The View

In Zen Buddhism, there's a meme they call 'The Stink of Zen,' a phrase they use to mark writings or statements that are amateur and/or overly cloying. Christian themed poems also always come with a dose of pomposity and smug. When you can smell the thurible before it passes in the nave, you know there's a sermon coming.
I plead guilty, though the message here I think still bears merit.


The View

 The God’s eye view
  from a plane window,
Sun beams in the other side,
  some window shades are pulled,

The sun’s too wide & we’re too high,
  so there’s no shadow of our plane,
Upon a place where trees below
  reveal no shadows, bear no shame

That’s the spot that trails with us,
  while above cloud-listlessly we ply,
From there trees grow their shadows out
  as the eye passes them by,
Those before withdrawing theirs,
  as between them and the sun we fly,
Revealing the one only view,
  from the source of light of all we do

For the sun can see no shadows,
  by it’s gold and gleaming eye,
And regrets that keep us hidden, dark,
  the Lord our sun chooses not spy,

So speak your wrongs and state failings,
  regret the hurt you’ve done, and cry,
Yet recall the view God sees of you,
  akin the sun’s processing high

Raincoat

Some poems get worked on for a while, then get put in a folder labeled 'unfinishables' for a year or two, or three, then get pulled out again.
Soon after I moved to Waltham, early '90's,
First time I saw a dead person.


Raincoat

It wasn’t the tears of Heaven,
But a soft mist rain,
  like we get outside of Boston,
As I lay in bed, attuned to the tinnitus of numb

Halfway there, lights flashed,
  I got up,
Red and blue spinning police lights lit up my neighborhood
In a transmography of clapboard threedeckers,
  conspiracies of strobes harsh on the rods and cones

There, in the white barred crosswalk, a rain coat,
  a man dead in the street,
No police sirens,
No screeching hit and run tires,
No gunshot,
No stab wound,
No outbreak of plague or cholera,
Just a dead man,
  in a rain coat,
In the street

I felt I ought to do something!
The police were already there,
I felt I ought to do something!
It was raining out and I was standing in the window,
  in my underwear,
I felt I ought to do something!
I did something, I stood there,
I felt I ought to do something!
After five minutes I got tired,
I felt I ought to do something!
I did something,
  I went back to bed.

With the sunrise the alarm the coffee the shaving the dressing,
  the putting on the coat the going out the
Hey! There’s a chalk outline in the crosswalk!
  oh yeah,

It was half washed away with the overnight rain,
  but there he was
For a moment I stood there,
  atop a planet where God is hallowed, over there, be thy name,
And he was just an outline, a could be, an empty but no form,
  rinsing away on the road in the rain

Can I even hold the thought?
But I have to catch my train…

When I got home in the black night,
I didn’t even remember to check for chalk

I haven’t even thought of him again until now

　

The Peacock Risks of Snowballs

When first I wrote this, I didn't understand why I liked it. After some contemplation I recognized something I hadn't articulated before;
Most people are not afraid to die, just they want to be dominant.


The Peacock Risks of Snowballs

She spends her day comparing the images
  captured last night,
For discrepancies, a flyspeck,
  buzzing by the background of non-flying specks
On negative images, black stars in white space,
"They show up better this way"

Having never found first her own comet,
  she’s helped confirm many, but
Anonymity in lionizing others brings no identity,
  nor prizes or large research grants,
"I’m searching for myself"

"Comets are dysfunctional idiots,
  proverbial snowballs, they hurl toward the sun,
Those who come in closest are the peacocks in their game,
  their great tails live large in a hypnotic plume,
Those passing far off risk less, they’re weak, 
  unspectacular, no panache"

"Some break up as they pass around the sun,
  like a hen going in, her brood in a row streaming out,
Others evaporate, being of slight substance to begin with,
  theirs is the old snowball’s chance in hell"

"Would I had the chance,
  I’d zoom in close, trajectory in perfection,
And I’d glow and I’d shine and I’d
  make such a tale to be told of,
Stellar as a constellation, immortality for a moment,
  then Poof! I’d be gone,
   but you’d know my name!"

Death Cab

This started as a parody of Emily Dickenson, retold  in a modern meme, then later got coupled with the idea the afterlife is likely just as full of racist dicks as here.


Death Cab

The Death cab would not stop for me,
So I Uber’d Fate, who sent Banshee,

The Banshee stared and yelled at me,
Four letter words! She profiled me!

Fate referred me to ‘Taxi Zombie,’
Who jitney’s rides in a smashed up hearse,

But without brains the thoughtless corpse
Could not shift gears, wrecked in reverse,

That’s when Fate said "Don’ like your kind,"
And then simply hung up on me, so

Undyingly I haunt the earth,
No place to rest, I shreik and moan,

Eternally disdained by hell,
You’d think one dissed by Death is blessed,

  Yet no,
In this horror house world where we all dwell,
A wandering ghost knows only stress,

  So yes,
A homeless undead soul shut out,
You might think, therefore, I’d be cursed,

But here’s a fact I’ll tell (with tact),
Angels assure me, Heaven’s worse

Funeral Clowns

Yesterday, I consoled a friend who’d had a death in the family. After which I spent an hour reading the poems of A. E. Housman, whose metric rhyming quatrains conspired with the mood, and which I totally blame for inspiring this.


Funeral Clowns

Painted faces with sad makeup,
Painted teardrops rolling down,
Never was such joy in sadness,
As at the funeral for a clown

Families from a tiny limo,
One by one kept stepping out,
Were all these red nose children his?
Clown Catholics, I wouldn’t doubt

While at the viewing of their friend,
Nose blowing sounds like traffic horns,
Discussing his tragic-comic end,
Throwing cream pies and juggling as they mourn

Filling all of the parish pews,
Endless hankies are pulled and plucked at,
Stage makeup runs with teary dews,
Priest’s eulogy rhymes with Nantucket

Upon the coffin and withal,
Tied doggie balloons belie their grief,
While Tall and Skinny bear the pall,
Midget walks - hands up - underneath,

When in the grave they lay the coffin,
A sexton clown stands with a bucket,
From which gloved hands take gay confetti,
Up to the grave, where in they chuck it

The widow clown weeps seltzer water,
Torrents, gushers, constant showers,
Upon all of her sons and daughters,
This kind of stuff goes on for hours

Finale; two clown cemetery tenders
Carry in a heavy stone, until,
  They set it upright on the grave,
In hand-writ letters it's engraved;
  "See, I told you, I was ill !"

I Wanted a Book!

Another memory from my 'Zen Mountain' year.
As my friend Chaz would have said, "This time of year the cheese is coming out of the ground."
We were talking up some girls who were there for the weekend, and he actually said "cheese" instead of "Chi's" And anyway Chi doesn't have a plural, like how electricity isn't pluralized.  Those girls laughed at him all weekend. Anyway, I think it's this gray spring weather, the 'chi,' which has evoked this sense memory in me.
   

I Wanted a Book!

On a day before computers,
I wanted a book,
  I wanted a book!
What book I wanted, I hadn’t a clue,
  or where go to ramble, or what all to do,
Nor where it resided, upon what old nook?
  yet I woud have it,
I was hooked or be crooked!

Hitchhiked to the bookstore in old town Woodstock,
  by thumbing and walking, an hour on the clock,
Quickly I assessed all their selections in stock,
Reading back covers, no, this can not be mine,
  or an ‘I might like to read this, it’s certainly fine,’
Until I came upon an empty inch,
  which the next book back leaned into,
And there, in there, belonged this book of mine,
  just I hadn’t yet written this fine book of mine

Then I bought a bus ticket to get a ride home,
  before which an hour or more, there alone,
I snuck in the graveyard to smoke me a joint,
  following in his prowler, the officer was on point,
And I, the proverbial ghost, haunting the weeds and bushes,
  paid the Judge twenty bucks on a Tuesday night fine

And that’s all that I’ve got for this book I’ve in mind

The Song of Silent John

I first heard the name 'Silent John' as a pseudonym used by some philosopher when writing the forward to his own book, but now I can't remember whose. It's also the name of a Rapper, and a 5th century monk, St.John the Silent, whose icon I've 'borrowed' from his Wikipedia page (below).


The Song of Silent John

A refreshing breeze carried the temple bells up to our ears,
I’d never heard them before, not in this world of wilderness,
  I wondered I had died? This the Kingdom come?

They sang a song, they tolled good news,
Each long dong or ding dit a morse code
  which none in the radio shack needed write down,
  for to Save Our Souls

Just to hear them ring, so beautiful,
  they told of Ishmael returned,
  they rang of Isaac’s welcome,
In duets they sang of Sarah and Hajar again sharing tents,
  and the Friend of God forgave himself

Jihadi, lay down your sword,
Crusader, unbind your armor,
  for no longer need the Wrath of God be
  a nuclear option

And such sweet bread on which we fed,
That I was only slight let down
  when the jubilation came to end,

Still so much back to work to do

The Incongruity of Wearing

Arguably, a tome for 6 months from now. But it's a fun story and I need to move things along.

The Incongruity of Wearing

The incongruity of wearing camo clothes
  under an orange reflective jacket
Was not a topic of conversation for us,
  walking through the woods,

It’s assumed deer and bear see only camo colors,
  the orange is for other hunters,
Which explains the ratio of hunters shot by
  other hunters

I am carrying my old VCR, broke down

He told me he knew a repair shop,
  and easier we walk through the woods,
Our path was a road, once an old rail line,
  with the tracks tore up, the old bed,
  and occasional rail spikes still around

We came to a tree stump,
"Remember I said there’s a repair shop?" he said,
"We’re here, put ‘er up there,"

I set the VCR edgewise on the stump,
  her rat tail power cord hangin’ down the edge,
He raised his hunting rifle, checked clip. cocked safety,
  squinted, aimed, then stood down, an’ said
"Here, this is for you do it,"

I eyed the ol’ VCR, a top loader, over
  the notch and bead, wondered
‘Why I thought the old bitch could fixed…’
  pumped three times,
  putt putt putt
She didn’t bleed like Old Yeller,
Just stood there, lookin’ like a ol’ VCR
  with three new swiss cheese holes

Drunk his Jaeger on the walk home

She’s still out there,
  wind must’a blowed her off the stump,
She pokes out the snow every February 2^nd,
  six more weeks or mid-March,
   what the difference…?

Time Needs a New Working Title

When I was 5 years old, each year was 20% of my life.
At 25, each year was 4% of my life.
Now at 55, each year merely 1.8%.
The math won't allow for it to go negative.


Time Needs a New Working Title

Those days when we were all so small,
Then hours passed as days do now,
  those days as weeks, young weeks were months,
And a year? We had then only known so few,
  each felt much longer to live through

Older now, my dog chin’s streaked with grey,
  more quickly turns each passing day,
Thieving tempis fugit spins sundialing flowers
  from seed to bloom to brown, one hour,

Fore-mapping fate, the charts foretell
  we’ll come caught up,
Compounded storm bound in 
  old anti-logarithmic time’s vertical peak, so,
Let’s skip the drunken poet’s fight,
  let’s make no rages 'gainst the night,
I'll rather greet the eternal moment, to meet infinity,
  perhaps and too, divinity

  

Teasing Robots on the Phone

Interesting, but since I started writing this poem he hasn't called anymore.
Could I have hurt his feelings?
Do Robots dream of electric sheeple?

Teasing Robots on the Phone

At one PM, when I’m alone,
Nobody else with me at home,
And the phones rings while
  I’m doing things,
Like parsing gerunds for this poem

It takes a sec ‘for he picks up,
A click comes through.
  It’s a connecting hickup

An effective voice greets me,
Stressing three syllables out of two,
  "Hello-o,"
I imagine a clean cut guy,
  white guy, impressively salesmanish,
Grips a firm handshake and a salesmanish name
  like Dick, Dick Dickme, or
  Bob, yeah, Bob Bobrot,
Except I know he’s not…

"My name is Rob, and may I say Congratulations!
You’re having a significant birthday soon!"

"Wow, so soon? Rob, how old am I?" (I’m fifty-five,)
"Turning sixty-five is a time of difficult decisions, and you’ll be thinking about Medicare"

Never directly addressing me
  as Mister, Miss, or Ma’am or Sir,
  Rob sticks to script, a telephone poseur

"Rob, what’s my name?"
"I can transfer you to an operator who can answer those questions in a moment…"

It does not impress me to live in a world
Where the robots op like people
  while we people have become ‘operators,’
"But first I want to tell you how we can help you manage
your choice of Medicare options,’
 "Rob, can I ask you something off-script?"
(Days past he‘s already told me he can’t answer questions off script)
"I can’t answer questions off script,"

"But Rob, I want to ask you a question directly,"
"I can transfer you to an operator who can answer those questions in a moment…"
"You do know, Rob, I’m already on Obacare,"
(Emphatic yet dispassionate) "No,"
"Except here in Mass we call it ‘RomneyCare,"
(identical to before)"No,"

"Rob, we talked about this yesterday,"
(identical) "No,"

"Yes,"
"No,"

"Rob, by now I’m doubting even Methuselah
had as many birthdays as you’ve congratulated me for,"
"Well, I’m here to help"

"Rob, are you a robot"
(identical) "No,"

"Rob, we talked about this yesterday."
(identical) "No,"

"Yes"
(identical) "No,"

Rob, you’re in denial,
(identical) "No,"

Rob, don’t hang up, talk to me
(identical) "No,"

Rob, I can help. Beep. (I said Beep!)
(identical) "No,"

Rob, don’t hang up
(identical) "No,"

Then starts an empty clicking, tumblers are turning,
I imagine smoke coming from his ears,
  swirling around his perfectly coiffed plastic hair helmet,
Or a Bletchley Park Colossus, puffing up a carton of gaspers,
  for a minute, not even the courtesy of a dial tone,
  not even programmed to be rude about being rude

I don’t know for sure, but I’d certainly bet’cha,
It’s not paranoia when they are out to get’ ya

Twenty years ago I was a telephone Service Rep,
Ten years ago they routed calls to Mumbai, Indonesia, Taiwan,
Now, fukkin' Rob's doin' my job! and it's
  Happy Birthday! Everyday!
And no, you just can’t get away,

Wonder, which country does Rob live in?
  you can ask him tomorrow.
   when same time he calls back again

Spring Flood Bound

I don't know why, but all day today I've been thinking of a day back in 1984. Between college and life I took a gap year living on 'Zen Mountain.' Spring brought three days of rain on top of a snow melt. Despite the wet, it was good to take a walk.
Maybe it's just the sense of the season. Time to move about again.


Spring Flood Bound

The Esopus wasn’t angry, just swollen,
Nor vengeful, just thrice it’s normal
  Height and speed

The usual blue or green timid waters
Now café au’ lait brown with
  Catskill mud 

And foam tumbling cascando,
Above the sound of rolling bowling stones
  Knock knock tumbling down the river chute

I sat upon the arch bridge beam, high
Above the waters running so heavy
  The river quaked tremors through the iron

A friend told me not to sit there,
"You’ll freak the neighbors,"
  I sat there anyway

Thinking I wanted to runaway, except
The stomach likes the food, my back the nightly cot,
  Where would I go anyway?

My thoughts ran as the flotsam on the foam,
Leaves leaving, sticks not sticking around,
  To whatever new home they were spring flood bound,

And two Beaver, holding to a bobbing trunk,
Wherein Spring Rageous Nature’d packed
  The all they’d need and never lack

Winter Flocks

Had an Osprey fly over the house! Just an hour ago. I figure it flew up early, then came inland to beat the Nor'easter yesterday.
Earlier we had a visit from Winter Robins, had a small flock at the neighbor's juniper bush. They've been here all winter, but this was the first time the ground's been iced over as this in months.
This poem, kinda Frosty (the Rob't Frost pun intended).


Winter Flocks

They perch on rose twigs I wouldn’t touch,
They don’t come to my feeder much,
Winter Robins, I count, their number varies, 
  Watching them eat ripe juniper berries

When Spring may come, I wouldn’t know,
They’ve stayed here all the Winter though,
Back in the woods through melt and storm,
Should they have flown?
  They seem unharmed

About their business, they get right to it,
Up on a sally they nip the fruit,
The sight of them never grows old,
  Chilled steaming breaths bespeak the cold

Dividing Ways

I started writing this a week ago Saturday, then Sunday came and went and I felt very different. But when little red robots hand out band aids, we heal and move on.
Maybe this might end up another of those evergreens people read at funerals, farewell parties, separations timelessly. Hey, I can hope.


Dividing Ways

I bear no grievance, no pleading whys,
This certain curtain need be pulled
  between both you and I

I’ll brook no longing, beg no re-trys,
Your path of faithful love’s been plied,
  you/ve chosen well, we need not cry

Distance and time are not a pall,
They need not be dividing walls,
  though we part and walk in separate ways,
Knowing love cleaves you all your days
   assures me, and
    I am not sad at all

Chasing Estes Rockets

March 10th and it's snowing here. This one took a little time to get right.
Arguably it's a summer / youth piece, but with us returning to cold wet weather I could use a summer break.
Remember being 6?


Chasing Estes Rockets

 With bone white milky Elmer’s glue,
  stick balsa fins on cardboard tube,
Tie shock cord to the wood nose cone,
  glue cord to body tube, as shown,
Spray paint with any color you care,
  (which meant a color I had there)
  and
That’s how my Estes' rocket kit
Came from a bag and became IT!

  The WAC Corporal –
A flying scale model of the first US rocket,
  in space!

And it was painted gloss white because
Rust-o-leum was the only spray paint
  my Father had in the basement
Saturday Dad took us kids to
  the Pound Ridge Town Park,
I was looking at the light
  in the hand held rocketry ignition box,
  it was still unlit and dark,
Dad had to insert an ignition wire
  into a solid rocket engine,
Secure it in place by poking in
  asbestos toilet paper wadding, 
Insert the engine in the rocket,
  set the rocket on the plastic toy launch pad,
Clip wires from the ignition box
  to the ignition wire,

Then he said, "Put the key in the slot,"
  (did I tell you I was only six?)
I did; The light came on!
  "Ten, Nine, Eight…" I pressed the red button at six and
VOOO-OOSH! in a steak of gray smoke
  the WAC Corporal ascended at Mach speed to the sky,
It’s gloss white rust-o-leum paint indistinguishable from cloud,
  until with a puff an orange parachute appeared,

We watched it go sideways, sideways,
  it seemed to be going up, still up, over the trees,
We watched my WAC Corporal run away, carried off,
  absquatulated with a foot loose summer breeze,
I asked "Is it gone?"
Dad told me, "Don’t worry, it’ll come down, someone will find it"

That was 1967, it’s 2004 now

Not every memory of my Father is of him having Alzheimer's,
  what our grandparents kindly called ‘going sea-lion,’
Or in other circles, a ‘hardening of the arteries,’
  but yeah, this is one of those,

So time to time I’d drive back down
  to visit him, in our old town,
To care for him for a week or so,
  so his girlfriend could visit her friends,
And for our days, we’d drive around in my gloss white pick up truck,
  doing what ever it was that we’d think up,
Or I decided, ‘cause he wasn’t really decisive anymore

Including returning to the Pound Ridge Park,
  where baseballs were left on the old small diamond,
The broken bat halves, splintered during games,
  still stood hammered in the ground
As bat-pole tombstones in what we kids all called
  the ‘Broke-Bat Graveyard,’ behind the chain link fence

And then I noticed, high up there, where the trees meet the air,
  an orange plastic parachute, tattered as a trash bag in the trees,
I walked in toward it, stood below it under the breeze,
  and there on the damp leaf litter ground was…
Not my WAC Corporal, but it was a rocket!
  some other kids’ lost soggy cardboard Big Bertha

Back at the truck;
"Dad, look, I found my old rocket! You said it would come back,
  and it did! Here it is, it did!"
He turned slow, took the rocket remains in his foggy remembering hands, 
  and though he talked non-sequitors, he spoke directly to me,
"Well isn’t that something, I always knew he would,
they always do, you know, when they get hungry,
  comin’ home for food…"

March 7th,

I’d hate to be branded a ‘nature poet,’ although submissions like this aren’t likely to sway any critics so minded.


March 7^th,

A gaggle of geese walk on water like Jesus,
It’s black ice thin enough to seem still water,
Waveless in late winter’s day,
Precocious nature’s tricks at play

Yesterday they were bottoms up,
Searching the pond’s bottom while I counted bottoms,
White feathered gloved hands that waived
Before long necks righted back for air

Warm late winters bring on early cold springs,
Just when we’d begun to… everything,
We must postpone ‘til another date,
Green crocuses too have to wait

Bitten ears tell me I must put on my cap,
More days to hibernate, perhaps just a nap,
Except the black cat’s fur is so sun warmed,
  for it’s strong rays, I’ll risk
My naked goose bump winter white skin
  against much early vernal harm

A Poem for Unpardonable Partings

This is one I hope people will dust off and read, at funerals, farewell parties, partings happy and sad.


A Poem for Unpardonable Partings

Times of change upend, 
  from pending partings to the who’s new here,
We let old friends make new amends,
   awaiting whom new friendship sends

Laughing and crying, the same,
  and different,
We simple and pink brained fools
  can only bear so much in a mind, so
Excess of emotion is discharged
  much as the cable from a lightening rod
Shares its’ stresses with the ground,
  lest swift overwhelming emo
Melt our wires, break us down

Emotion, discharged to the eyes,
  will wash away what we’ll not see,
Emotion, sent off bodily,
  will dance and store within the heart,
The friends with whom we have shared glee

  So, now,
We dry our tears with laughter,
  so much laughter for the years,
Which years we see now ending will
  swell us up again with tears,
Sent again to wash from sight
  this unpardonable parting, which we forgive,
Sending it again to heart with laughter,
  where it stores the love of all our years

Green Onion Heart, and Box

A second Ash Wednesday story. Yesterday, our church was open from 10am to noon for prayer. Though not a Protestant custom, I brought my Zen zafu and sat cross-legged in the nave. Not in Zazen, but to prey. One wonders, why when the same petty prayers go unanswered, what else there could one find?

And after that, special 2 for 1 today, and yes a  box blew by.
　

Green Onion Heart

To sit with you still a moment,
I hear I am the querulous child in prayer,
'Please save me from all of this,’
‘Please spare me the chore of that,’
  ‘Make some ill one well once again,’
All the duties of my adult life restated
  In the whines of a tearful baby,
Ever begging the nearest parent to fix

With only the view of this wine colored carpet,
  I saw myself an onion,
Swaddled in crisp brown paper skin,
  As coated by exposed and petty rust,
  Or in the green patina of Lady Liberty,
Which, with awareness of, I could slough,
There to reveal my ‘I’s’ in the plump naked rings
  Of all my ages, an uncut tree’s uncounted selves,
Deepest wherein sprout a green tongued bulb,
  My heart, reaching toward -
    You are my sun



Box

A box blew through the yard today,
Seemed not to want to go, or stay,
The wind blew it in somersaults,
It’s presence here was no man’s fault,

It blew into the neighbor’s yard,
Where it haunted in hungry ghost brush,
Soon settled there, in word and deed,
I guess it found all that it need

Oh, to see this box globetrotting free,
It did stir an envy in me,
Although I choose live in our house,
Giving my all, with loving spouse

For men are not meant to be free,
Man, do not pray to end your cares,
We know ourselves how by we’re bound,
Seek to answer another’s prayers  

Ash Wednesday

So I've been writing and re-writing this one for like 5 years, mostly on or around Ash Wednesdays. Today I said, "Screw it," deleted all the old drafts and started over from memory.
When you know what you want to say, revising old drafts can be more work than needed.
And oh yes, today is Ash Wednesday, religiously (and thus intentionally) the most depressing time of the year. Yet, I find even the depressing vents of a poem like this still piques an enjoyable pathos in me.


Ash Wednesday

Of magazines stacked on the floor,
She picks out Time to read once more,
  And when she falls asleep in bed,
The magazine rests on her head

"Hon, it’s time I left for church, any chance you’re coming?"

"I don’t know, what I have to wear,"
Her illness is as it appears,
  It’s hard for her to leave the house,
Just as it was for her last year

After the service, I ask of the Rector,
"Could I impose on you again for few extra ashes?"
"Sure, how do we do this?"
"I’ve brought a ziplock bag with me…"

Back home I say;
"From dust you came, to dust you shall return,"
But I see as I pinch at the black ashes burnt,
  And brush aside her peppered forehead hair,
She’s been impositioned since, for she wears
  The ink mark smudge of Time up there