress empty stars in crepe.
Dull scissors cut the cloth of thoughtful contemplation
Crosswords and cross words, irritations too often
blessed by sterile priests or rabbis
Knuckles tire pencils with broken graphite nubs
paint is cracked from airless rooms
Geriatric smells and rustling clothes
shuffling thoughts and feet, careful steps
porphyry deposits, deep, subduction zones
scrutinized for spark, and that fire.
Do poets die? Do words? Or thoughts of words?
A river of incandescent ash
lights the moment
Night and winter come, but an ember is seized
A lone comet splits a dark sky - division of stars
Leaves of wonder fall into a swirling eddy
and shimmer with spring rain or street music
A dance of words is the bicycle
A stormwing rising towards that distant
island, once pronounced independent
of autumn’s early frosts or rain-filled roads
The fire crackles and heat again warms the pages.
Compensation for the soul’s tender ache.
from where are you watching, god?
footsteps from the mosque /church / synagogue
the bullet from the car killed
the child
the innocent child and her mother
hands still linked fingers
heat street sweat stink
a summerless hand stretches
no home less food just tired eyes
and windowless protection
no belonging here, Maslow
these children and soulless
bodies are just that.
Pol I Tics,
they tell me, money for bankers
money for the lawmakers
pondscum floating
from the belfry bricks sing
the hazzan, muezzin, and choir
beg for peace / beg for blessings
in a minor chord
hopeless and hopeful
juxtaposed death threats
from a god who is absent
hiding from gunfire, bombs,
violence, soiled lives in soiled times
from a cylinder fire rises
below the steeple, below god’s tattoo
hands warm while souls freeze
hard against hope and TV dreams
clouds above, god’s light a prismatic
disco ball dancing over torn flannel
shirts and blood on the corner
inside stained glass sharply colors
the blessed, hatted and jeweled.
is that you, god? on the altar?
candle illuminated, incensed?
White-gloved and basket droppings
for those who wait at the door
just waiting their turn
Bodies on the Ground
A monument stands in Charlottesville above the battlefield above the battlefield painted airwaves, painted bylines interpreted individually or socially shared in a race to opinion But bodies on the ground mark the moment bodies on the ground mark the day A monument to a soldier of stature and allegory above the dying sons of Chancellorsville, he watched and outmaneuvered. a maestro of the Battle the Huns and ghosts, arms waving, a battle of inflexible sides brothers and cousins fixed in creeds, sword ready for uncompromising sentiments and refusal to bend all eyes on the leader the conductor of the interrelated instruments of this dance of death. But bodies on the ground mark the moment bodies on the ground mark the man Tangible limb and valor or artificial heroics of pontificating bluster medals and statuary vomit and flesh these battles: Somme, Leningrad, Gallipoli Battles of widows and sons screams in the darkness fallow mercy untilled understanding Only bodies on the ground mark the moment bodies on the ground mark time Both sides lose where no concessions are given hot hostilities employ hate and scatter isolation in uncivil war objectives are overlooked for moneyed puppeteers and the dominos that fall each in turn squandering life and connection Only bodies on the ground mark the monument bodies on the ground mark mankind
All This Talk of Numbers
All this talk of numbers:
balanced budgets,
programs, salaries, percentages
fill my head
Polynomials in standard form
swell blood vessels
raising blood pressure
taking away any humanity
The hungry man walks
One, two, three steps
to nowhere
with no one
The child struck
one, two, three hundred times
for no reason
for no cause
The man working for numbers
in a check book, electronic billing,
and credit reports
The woman walking for numbers,
pedometer of her children’s
standardized test scores
for comparison for better schools
for more
Numbers that time our day
that measure our distances
that sit still
or rush by
endless and unfathomable
numbers
Zeno's paradoxes
Air Waves
Taut as twine pulled tightly,
too tightly
fraying fibers and inexhaustible
fear extending
As they group us and feed us
hype, tracked for hysteria
targeted for capitulation
The enemy is a shadow, an apparition,
the testimony of those who own
the air, the distraction of the masses,
We breathe shallowly, we wait in anxious
life-pauses
Information bytes catch us in nets
bumping against strangers who demand
participation in today’s performance
A national experience of social media
and conjoined causes
We become the herds; our confidence
muddied, by our failures
standardized tests of life
moneyed prancing
corporate princes
sports jocks and rappers
the receivers of
genetic gifts of line or intellect
The caste system division
of coin and soil
We tremble with continued
extrapolated history
nations falling under might and fury
The forewarnings and forecastings
of drowning men and
the Battle of Stalingrad
We cower in bedrooms under
the glow of a television
How to survive
How to endure
The tightly woven twine unravels
then taut again
twist and release
until
The cord of life
splits and is eradicated.
Maple Sky
Above, the maple sky held me captive no less than constellations aglitter on a winter night These varied, humbled shades of verdure and forest filtered the day star and cast patterns on my granite bed. A gentle rippling obscured each clearly defined edge and eliminated individuality. The summer burns the green into shades of gray until this lens and my blurred vision agree Maybe there lies the magic… or was it just that moment on that solitary rock?
Parched Time
Parched and cracked
an inflexible ground reflects
the heat skyward
Where the vulture’s wing-spread
casts a sharp shadow
that drifts under the bent air
A solitary man lopes along
spear held aloft, elevated
a !Kung warrior in search of food
a wife and child
mother and sister
wait and hope, patiently
The Kalahari sun rises
narrowing his shadow
Feet beat steadily,
slap to dust, slap
across the African dirt
The inner man runs chasing a gazelle
a humble event, but
his dreams are trapped
in the glazed despondency
of his eyes
In the distance, elephants,
dusty trunks swaying,
walk listlessly
westward
They keep some deep memory
of knowing water
a timeless compass
Patience and time
across the parched and cracked
earth
with the fall of an eyelash
In a moment’s breath In a second’s heartbeat sunrays pierce billowing condensation and lie over shards of spring’s new grass Shadowed and sharply lit chlorophylled blades taunt insects and horizons while morning dew teases the hem of a wandering soul lost in leftover dreams In a gentle wind’s caress a haunting memory is held Then with a downward sweep and eyes closed… but for a touch against a flushed cheek A cloud stirs and clarity dissipates
Divided
As the President of the United States Tweets about Russians and his polls, I shave my legs on the cold, enameled edge of a white tub A truck driver in the next town sleeps soundly in a chair exhausted from his three-day trip with a refrigerated trailer to the coast An ER nurse holds an inconsolable mother whose child died of an overdose Somewhere in Lancaster a lantern in a barn illuminates the bearded face of a farmer wiping down twin newborn calves In Cleveland two brothers help their mother load groceries into a car that may not start At the base of the Sandias a middle-aged Chicano woman registers for classes and prays that her papers are ducks in a row A retired rancher and his wife outside Jackson Hole grill trout and make salad A farmer in Utah says grace before a roast While a jogger’s feet slap against the Chicago pavement A young mother in Anaheim cries as she reads about the horror of war or rioting or another shooting Mitch McConnell’s 24 million dollar smile fills the screen as a homeless child digs behind the restaurant for a garbage dinner and 18 percent of Kentuckians live in poverty, poverty. Disconnected, we plow our fields Detached, we watch the news Divided, we vote for our team.
Lunar Eclipse
Behind the thinning clouds shadowed by the burnt red umbra the cratered surface is lost haunting in its hint of there breath-holding in its suspended silence The wings of darkness shadows of all dreams and dreamers mask the milky gray caverns and mysteries We stare from our campfires and curtained lives hoping for the best receiving the real all in prayer-lined requests and breaking souls Like the mayfly or summer breezes friends that light and leave totality is short lived and often disappointing Fingertips that waken and wring words that caress and crush eyes that spark and turn away The shadow moves onward into darker, deeper blackness and alone the stark white soul orbits and waits patiently, alone
Lens
Against the quadrille pattern
interwoven with the metal lace
threads
of a window’s screen that
holds the dry dust of August
at a indistinct distance f2.8
This interrupter of my view
filters and obscures...
The aperture and shutter speed
are all wrong
for this specific framed snap shot
this morning
She (the industrious arachnid)
has diligently worked
evenings and twilights
to construct this masterpiece
that I perceive merely as
a textured mat scrim
She rests now
and I allow her life and art,
without condition,
knowing this fleeting image
lies between pressed pages
and photo albums
only for her and me
Beyond the Kittatinny Ridge
Beyond the Kittatinny Ridge the valley rambles towards the Delaware River Rock tumbled and frequently littered with low ridges, this valley is adrift on stout legged hills the Lenape called Endless Mountain Like Highland Scots, all muscled and burly limbed, the terrain pushes and pulls as it rises upward in a hostility of quartz smoothed by glacial erosion the bedrock is often sparsely exposed due to thick lodgement till that inhospitably capes shale, siltstone, sandstone, quartzite, and conglomerate all which form the bedrock Outcroppings goaded southward from the Shawangunks head to the Water Gap and its female lines and trafficked corridor: trucks, buses, and westward travellers rushing by, rushing The climb from Gap to Culvers spartan of people; ablaze in deciduous, congressed in boulders: insolent, disagreeable obstructions but the substance, the essential core of these hills A wet campfire smolders as twilight hovers past the tents, past the last tired walker: boots off, blanket wrapped The stars edge past the darkness small punctures in the night and somewhere an animal crashes through the forested hills hemmed by bayberries and rhododendrons Obscure pines scratch the night, which veils and shrouds these ancient hills carpeting the somber slopes and aimless, shadowed ridges The highlands dream as everything dreams here, of time and light and day and rocks that argue depth, fracture, and push Darkness and silence now blanket the ridge and sleep gentles the night awaiting sunrise