Shutterbugs

Shutterbugs

We sit for the photo wetting our lips

you, eyes cast up in that way

you have, me forgetting to lower my

chin, dreading the soul draining

flash, turning my head to the left when I

hear right, captured nose to ear

in the dream I had last night, the final

scene in a strange film cut

by brooding chimps with racing minds in tire

swings, inspired perhaps by

a young woman framing a shot on the

street, my guess a student, hunched

and shrouded, man-handling her bulky big

box camera, sturdy tripod throwing

a water tower shadow.

A lot of trouble to go through for one

lousy picture, planted there,

a rock in a torrent of camera’s

all light as smoke, pretense thin,

sly viruses mutating in happy

hosts infecting each other

for posterity, stepping outside each

moment, half-life proof it had
not been one long inexplicable dream.

Poem

 She Lifts Fog

She

        took the lid

                        off

broke

        the seal

                        teased

out

        a bit of

                        fluff,

no

        nonsense

                        robin

working

        a stubborn

                        worm,

and

        in one

                        deft

flourish

        set us

                        free,

generic

        yearning souls,

                        expiration

dates

        stamped and

                        pending. 

                         

       

Medical History

Medical History

I believe it was Churchill who observed

history is written by the victors

delivered, one imagines, dryly with

a dash of pith, an ounce or two of gin,

the words clipped and formed in the space above

his derby-ed chalk hill dome from gathering

clouds of ominous blue cigar smoke, all

veddy proper, tickety-boo and all

that rot, a life insurance policy,

after all, read in a British accent

is boilerplate made sublime, all this

as I sit in this waiting room checking

off little boxes, dare I say, writing

my medical history, to be read

aloud in the event of my demise

by Englishmen, Bill Nighy perhaps on

the subject of my LDL levels,

Patrick Stewart breathing life into our

family's penchant for colon cancer or

Gary Oldham giving a dignified

reading from the list of male fore-bearers

to have toppled headlong over the pale

clutching their chests.  Perhaps Steve Coogan

or some surviving Python could coax a

chuckle at the expense of my total

hip replacement, snatching victory from

the jaws of inevitable defeat. 

Montana

Montana

If what I know of Montana was water, green

glacial run-off say,

it wouldn’t fill a juice glass,

a small one,

the kind you might find

at Pinky’s

in Livingston

having gotten

an early start

on your way to Glacier

by an indirect

route that takes

you past

Jim Harrison’s house

twice

a real flyer a heedless jump

off Turtle Head

Rock

into a chilly

Lake Superior,

a bracing yet

ill-considered act

for a man

your age, doomed

to regret

the path not taken a

day or two later on

Going To The Sun

road over

Logan Pass

convinced belatedly,

impotently,

a once in a lifetime opportunity had been squandered

back there in

Livingston,

nonplussed,

having passed

on the chance

to interrupt

a famously cranky

working

author and poet,

a Yooper with a shotgun

to keep

the rattlesnakes

at bay. 

March Hawks

March Hawks

Looking back on a tumultuous year

pockmarked by fevered madmen who shell

their own where they lay sheltered in a

tangle of fending arms and unheard prayers

or whore for votes, greedy preachers choking

cross-eyed on mouthfuls of hate and fear,

I gaze at the now empty nest framed

perfectly in the high window from the

vantage of the green chair, home last March

to a pair of hard working hawks, quiet,

unassuming birds who went about

the business of raising a family,

Atticus Finch personified with wings

and talons, wondering where they’d gone,

lamenting their absence, helpless against

the gnawing fear we had disappointed

them, viewed snug in our nest, mute bystanders

to the savagery of predatory saints. 

poem

De-consecrating St. Columban

A last Mass, a chord to punctuate the

end of the hymn, Eucharist removed, grim

organ harvest, body cooling, rendered a sad

empty vessel, an afterthought really

to the messy celebration of the

lives and deaths, beginnings and ends, joy and

pain, the song and dance, the sound of many

small bells rung together, droning Cessna’s

landing nearby on warm summer mornings,

front doors thrown open to Eton, Jack huge

in cassock and sandals, great bald dome to

focus our attention during countless

homilies or dancing with surprising

grace up the aisle to the alter, center

stage for him where he performed for us our

favorite scenes on a bare set, holding

babies aloft, tempering unholy

Church intemperance with humanity.

They’ll salvage the pews, rescue the stained glass

and puzzle over a priest who won’t leave

the stage, proclaiming the Mass continues.

poem

Learning to Ride

Now and then on warm afternoons,

wind variable, low on the

drop bars, cadence edited clean,

immersed in the fluid transfer

of force delivered through the

sweet spot where bone, flesh, alloy

and rubber mesh, senses trawling

a sea teeming with life and its

biding threats, I can still feel your

hand on the back of the seat, hear

your measured breath, feet slapping

the sidewalk in staggered steps, waiting

for the moment of letting go, you gasping,

planted, hands on knees while I recede,

pedaling furiously, beyond your grasp.    

I