Her Life Is On This Table and Other Poems Read online

Curls

  Little girls have happy curls

  Their mothers, perms of sorrow

  Curls laugh and leap and catch the sun

  Perms fight and fear tomorrow

  September 19, 1991

  Boys’ Toys

  Every boy who holds a toy

  Imagines devastation

  A sudden smash, a crushing crash

  Or fiery immolation

  So in this way his mind will play

  At wild mad destruction

  I only pray it dwells someday

  On careful slow construction

  June 27, 2013

  Circles

  A baby was born on a merry-go-round

  Already sitting a painted horse

  Round and round, up and down

  The baby goes, before he knows

  Who he is or why he’s there

  Beyond him the world spins once every day

  As a moon circles round it once every month

  Both circling a star once every year

  Amongst stars circling a galaxy

  In a circling cluster of galaxies

  The universe extends light years past counting

  In all directions, on and on

  What grand and final shape it has

  I cannot even guess

  But I know that the shape

  Buried deep in its heart

  Is a circle

  And the baby grows

  To see births of babies

  And births of hopes

  And births of beliefs

  And births of movements

  And births of wars

  And the end of them all

  One after another

  Only to watch them born again

  And that’s a kind of circle, too

  The future should be unknowable, just

  A puzzle solved only moment by moment

  And yet I can tell you where in the sky

  Mars will appear ten years from now

  Precisely just there in the sky

  And I will lie down that night in my bed

  Appearing just there in my bed

  For the planets and I circle round quite predictably

  Buried deep down in the heart of time

  Is just another circle

  The baby’s soft skin, my skin

  Grows dry as an onion’s

  Translucently showing my purple veins

  While my legs and arms grow weak

  How long can I cling to this horse?

  The more that I stare, the harder to care

  And keep count of times I’ve gone round

  I am ever more aware

  That I’ve circled past these days before

  And know how they ended and will end again

  In decline and blood and sorrow

  And then

  The old, firmly holding onto their beliefs

  Grow weak of limb, losing

  Their grip on all else, and fall off

  New babies are born, new hopes arise

  The world seems new, seems changed

  Again

  Circling

  Circling

  Circling …

  July 4, 2013

  Mine Enemy Sleep

  I curse this lurking enemy

  Makes consciousness dissolve

  And robs me of the third

  Of all my given hours

  No comforter or friend to me

  To make clear thoughts revolve

  Through fantasies absurd

  ‘Till daylight steals its powers

  God of Mercy send to me

  A fast and firm resolve

  To never more be lured

  To sleep’s enticing bowers

  Before curtains descend on me

  This puzzle I will solve:

  How it can be abjured

  This taste for lotus flowers?

  A mind engaged will lend to me

  Such strength as will absolve

  Me from the sleep that’s stirred

  From corners where it lowers

  Poetic Muse, please bend to me

  Inspire and involve

  My mind in every word

  That builds your temple’s towers

  I need a hero. Then he’ll be

  On some quest, yes, and involve

  Some others — and a bird!

  A raven, supernatural, empowered

  By some great and magic watcher, and he

  Or maybe she, watches, through this bird,

  The hero’s setbacks, gives him resolve

  To keep striving, to keep going, smell flowers …

  The lotus flowers …

  And win past obstacles, to be

  Victorious … or maybe fail! That would be

  Different. But it happens to everybody

  Sometimes …

  Not always victories. Not always …

  Sometimes …

  You just …

  do your best …

  Not always victories, not always …

  just your best …

  or …

  maybe …

  less …

  …

  …

  What sun through window breaks?

  Oh! Good Lord.

  Morning already.

  Well I must say, that feels better!

  July 5, 2013

  A Day in a Bottle

  How shall I keep one day fresh in my heart?

  How shall I keep its sky in my eyes

  Its wind on my skin, carrying scent

  Of the blossoms of Linden trees?

  Close and protected, I’d have it

  Contained, always with me

  Just like a sailor’s ship, safe in a bottle

  As I carry it, so will it carry me

  Through the rain and the snow

  And the days when bright hopes break in pieces

  Like glimmering icicles fallen to ground

  I’ll carry my day in a bottle

  And in it an essence beyond all the rest

  The essence of you

  The brown of your eyes

  The round of your shoulder

  The round of your cheek

  The touch of your hair on my cheek

  The fusion I felt at the touch of your skin

  I’ll carry it always

  My day in a bottle

  I’ll never have left you

  Gone wandering away

  Alone, altered, transfigured

  Some fairy tale creature enchanted and lost

  Wherever I go my day in a bottle

  Can be a loadstone

  Whose reach pulls me back

  Back to where I was

  Back to how I was

  Back to who I was

  Back to what, on that day, I most cherished

  The love, the desire I felt

  Back to before the beast was enchanted

  Back to the man who knew a great love

  And never could turn from her face

  July10, 2013

  The Quiet Place

  In the quiet evening moments, light

  through flowers and through leaves

  ignites and purifies them

  so they glow with praise

  like shards of leaded glass

  betokening the saints

  in windows high above the pious

  or the flames on candles of remembrance.

  Across the tree limbs splashing light

  transmutes the dark-hued bark

  to radiant gold, honey-bright

  like the Chi-Rho’s golden threads

  illuminating altar cloths.

  I seek the quiet time, the peaceful place

  where whispers of the Earth

  and all the stir of smaller lives

  with their concealments and concerns

  and sometimes revelations

  can, when I forget myself,

  be seen and just be heard.

  If I can onl
y lay aside

  the things I feel I should be doing

  all my anger and frustrations

  dropped behind me in the street —

  offending sins left at the church door —

  then this place will be my pew;

  this time, despite the hour and day,

  becomes my Sunday morning.

  August 16, 2013

  After the Fire

  Grieve the passing, leave the trees

  Charred and leafless, drawn within,

  To their dreams of Eden days

  Step your weary steps and ease

  Around the blackened limbs that in

  Another time drank heaven’s rays

  Sing of flames that lit the night

  Sing of smoke that hid the sun

  Sing a dry-as-tinder tune

  Wing and paw and foot in flight

  Man and beast, their work undone

  All the world in ashen ruin

  Scorched foundations, broken embers

  Skeletons that scratch the sky

  Scattered over barren ground

  Of the world your heart remembers

  Only these to catch your eye

  Only these and death are found

  Where the ferns and wildflowers?

  Topless trees with life astir?

  Where the garden past your door?

  You’ve returned from nightmare hours

  To the grave of things that were —

  Turn and come here nevermore

  August 26, 2013

  Writing a Poem

  I’m writing a poem.

  This is it.

  I promised (ordered) myself

  to keep from my bed ‘til it’s done.

  From the forest came the hunter

  bow and kill slung on his back

  Long his frame and strong his spirit

  They are all he did inherit

  From his father’s empty sack

  Not a bad start, but where to go from there?

  And, good God, why did I make him a hunter?

  I don’t even like hunting.

  Dad took us hunting, my brother and I.

  He liked shooting game with guns.

  I liked guns, my brother liked guns.

  It should have worked out.

  Should have.

  Let’s try this:

  From the garden came the maiden

  In her arms were rosemary,

  Dill and basil; and her hair

  Had a primrose to make fair

  That more fair, were it let be

  Creaky, but it works.

  Anyway, what’s a tired brain to do?

  I think of Tennyson, Swinburne,

  Longfellow and the like,

  and eke out some lines

  such as they might have eked

  — If they were wretched bad poets, that is.

  In the valley of the Arden

  Kissed by breezes from the sea

  There she plants her beds and rows

  All her wealth in what she grows

  These her only legacy

  Mom had a garden.

  She hunted beets and tomatoes,

  and bagged them without a gun.

  The beets she pickled,

  and I ate tomatoes sprinkled with sugar.

  I liked the way she hunted.

  The maid grows flowers for a mother

  By consumption brought down low

  Hyacinths, anemones

  Lavender and white lilies

  One last bloom is missing, though

  I can see Tennyson writing something like this

  while hunting deer, perhaps, or pheasants.

  Dad would’ve liked me to shoot a pheasant.

  But I walked the woods with my 22 rifle

  and all that I shot at were sticks in the river.

  I’d have felt kind of bad killing pheasants.

  I was real proud, though, when I hit a stick.

  Now the hunter stalks the pheasant stag …

  Longs to bend his mighty bow

  Send an arrow through its heart

  Gut his