Together In The Moment

Together In The Moment

In the stark sanctuary of a Baptist church

in a back row, far from the grouted tiles

and grated drain of the baptismal pool I first

practiced the seventh element of the noble

eightfold path to Buddhist enlightenment,

mindful of the moment, aware of the pinched

expressions on the faces of the foxes that

tipped the ends of the stole draped around

the shoulders of the woman in front of me,

a look of sour disapproval that, in my

heightened state, I could detect on the

faces of more than a few in the choir loft

perched high above the congregation

arrayed in ranks of short grained wooden

pews that concealed a surprising number

of discarded lumps of gum, hardened Braille

my fingers read without comprehension. 

Perhaps the Beechnut Rosetta Stone stood

hidden among the hymnals in the neat racks

at knee level where I stashed that week’s church

bulletin after I had finished the disciple word

search and mentally checked the figures of last

weeks receipts against the week before that,

rounding up in a spirit of New Testament generosity. 

Watching my breath was easier said than done

as everyone around me, one by one, picked up the

rhythm and the melody of the hymn in progress and

I would catch myself watching you, trying to isolate

your voice, determine whether you were really

singing or practicing your own version of mindfulness,

a breach in discipline that no doubt accounts

for the association I came to make with you

and the hymn I Come To The Garden Alone,

a favorite of mine if only for the memory of the

sound of your voice half humming the tune in

our living room, absent a beginning or end and

most of the words save for while the dew is still

on the roses and the voice I hear as I tarry there,

delivered in your peculiar grainy tenor.  Maybe

this helps explain why I requested that hymn be

sung at the church before we left for the short,

perfunctory memorial at Bushnell and my sudden

rage when, instead, they played a hopped up 
recorded version on a dirty cassette ejected at the 
last minute from the tape deck of the music directors

Bonneville, a feeling incompatible with mindfulness,

a roiling muddy river that swirled around us, waist

deep, baptized, drenched to the bone. 

Day Takes Shape

Day Takes Shape

Today is shaping up to be

a regular roundabout

a dog chasing it’s tail

a roulette wheel

a rolling purple donut

even the skillet into which I stare

heats up

over a ring of blue flame

while I roll

two white eggs

in my hand

on the verge of

cracking them neatly

to keep the yolks

intact, yellow orbs

framed in white

on a black background

freeing me to smear

butter on disks of toast

everything contained on

a plate next to a cup

resting on a table

planes askew like a

Cezanne still life

a morning without edges

or corners or right angles

a day in which I will

simply hang around until

the circle closes

and I make the round

trip back to bed

where I will dream

my loopy ovoid dreams

Superbowl, 1964

Superbowl, 1964

A clash of the titans on Koontz street,

Opponents strung around the lopsided

circle scratched into the dirt with a

sharp stick

clutching drawstring sacks heavy with glass

grapeshot hefted with menace, the clicking

of tumblers falling ahead of an

unleashed war

of perrys, aggies, boulders, cats eyes,

plainsie’s, tigers and oilies, scorched earth

tactics, air split by the flat crack of the

dreaded steely.

Poem

Dawn Drawn Using the Reductive Method

Not the best view, from here in the front row

of the back room that juts into the yard,

but not bad, warm behind windows framing

blackened pictures, nighttime thickly rendered

in soft charcoal applied in quick even

strokes, warp and weft, worked deep into the tooth

by a careful hand with a feel for shape,

line and value, big forms blocked out first,

composition balanced, unified by

negative space, finger working quickly,

carbon loaded softened chamois bringing

out the mid tones, rhythm emerging, the

ragged edges of trees, bold oblique

lines of my neighbors roofs, details refined,

edits made with a range of erasers,

warm, pulled kneaded, sharp edged pink and

the pointy pencil modal, perfect tool

to highlight my gratitude for a brand
new day, yet another messy drawing. 

Elephant Dreams

Elephant Dreams

When I hear the name Maximo I think

of a particular elephant,

one born on a savannah somewhere,

a happy pachyderm, trunk skills somewhat

delayed but memory keen, a bit

of a rebel, he wanders off the game

reserve, is captured for his trouble. 

You won’t be surprised to hear the rest,

blindfolds, trucks, water from buckets, a dock,

a ship, the sea, a crane and miles of

open road, COD to a zoo

someplace, Europe maybe, Antwerp

let’s say, where our hero settles in,

a curiosity for delighted

knots of young Walloons and flaxen haired

Flemish kids, learning the lay of the land,

getting a feel for things, the dusty ball,

two or three wobbly barrels, the dichotomy

of inside and outside, endless pacing,

hoses, shovels, brooms and hay heaped high. 

Maximo, a name saddled unfairly

perhaps with unpleasant associations,

the bittersweet memories of a

Belgian transplant who dreams of empty

grasslands and wallowing in the mud

of distant water holes.

Building 20

Building 20

The original is gone,

leveled, erased so

I have designed a new one,

identical down

to the last nail through the last

asbestos shingle,

home away from home for odd

balls of all stripes, a

glorified shed with a roof

that leaks into pots

and buckets arrayed on desk

tops, syncopation

that sets our toes to tapping,

sends us into the

dim halls, lost, fingers popping,

rubbing shoulders with

pie bakers and bird watchers,

TIG welders and duck

hunters, blocked writers and moon

shiners, crackpots each

and every one, infecting

one another with

replicating viruses,

tearing down the walls,

blowing out the floors above

our heads to make room

for contraptions sprouting looped

octopus arms that

funnel phosphorescent soup

down to the café

where we meet cute, you and I,

the Noam and Carol

Chomsky of my new cut rate
version of Building
20, shrine of chance meetings.

Grace of Our Fathers

Grace of Our Fathers

My Grandfather wore the pants in the house,

a pair with a hole in one pocket through

which he would slide a hand and, in a feat

of manual dexterity, extend  

one gnarled index finger up and through the

fly which he had quietly undone while

leading grace, the rest of us, heads bowed, hands

clasped, eyes closed in silent reflection, save

for me, I must confess, my prayer a plea

to Him to steady the hand of this man

about to bless our Sabbath meal with a

trick so amazing I could not resist

one quick peek, his intentions telegraphed

with a twinkle of the eye, chair pushed back,

rising to utter a stentorian

Amen, waggling his erect digit at

the hungry multitude, punctuating

the benediction with a lewd salute.