The Dark ‘n Stormy

This tome, while a found remembory of Christine and I watching a New England Hurricane, from the safety of our porch, is dedicated to the peoples of Bermuda whom are getting a real one this weekend.
PS; like you don't know, The 'Dark 'n Stormy' is a drink popular with Bermuda yachters in inclement weather.

The Dark ‘n Stormy  (to the Vanaria Family, to who we are $500 grateful)

Two thirds a can of ginger beer
 two shots of back strap rum
By four o’clock I’ll have two more
 by five o’clock I’m done

  ‘Yesterday this hurricane was a cat three storm.’
  ‘Hon, this is New England, it won’t even be a cat one by the time it gets here.’
  ‘But a cat three, a cat one, the storm… it’s a cat!’

Behind our house the neighbors yard
  abuts ours ‘cross the way
They run a lawn and yard care co,
  so they’re out at work today

  ‘When that cat creeps in, will it be on tiny fog-feet?’
  ‘That’s Sandburg!’

We shared a snack of Frito Scoops,
  which we dipped in cottage cheese,
The latter which our cat Max licked,
  just as casual as you please

  ‘Max get away from that.’
  ‘With the wind coming in off the ocean, that makes this stawm a Naw’ Eastah!’
  ‘Should we color Naw-Eastah eggs?’

As we drank up on our safe porch chairs
  then the wind began to roar,
And soon, a soft rain pelted down,
  which grew to a downpour,

Which once then blew on Max our cat,
  as he ran in through the door

  ‘If there’s thunder I’m going in. Lightening can still strike here, even under a porch roof.’
  (She’s always scared of lightening)

 

I’m told that Barrits’ is the best,
  but that is rare to find.
So Goslings’ more than adequate,
 
‘You want another round?’
‘Another Dark ‘n Stormy?’
‘Thee Dark n’ Stormy!’

A stiff almighty wind blew hard,
  we heard a crackling sound,
Then boom and rush as it came down,
  and quaked the sodden ground

  ‘Holy Crap did you see?
  ‘A tree just fell!’
And a shocked moment later,
  ‘Did it fall on our yard or on theirs?
  ‘From here, it looks like half and half, but I can’t tell in this storm.’

The rain let up, the wind died down,
  our tempest tamed and calmed
Excepting gray clouds overhead,
 
 ‘The eye within the storm.’
  ‘Give me your phone, I’m going to take pictures of that tree, and then you can email it to the insurance.’

I’ll often choose the Kracken, spiced
 But Black Seal does the job,
A Domain de Canton shot too is nice,
  But right now I’m in the bag.

She got an email before bed,
  ‘They say that for a tree like that, they’ll pay one thousand bucks, but we have a deductible of the first five hundred bucks’
  ‘Five Hundred? Yeah, that’s good!’

Next morning we woke to the sound
  of a chainsaw grawing wood,
  ‘Look, theirs the neighbors hired guy…’
  ‘He’s hauling off our tree!’

Ka-Ching!
  ‘Baby, when the check arrives, just put it in the bank.’
  ‘What?’ 
  ‘Shhh! Money!’

Around Night Lake

I haven't been back to Lake Dunmore in more than two years.
I miss it.

Around Night Lake

Within her infinite black pool,
  mirror stars now bathe and cool,
From on her dock, on these dark planks
  I see headlights blare on her banks,
  who strobe and search enlightened trees
  that move in waves with black nights breeze,
I watch the lights, the curls they make,
  as circle they, around night lake

Upon her shores by this old dock,
  gay amber fireflies swarm and flock,
  they carelessly blink as they please,
  and jest with Nature at their ease,
As new mock Heavens now they make,
  on paths they teeming nightly take,
  as gaily dance they ‘round night lake

Miss Cameo Moon then lights for me,
  a flaming silhouetted tree
  as over the mountain now she climbs,
Ascendant in clear night she mimes
  her smiling lips, they purse for mine,
  our whispered thoughts, they rise and twine,
  we muse and court, she is too kind,
While loving faced, cool stars she rakes,
  as she processes ‘round night lake

Four loves my hand shall hold tonight,
  Miss Moon, Night Lake, Wee Stars and Sky,
As no wed man was ever loved,
  so gently kissed, so well thought of,
  as I’m seduced in glitter mist,
  by her below and they above
Yet lights shall pall, they ebb their glow,
  when blanket clouds begin to grow,

And lorn by dark, to sleep I’ll go,
  soon, to return, as a dreaming spectral visage,
  I radial lume my glisten shimmers,
  with starlight sparkling frission shivers,
Upon her lips cool waves I make,
  As round I go again,
    Night Lake

The Junco

Winter is still far off, today this is just my warm up.

The Junco

The Junco, he’s a ball of fat
  In feathers made of soot
His belly matches, white and chill,
  The snow under his foot

You never see him all the year,
  He never stops here by,
Until mid-Winter blizzards blow
  And snow is piling high

Then at your birdseeed he will peck,
  And squeak unmelodious songs
No others birds will come with him,
  To them he’s just all wrong

The Snowbird is his other name
  For that is when he shows,
Yet where is he the hot green year?
  I wonder where he goes…

To Iceland or the Arctic North,
  Where whither has he dwelt?
This frosty fellow sure is queer, 
 I hope he doesn’t melt…

The Alley Man

Last July (2014) in anticipation of the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, I read the Penguin Book of WWI Poetry, cover to cover. It also occurred to me that I ought to write something, in memoriam and commemoration, of all those who...

Also, having read Keegans History of WWI, I remembered, after the armistice, the descriptions of things French Farmers found in their fields, even into the mid 1920's.

The Alley Man
 (in honor of the centenary)

In the lean years there was no work in Paris,
  Non, rien
So I hired out to the summer farmer,
  who, these few years later, still toiled to reclaim his plots
  from the scythe and plow of the Great War

Upon his farm a new barn stood,
  but stumps stood for his country wood
He detailed me to posts and wire,
  as if, perhaps, at hun gunfire
  his goat might jump the fire step,
  her horns set forth as bayonets,
  and charge these hallowed fields once more
The farmer scoured his barren Earth,
  by plow and bony working horse
He’d trench a row, then wipe his brow,
  then turn and work another course
At times I’d see him stop, and thrilled,
  he probed and picked at what he’d tilled,
  and smile, as by a jewel enchanted,
  then brush off clean what earth had granted,
  which, once buried in his pocket, then,
He’d pull the horse’s reins again

Over lunch, of his cheese and bread and well water,
the Farmer showed me the relics he had found
‘You look at this, a bone of the jaw. You surely see the warring on these teeth, from years of grinding the rough Kaisers gruel.’
Then a much smaller one,
‘And, see here? A fragment, a bone from the arm. The Boche, they could not take the pressure, it was all to pieces they would go, under our French exploding shells!’
And then crudely joked
‘That is the funny, non? The bone, of the arm, the humorous, I make the funny bone, Non? You laugh later, Oui?’

Then he told me then about these fields,
  the horrors that each Spring they’d yeild,
  they used it as a potters yard
  for the Kaisers men they could not save,
  (or what was left of them)

 ‘The bones, they rise. I find them. Like the stones of a garden in Springtimes, the frost heaves them up. Stones they float, you know? Mud in Spring is much heavier. They rise to salute the sun in Spring. So do the bones.’

Before sunset we returned to the barn,
  unhitched and watered the horse,
He rinsed the plow, I set hey in the paddock,
Then he said
  ‘Now you see something
We climbed the climb ladder to the loft,
  which, like most post war barns was not full of hay
  where in the back a table and chair,
and … The Bones!
  like those from his pocket, they covered the table,
  sorted as if they were no more than an incomplete jigsaw
  that he planned to finish at leisure, perhaps in Winter,
  after the crop was in
Alongside lost buttons of brass and campaign ribbons,
  their valor forgotten,
  also mustered in their musty place

But My God! The chair!
  He’d tied bones to the chair!
Leg bones to the legs, arm bones to the arms,
  dirty broken ribs and vertebrae to the back,
  like a macabre column of old soup bones, for dogs,
And all bound in sinews and ligaments of twine,
  which suspended them in animation,
  with proud buttons and medals tied to the ribs,
  all present and accounted for
With atop this gruesome desecration; a skull,
  topped with the well tanned but decrepit leather and metal remnants
  of a Prussian pickelhaube

‘There he is, "Fritz", the "Alley Man."’
‘The what?’
‘Fritz? We call all the Bosche the Fritz!’
‘No, Alley Man.’
‘Allemagne.’
Then ‘He doesn’t talk much, Fritz.’

That poor ghastly face, comically bucktooth,
  had only several top teeth hanging down about the palate,
  he had no lower jaw.
My employer fumbled in his pocket,
  ‘Perhaps today, we make the complete’
As he held the jaw in place, he tied twine to one side,
  threaded it on through the ears, the skull,
  and tied off all tightly on the other mandible
‘Who knows, maybe even he speaks, yes?’
We watched as the jaw slowly dropped open.
‘Non, rien.’

Perversely we repeated this same joke on our grotesque puppet several more times,
Even though no unearthly ventriloquism ever came
So I proposed
‘We could set up that Ouija board before him, perhaps then we can read what he says.’
‘Ah, Oui!’
Done so, I set a disembodied fingerbone on its side,
  in the center of the board
  that it might roll with the storming winds that gassed this drafty barn

Over that summer, the farmer and I grew to be comrades,
  ‘Oh, mon bon amie!’
  and never was I mistreated, as if just a hired man
Daily after work we revisited the loft,
  we made many jokes at Fritz expense,
  but mostly to record his letters

One wet day, weeks later,
  he declared a Holiday, ‘Non la work aujourd'hui,’
  and we agreed also to make sense of all we’d tallied,
  to solve Fritz’s enigmatic letters,
  with paper and pencil
I did not find odd, it seemed no more perverse
  than to solve a weekend magazine puzzle,
  Fritz’ crossword, if you like

 Later, as the sun broke through the gray retreating sturm clouden,
  we read his dispatch thus;

THE FOLLY OF A TYRANTS PRIDE
IS WHAT HAS MADE ME NATIONS DIED

‘Poor Fritz, he was not to know grammar’

　

The Highlights of Summer

Who needs another poem about summer birds?
  Each warm day brings us new visitors.

The Highlights of Summer

The 11 to noon to two day sun
  is a mad place for man and dog,
  and the August cricket,
But the humid blaze of ol’ Summer Sol
  is no vexation for the goldfinch,
Whose piped black wings and lemon shine
  of yellow chiffon cream, 
  with highlight tints fluorescent green,
  capped by a jet black diadem
Outshines the source of brilliance itself,
  he begets spots before my eyes

I fought hard to raise this garden,
  nasturtiums, zinnias, beanpoles,
  and tall sunflowers in the years the Woodchucks didn’t eat gnaw sprouts
A neighbor, I concede, could not be blamed
  to mistake what I’d planted for a welfare garden,
  a green free lunch for our suburban pests
Although personally I do believe I’ve spent more time
  at fending off groundhogs, rabbits
  and all other Mother Nature’s beguiling fuzzies
  than actually tending to the flowers
   (welcome friend, to gardening)

Yet behold! These are for The Hummingbird,
  that emerald jewel of our New England summers,
  who poses as a painted angel
  while she sips the ruby blooms
  of their sweet tears of nectar,
  shed from each pistiled saffron eye,
  as she zigs, she zags, a flit flit flit she flies,
  then whoops off in a knowing line
  off to a neighbor’s bed divine

Until in time the season brings that ravager of a Summers end
  (oh yes, he’s been near all year round, but it’s just now that he’s come down)
The August Goldfinch King!

He flies in on a beeline from that place I don’t know where,
  and perches on a zinnia stalk, just below the head
He twitters to his love, unseen in her tree
  as he flexes his mighty neck sinews,
  his muscular bulging shoulders
And with a beak ruthless as any threshers flail,
  and without even a ‘hello’ to me
He sets to tearing at the bloody red petals,
  shucking them rough about my flower patch
  then hulling every black seed in the cone
Even at the shadow of a passing kite
  he takes no rest nor finds there reason
  to pause or break has task;
That of converting the pride of my flower barrel
  to a Valentine’s massacre of zinnia petals

Yes, these I grew for The Hummingbird,
  that blessed emerald jewel of our New England greens,
And from high on God’s view I dream
  I must be seen as comically mean,
  to have fended God’s own hungry ones,
  I’ve shooed His poor, them all away,
  while this rough ravager of a summers end,


Well,
  Yes, I welcome him

An August Hawk
  (for our times with Gus Ben-David)

Unwelcome is mid August,
  as the cricket chirping starts,
And our Robins of red breast,
  who sang cantatas to the blue sunrise,
  who for long summer days danced about our yards,
  gathering moustaches of wriggling worms
  to stuff in their begging young ones gape
  even after they had grown as big as their parents,
Have you noticed?
They have flown, all gone
  and lonely in the place of their chat
  sing just the white noise of green grass cicadas

It drapes an autumn pall to see
  what for common knowledge we mistake,
Birds never fly North in Summer,
  they learn to follow for it, that collective annual odyssey
  for which they flock in January
More the pity, none go South in winter,
  the young must learn fly for it

In a seasoned adirondack, upon an autumn deck
  I was chilled by an angry screeching sound,
  a sound most people hear only on TV 
  as a Bald Eagle flies by
I assure you,
  no reputable Haliaeetus ever screeched like that
  for none of their pride would ever demean to be mistaken for what I heard 

That, to my birding ear, was one rusty crank,
  an elder righteously pissed off red tail hawk
  who, like an antique New England Farmer
  with his practiced Yankee swears
  was sounding off at someone, and quite rudely about it

I spied him on that bald a dead branch,
  his perk chest feathers puffed,
  hump shoulders meanly ruffed,
  and his face a scorning mask as he yelled again
‘Key-Yaarhhh!’

At whom in a backyard tree, I heard
  ‘peeped’

She’s begging
  I see it every year
Needy in her time of trial, she found one whom might hear her plea
  as if to say, ‘Uncle?’




I pity you, young Hawk,
  you never read about migration in school
  the parents you knew, who once showed you all
  who fed you since the egg,
They have flown, and you’re alone,
  grown, yet abandoned with the mind of a bird child
That common knowledge, the instinct,
  was not what you were taught

Can one balm the cruelty
  of a one once welcomed stranger?
We all learn

Watching me, watching her,
  and having seen enough to despair of the both of us
The rustic old raptor jumped off,
  winging on towards the Southward glow, where
  his crow plucked tail blended to the sun’s decline

I plan to buy new leaf rakes!

Yet hours after hours, even past the dusk
  I heard the fledgling beg,
  to the quiet trees, the passive clouds
  and all the neighborhood’s closed doors

No one answered her

The Luna Mist

The Luna Mist
When first I started writing this, I didn't intend it to be so Pirates of the Carribean-y.
But yes, it does help to read it with a Captain Barbarrosa voice.

The Luna Mist 
Unfurls the moon her high Earth rakes,
  she sails the nightly sky
Her cruise a silent waveless trek
  the zodiacal she ply
And don’t ask if she frigate be
  or could she be a bark
She’s a pallid powdered bloodless corpse
  a’fore the diamond dark

Excepting tarred and chapped deck hands
  there’s no Man in the Moon,
And as all ships, even them men named,
  her troth you’ll learn too soon,
That hulks a Grand Seafaring Dame
  not found on scrolls of fame
The Luna Mist, by blackfate kissed
  God fear you know her shame
There be no port she calls a home
  in olde world or in new,
A cursed Flying Dutchman, she
  a lorn, a curst, a scorn

She’ll cut a broadside when she’s full
  as once a month she’ll do,
A left or right lee crescent when
  she’s bow or stern to view,
As she runs the fires of hell
  she cuts right through the sun!
Where she’ll discharge her spectral crew
  to the Devils forge and chains
And next could she return for you
whence thirty days have reined?

From Earth it’s plain the sun does rise
  the stars they timely set
And gravity, as one can see
  from Earthly force begets
For Faith and Science I see proves
  it’s not our World that moves,
The Heavens stroll in fixed grooves
  like clocks divinely let

May I feel smug on God’s green Earth?
  here’s Heaven plain to me
And I am sure I’d not prefer,
to sail that Luna Sea,
Yet when Soul’s sundial’s shadow’s long
  may be that purgatory,
To haunt Miss Luna with chapped hands
  condemned upon night’s sea?

No Song Sparrow

No Song Sparrow
Prologue – For no reason I can fathom, I woke this morning with a song on my mind.
Coffee on the porch, and then…

No Song Sparrow
Upon a bird bath   on our lawn
  a sprite Song Sparrow lit
He drank a taste   and turned his waist
  but never did he sit
Then I could see   not like was he
  adorned as other birds,
His rump was rounded,   in a stump
  no tail in other words

I asked him
  Happy Song Sparrow,   tell
  me of what do you sing?’
He said
  I have no tale to tell,
  no story do I bring,
I fell out of the sky one May,
  a brown and striped thing,
I’ll return back   on high one day,
  a simple gracious being,
But of the time   these dates enfold,
  a life time in between,
I have not got   a tale to tell
  I can’t sing of a thing.

He took off on two splashing wings,
 our discourse at an end,
I watched him rise up to the skies,
  then to a tree he wend

For tho’ he did   not sing a note
  while he stood in our dish
Yet by my word,   I loved that bird,
  what burdened he, my wish
For he knows no   affairs of Man
  how we keep our estate
Tho’ for his simple   minded care
  a few short years his fate

He was a bird, and in a word
  a better man than me,
Yet as a man, I’ve time to plan,
  Corrupted as I be

Patrice

Yes, 2008 was 6 years ago, yet I really do still have dreams like this.
 
PatriceAct One

I still have dreams about Patrice,
Telephone service call stress dreams,
Where clients make irate demands,
Then new trainees won’t follow plans,
And none of my solutions stands
When management barks on down me
Unreasonable commands

But you don’t know Patrice.
She was a big girl, a Southern city belle tower,
  and no broad shouldered simple brick shithouse either.
Of class, all steel and stone and opaque glass windows,
  she stood double digit stories at the corner of Broad and Cash,
She was so high a handy mans spirit level proved her swagger.
  as she cast her ominous shadow over the race for cash,
  that rat race that scrambled on below.

She was a multi service consumer bank,
  with a step back block head
  and antenna wire hair.
In a mumu.
That was Patrice.

Her stature daily would wax and wane
  by the inflating or deflating bids and calls
  of the options and mortgage traders of Wall Street.
On good days she stood tall at $ 57/share,
  such as when another lessling merger would 
  send crawling new vassal craven offices
  whole floors mounting and scandent up her outer walls.
Sometimes they were grafted on,
  but often just consummately masticated
  into her great conglomerating halls.
Yet on a bad day, say when profits missed,
  she could crash diet all the way to $ 52/share,
  a dance of binge and purge driven by
  the ask and ask with no bid and ask again
  of those same black and white computer keyboard minstrels of Wall St. 

Of course, eventually, at that price, with the weak hands out,
  all trustworthy brokers on the street knew she was value priced, and,
  while tardy but business punctual, would press those bids of assurance again,
  and Patrice, like a weight lifter pumping iron
  would once again raise the bar back to her mean, her price,
  at $ 55/share.

A trustworthy broker, you ask?
We thought them trustworthy.
We trusted them.
We trusted them to be brokers.
We weren’t oxymorons at Patrice.

Yes, really, we did.
We all talked like she was alive.
Often answers to tough issues were
‘We’ll have to ask Patrice,’ which meant
  everyone involved didn’t want to be,
  all of us feared ever decide a damn thing.
Thus, ‘We have to bump it up to Patrice,’
  meaning that corporate home office,
  where also either no one had the authority to make a decision,
  or those that did didn’t want the responsibility and pushed back,
  irresolute in their suspensiveness, with a timid
‘Well, I think we’ll need a little more information on that.’

And there from comes that horned bed bug,
  that diabolic insect who knaws
  my nightly slumberous thoughts, twisting
  my unresposing sleep into those horrid dream stress top knots.
  by her boring earworms of scorn, 
  and her sursurrant wet willie tongue, such, even now,
  still, in my sleep, murmurs Patrice.
In a mumu.

Intermission - (don’t get up)
Act II

You may ask, what were her business plans?
Patrice’s drug of choice was usury,
  and the worse it got the more she’d need
  and the more she’d need the worse it got,
  until no fix could fix her fix.

As no borrower of reasonable means would pay her fees,
  she sent her minions to missionize in the ghettos,
  where the underclassed crawled on knees
  and mendicated "Missy Please,"
  to monetize their racing rat subsistence.

To push her plan we waived her fees,
  we would take zero down with ease,
  and postpone compound interest ‘till
  they were compelled to borrow again
  to cover the deferred interest bill.
Then that’s when we'd offer the payday loan…

All scrambling just to pay up on the first.
  which all just made all problems worse.

From there we fed Patrice just like any junky.
She was a wheeling dealing dervish
  lost in debts death tornado,
  for with the more easy loans we wrote,
  the more her credit ratings swirled,
  and then street spooks wrote revised reports
  on the outlook for our troubled girl.

A meeting of the directors was called,
  all the board just shouted around,
"…We need more cash to boost our margin… "
"…We need to cover all the failed loans we wrote…"
"…Which means we need to write more loans…" 
"…Which means our ratings will continue to plummet…"
"…Which means putting more pressure on our margins then…"
"…Which means… we need…"
(all together now)
"…MORE CASH…!"

If Patrice had been a dog she’d a et her tail.

And then, one crisp fall morning, on the first of the month,
  a borrower, whose name was Eponymous Note,
  was asked by his banker, ‘Can you pay?’
And he coughed.
Not yes, not no, Mr. Note just coughed.

Seconds later, through the electronic lightspeed of program traders
  New York heard the cough, and the traders pressed the ask.
Patrice’ great stature quickly slid, 
  forcing more to cover and so press her on the wane,
  untill soon, by Friday noon,
  she was waiving her arms and heaving to,
  like an inflatable waving arms sales puppet,
  not tumbling, but orderly sliding irretrievably down
  the pig slop sloping trough of financial disrepute.

By 1pm we were shocked to see,
  on a flashquote quote – it was her!
Dimute, mousely, nearly shrouded in the pink sheets, it was her!
I yelled aloud ‘It’s her, Patrice, quoted at 69 cents per share!’

I think we could not think despair,
I think we just not thought,
We stared.

By 2pm a Fed matchmaker had flown to town,
  and quick a shotgun suitor was found.
He was a west coast conglomerate, named Colossus-Midas Group,
  who, in a perverse reverse dowry,
  offered $ 1.69 a share for his vitiated bride.
And the auctioneer banged ‘Sold.’

Colossus-Midas, known by us as ‘Mr. Group,’
  determined quickly he could not turn underwater mortgage holders
  and the over stretched paycheck junkies into gold,
So, with disdain for our former ‘clients,’
  he strode roughshod over those neighborhoods and municipalities,
  stamping foreclosure notices on the overdue borrowers
  blocking their sun with his titanic shadow
  and left them all pinched out,
 without even the hope of a paycheck loan when we closed the payday shops.

Next, Colossus-Midas strode over us to,
  having met with his ‘integration’ team,
  our operations were merged with theirs,
  which meant they merged our work with theirs
  and promised us good references.

And as for her? Patrice?
You must understand, now she’s very short.
So small, in fact, a CEO’s son mistook her for an action figure,
  until his Dad told him,
‘She’ll see no more action, Son.’

Nevertheless, today still she shows up daily
  for work at Colossus-Midas each weekday morning,
  indignantly punctual at 8:30.

And her boss is that same CEO, where,
  in his office, between a glass shard sales trophy
  and a playskool toy helicopter, which,
  on last years ‘Take Your Son To Work Day’
  was left there by that very same CEO’s son,

there,
  antenna crestfallen,

Patrice sits,
  on a shelf,

In a mumu.

Cats have places

Don't be fooled by the picture of Fluffy.
This secret was revealed by Max, who has his place in the dining room, before the cabinet where I keep my Brandy.

Cats have places

Cats have places that they go
Some where we don’t, some where we know

Those secret pockets on the floor
Behind a chair, hid by the door

Would I could so sequester me
When pesters tell me who to be

Could I would hie my secret shelf
And find whom I’ll be by myself

Six Bouquets

I've been working this one, on and off since October.
Let's hope with time and rewriting, and composting, something worthwhile may come.


Six Bouquets

A remembrance of a picnic day,
  Springs timeless scent of flowers,
Wild daisies and monkshood, you stood,
  in a dirty old milk bottle,
Which, with chafed hands you braided
  Into our new love’s wattle.

‘It’s just a mat of dried old flowers.’
‘That was your first bouquet, when you ever met me."

Cream pastel roses, held by hand,
  your matching boutonniere,
they complement my spotless dress,
  and accents in my hair,
which my chaste hands forsook, once blessed,
  and tossed to sisters fair.

‘They’ve turned all brown.’
'That was my bridal bouquet, beautiful, I held it on our wedding day.’

Twelve scarlet reaching tulips whom
  you beg me bend and kiss,
each petal pursed in a cupids bow
  a token of our bliss,
And future, these, and our years past,
  of which we reminisce.

‘They’ve been pressed in this book for ages.’
‘They’re still my sweet Valentine!’

All baby blue and tightly rolled,
  it’s plain that flowers they are not,
five bibs, three cloths, a blanket, and
  a onesie, in a pot,
ten woolen faux fleurs given for
  the breath our baby’s got.

‘He wore those out before he was two, or else we gave away.’
‘They were a lovely present, a blessing when our son was born.’

You woke up Sunday morning, and
  crept out, like all you men,
you picked and bought them, and that card,
  bringing our son along, and then
you made him give me them.
  Now listen boys, I know!

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And he grew up and moved out years ago.’
‘But I do miss my mothers’ day bouquets.’

 A double ended lily spray,
  fern trimmings laid with lace,
by neither flute nor vase were bound,
  but gleamed by heavens grace,
though they were lain upon the ground,
  when you laid me to rest.

‘Well, now they’re cemetery trash.’
‘But you did, you laid them on my grave.’

My Dream of August 5th

My Dream of August 5th
(in awakening to the centenary)

After marching to the front
  We began at digging trenches,
  Six foot was deep enough.

In the morning we mustered for target practice
  with the Bosche, who marched faster and shot straighter than we,
  and earned their winning score.

So we went first.
  Ten of our men lay down where they’d dug,
  and ten more of us without ceremony buried them,
And our Mothers cried, and our Nation mourned,
  for who shall first expire of boys?

Then next the Germans took and lay down ten of theirs

  in their own earthen works,
  with ten more in their turn to bury them
And their Mothers cried, and their Nation mourned,
  for who first shall expire of boys?

Upon our right we met brown Tommy,
  who joined us in the digging game,
And their Mothers cried, and their Nation mourned,
  for first who shall expire of boys?

From east at the Swiss border, to Lux and Belge,
  and even in the channel at low tide,
  then back again, and back again,
  and back again,
 the wonder,
  of who shall expire first of boys?

From Algiers and Egypt, India and ANZAC,
  even pasty doughboy Joe arrived by boat
And all Mothers cried and the whole earth mourned,
  for hoping,
  of whom shall expire first of boys.

Her Father’s Rose

(author's note - this explains my hatred for gardening.)



By June the grass is long

The lawn is also spotted with those weedy flowers
Which I call mo-be-gones, ‘cause once I mow they’ll be gone

I let the grass grow, I love to let it grow
Until the grass stalks and the seed tassels waive high
As American amber waves in the wind,
It’s then that mowing grass saves me
From buying grass seed from stores,
From the sin of reseeding the lawn,
Why scatter God the Farmers good seed
When this simple honest lawn reseeds it’s self?
Or, you’re right, perhaps that’s just my excuse for being,
  I’m lazy

Her Father used to mow our lawn twice monthly
Whether it needed it or not
But grudgingly, as if with nature
He’d set an unnatural score,
And I didn’t envy him those
Scratches on his arms and neck
I never understood just how can
A man cutting grass so hash up his arms?

"Are my Fathers roses in bloom," she asks me,
"My Father clipped clip a rose from that bush for my Mother everyday, whether sick, or well, or,…"

"You mean in the old garden patch?"
"I guess, but clipped flowers don’t bloom as long,"
"They’ll be happier to stay in sun and on the vine."

"My Father used to say that, but then he said he found religion."
"You could clip me a, later, if you think of it."

"I could, but then their petals will drop."
I did not know it, but later I’ll tell her
"After that, I’ll gladly take my revenge."

So I mow the yard
His rose bush is waiting,
Spooning an arch over the grass walkway,
Conceitedly just waving fro, not to, just fro.
As I pass the mower under her trip wire arms
She turns her thorned arms on me
Winding tendrils round my arms
And scandant for my shirt and neck,
With feral spurs she pulls me in, scoring
By a final vicious touch - she spikes my forearm

"Ah! Fuck you rose!"
"Cut that out or I’ll mow the lot of you, Don’t think I won’t…"
"Fuckin’ attack bush!"

I press on mowing more laps around the summer lawn,
While the sun and the poppy aromas of mown grass
And 2 stroke engine smoke conspire to exhaust me
Soon my wounded pride and painful battle scars subside,
Yet there is a cool wet running down my arm,

Blood, red blood
Blood, red blood, red as her feral rose petals,
Blood, red blood, and painless as finding an engorging tick, deceiving,
Blood, red blood, as if I ought to curb the mower,
  and wash this up before it stains my gloves and clothes,
Blood, red blood, and blood ready
  for that unholy conversion of my once Christian and sympathetic heart

She asks me "What Happened?"
"That bush attacked me. Look at the blood!"

"Ooo!, that looks like it hurts. You could trim it if you wanted to."
And now is that later when I tell her
"After this, I’ll gladly take my revenge."

With a blunt rusted shear I clipped
An innocent sprig standing in the sun,
And then another for its lover,
As an example to stand and atone with the first
Before my judgement of cold blood,
Then I tried this gory bouquet by
Standing them in a short glass mug with tap water

The Romans called it decimation
They made no last requests

"Here baby. Bloom of the Rose that bit me."
"Oh, they’re beautiful!"

Echoes of That Ol’ Damn Fool Owen

I Knew A Man with Dish Pan Hands

This is certainly nonsense, But as I spent an afternoon hashing it out it just HAD to be typed up, and now YOU HAVE TO READ IT!
And if, after reading this. it still seems like nonsense, well, that’s your problem.

I Knew A Man with Dish Pan Hands 
     (for Keith Knapp)

I knew a man with dish pan hands
  Who travelled here from Turkistan.
You say a man from Turkistan
  Can here with dish pan hands?
That’s what I understand.

Why did this man from Turkistan
  Come here with dish pan hands?
To work upon the land.
This man with dish pan hands came here
  To work upon the land?
That’s what I understand.

What means had he, this man came here,
  With dish pan hands from Turkistan?
A legacy of a demand.
A legacy from a demand?
That’s what I understand.

What plans had he, this man who came
  From Turkistan, with dish pan hands,
  The heir to an estate demand,
  Who came to work the land?
He had great plans this curious man
  Who came to work the land,
  From Turkistan, with dish pan hands
  Or so I understand.

Explain what came of his great plans
  This man who came from Turkistan
  And on and on and and and and….
  That I may understand.
He tried and failed to work the land,
  This man who came from Turkistan,
  The heir to an estate demand
  And on and on and and and and…
  And so, you understand?

How failed he, to work the land,
  This man who came from Turkistan,
  This heir to an estate demand,
  And on and on and and and and…
He failed to work the land, this man
  From Turkistan, despite his plan,
  And on and on and and and and…
  For when he took the plow in hand,
  He found the plow he could not man.
  He could not man the plow this man,
  That’s what I understand.

Why not?
'Cause as I’ve said, and on and and…
  This man had dish pan hands.

Shadow Tricks

Special, a new post for anyone who's just received their JKB Newsletter,
And a gracious shout out to all you Skidmore Theater geeks, whomever you is;


Shadow Tricks

My Shadow tricks in puckish fun
When we play out in the brightest sun
At work, at play, even Sunset
His mocking me is not done yet

My Shadow is phobic with doors
For crossing them he just abhors
When I go in, him I won’t see
He pouts outdoors, and vexes me

At night, from on the welcome mat
I’ll call to him, like he’s a cat
By star or moon he’ll glow and fade
About the yard, wisps of night shade

But most nights he is never seen
And I do not know where he’s been
Yet when by bed I turn my lamp
Then there he is, that gibeling scamp!

My shadow’s first crawled into bed
Before me, now, still as the dead
My Shadow Imp! Where have you been?
Damn Shadow Imp! Who let you in?

Mother’s Day, (or A Poem only a Man Could Write)

Spent the afternoon reading Shel Silverstein.
I know it needs a re-write, but today is the day... !


Mother’s Day, (or A Poem only a Man Could Write)

Some think that Mother’s day is for
Their sweet ol’ Mum to take a rest
But actually it is really meant
To put you children to the test

Can you make breakfast early?
Can you wash all these clothes?
Can you wrap Mama’s present
In bright paper and bows?

Can you reserve a table
For a family of six
And then when it’s time
For the bill, pay the checks?

Mom’s don’t rest on their day
They just think of the toil,
And all of the things that
You’ll probably spoil

It's not if you’re able
To succeed or to fail
It’s more sort of Mom’s way
Of on the job training

You see, Mothers’ don’t rest
When it’s their special day
They’re attentively watching
As you take the Mom test

For all Mothers’ know
That time will have it’s way
And that they will all be
A Grandmother someday

And when you test your kids,
Then you’ll love Mother best.

Trumpets of the Spring

Another poem which needs to be posted while it's still in season.
Anyone with a suggestion on how to improve the last line is welcome - comment either here or on Facebook.

Trumpets of the Spring

Sing, You Trumpets of the Spring,
You welcome seasons warm,
Where bird and bug and beast return,
Paroled from Winter’s arms

Blow, You Trumpets of the Spring,
To North from blustery South,
With clean air fair, you toss my hair,
Refresh my stagnant heart

Dance, You Trumpets of the Spring,
In winds that dry night’s dew
Your blooms held high, by green leaves fly,
In place as Worlds turn new

Tempt, You Trumpets of the Spring,
With scents and pollens pure,
As humble bees attend to thee,
Your virtue is assured

Fade Now, Trumpets of the Spring,
With tears of April showers,
Your lovers have Tulips to kiss,
Don’t overstay your hour

Withdraw, You Trumpets of the Spring.
Stay shy of Summers flare,
From Fall which leaves us Winter’s chill
And turns the green Earth bare

Who is not dead, who does not live,
Within her Goddess’ womb?
Next Spring, she’ll birth you once again,
Dear Natures’ herald Flower.

The Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

What does the internet need, more cat poems?
I'm glad to supply.


The Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

She had a blanket, old and worn,
From which a terror would be born.
It’s pile, delicately shorn,
Was colored in the stripes, and scorn,
Of the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

It had once hung upon the wall,
Eight foot by four did those claws sprawl,
She took it down late it the fall,
And laid it in a closet stall,
To hold the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Our cat adopted liked to sleep,
Upon an armchair that we keep,
Where sheddings piled like kits asleep,
And far to deep for hand to sweep,
Need we the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan?

"I’ve got that blanket," she did say,
And so we pulled him out one day,
His face and claws foretold foul play,
More fearsome far, than I can say,
Was the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan 

We laid it over that armchair
At first our cat seemed not to care
Of why we might have put it there
But he liked it when he did repair
To the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

One night, while climbing onto there,
He pulled it straightly taut and square,
It formed a tent over the chair,
Which gave him space to climb in there,
The lair of Olde Shere Khan

As our cat slept, as all cats do,
He would somnambulently mew,
These fearsome feline rumblings grew,
And it appeared to breathe anew,
Resurrected, Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Our kitty, in his awesome chest,
Did not just sleep but soul invest,
Now here is Shere Khan manifest
With growlings in his angry breast
That despot, Olde Shere Khan

Will he hunt me, like Mowgli,
So he may be a King, singly?
Those eyes have voice now, and I fear,
It’s best we move away from here
Far from here,
And the Pelt of Olde Shere Khan

Dinner with Jim Rossi

Today, while nursing a hangover and after reading Frost, I remembered  conversation I had with Jim over dinner last February


Dinner with Jim Rossi, or
A Story from a Saturday Night

"Oh that’s right, they used to serve wine, and cheese, in the spa!"

I once found Sue Fuller sitting in the Spa

Two two glass plastic bottles
   of a pale Chablis
Were all that kept her far from me

And, cut by plastic knife, a Gouda cheese
  Wrapped in red wax,
Which wax she warmed in her hands
   And she shaped and played with
   As she could with any man

"It’s no use to go downtown
With all those Union men around
It’s better that we just stay here
Where all our favorite friends are near."

Tall pale and blonde, she didn’t think it rude
To admit, for art class, she had drawn herself nude

And so we sat and drank ‘till eight,
But sadly I was not her date

In Veneration of the Cross

In Crucis Venerationem
In grave serene ceremony
On the best Good Friday last
Our Lem processed the solemn Cross
In the rite for which we’d massed

The Cross was made of saplings cut
One of six foot, one of four
Bound together with old twine wound tight
Short over long, a third way down

She laid it on the Chancel floor
She bowed to one adored
Others came and kneeled the same
In reverence to our Holy Lord

Then I approached this relic blessed
Mindful of it’s consecration
I kneeled and with a hand unstressted
I raised it high in veneration

As a Simon of Cyrene
I was glad to take the weight
And belleiving it was true to Rite
I raised it to a great height
That I might share and lighten His load
That I might carry His burden,
I preyed that it were mine to carry too

Dizzy, looking up in my own hands I saw
These simple sticks were no innocent token
But a grievous tool of a mighty oppression
An instrument of Rome’s tyranny by fear
As a stake to the martyrs of olde
As a noose and electric chair to the falsely accused
As a concentration camp to the undesirables of War
Or a white hood to the freedom riders for Civil Rights

I could bear it’s increasing weight no longer
As it slid down on my back
It sought my soul and will to conquer
And power to speak I lacked
My back sealed to a rod too stiff for breath

It hung my arms over it’s arms
Like a yoke across my back the Cross wore me
Intent to weigh me down in stifling subjugation

I wept for the pain of Death, and dying
In the abandoned torment of the cross
With friends and family helpless watching
I thought there all was lost

But though spare, my voice;
"Will you be martyred by faggots?"

Then finding a strength un-natural
I pressed against the rod, I pressed against the staff
I forced the cracking on the bar and then the splintering of the gaff 
Until they rent useless in my hands, overthrown and routed
There I split the Cross to kindling, pnuk and tinder on my knees

I broke the Rirtual that placed the Ritual above the Faith
I broke My Word that no new Word could be The Word
I broke the Faith that this Faith is mine and that Faith is yours
I broke the Law that made the Law above our Love
I broke the Truth that made the only Truth a Politic
I broke the Chain that Chained all of us to servitude
I broke the Contract that Contracted all of us to usury
I broke the Lease that Leased us back our own land
I broke the Mind that Minded what I’d just done
And I broke the Cross that Forswore our obligation
to our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters, our parents and our children
I broke it all, because I Love You. 

De Idefiance Lex Parsimoniae

If I have to name it as a style, I'll call it "Poetic a' Capriccio," which means simply "let's have fun with the meter and form." Also, helping out at Church can yield inspirations unintended.


De Idefiance Lex Parsimoniae
After Mass on Sunday morn
The "Building Committee," or Jon,
Addressed me with concern

"Can you help?"
"What’s gone wrong now?"

"Though it really shouldn’t oughta’
With a new roof on the tower
We have new ways it leaks water
Cause of last nights heavy shower."

Next we tread down in the basement
To a storage room unlatched
Where folding chairs and lumber scraps
Hid a mildewed carpet patch 

I tapped my toe upon it,
"Pish pish pish" grouched back the damp
In a further test I pressed down firm,
Left a whitish dry shoe Stamp

"Is it wet?"
"Look, my foot print’s filling fast."

Him again;
"Underneath this cement stair step
Is a steam pipe I think leaks,
I sure it is from a crack in here
From which this water sneaks."

"Looks dry to me."

"Tuesday, I’ve called a plumber in
To fix an upstairs sink
I’m sure that while he’s here he will,
Confirm it’s what I think."

That step rose to a door, which stuck
And cracked loud when it opened,
Which to my consternation hid
A crypt of desolation

Me;
"Does Dracula in sleep here?"

Stone dust and broken sheet rock planks
Shared my attention with the smell
Of seeping caverrns subterrean
And musty unctions dank 

"We’re under the tower?"
"Those are the steps up to the tower"
"Look at all this water, it’s seeping in through all the stone. It’s a wonder you don’t have stalagtites grown in here. Is it always like this?
"Always when it rains."

To me, the fact of his presumption
Defied an obvious assumption,
I saw that what one can’t debate
Just simply, clearly, I should state

"Take the junk to the dump
Drill a hole for a sump."

But his answer was a stunner,
"Easier, I’ve called the plumber."

WILLIAM The CONQUERER

When I'm lazy, our cat has always known how to knock that book or paper out of my hand.


William the Conqueror
Who's crouched behind my book back wall
Sursurannt on all fours
Is that you Will, with tail raised
As in heraldic colours

I dispatch missives, "Puss, puss puss"
With confidence I’m King.
Yet silence states you won’t discuss
You'll not parlay a thing

Extortion?
Yes, now that’s your game
With Kitty treats be tamed
Your feline senses I will ply
And catapult exactions high.

A march like crunching denotes something
But scratch scratch rumblings where you brood
Do not belie appeasement, but
A feral Burhham Wood!

On Guard!
Above the spine crease mid my book,
Rises a quinate paw,
Five grappling claws lodge in the crook
Campaign tools so medieval

O Awesome Kitt, Colossus Cat,
My volume you tear down
My castle wall and ramparts all
Defenseless too, I fall

Your charge would make King Henry pause
Crossing my novel draw
Which spans this token moat– my lap,
And I will no more scrap

Recumbent with naught to avail
I pray for heavenly rest
While you raise up your victory tail
Your flag upon my chest

Am I slain?
"Surrender!" with your eyes you purr
I must concede this siege of fur.

(A tickle on the ears)
"Hello William."