Sunday, March 8, 2015

While you work



“Whistling”

Why tempt the devil, theater people
want to know right before they tell you
to go break a leg in a voice
that carries clear to the cheap seats, yet
to stand alone in the spot light
perhaps a pianist in the pit to accompany you on
The Fishing Hole from the Andy Griffith Show
is temptation too great to bear.  Grizzlies

out in Glacier National Park take umbrage
with chance meeting as they forage bear grass
speed, teeth and claws imbuing them
with a quiet dignity not unlike
Sir Alec Guinness in Bridge Over The River Kwai
I thought to myself as Colonial Bogey’s March
escaped my lips over and over again
years ago on Johns Lake Trail

trusting my tattoo to have the same effect
on the ursine as it does on the canine
the one I’m calling this evening to no avail
from the back porch where I stand
too old to learn how to pierce the night
by blowing air across a blade of grass
but old enough to know better than
to walk silent past the graveyard. 

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