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Preparations For A Michigan Winter

A man cleaned the gutters last week his truck

ticking in the driveway with a number

to call emblazoned on the doors above 

a website I didn’t visit below

and a little bit forward of ladders

I didn’t climb that bridged a bed I paid

one hundred and forty-seven dollars

to ignore all those nested five gallon

buckets nestled in blue tarps and leaf rakes

with missing tines and a Husqvarna

gasoline leaf blower capable of

generating wind in excess of two

hundred and fifty one miles per hour 

I barely heard over The Bill Evans

Trio from The Complete Village Vanguard

Recordings, 1961.  Somewhere

between “Waltz For Debby” and “Gloria’s

Step” I replaced the old furnace filter. 

Seasonal

November

Quiet here last night drinking in a waxing moon

our waning toasts to prim distance between lip and brim

draining color from muted coverage of election returns

the raucous, the red faced, rawboned and rearing

jubilant

drunk on a livid mash of jack in the pulpit berries

jaws working with poison while we read lips

until they merged into one lurid gash that lingers

on with our morning coffee, rims brined and bloodied.

I like it strong from the hand thrown mug

with sine wave runes where a handle should be

bitter despair discharged through the palm

of my hand to dissipate in a milky lens, the cataract

gaze of a soothsayer who’s seen it all before.

She mutters incantations, utter nonsense to ward off

old banality parading in new brown shirts

cackles worn platitudes about swinging pendulums

ending with a few bars of This Land Is Your Land.

She’s still singing when I step outside with the dog

As honest a ritual as you’d expect to find

On an early November morning, winter on the wind.

Happy Birthday, Sue

Birthday Greetings From the President

It’s what I get for procrastinating  

The President

Was unable to put his thoughts on paper

On such short notice but sends his best

In the form of a form letter on letter head

Befitting a man of his position, embossed

With his seal.  Can’t you picture the two of them?

Loosed in the Oval Office, heedless of the puddles

Fish sailing through the air, nicknames bandied

About (Ole’ Flipper McGee; Ole’ Bumasmoke)

Late night calls to McConnell and Boehner

The seal all business on speaker phone, the President

Gone rubbery, eyes crossed, anything to send

His whiskery pal into conniption fits, collapsing the two

Of them in a heap on the rug scattering beach balls

Taking turns nipping at the bulbs of tinny horns

Greeting Joe Biden with a lewd salute of musical

Blats and wet flipper slaps on the back.