The Thistle King

Who likes to see August Goldfinches tearing at the thistle plants? I do!
Of course as colder weather moved in, in revision this one became more about preparing for Winter than a celebration of late summer. Oops, oh well...


The Thistle King

The warm August afternoons
  heat the spiky thistle globes, unbound,
  spritely, their spiders of down take flight,
As you, the Goldfinch called The Thistle King,
  sing out upon your rounds

Successively, you mill the ready seeds,
  granting that the wind may take those
  which you have no need now of,
They fly away, those gentle gleanings you deign spare the future
  which next Spring will you sprout, and brood, and nurture
  
Yet now, as in the way of all our summer guests,
  you too shall soon retire to the naked trees of Fall,
  whose sun warmed high gold crowns are your Balmoral,
From whence by acclamation you shall process the anthem
  that conducts us in our hallowed Autumn prayers,
That, for your having prior ginned all that snow white thistle down,
  we too may bless it to become the coat, blanket and bedding
    for our Winter dormant Garden Lares

Acceptance

I’d like to dedicate this poem to the Rev Sara Irwin, Rector of Christ Church Waltham, good friend, spiritual leader, and also the one who first suggested I help with the local homeless day care center periodically, and who also is a character in this poem.
But I think I know what she’ll say, likely something of a "No, it’s not like that," or
"That’s not what we’re doing here."
So, may I apologize in advance?

Acceptance

What dwells within an honest man
  who contrives false witness on himself?
For me? I left suit business years ago,
   not a quitter, not a slacker, nor was I fired,
Yet I’ll not confess that I’m retired,

On a snow blanketed morning, Jorge approached as I dug out my car,
   he held his own shovel in his pink and chapped hands,
  and his face wordlessly spoke this wasn’t his first driveway today,
‘I help, I do, I do that?’
‘I only have a ten. Sure, you just stop when you think it’s ten dollars worth.’

On a Sunday morning the Orange Jacket,
   arms devout in a resting cross,
   warmed himself in the back most pew,
See, shelters close at seven, with no day center until two,
   thus cold Winter mornings boost Church attendance,

At coffee hour, Gray Coat was comfortable enough to help himself,
   "No cheese today?"
   I replied "We’re not mice"

That Thursday I brought a pasta lunch to the homeless center,
  where there, I saw a face I knew, I’m sure, a face I’d seen before;
It was Jorge at the shelter’s table,
   ‘I remember, you once helped me dig out my driveway.’
   ‘I no recall,’
   ‘I know you,’
   ‘I no shovel’

Also there, Sara, our Rector, recognized the Orange Jacket,
   "I think I know you, I’ve seen you in the pews at our Church,"
   "No, I don’t think, no,"
   "Are you sure? I know it’s you,’
   "No, that can’t be me,’

Gray Coat was content to eat the pasta,
   I said "No cheese today,"
He looked to me with neither eyes of fear,
   nor threat, nor denial,
   nor one who acted as on trial,
"At the Church last Sunday. you told me ‘No cheese today,"’
   he simply took his plate and walked away,

So I stand, a blank with just acceptance,
   for there once again was drawn those curtains of obscuration,
   they that cover the windows into a man,
Which all we draw before our neighbor’s grin,
   to hide what timorous souls we are, again,
   so by denying that whom we are without, is whom we are within,

And I …. I ?
   in forbearance of this human vice,
   I never heard the cock crow thrice

Spring Robin

Began writing this last Spring. One of those one’s what ended up in the ‘finish later’ file, which I’m now trying to clean on through.
Still deserving, though I need to grow beyond this plodding rhyme scheme.
When I arrange my first poetry collection (working title, "Cats & Birds and Other Words) in order by Season, this will place about Mid-April..

Spring Robin

Looking odd, eyes there, the Robin cocks his head,
Does he note the marching ant,
  the pulsing earthworm under plants?
Or may he gladly hear, attendant with the other ear
  those blessings which puff clouds high might grant?

A scuttle on, he turns his head,
  to take in what Nature has spread,
Stays long enough upon this stop
  to peck at fresh grit for his crop,
Or what he takes of insectivorous fare,

He hops again, eye to blue sky,
   one wonders does he wonder why?
Might he ponder Hawking’s physic laws,
   or good old Nature’s ethics flaws?
Does he conceive blue Heavens dome
   as a partner to our Earthly home?

My guess is he, but just my hunch,
   is devout to
     his fledglings lunch

Our Sexton

Even these 2 days later, I still reminisce on Paula’s service (Saturday). These thoughts are like the trailers after a college LSD trip. Call them post funeral trailers.
Might you wonder what the those PFT's may look like?
They look like this:

Our Sexton

I walked past the choir room closets
  where the pressed altar garments all lie still,
And the wobbly standing ironing board
  where she straightened the white collars
  with soft sprinkles of water distilled,
The room was too quiet,
  no angelic choir practice sung today,
And it struck on my just how quickly
  these soundproof church room do grow old

Away I saw the Sexton,
"She should be here"
"She’s gone now"
"She was just here…"
"She’s in the garden, I can take you"

We walked past the beds where fall flowers were planted,
   which she cut for bouquets that, presuming the altar guild granted,
   she placed in the chancel on Sundays,
I saw each scissor cut had healed
   spurring on shoots with new blossoms blooming,
Growing wild in their glory abandoned,
  The benefit of her compassionate pruning

"I can see she was here"
"She’s in the garden"
"This isn’t the garden?"
"I’ll take you"

We walked on past a tree under which bark mulch had been spread,
  where once she told me she buried a pigeon she’d found dead,
There she dug a little hole,
  put the soil back in place
Bent her leg and took a knee
   And coo’ingly spoke pigeon grace

"That burial was very like her, really quite understated"
"I know she’s here…"
"She’s in the garden"

Next we walked through a gap in a split rail fence
   to a yard hedged with thorns, burning bush, trimmed and dense
As he pointed to the ground he said
   "There, she’s down there"
Where upon I looked seeing only
   a smooth polished granite square,
By which I could only squat and feel the carved letters,
   cold as the iron in the choir room,
   cut off as the flowers she placed on the altar,
   out of the way, as the pigeon beneath the tree,
Here are all the attributes, that never were as she,

"This is our memorial garden," next,
"I planted her. Sextons’ garden too"

I returned to my welcoming Church knowing she had died,
Yet who sojourns to a beloved one’s grave
  without believing
    that there
     we would meet again…?

White Page

White Page
(a meditation after Paula’s service)

   
Death is she’s not here any more
   only the outline of her form left in her chair gives shape to the empty she left
As an Archie Bunker, the chair is both
   memorial and wherein she yet resides,
   that not oh so holy of the not so holies,
At least until a well meaning guest or the cat sits there.

As most would I prefer to think on
   Jesus welcoming before Heaven, or
   Buddha ascending with us the karmic elscalator of transcendant planes, or
   wherever the Shinto or Zoroasters go,
   even the Agonstics nosts, for
Don’t we love to believe there is a magic behind that Rosicrucean eye?
   we can handle "the void," just not void
   we can understand "Nothingness," just not nothing

While I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
   cannot I keep my soul?
   if not in my head then where?
Will I do the spacey ghost float?
   my Father never did the spacey ghost float
   my Mother never did the spacey ghost float
  did Allen Ginsberg do the spacey Ghost float?
If he has he’s never wrote me

Death is she’s not here any more,
   only the sound of her speaking in our head gives voice to the empty she left
We cannot disbleieve that the Wizard behind the screen will grant us visiting rights, even if we don’t sincerely return with the witches broom,
   I can grasp "the empyness," just not empty
   I can write on a white page, just I cannot write ‘white page’

We delight that final croak of breathe is soul,
   grasp you that precious air!
   with cupped or clasping hands treasure that precious air!
Look upon those naked palms, No! Don’t blow on it!
  eventually, the sigh, and so our own breath blows the fantastic spirit away

Death is
   she’s not here any more

September Jesters

Ever walk through a yard or meadow, and seen one of those black and gold butterflies that vanish when they land?
It's not paranoia if they are out to get you...

September Jesters

While Grasshoppers may fly on wings,
His Cricket Cousin with them sings
  by chirping both together in a cheep
The Cricket is invisible,
  ever out of site he keeps
While the ‘Hopper and he
  plot conspiracies, to tease

As I walk on through the grass
  a Brown-Black Butterfly appears,
  with gold gilt wing tips shear
He flies away and flings himself
  in a grass tuft yards ahead

I’ve often seen perched butterflies,
  as tall gay sails they hold their wings,
Yet where this Merry Prankster’s gone
  I do not see a thing,
Although there’s Cousin Grasshopper
  who regards me with a grin

"Oh, have you lost your butterfly?"
"Why, yes, have you seen him?"
"Oh no, no no no no no, no!"

I walk along and then I see
   Gilt Butterfly again takes wing
While cousin Cricket plays along
  his off tune autumn violin song

Yard Work

Last summer, instead of mowing and doing the yard work I started writing a poem about the benefits of not mowing and doing yard work

Yard Work

He looks a fat finger above the green and dandelions
  under a pointed peak,
  his face a black thumb print,
  with a nail yellow beak,
With which he pecks at crickets and grubs
  to feed his fledgling flock,
  those quiet now but soon squabbling nestlings in the shrub,
Thus, as a blessing for him, we’ll lay no grub killers in our yard
  for so we welcome the Cardinal

True the dandelions may have made our yard invalid
   yet the Woodchuck brings an appetite for salad,
She’s that same Whitey B, who once notoriously
  slept in on straight through Groundhog Day,
Now she moves her head from head to head
  consuming leaf and seed and shred,
And so too are we blessing her, all weed killers we'll defer
  as landlords we deign ‘Whitey, feed you free…’

In Bun-Rab haven births last year
  increased them by great numbers dear,
Where each of last years bucks and does
  raised at least two litters, maybe more,
Thus when Winter snows buried lawn and fodder
  the rabbits raised last seasons’ girdle mark,
By foot long barks on our euonymus stalks
Yet to contemplate the damage done,
   I do not hate them, not a one
So we’ll bar the poachers from our place
  and grant Bun-Rab’s a blessed grace
While I admire the Coyotes’ trace
  as he spies the deer red conies run,
  silhouetted in the setting sun

A Poem of Mountains and Pants…

A Poem of Mountains and Pants…

Somewhere,
  neither at the beginning nor the end of time,
I guess mid the balance,

Stood The Mountain, overlooking
  mounds and hills that danced and played
  in their rumble-tumble geologic ways

Once I had climbed up on his shoulder,
I told the Mountain of when my Father died,
  I fit his pants, so too his shoes, I wear them now,
  And his bonds have since been transferred to my broker

Was my need for old worn pants and shoes so dear?
  had I not already bonds of my own?
I was bound at the time by only this idea,
  Thus I asked the mountain ‘Why we die?’
As tear drop stones rolled from his eye
  I heard him say ‘It comes to mountains too,’

                               - 

Below a cool running stream
  before the jag that made a dam
There was a round shouldered fish pond
  where slowly bubbles paddled around
Which the King Fish called ‘The Whirled,’

There the King Fish taught his children
  to escape the heron wading in,
  which were the good plants to eat and why,
  how not to sink to the bottom,
  and never to trust a craw-fish

As that summers' drought progressed,
  and bore strong on in a way they rarely do,
  no new water streamed within,
None neither splashed over the dam,
  which grew higher with each days sun oppression,

When soon they’d eaten all the greens within the pool
  the King Fish saw the peril they were in

‘Eat your children,’ his hunger said,
‘That’s not a Father’s love,’ his reason bid
As instead he lay his body down,
  that his children may survive 

 

A Cat at Ease

Who likes dumb cat poems?
Me! Me! Me!
A Cat at Ease
Here rests our cat with his head turned upside down,
Logically, his smile inverted,
  should now become a frown,
Yet here he beams and purrs the happier
  to see me stand upon my crown

Over his expanse of down tummy fur
  up and down my fingers dance,
As his white paws knead in the air
Contentedly, and without care
  like dandelions, once gone to seed,
  they rise and spread, then disappear

I find; a naval,
That secret kitty hara,
  where coursing stomach muscles come to a round,
I feel it with my finger,
Were he a vinyl pool toy,
  then here is plugged that impressed rubber nipple
Where by fur farts on that omphalic orb
  or by a few sound breathes within
I think that I could blow him up,
  like a beach ball, widen him,

Yet I best not too much tickle that space,
  for should I scratch too hard that place
I could only watch the disaster I’ve caused
  as he, with a hiss, deflates

We Dancing Wood Divas

The Buddha thought that Gods, while transcendent, were all the same no different from us, desirous, foolish, and mortal.

We Dancing Wood Divas

Would we were wood carved divas
  Who dance on transcendent planes
We’d love as glow lights, me and you
  And have no care for shame

Could we be wood carved divas
  We’d be a kind but not the same
For caste within our classes we
  Can know of fire yet make no flame

For like Brahmanic Gods we’re fixed
  Our ways are set, I cannot rove
Including that, broke-hearted I
  Have sworn another’s love

PS: Yes this is a re-rite of something posted last Spring. The original has been deleted.

An Argyle Sock

Post - I just read William Allingham’s ‘the Faeries,’ and was quickly inspired to give the world something derivative.

An Argyle Sock

Twas in the gloam of a night as such.
  Our bonnie Bridie stept oot fer a swim,
She dressed down into those same humble clothes
  God saw her born with, and stepped in

Was not by a hand of Man nor God’s
  That cruelly dragged and pulled her down,
It may not e’en be known by she
  What reason there was by which she drown,

She drifted ghostly in the lake,
  Then late she nested in the silt,
What tears she shed the lake washed away,
  For her death were no Man’s guilt

Was then the silver faeries came,
  They alone knew of her fate,
By a moonlight silver they flashed about,
   For to aide her sure revival, they would wait,

At morn when golden sun arose
  Wee faeries returned to fish,
Tho’ t’see her rise and live again
   Was their one soul honest wish,

And so for 13 years they kept the vigil
   Yet as they’re fishies who no canna’ breathe,
None of' schools' still nae yet t’ ken
   As to why it is she canna’ leave