08/01/2021

THIS ISN’T ALABAMA

Here is where I never forget.

Here the wind walks out the door,

the cornstalk holds its chortle in,

and the river is laughter and the applause

of ducks. Even the elephants find their way

back to this place. I can see them a mile away,

where those poplars, shyly bunched,

crop the harsh clarity of the fields.

They are picking the poplar leaves, which turn

scarlet as they are picked; they cradle the leaves

in their trunks and snap down, as shadowy men

perched on their backs put the leaves into baskets.

This isn’t the jungle, I say, this isn’t even Alabama.

There is a door opening to my right, a house hanging

behind it, a woman disguised as my mother appears

cupping a thin, silk-rasp song over her lips—

“skillet scoured, milk-fat skimmed, mattress stripped“—

And these chores belong to whom? I’m thinking, To where?

I’m thinking, I’d better catch up to those elephants.

Too late: she claps her hands: “They’re taking their time today, my time too.”

Clap-clap. Next came the reality inside

the dream: the old rapscallion, eighty-years-old

this very day, victim of raggedy vertebrae, walking

like an “L” up the elephant path. Clap-clap.

“Ain’t it so,” wading the alfalfa,  “ain’t it so.” 

There were oven smells from the open door—wedding cakes

and oregano spiced chicken. I coughed, and the elephants

stopped. Someone had dropped their basket of leaves.

The woman (Forgetting something?) snapped

her fingers. “Where you going?” I called. But she was

already in the house. My shoes stumbled forward.

“Goodbye,” said the house.

08/01/2021

IS CLYFFORD STILL AT THE MENIL?
“It’s intolerable to be stopped by a frame’s edge”

Cleansed is the word that sifts
the epidermis, pigments rinsing,
freshening. The paint
appears to migrate
in shifts of vast continental shelves
spruced about the canvas.
How much he loved to watch
the clouds of suds
unfasten around the curve
of her ass and fall splat
to the spittering tub.

Far from porcelain, and far
From caulk is where he is now,
perched in such a swank temple,
sniffing the wood oils and pungent living
airs, and the slurs of diminished chirpings
voiced by others trapped in
Unknown nooks, ducked away behind
the brushed steel pots and tottering palms.

Where are the microphones
that chaperone, that tote these vocables
through the precious atmosphere,
Through dusty photons splicing
the ceiling, through laminated firewalls,
through taut plush dens aflame
with revolving monitors,
recording the phosphorescent
figures stalking their way about the teak floors
as if with a purpose?

If you are the man or woman on duty
in this snug little closet (And you’re not…)
Is someone watching you?
Watching them?
We’re only minor characters, no doubt,
though one of them
sidled up beside me and muttered
Insufferable, as if he thought himself King
of an infinite space.

Prompting me to ask if the lush
Colors were misplaced on him.
Colors which are, after all, the other
Prime indicators, if not of a God,
then at the very least
a gawk-toothed tourist, or
better yet, a nosey landlord,
the one looking down
frowningly and a bit too extendedly
at your hastily scribbled check,
and holds it high up to the porchlight – the
audacity!—like a pontiff proferring
his holy frothing goblet—
You’re a week late, he reminds
you, again.

08/01/2021

CLINICAL

For seventeen days, Chekov endured confinement in a sanatarium of Ostroumov’s. I can’t help but think that he did so with the utmost aplomb and patience. At least on the outside. Both of his lungs were engorged, overmoist – congestion (phlegm) in the left, creaking (blood) in the right. I thought of that house we owned. Oh I don’t know, 20 years back? The way its walls, when they came and pried them open from the inside, revealed a systemized morass of drips and crumbled planks and mushroom clouds of mildew sucking up sustenance within the drywall. “Oh hell” got repeated I don’t know how many times by Ishmael, the contractor who’d kindly answered our summons for aid. And it was, I suppose, a strain of hell. Though the life the four of us lived within that structure seemed anything but. I believe that even now. Likewise, I can only imagine the kind of hell Chekov experienced in his good friend’s clinic. All those daily drills and regimens, food, exercise, examinations, deep breathing, even sleep was a heck of a chore. Remediation ad nauseum. Yet in the midst of his slog, who should come calling one fine day – March 28^th to be precise – but – surprise! –  L. N. Tolstoi. Yes, that Tolstoi, to whom he related a series of ribald stories by Nossilov – Whatever happened to him, they roared, to that unique, uncured genius he flaunted? More raucous laughter followed. And tea. Then they finished the afternoon with a discussion of immortality, something that filled them both with equal parts vitality, delight, and wonder.

040916

A LIFE IN THE DAY
(based on Tony’s “A Day”)

 

The poem slouched
In an idea,
Like this…
Watch Othello’s film
The one he shot of the three ladies
Sprawled among daisies
Their every motive
Reduced to the empty
Languid space
Between their legs
Or nothing
And only actions
Are validated
And only actions
Remain.

Then repeat.
Watch it again
Again.

But don’t
Write
About it.
Don’t you
Dare.

An idea engineered
Through misuse.
Now that’s an idea.
For a poem?
For an unintentional search?
A blind one
In which you’re merely hoping
To find yourself
Threadbare
As a munched ear
Of corn on the cob
Hot off the grill to boot. 

And yet did I wrong
Anyone in writing
About that?
That?
Did I deny your past
Your present?
Your cold devil
Your over-heated agency
Until a reduction
To whatever
Velvety sauce
Is achieved?

The most difficult task
After all is abiding
The simmer
Unleashing the necessary
Patience
And just be confident
In the outcome
Which is certainly out there
No matter what’s
In here.

Just you wait.

040616

SONNET

 

E pluribus unum is my middle name  But no one knows my first
Then there is the third one  They call it the surname?  That right?
Mostly it’s the sensation that numbers add up but letters don’t
I don’t know about you but I am often amidst the letters plain lost
Lost  Smitten  Half-present  Half-baked  Mostly true  Totally blank
That’s me  In a nutshell  And in fact “Nutshell” is the first name
I could not remember above  I wonder  Do you?  Did you know
that “I wonder” is my favorite line from Waiting for Godot?
It comes the moment Didi repeats the question Gogo’s put
forward at least three times already  And I could not name it,
The answer to my first question  Though I can say it  It’s yes
And then the letters would appear to line up perfectly in the flesh
And legible  They don’t stay that way though  Mostly a totally blank zero
they are  But yes  That line’s my favorite  And Godot rhymes with Gogo.

051214

 

ORDER

 

 

The Bledsoe twins, Ivy and Iris, were day nurses.
They married Lyman and LeFaye Freeman, who were brothers but not twins, at a double wedding.
Coming out the druggist’s, Kirby snapped his ankle.
Birdlegs Biddle diagrammed sentences on the overhead (subject, verb, predicate)
modifiers rooted in like moles below the baseline.
We had a sweet-hearted carpenter named Hubert.
Ed ruled the Texaco, the South Y one, with an iron fist – though beneath the paper towel
wiping down our windshield, while the gas flowed in, his palm was baby’s butt pink.
Both big churches employed Troy Downer as Head Janitor.
Alton Beason and Bull Bowers presided over barbershops.
One morning, the Meadow Gold milkman, a balding gent named Ernest, saved our duck from
drowning in the kitchen sink.
There was an Erskine who did the title work for Probate Judge Pat Tate.
Fletcher was the forest ranger.
Corky came over and sprayed the centipedes ransacking our basement.
After another seizure, Missy just flat passed out.
The flower shop was operated by Pauline Floyd.
Ruby penned the gossip column.
Piano lessons were Ann Elzey’s bread and butter.
Everyday, Roenna battled a pen full of first graders.
Bea White the thirds.
The mayor was a mortician named Hoyt.
There was R.L., the king of dips in the weight-room, as well as O.H., H.C., T.B., and N.Z.
Beep and Toot, the crew-cut Hess brothers.
And Ag-Head Brown, whom I never met, was the center on my dad’s junior-high basketball
team.
The boys called one of the substitute teachers Jelly-Belly.
Just call me Dave boys was the typical calm reply.
Some highway department guy told me his boss was the implacable Pickle.
Ellis coached the Wildcats.
Defensive coordinator and key assistant: Quentin.
Smut got caught stealing burger patties from the Curb Market’s walk-in freezer.
Benjy got his act together and became a lawyer, shocked us all.
After the tornado tore through, Jerry Senior, sold dry ice door to door.
Haskel flipped records.
His brother Wayland coughed blood one day scrubbing pans at the bakery.
Mr. John Greene Chambers cut the tires on an automobile one night in June, his own
automobile: go figure.
Ventris had more freckles than a trout’s belly.
While cleaning his shotgun, John Paul blew out his parents’ living room bay window.
Janice was caught urinating in the neighbor’s henhouse.
Every Wednesday evening, Cornelia went down to lead the choir practice.
Dermot ran the bank.
Chip’s father most surely had a name, but I never knew it.
Arizona dropped her baby girl in the fireplace in 1943 and that was the end of that.
Gladys revealed her gall bladder scar to Judge Dickey.
Caspar headed the garbage detail.
People swore by Wyatt’s powers as a dowser.
Madge survived her son’s death at the hands of her husband, his own father no less.
Late one summer night, Marly scraped up some venison hash – hoping to ambush a
hangover.
Estelle received a phone call from Peru.
Birch headed up Cliff Dingler’s small-motor outfit.
Burma was a doctor who never doctored a day in her life.
Reese sold Fords.
Ida manufactured tube-socks.
After completing the 8^th grade, Queen Ester moved to Memphis where she died of Sickle
Cell Anemia at the age of twenty-two.
There was a lady named Bill.
Another named Clyde.
A tarantula of a man – six foot, nine inches – who went by Pearl.
Another Clyde, who was a man, had kidney issues.
The aforementioned Bill blew her brains out one Thursday afternoon as a way to postpone
having another protracted argument with her elder daughter.
Dottie’s fingers throbbed arthritically, even as she kept her grand piano slick with Pledge.
Much to everyone’s relief, Ramona finally decided to marry Moose.
Mrytle retired after 58 years of keeping at it.
Lovelace bounced back from twice getting the axe.
Clementine was the one girl amongst nine siblings.
Skinny Parker was, in point of fact, skinny.
Butterball was fat.
Scarlet most certainly possessed a wilderness of red hair.
Lib was a Democrat; the kind they call a yellow-dog.
Candy’s sweet tooth was infamous.
And Daisy operated a dairy.
On the other hand, Hy was nothing short of an asshole.
And Boo accepted the Miss Congeniality honor at five separate beauty pageants.
Aunt Lizzie lay in bed, a brain tumor protruding from the plate of her forehead the size of a
golf-ball.
Wanda Wampler drove her car into the canyon.
Clete suffered a massive stroke.
Most people said Granny Dollar died of meanness.
Archie of heatbreak.
Elvie MacCracken had the gall to die, what with four kids barely out of their swaddling
diapers.
Orson ate rat poison.
Tallulah just plain ate – a lot.
Rafer kept a still, until it blew up and blew both his arms off with it, killing him.
The Governor’s office murdered Lurleen.
Millicent started talking to the painting in the living room of Curtis, her long-dead cat, and it
was all and quickly downhill from there.
Lung cancer caught up to Clayton.
Cirrhosis to Emma.
Gordie Goldthreat, while changing out an oil filter, was mashed to death by one of the
Firestone radial tires rolling beneath the heft of his Galaxy 500.
The neighbor’s discovered Beanie’s corpse.
Blanche Bear slipped on ice.
Darnell Albright spent three years at Bryce and the gossip was she guzzled down a can of
Liquid Drano while convalescing with her son’s family in Cairo, Illinois.
Truth was she died in her sleep.
Had Lucian, her reclusive son, become aware of the Drano rumor, he probably wouldn’t
have uttered a word.
In 2009, the swine flu carried him off to glory.
Sparkle Greene just wasted away.

 

050914

 

SCRIMAGES

 

I

A chicken
crossed
the road

pestering
the night-
time’s

air-tight,
obsidian
seal

II

He leapt
from High
Falls

pink and cream
green on yellow

his body
bobbed up

III

Bacon is the belly
of a pig though this evening
the sky looked like bacon

IV

The patient’s
liver,
he said,
could weather

the approaching
Or did he say wither?

V

Whether approaching
or not
approaching,
the storm

I mean.
Weather
approaching

VI

or not
approaching

as in the storm,
I mean. It

was merely
the liver’s

VII

To wither
Or not.

A withered
storm was the hope

Inflecting
each mind’s
weather

VIII

gathered together

there
in the square
little room

No matter the
liver

IX

Or whether
it would

weather
or wither.
And whether

was a cloud
out there

X

on patient
approach,

withering,
weathering, and

whethering
my mind.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

050414

 

GHOSTS

 

 

Killed off all the ghosts, did you?
Swept clean the attic, dusted
the doorsills top to bottom, those
flared little hips of painted woodframe
that lure one into bedroom or kitchen
or bath. As if the house’s each and every room
were bower, comfort station, oasis,
bliss incarnate, spewing all manner
of clamberings, some joyful, others
entrenched in mourning. Why
are they mourning? We do not know.
It’s the mystery kept in every dogwood
bough, a springtime blizzard of pink,
Brittle as giggles, cloaking the misery
that Jesus lay down and nailed himself
to it. Oh yes he did it to himself.

This is where charisma gets you,
like Bobby Kennedy down on a kitchen floor,
looking up into stainless steel sky
and copper pot clouds and the cameras
rolling, “Keep it rolling,” someone
is shouting, “goddammit, rolling,”
and the kid operating the camera
weeping as he does his job! You can
hear that too. And how exciting
is that, folks! To be blessed with such
specific instructions, and in the face
of horror, even death. He hung on
for four maybe five days
until my mother said he’d only,
even if he lived, be a vegetable.
I thought Bobby Kennedy would have been
a carrot, not a potato or cabbage,
nor did the thought of him as a green bean
enter my head even though that’d always
been my favorite, especially the method
Elvie MacCracken used to cook them
slamming a huge metal spoonful
of luscious bacon grease with them
into the bubbling pot. He would have been
a carrot though. Brilliant, orange, proud
high foreheads of greenery perched
and jaunty before the sous-chef’s trim.
In fact, he was not one carrot, but three –
a bunch! – pressed together by rubber band.
The cruel fact is there will always be such
cobwebs and every attempt to sweep
is already futile even before the whiskers
are raised and brought down with the lovely
brisk chuff of a single wind. And low as the little
carrots percolated in her guts, did she touch
her mid-drift time after time and whisper
or chant a homely ditty so as to better wrest
him out of the ground and into the trumpeting
blare of world seared in sunlight without end.

 

043114

 

OCCLUSION

 

 

The sink plugged up

Again

Remove the strainer,

 

Fill the pot, the 8 quart one, bring to boil,

Don mitts, pour

Straight down

 

Unabashedly

It sits settles in and descends invisibly,

The water

 

But once down beneath the drainhole’s rim

It’s progress comes to light

In slow deliberate sips

 

Like the death of an eye

Still throbbing from the blow

No bubbles

 

You could watch for hours

Anticipating

The gravity of home

 

 

 

 

 

042014

 

THE ASHCAN SCHOOL

 

 

 

Normally the score gets settled. The earth,
after all is said and done, gets it right,
an arrow straight to the bull’s heart. In fact,
as we speak, things are about as settled
as ever. We move on to the bigger
and better, just like they say. There is no
reason to think any other way is
out there. One other avowal spat out
like a ham sandwich is “It all happens
just as it’s supposed to,” like those obstinate
connections stapling you to every tree,
placard, license plate, dumb pedestrian,
vacant lot on lot growing to seed, bleeding
in a stream past the panes of your hastening
bus in cords of pleated, pliable light.
No stark inclination, no beveled inkling
was, is, or will be as pure as this one.
There was the week three friends lay in coma.
Just happenstance. One induced. Two brought on
by brute blunt force. One more second ticks by
and there is no other way to say this,
except to say “This is all that is there,”
no matter when she wakes up. There are shocks,
dunkings in ice baths, and hypodermics
brimming with golden adrenaline pearls.
A wager upon wager til the frayed
unavoidable caput. Two of them,
in fact, splashed to the glad surface. The third,
according to the principles by which
our late mournings get articulated,
arrived blinking and upright on a shore,
if anything, kindlier and more vast.