Sight Lines.........seeing God in all of life

Writing for Film :-)

This is a film clip I helped write the narration for. At the premiere of Journey to Everest on Thursday night at Thoroughbred Cinema this was shown during the event's opening to help attendees connect David Kiern's remarkable documentary to the evening's fundraising efforts for Nepali refugees.

www.DavidKiern.com/refugees

The human heart is a frontier

which often goes unexplored

by thrill seekers 

content to climb rocks.

                                  ---RLP

My First Poetry Reading

Irene Zongor, a retired member of Grace Episcopal, helped with the set-up for Firecracker Red Encore held earlier this month. It was Irene's first poetry reading. This is her first poem.

My First Poetry Reading

by Irene Ruth Zongor

 

The night was hot,

almost steamy.

 

The day had been hotter, standing

on the black pavement,

working the church garage sale.

 

I left early; to cool myself

with water and soap and

to rest.

 

Tonight is my first poetry reading.

 

I want to be ready; for what I couldn’t know.

 

I arrive early to open the building;

the sanctuary is quiet, expecting, warm.

           

The candles are lit, the air cooling,

coffee pot plugged in,

the cake arrives.

 

     We are ready.

 

I sit in the pew with friends, strangers,

quiet, listening.

 

Where are the rhymes, the words and

 phrases difficult to understand?

 

I am mesmerized by the stories--funny, sad,

opening my mind to new dimensions.

 

I laugh, hold my breath, listening.

 

      It is over too soon.

 

My Readings at Firecracker Red Encore

Patching a Hole in the Hourglass

Dirt Bubbles

I Need to Know

Guest Conductor in the Willows

Jack-o-lantern

A Tourist's View of Depression

Riding a Novel

Room for Cream

We Always Had Ice Cream

Passing Through Customs on My Way to Hell

Seeking Refuge

Inscription Found in a Used Book of Raymond Carver's Poetry at a Book Fair

Rembrandt Had it Easy

Poets Anonymous

  ---RLP---

Birthing the Day

He knew this day would come,

forecast and tracked like a hurricane,

bearing on its course to turn him

in its eye, flooding him with

memories and wonderings in the surge

too deep for such a coast.

---RLP---

Firecracker Red... Encore

 

This Ain't Your Grandmother's Poetry Reading

 

 

A Live Poetry Event

 

 

 Sat.  August 8th  6:45 pm

 

Grace Episcopal Church

Spring Hill

 

Built in mid 1800’s this beautiful old church is an example of “Carpenter Gothic” style of architecture popular in the decade after the War Between the States. The Church was placed the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

 

Featuring

 

Pulitzer Nominee

 Stellasue Lee

author of Crossing The Double Yellow Line

 

Ramon Presson, author and columnist

 

 

    Wine Reception & Refreshments to Follow

 

Grace Episcopal Church

                                    www.gracechurchsh.net

     5291 Main Street, Spring Hil

  

 For more info (931) 486-3223  

                               

 

                                 

IF is sub-vocal and restless within life,

held in place by so many L's and E's

---RLP---

Defending Sandra

 for client W.P.

  

I swept up the glass shards with

the old dust pan with floral pattern trim

and warped rubber edge that

won’t lay flat.

 

This wasn’t the first vase of roses she’s

thrown out on the patio, resentful

that I exist and breathe her air.

 

I stooped, knelt down, fascinated

by the sizes and shapes of clear angular pieces,

how they congregate and distribute themselves,

how shrapnel flies to far corners.

 

I gathered the roses, lying

on the wet stone like

fish gasping for breath.

 

I gathered them like orphans, like

homeless children flung to the street

to fend for themselves, and I lay

them in the bed of my hand,

petals bruised,

stems in shock.

 

I filled another vase with water

and moved the refugees there,

stood them up to lean on the crystal

and prop up one another.

 

I set them on the second shelf of the

corner cabinet behind my reading chair,

knowing we’ll both be invisible and safe there

in plain sight.

Escort

The moon, this vigilante moon

that follows me home,

stays at my left shoulder,

stares without blinking…

 

what If it’s not a silver appliqué on black satin,

but a light poking through a hole in the veil, 

like a glow streams down a dark hallway

glaring through some keyhole,  the portal

to the door of a room lit brilliant

by a sun we’ve never seen.

 

                           ** RLP

Wedding of Rivers

 

I wonder how the Missouri River feels losing

her identity into the Mississippi with

no recognizable trace of her maiden name

in any swatch downstream past the merger.

 

I wonder if the Mississippi thinks himself eternal,

with his banks the only boundary for the swath.

Surely the current through Hannibal conceives of

no beginning and no ending, and

certainly no deposit

swallowed up in gulf and sea.

 

I wonder if the Gulf thinks itself the ocean,

if it believes there are no deeper channels

than its own wells.  Has it not heard

rumors of epic fathoms and waves like

curling towers, of sea creatures

bigger than boats

and stranger than gods?

                                               ** RLP **

The Order of My June 20th Reading

Patching a Hole in the Hourglass

Note to Pablo Neruda

It Happens So Quickly

Wild Flowers on Loan

Live to Fight Another Day

Rest Area

Let's Smoke Some Mistletoe

Staci and the Deer

In Praise of Dependable Counseling Furniture

How to Make a Vodka Smoothie

The Descent

I Could Live Without Romance

The Artist's Inheritance

Voice Lessons

Firecracker Red

This Ain't Your Grandmother's Poetry Reading

A Live Poetry Event

Sat.  June 20th  7 pm

Rippavilla Plantation in Spring Hill
Historic home & museum

FEATURING

*Pulitzer nominee Stellasue Lee
author of Crossing The Double Yellow Line

*Ramon Presson, author and columnist

Tickets: $4  at the door  (proceeds going to Rippavilla Preservation)
Refreshments & Reception to follow

Rippavilla Plantation is located on Hwy 31 just ¼ mile south of Saturn Parkway

www.rippavilla.org
For more info (931)486-9037

The Journey is the Thing

I'm singing Matchbox 20 car songs

   in a post-dawn fog, when the doe with white spotted

dwarf fawns steps out onto the hem

   of the treeline just for me, I know it,

and I hold my line in the lane, for

               the journey is the thing.

                                      --RLP

Haiku

 

 

first firefly of summer strobes

beneath the first quarter moon,

a second glass of porch wine

                                --RLP

haiku

cafe speakers play

Vivaldi, I feel a bow

pulled across my strings

 

                     -- RLP

The Artist's Inheritance

 

The blessed moment for an artist is not when he finally catches a lucky break as though a wave suddenly crested beneath him, for such a surging loft ultimately and often quickly expends itself ashore.

Rather it is the journey that has crested on many a hill, till one rise unexpectedly overlooks, not the artist’s good fortune, but his grand inheritance.

The blessing of the artist, whether writer, painter, or musician, comes not as a stumbler finds a pearled oyster or gold nugget in the stream but as a son claiming his birthright. It is the realization that before anything was ever crafted by  the artist, a canvas was anointed for  the artist, and that the holy ground under the feet of his sudden awareness was deeded to him long ago.

And a child shall lead them...

Cameron received the 5th Grade's only singular honor: The Citizenship Award. Cam was affirmed for his character and most notably for his constant and compassionate friendship and support to Austin (who has Down's Syndrome) for the past two years. I forgot to bring kleenex. Austin's mother introduced herself and thanked us after the ceremony. I wouldn't have missed today for the world.

Sometimes a window opens and in one moment you see the past, present, and future. When Cameron was an infant he was diagnosed "failure to thrive." Then at 12 months they found a 32 degree curve in his spine. God healed both. Developmentally, he started behind but has been a straight A student since 1st grade. We thought he might be in a back brace till age 18, unable to play sports. He's an all-star in whatever sport he plays. We called him our "stiffy boy" because as a baby he wouldn't cuddle. He is so affectionate and has the kindest heart of any kid we know.

Yea, we're pretty good parents. But a parent knows where his influence taps its limit...and where something extraordinary reflects the choice of God, out of nothing but grace, to reach down and touch a child as his own. Today an 11 year old showed us Jesus, showed us what really matters in a competitive world: Love God with everything you got and love the Austins as yourself.

Wild Flowers on Loan

At the intersection of rural roads

I spot a tailoring of white petals with

yellow buttons, and I wish to bouquet

them for my love who is wilder

and lovelier than they.

 

But I leave them planted, because

while the property belongs to no one in particular,

the moment when a soul happens upon

an unexpected flowering

belongs to all.

                              --RLP

No Contest

As delightful as it is

to see a daytime storm pass,

its rains cease, and

the clouds break like a crowd dispersed,

As energizing as it is to see the sun

restored in its loft,

to hold colors in sharp tones again,

      It is the clearing and soothing nighttime sky

which frames a full moon for peace lovers and dreamers

that outbids the day for my quiet attention.

 

                                                --- RLP

Guest Conductor in the Willows

I’ve come early to rehearsal, to

this April morning on the back deck,

earlier than car motors, lawn mowers

and leaf blowers, earlier than

obligations and construction workers.

 

I’ve come early to my orchestra

in the oaks and elms, to the

robins and redbirds,

to the bluebirds and sparrows,

crows in black tuxedos, to finches,

doves, and Carolina wrens.

 

They sound the notes and tune themselves,

trumpets and clarinets, violins and flutes,

string and brass, woodwinds and

woodpecker percussion,

a symphony spread wide and layered deep

from stage front poplars to

the back wall of tall firs.

 

I close my eyes to pressing matters and

find the conducting effortless.

 

                                 -- RLP

The Best Method for Attacking Jigsaw Puzzles

Start with the corner pieces, the

straight edge ones and form the border.

You don’t even need the picture

on the box for that.

 

Discern sky from ocean, clouds

from foam, tree green from pasture.

You won’t need the picture for that.

Find color patterns, swirls, and

disconnected lines.

 

Fill from the frame

inward, send the troops

marching toward the center

and the forces of open space

surrounded and trapped

inside the closing fence

will surrender to your hand.

You never need a picture for that.

 

But there will be one piece missing.

Almost always there’ll be

one MIA, or one shape gone AWOL ,

 some cowardly deserter who won’t

stand and fight like your brother

in Mogadishu when the choppers

went down and Somalia militia

surrounded the wreckage and survivors

like weapon wielding fire ants.

 

They dragged Jamie’s body

behind a jeep through cheering streets,

past children with rocks and rifles, past

women waving machetes  who’ve

buried sons and daughters.

 

And even though you know

his soul had departed early,that evil

cannot plow the dust with

a man’s spirit or his honor,

one just never needs a picture

of anything like that.

 

 

Of Birds and Burdens (revision of Rest Area)

 

The fir trees at the back of the property line

have grown and filled out, so much so they

appear to be marching on the house.

 

The top railing boards on the deck

are new, drawing the eye to the senior wood,

ashen and weather worn, bow-legged,

ring stains from ceramic pots that launched

a thousand geraniums before baking them

in their summer kilns.

 

There’s a sunset robin trusting me

from the far corner, perched but not scouting,

completely without song, her pregnant belly bulging

and begging to drop the luggage.

 

She begins to lift off several times,

slip gravity's noose, lift off

and fly irresponsibly, fly

in defiance of something, fly in the

opposite direction of a nest, fly, fly,

fly to places a good bird might end up

if not hemmed in by instincts.

 

She prepares to launch, then

slumps back down into her chassis,

tucks the wings again, lets the stiff

west wind comb her feathers.

        I understand her weariness and I

won’t aggravate it with sudden movements.

 

I don’t know what to tell you  I said. 

From experience I can’t say

  tomorrow will be any easier.

 

                           ---  RLP

Scene from Our Town

Emily: "Do any human beings ever realize life while they are living it?"

Narrator: (sighs) "No. The saints and poets, maybe. They do some."

                               

--from Our Town by Thorton Wilder

from an Irish Poet

What is precious

inside us does not

care to be known

by the mind

in ways that diminish

its presence.

---- from The Winter of Listening by David Whyte

While there are certainly thoughts, feelings,  ideas, and experiences that I seek to describe or explain, at times I also hesitate to do so. Words can be alternately magic as well as inadequate. Sometimes giving in to the request for articulating a belief/feeling is the step just before being pressed to defend it. -- RLP

Rest Area

The fir trees at the back of the property line

have grown and filled out, so much so they

appear to be marching on the house.

 

The top railing boards on the deck

are new, drawing the eye to the senior wood,

ashen and weather worn, bow-legged,

ring stains from ceramic pots that launched

a thousand geraniums before baking them

in their summer kilns.

 

There’s a sunset robin trusting me

from the far corner, perched but not scouting,

completely without song, her pregnant belly bulging

and begging to drop the luggage.

She begins to lift off several times, then

slumps back down into her chassis,

tucks the wings again, lets the stiff

west wind comb her feathers.

 

       I understand her weariness and I

won’t aggravate it with sudden movements.

 

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. 

“From experience I can’t say

 tomorrow will be any easier.”

                          

                                        --- RLP

Rollover Minutes

  I’m back at the park bench by the flower garden

near the white dogwoods preparing

to close this season’s run.

 

There is an undetected moment when

every flowering thing peaks and

finds itself with hinges

and every door that swings open

can blink and be slammed shut.

                                --- RLP

Note to Mr. Neruda

The earlier Neruda poem was written in the archetype of the Jester. This poem is an experiment in approaching the same subject in a different voice/archetype, in this case the Child.

 

Mr. Neruda,

I stopped by one of your poems today

on my way home.

Knock, knock, knock.   I waited,

rang the doorbell—no answer.

I was taught it’s rude to ring a doorbell

more than once, but crappers, I

came all this way!

 

Ding dong, ding dong, hello, hello,

is anybody home? Anybody in there?

 

A poem is like Halloween---you have to wait

on the porch with your pillow case or plastic

jack-o-lantern bucket, gotta wait till someone

comes to the door. You can’t just barge in and

yell “Hey, where’s the dang candy?”

 

But it was getting dark and I figured

if nobody’s gonna let me in

I might just throw that garden stone

through the window, bust the frame

near the latch.

 

Ain't no lights on at the neighbors so no one

will hear the glass break, won’t see the sill

slide up, won’t see me

climb in, look around at the creepy place,

and I do mean creepy cause it’s dark and full of

old furniture and weird stuff on the walls, and

the only thing that matches is the

dust covering it all.

 

Not that I wanted to but there was no place

to sit, and I didn’t see no bed in there either. 

I don’t see how anybody could live in a poem

like that, but that’s just me.

 

And I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I

took something when I left, and I can’t really tell

what it is, but it’s mine now.

 

 

Note to Pablo Neruda

I stopped by your poem today

but I couldn't get in.

I tried to enter at...

 

“Assume a solemn voice and a

protective cow’s tone,

be decorated jointly

with Trujillo’s envoy,

discreetly maintain

a garconciere…”

but it was locked tight

as las puertas del infeirno.

 

I tried it several times, rang the bell—

no answer.

So I went around back to “…Araucaria,

who are you? Who am I? A subject!

Suffer! Subject! Run! Here I am!”

 

“Well, here I am!”  I shouted, the door bolted

and  the shades drawn so

I couldn’t even peer in the windows. 

 

None of the neighbors appeared to be home, so

I guess I could have hung out there on the porch

till dark, broke a window, climbed in,

took  a look around till the cops came

 

but I was getting tired and

my Spanish isn’t very good.

Paying the Rent

For every true artist personal pain seems

a reasonable down payment

on the lease of creative brilliance.

Magic Show

As adults we know that magicians are actually illusionists.

Interestingly, we do not resent their deceiving us,

but think of them as entertainers.

But when it comes to love we hunger to believe

that there is indeed a deep magic,

a true magic that is not slight of hand

and with our own heart on

stage as an audience volunteer

we are comforted to see God

wearing short sleeves.

                  --- RLP

Sensitivity Awareness Training

I don’t think I get up from park benches

like most men,

my  heavy sigh stretching like stiff limbs,

 

looking up to storm clouds for sounds

or signs--some confirmation that my life

 

is not another of God’s experiments

with bad fiction.

 

Sanding With the Grain

  

 

 

The plaque on the park bench where I’m sitting says

                          In Memory of

                     Malcolm Moss Gibbs

 

 

Mr. Gibbs, if you knew the deep thoughts

I’ve had here on your bench,

the questions sent and returned

as unanswered mail,  the prayers interrupted

and served raw, the pretty good poems

docked and launched from this port....

       

Forgive me for not introducing

myself before now.

Blood Atonement

To dissolve the clot Dr. Lankford said we had to

increase the dosage of blood thinner, told me not

to shave with a blade, no contact supports,

that a break in the levee could bring the flood.

 

But I caught my heel on the bottom corner

of a careless shower door and

and the tide rushed to fill in

the excavation.  

 

I am the bull

speared with the festive vara by the matador,

my juices splattered undetected on the velvet

muelta he uses both to agitate me

and lull me.  He’s draining me, slowing me,

to accept the sword.

 

I should call out for my wife, but

I can’t help but watch the flow—it’s quite

beautiful, a bright red unlike

anything I would wear to the office.

 

It bubbles at the spout like the throat of a

hot spring, and I let the stream roll over the

cliff of my foot like winter runoff,

creating crimson siren patterns

on the glazed white tile.

 

I really should do something to stop it, get a

towel, elevate the leg high above the heart

so maybe the blood rushing up to the scene

will meet itself coming down.  I mean, I’ve

got a family to think of and people who love me,

but I don’t know when I’ll ever again

witness a shade of red this rich that’s not an acrylic

or see this much blood unaccompanied

by a neighbor screaming.

 

 

* This piece is entirely fictional so everyone relax. No need to call or e-mail with worries.   Remember that poetry can be pure fiction; it is not always autobiography. The tool of creating story fits the hand of the poet as well as it does the novelist.

Clearer Vision

Poets and photographers
see       what everyone else      sees

but they uniquely spy and frame
the glory missed by pedestrians.

Do lovers not do the same?

                       --- RLP

The Price of Delay

If not for the backlog of traffic on I-65 this morning

I would not have taken Critz Lane and

would have missed that magnificent hawk

perched on the wire like a valiant prince.

 

Any glimpse of majesty is always

worth the longer journey.

 

                            --- RLP

Live to Fight Another Day

 

I bent straight the hard curves on Keeler Road

to race a tornado home,  screamed at

by sirens to go faster, faster,

faster you idiot if you expect

to make it in time and rope

your children like calves

into the cellar, deep into the dark of it,

far from the plywood door that

has only a latch on the      outside

a flimsy one that will break like a cigarette

so the door can be splintered and

ripped off its hinges.

 

No alternative but to stand outside the thin door,

weaponless, show no fear

cause a twister can smell fear. 

It’ll stalk a weak animal,

chase it down from behind, catch it, roll it,

pin it, shred it.  But not if I rage against the beast,

charge it, dare it, mock it, bait it

into a bar fight.

 

Skid the car in the aggregate driveway,

rush inside, where my wife

asks me if I want a brownie.

                                 --- RLP

Patching a Hole in the Hourglass

 

 

I tell ya, I just don’t know where the time goes,

the postal clerk said

to the customer ahead of me, an older lump

with a plaid flannel beret and prickly ear hair.

 

I know where it goes, I said to her. 

I know where time goes, I said

to the man with caterpillar eyebrows

 

It slips out in a slow leak

like a tire that picks up a nail   Psssssssssssssst

If you listen real close you can hear...  

Pssssssssssssssssst      

cause time w h i s p e r s on its way out the door,

doesn’t bust out in a jail break killing the guards,

doesn’t ransack the room while you’re upstairs

sewing on a button

 

Time is a runaway bride who packs a suitcase while

you’re at work, leaves a note on the door of

an emptied closet. “Not happy.  Don’t feel important."

 

Weeks blow out the back of the truck like litter

 

Months are kidnapped by an obsession, years stolen

like jewelry by a thief who'll make up special occasions

just to wear it

 

Hours spilled like a glass of beer or love,

minutes wasted like electricity

cause somebody left the light on.

 

Seconds going down the sink while brushing teeth

 

A lifetime peed and flushed when

rising in the middle of the night, the last morning

though you don’t know it---your final birthday

in late October when the leaves in the Appalachians

are at their peak.

 

That’s where the times goes, I said.

 

Oh, said the postal clerk.

Oh my, said the man.

Labyrinth

To love deeply is to concede one's journey

to a labyrinth from which

there is no escape,

only circles toward a center.

                    --- RLP

I Should Get Out More

                           I really need to get out more, out of

wooden coffee huts where I drink

jacked-up java from a pencil hole

in a plastic-lidded white paper cup

with a brown cardboard cardigan and room enough

for cream and to stir

without sloshing over the rim,

while behind me an impatient commuter with

Ray Bans propped up on her head

is waiting to add Splenda to her latte.

 

I need to get out of these sanitized birdbaths and

get to a toxic water hole like maybe a sleazy

bar downtown, where the bartender doesn’t smile or

make eye contact, doesn’t ask you what he can get

for you like he was a diner waitress,

where it’s too dark, too smoky, too noisy

to write poetry and you’d get the crap

beat out of you if you were caught doing it.

 

I really need to get out more, get out of town, 

get out of Tennessee, get out of the Bible belt,

out of the Southeast where I’ve lived every one

of my 48 white middle-class conservative Protestant

years as though I repeated the first grade 47 times.

I’m not sure what it is about this experience

I need to “pass”

before I can get crazy and move to Colorado, California

by way of Arizona, then Portland, maybe

Seattle where the constant rain

might flush out her memory

 

but could also cause my depression to mold and mildew

like the window casings in our house in south Florida

where it stormed everyday at 3:00 and

never got cold enough to kill allergies, mosquitoes, or

crackheads who’d break into anything in

broad daylight to steal something for cocaine. 

After 9 years I got the hell out of there.

 

But I think maybe I need to get out of the country,

get out of God Bless America and see the world,

get that book of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die,

a thousand places to see, smell, hear, taste, touch

before I die and I can’t see, smell, hear, taste, or

feel nothing cause I’m stuck inside a cranked-shut,

sealed silver box with white satin lining, wishing

I could get out more.

 

I really should get out more, break out

of my skeletal cage and slip quietly out of my skin,

open the window and scale my body down

to the bushes, break curfew, and

damn the consequences.

Black-eyed Susan

Sister, let me hold your glasses
while you try on these reframes.

Now look at the portraits, landscapes, and
still life through these hopeful borders, your eyes
pressed so close to the bi-focaled glass that
what you hold up close
and what you see far away
is more brilliant.

No, do not call the images distorted
as if despair designs the clearer lens.
Why must you wear these dark shades which so
tint your memory and prophecy, which keep
the light out and the dim in
like some smoke-filled basement bar?
What seeds of possibility have any chance
of sprouting in such a cave?

Walk with me, sister, under this spray of sunlight
till your eyes grow accustomed to
and then love the warm glare

as an honest friend with good news.

Don’t Go; Winter Was Just Leaving

These lengthening days are the closing

credits of winter, so cue the bloom of daffodils,

the return of winged tunes, awakened

limbs, the white-out explosion of dogwood

and Bradford pear, the short bouquets of yellow crocus

bursting forth through a last gasp snow.

Trapeze

It is given to artists and lovers

to venture out on green limbs,

thinking themselves accompanied,

only to discover solitude

and feel the world bending.

The Good Samaritan Princess

 

The earthworms were suffering on a sidewalk                                                               

too hot for Olivia's tender feet. Timmy said

the worms deserved it, as if being broiled

should be the standard discipline

for straying from one's dirt, 

the punishment for exploring, 

for seeking something more

than raw soil, minerals, and composted leaves.

 

Not a rebellious break-out of ungrateful prodigals,

they're a remnant of the curious, with just enough room

in their tiny megadrile brains to form questions

like "WHAT IF...?"

 

When she touches them for rescue they recoil

in distrust, like the injured bird

that flew into the sliding glass door 

that summer in Keystone.

She still remembers the green highlights

in the feathers that could only be seen 

so close-up

to a life so still.

 

Olivia tries to calm her patients with a soothing stroke,

but she is a lion to them, this lovely girl down

on all fours, speaking to them in kitten voice,

before she scolds them that if they don't hurry

and get on the pink envelope raft they'll all

be "burnded" for life.

A Tourist’s View of Depression

 

I look at my ancient spiral with curiosity now

like it is an animal

in the zoo, a cobra

or black mamba,

 

a reptile with refrigerated blood

and iced yellow eyes, needled pupils,

loops of motionless rope, captured,

displayed like art,

framed in safety glass that the sign says

not to tap.                                                                                     

 

I don’t want to tap the glass

as if I’m giving a greeting knock

on a neighbor’s back porch screen door,

a heads-up that I’m coming in

(hope you’re dressed)

with the tomatoes and squash from

 the garden, ripe and good looking

that will just go to waste if

you don’t take them,                             

seeing as how I’ve canned

a few dozen quarts already        

with all that good rain we had in June,

and you know my Tom can’t eat tomatoes

cause the acid makes his mouth

break out in canker sores.

 

No, I won’t tap the glass.

I’ll break it, throw a rock through it,

shatter it with bullets! I’ll drag the son of a bitch

out into the street naked and humiliated

like he did to me, I’ll make him

snake belly crawl and beg for mercy

which I take to mean “cut off my head”, 

 

but not before I make him look into the eyes

he thought he had slammed shut,

and I show him where his fangs drilled

the holes and filled the well,

the wound where love attached its mouth

and sucked the venom out.                           

 

 

 

 

Eyes of a Deer

                         

Four buzzards pick at the carcass

of a small deer on the side of Concord Road.

This is Brentwood, for Christ’s sake;

not the Serengeti.  We are not in the land

of cheetahs ripping open antelopes.

We’ve got sensitive children here, kids who

stare out the windows of late model cars

in route to designated times and parking lots

for visitation hand-offs.

 

What if the light is red and Staci has nowhere to look

but to fur, bone, blood, and organs?

 

Wasn’t it bad enough that she had to

undress

sleep (try)

wake-up  

in a room charmed

by someone else’s princess?

 

Stuck here surrounded by the rival’s wall color,  

snooty pose photos with friends mocking her

from the dresser mirror, prettier clothes

in the closet and drawers, real jewelry,

bed full of stuffed animals and skinny Barbies,

this black-haired mean daughter of his Dad’s wife,

the woman who makes Staci afraid to move,

reminds her to flush this time.

 

The evil princess is at her real Dad’s

house till tomorrow afternoon when she'll

return to the castle, slam doors all the way

to her chambers, come out and tell the Queen's

toad that his daughter has once again

stolen her favorite earrings.

 

 

Staci knows that every other Friday night and

Sunday afternoon she is part of a

nationwide exchange program. 

She wonders what it would be like

if the 1^st and 3^rd weekend families

all met at the same place like a huge flea market of

knock-offs and markdowns. 

Or if it rains maybe they

could meet at the big library downtown where

Dads can check out a kid

for a weekend or part of the summer, and

return them by the due date.

 

I just know it, Staci is gonna stare

at that gore by the highway, not be able to look

away, and she’ll feel

four o’clock’s hot buttered popcorn

stir and spit in

her volcano belly but won’t say

anything cause Mom will say, “Your Dad

doesn’t know how to talk to you so he

just takes you to movies.”

 

When Staci thoughtfully blows into the lap of her

new jeans instead of the plush interior,

her mother will cuss in thunder

and the hand of lightning will

strike a small tree. 

Drive Thru and Keep Going

In case they rise before I return

I leave a yellow post-it note on the

microwave for Trevor and Cameron

 

I’ve gone to get sausage biscuits

 

It’s implied that I’ll return.

It’s not far so I’ll be back soon.

Sausage biscuits are a dollar each. Drive thru,

   easy mission. 

 

But what if I told them I’ve gone

to rob the bank at 31 and Buckner,

change religions, or run off

with the dental hygienist who listens .

 

What if I fill my tank at the Shell station, get a

Pepsi and some beef jerky and drive

to Florida, maybe slip into Daytona

and find my Mom’s ex-fiance,  an early

retiree from Exxon who once sent a card

to my hospital room, telling me if I interfered again

something worse than kidney stones

would happen to me.

 

I could go there, find his smart ass beach cottage,

sit on the doorbell, stand on his welcome mat, and

pull the spring back on my fist. 

 

I’d hear him inside

coming closer, cussing all the way, coming closer, 

closer to judgment, nearer to the taste

of blood swirling around his teeth and tongue,

     he the prick on the verge of learning what it means to

under-estimate a man,

 

a kid who grows up, and remembers                                                                                                                                being given a bagged set of golf clubs,

taught how to play, finally hits a few greens at Hillcrest,

is fine with this guy marrying my Mom cause

he makes her happy and

grills burgers thick as pin cushions

on Saturday nights at his place. 

 

She didn’t share his dream of leaving Carolina hauntings

for artificial beach life.  He blamed me for that. 

  

He’ll open the door mad, start to say what-the-hell but

something about me will look

familiar

and I’ll finally see him as the scared one,

 

scared, bent with a turtle shell back

curling inside old man clothes, gray stubble

on slack jowls, a broken fence of

yellowed pickets, age spotting

his face and holding him there

till I arrived

with biscuits.

 

I’m a Pendulum At 6:47 a.m.

I lie here suspended

 

            b

            e

            t

            w

            e

            e

            n

two                worlds

 

 

                    inhaling/exhaling

                          between

fully asleep                        fully awake

 

 

                           swaying

               between

motionless                              movement

   

stumbling about inside the 9-minute interval

                between

snooze                   alarms

 

I shift my body and the tides blink

                     from

low                                           high

high                                          low

 

I float along in the hour's channel that

                        divides

             the separate entries of

Trevor                                        Cameron

                   into our room

                   on school dark mornings

 

 I'm hovering somewhere between then/now

                         blurring the lines of

remembering                                 forecasting

 

falling

h

e

a

d

l

o

n

g

                     into the canyon between

 

acceptance                                          longing  

 

 

and more longing                

How to Make a Vodka Smoothie

for a neighbor 

 

I rinsed the blender for a breakfast smoothie.

To the juice mixture

I added honey, an overripe banana,

and frozen blueberries picked from

the Ashton’s farm this summer—two weeks

to the day before Stephanie’s diagnosis.

 

To thicken I added two large dollops

of plain yogurt,

and the x-rays,

her missed days from school,

the pathology report --like a news bulletin

about a wildfire spreading without resistance

through the California wine country,

 

the brush stroke of colorless on a wife’s face, 

the phone call to grandparents who aged

while on the line, the hospital gown,

the sheets, the tubes, the pillowcase

with the blood stain,

the neurologist’s poker face, my third drink

in an hour, pieces of busted drywall,

fragments of sleep, her first grade picture,

 a soccer trophy,

 

auburn hair falling like leaves

straight down in breathless air,

encircling the trunk

in its wreath--a nervous bride’s wedding dress 

released,

surrounding her feet,

 

the feel of a smooth small hand

wrapping itself

as a gentle tourniquet around

my fingers lest I bleed to death

from a helpless hand.

 

I tossed in a few seedless grapes,

a strawberry from the garden, a rose

from the garbage, capped the brew,

hit puree, and the blades

disappeared into a froth of heaven and hell.

Morning Breath

Maybe it was a delayed reaction to my viewing of the powerful film Meet Joe Black. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc0jb  Maybe it was my recent recommendation of the movie to someone else that stirred the film’s theme in my brain. In any case, last night during the twilight hours in my dream studio I was cast in a drama in which, like Hopkins’ character Bill Parrish, I knew that I had only a brief time to live. I was not diagnosed with any terminal disease, not even sick, and was not prophesied to have some terrible accident.  In the dream I alternately sensed that I had until the end of month and at other times was unsure if I had in fact already passed or was in some transitional state of passing from this life to the next.

In one scene I sensed that if I went to sleep I would not wake up. In another I sensed that my time was very short, that the end would come any moment. And I was frantic, not in a fear of death, but unprepared to leave others behind so unprepared. It is this scene that has stuck with me in the day’s waking hours, me the writer with volumes of books and journals penned and stacked, searching anxiously to find a small yellow pad of post-it notes so that I could hurriedly write a simple “I love you” on several pieces and leave them appointed by name for those closest to me. I begged a delay to my final breath, fearful that this important task would be interrupted.

It was in the midst of this furious scribbling that I awoke and noticed my heart quickened and breathing shallow.  It is not an easy thing to return to peaceful sleep when one has been rushing about, trying desperately to outrace his own mortality. 

This morning I feel the effects of my mad dashing during the night, the debris from poor sleep giving me quite a fatigue headache. But I am awake, alive, breathing. And grateful.  And those four will carry the day. Today those are enough

I Could Live Without Romance

In honor of Valentine's Day I'm re-posting one of my favorites....

I Could Live Without Romance

Sure, I could live without romance.                                                                                                                                         For centuries people lived without electricity,                                                                                                                    running water, or even walls to hold up a roof                                                                                                                   that could keep out the gods’ wrath.

Entire cities, heck,

some nations wring out a living

from their wet rags without

benefit of clean water, education

or professional health care.

 

I guess  I could live

without passion

if most people can live without poetry,

even if I can’t.

I can’t go a day without riding wild mares

with Billy Collins or

eavesdropping on Laura Kennedy's tryst.

 

Some people survive with

only one kidney or just

one good eye, or

with no feeling in their legs

 

More people than not somehow

have survived without ever tasting

Moravian sugar cake, or

a fresh peach so sweet

it doesn’t need sugar. 

 

Imagine

not hearing so much

as a single note of Mozart or

never making love  in candlelight

while guided by Vivaldi through

tastes and touches unknown to angels.

 

People have lived very productive lives

without ever having seen

Colorado in autumn when

entire slopes of aspens

spin their green leaves into gold.

 

I have it on good authority that

there are people right here

in Franklin who

have never tasted a really

good chardonnay,

people whose thirst for beauty can be satisfied

by trips to Gatlinburg.

 

So yea,

I could probably live without romance.

A life without the kind of passion

that makes me  spin around in circles

with my  eyes closed until I  fall

dizzy and spent

against her neck.

I could try living without all that.

IF you call that living.