The Curse of Black Cats

The Curse of Black Cats


I was trying to write about Death

In a hall way arch, the pencil lines, 
  --- age 6, --- age 9, --- 13
Are sprayed with antiseptic wash
  And with clean sponges wiped away

Did you know, in shelters they say
Black cats are hard to adopt out?
They’re thought to bring to one bad luck,
That is the reason that they tout

In the medicine chest, 
  Sedimentary layers of palliatives
  Record in reverse order illness’ pathology, 
Front the recent pill bottles, 
  Salves to stave the fatal tears,
Behind them pads and ointments stand 
  For sufferings of chronic years

My black cat’s brought no curse on me,
Though he does leap up upon my lap,
Zealous, paws down my notebook, and,
Stands on it as his welcome mat

From the medicine chest, each is taken down, 
  The pills are flushed away, 
The remaining empty bottles are tossed
  In the recycling bin
The boxes of desiccated old footpads 
  Land in the trash

“Hello, yes kitty, I know, but I’m
  Trying now to write some poetry,
  I know you’re just an eager cat,
  But I think you do this knowingly”

Closets and drawers of clothes and shoes
  Are trash bagged then hauled to Goodwill,
May Aesthetic monks who wear clothes of the dead
  Find these old shrouds forestall their cold and chill

He looks at me with a cat’s eyeful of
‘Why are you doing this?’

Life is always dying,
  And the dye leaves little stains,
Spots for we meek, who yet remain,
  To scrub and clean and rinse away

He’s right, my limit of morbid poems today!
They make me depressed anyway,
“Yes, I’ll pitch cat treats with you, friend,
  A joy to with you run and play!”

Thief

Thief


Day and night,
One is colder,
  Both as bright



He walks up the sidewalk street,
  His white cane tapping back and forth before him,
Counting the blocks from the steps he walked down,
  Crossing the side streets, trusting by ear,
Along the familiar walk of fences and drives
  5 blocks, when
With his cane he rings the lamp post,
  His fingers feel about at the button for the crossing light,
For here he crosses Main Street,
  For him, this Rubicon or Styx
That marks the difference between
  Being in town, or coming home

Sometimes people offer to help,
“Can I help you? The light hasn’t changed yet,”
  And when it does they take him by the arm, stepping
Before the Pamplona bulls, huffing ready
  To use their horns if he’s not fast enough

Tonight and no one’s here this late,
  But he hears the cars come to a halt as
A mechanical mockingbird chirps
  ‘Four-way-stop! Four-way-stop!,’
And he believes, “Cross me over, Jesus,”
  In the warm arm of one leading, by his side

Home, cane first, steps second,
  Up the walk and up the steps,
No motion sensitive light turns on,
  He takes his key, unlocks his door,
No hall light beacons, no dark porch alights,
  All windows still the shade of the sunglasses he wears,
All remains dark, as when he was out,

  Yet you know he’s rattling around in there,
Head to the bathroom, what’s for dinner?
  Hello with a pat when he finds the old cat,
Same as you and I when we get home,
  Just him in the dark

And you know, someone will rob him,
  And time did bring that thief in the night

For a week later I saw his ashes poured straight in the ground,
  No urn, no ossuary, just cold gray early winter dirt,
And the grit and grim of what was him,
  A sight I can’t unsee

Woman in the Circus of Swords

Woman in the Circus of Swords


It’s frustrating,
  I don’t like myself when I’m angry,
And the words I chose, with their harsh depose,
Led me wonder why ever you stay,
  Until I dreamt of another woman

I’d paid my ticket to the circus,
Strolled in entry past the Carney sideshow,
I could not wear the giant’s ring,
Tiny Tina, too petite a thing,
The Torch spit flaming kerosene,
I felt no pity for these ordinary beings

Until there was Ostara, Queen of the Blades,
Dressed in spandex, contorting on her stage,
Her Barker addressed us as she climbed into her box,
Then closed its lid down, securing its locks,
All this upon two sturdy three foot saw horses,
As the barker lashed about seven rapiers with force

The first he thrust in her middle,
The next six in all places she could not hide,
He spoke again,
“Ladies and Gentlemen, Ostara is not hurt,
  Nor is this illusion, Ostara is a contortionist,
  She rearranges herself with each sword I put in,
  The lid on her box is clear glass, she is unharmed,
Come see!
  For a mere dollar, come up and see,
  Ostara, Queen of the Blades, for yourself!”

I stepped up, I paid

I looked down,
  And saw that you had become she in there,
Looking back through your ‘Where’s your sympathy?’ eyes,
  As rather than leaving me,
You instead learned long ago to live
  In the box I’d put you,
Contorting by necessity, your life, your will
  You bodily, all around my barbs,
That by my harsh and cutting tongue,
  I could no longer hurt you

Canary in A Mirror

Canary in A Mirror


My friend, he greets me in the window,
  When I try to hop behind him
He meets me beak to beak,
  Other birds whom I have met
Have let me perch behind,
  From there that I may preen their necks,
  Sometimes they preen me mine

He seems not to want to block me,
  His expression seems so kindly,
As kind even as my own,
  Yet point to point,
He’s uncanny at blocking me,
   I’ve even tried flying through the window,
Only to meet him toe to toe,
  Wing to wing and everything,
  Yet when I chirp he never sings

He is not ugly,
  Nor neither’s he as comely as me,
For humbly, I know me only from within,
  (My own face I’ve never seen) but
I’m certainly the handsomest
  Canary’s ever been

After a Night Out

After a Night Out


After a night out
  I, planning not to walk you home,
Lead you on a meandering path,
  While you,
Seeming to have the same destination in mind,
  Pull in another direction,
Until we, your cart before my horse,
  Find ourselves at the railway station,
On the commuter platform, lamps in the night,
  At a dance party for wayward flutter moths,
Where we, reticent wallflowers,
  Find ourselves an empty bench

Your Father’s not here to scold you,
My sister’s not here to make those comic kissy faces,
  Saying things like “OoOOoo-oo, I saw you!”

An arm around each other,
  A night cool enough to light our body warmth,
You kiss me before I make my move,
But I’m the man and I take charge
  As I pull you to my chest

Soon your hand’s upon my leg,
  And I’m cupping your left breast,
As the late express comes rolling though,
  In its slow down but go faster pace,
Lit windows all late commuters looking for a focus,
  And finding us,
  In their voyeur night suburban views

Open up, open up,
  Let’s not wilt nor wither while in view,
For to love you so is to love you best,
  Let’s let our love stand to the test

Saturday Morning Dove

Saturday Morning Dove


A gray dove on the edge
  Of our birdbath
Light rain ringing ripples
  In still water

I’d seen electroencephalograms do that,
  Blink,
Make wave static from the radio mind

She chants a lowing coo upon the day
The rain seems not to chase her away

  I made a pot of coffee
  I put in a piece of toast

When I looked back the dove had flown
Still ripples winked upon her throne

These thoughts record time happening,
Between the notes the white dove sings

July (or, Yes I’ve read about ant guards, but the poem’s long enough as it is).

July
  (or, Yes I’ve read about ant guards, but the poem’s long enough as it is).

I hung a hummingbird feeder low,
Upon a curved wrought iron bow,
With tines to push into the soil,
Standing boot work, not too much toil

Sure hummingbirds did come around,
But not too long before I found
It growing algae, water plants,
And a dozen small black floating ants

To clean it was the thing to do,
I hung it back in an hour or two,
But it took less time for the algae to grow back,
Nectar water well peppered, drowned ants of black

Certainly I’ve seen the hummingbird since,
He prefers to fly straight by, and wince,
So I took the hummer’s feeder down,
It was just too gross, left hanging around

Yet still an ant will climb the iron,
Though there’s no nectar there to find,
I wonder does he pine for the day,
  When with summer sweet sugar algae
He could climb in,
  And float away

When I Met Richard

When I Met Richard


He didn’t think it an actors beat

My turn at the table, I told him
We’d had the old Poet Laureate by months before,
  But I appreciate a poet who
Actually read his own poetry
  Rather than posing as the US poetry pedagogue in chief
He told me he rather liked the old PL,
  And I agreed I rather liked him too
Whille he endorsed a book to me and Christine
  And a lessor volume for our cat Fluffy,
  “That’s ‘Miss’ Fluffy,”

I asked him, “I noticed,
  You always paused a moment before reading,
  Then with a wipe of your hair you launch into it,
  As a theater major we call that an actor’s beat,
  Have you ever taken acting lessons?”

“No, it’s just I’m trying to focus on my reading,”

I still recall the payoff in his poem about
Cuban Thanksgiving Turkey;
  “Dry,”

He didn’t think it an actors beat

I apologized for those behind in line for taking so long
  And we shook hands and I walked off,
Out the door into the night where I found my pickup in the lot
  And neither did I think it an actor’s beat,
To just stand there a moment,
  Absorbing all the poetic virtues of my Oxford White Pickup truck,
Then, with a wipe of my hair,
  I unlocked the door and launched into it

I Cannot Learn to Hate a Mouse

I Cannot Learn to Hate a Mouse

I cannot learn to hate a mouse,
Despite their leavings in our house,
Despite they steal the cat’s kibbles,
  That in our kitchen drawers they nibble,
I mean there’s mouse shit on our silverware!

Since negotiations wouldn’t halt them,
I bought a bag of snap mouse traps,
Set one within each kitchen drawer,
  Waited a day, a little more,
Until from therein heard ‘Ker-Chunk!’

The first one was caught by the foot,
He walked about with a mousetrap boot,
I dragooned him into a flower pot,
  Took him outside to let him out,
And as I released his foot, he jumped

All the way from my hand to the ground,
Ran a yard off, then just sat down,
In this new world so big he had no knowing
  Of where it was to where he was going,
Looking up at me in dewy eyed mouse wonder
 
The next three caught were stone cold dead,
The bar snapped each behind the head,
I took each out to the garage trash,
  Pulled up the bar and let them fall
They did not move, or squeak at all

The last one was what broke my heart,
Still a young one, for all his part,
He sat up dead caught in his trap,
His hands still poised as if to grasp
  Another morsel of catfood, to add
In his still puffed and chubby chipmunk cheeks

In this world of nothing lost, nor gained,
Can one post-mortem weigh the same?
They are tangible things, these souls once severed,
  Yet where are they, and what remains?
I put them out Wednesday night with the garbage

I cannot learn to hate a mouse,
But, not enough I clean the house,
I did what I had to, but henceforth,
  I will not kill mice anymore,
Unless they come back to the silverware drawer

Belonging

Belonging
  (a monologue)

When I was working I saw that face, on
  The new hire whose green card wasn’t right,
  The service reps whose performance numbers weren’t up,
Who were walked back to their desk, given a box (for their things),
  Whose face bore the look of losing a home,
  Whose shoulders bore the weight of lost acceptance,
They never spoke up,
  They looked not around,
  The eyes never rolled all the way back in their sockets,
There’s were the faces who silently said
  “I guess I thought wrong, and now I am gone”

A Sunday morning in the pews,
  She sat across the aisle from me,
When she kneeled she didn’t act as
  Stern nuns with rulers were ready to correct her posture,
  She prayed like she belonged there,
Stepping in the aisle, doing that curtsey & genuflect thing
  Like only lapsed Catholic women do in Protestant churches,
She showed no fear of being corrected, neither by Parent nor Prior,
  She owned it!

At Coffee Hour we spoke, her story was;
“I’m a Deacon, I’m looking for a place in the diocese,
  Do you know what a Deacon does?”
I didn’t,
“Deacons do the community outreach, from the church, the parish,
  The Priest in charge or the Rector does the work inside the church,
  While the Deacon does the out in the community work, outside,” and then,
“You wouldn’t know, is your Parish looking for a Deacon?”
I told her we’re a small parish, and that our Rector handles most everything,
“Is she here? I was hoping to talk with her,”
I added she was probably changing in the Sacristy, but after mass she’s usually so busy
  I’d just email her later if there’s something needing her attention,
“Ah, thanks,” and she left her purse and coffee on the table,
   Walking off with a purpose

As a gentleman I felt obliged to watch her things,
  Not that I thought any here would steal it,
  I just stood, unconcerned…

When she returned, there it was again,
  That face I hadn’t seen in years,
She picked up her purse and coffee,
  Didn’t say anything, just that de-homed countenance, it said,
“I guessed wrong, and now I’m gone,”
  And she trashed her coffee on the way out

A Head in the Clouds

A Head in the Clouds

Porch time, northeast, not a thunderhead,
But a head rises, see that warm column of air
Ascending white from the humid summer green,
  High to heights above the dewpoint

I said it was a head,
Atop the cloud it teases out from the part,
Combing out below the impermeable ceiling
   Of a stratified summer atmosphere

Did I say a head?
More now a whales tail, fluking the skies,
Which if pursued, Quequeg’s harpoon would fly straight through,
  No Pequod on the bluffs

I think I do see a head,
Now become, is that Don Martin’s Old Fonebone?
Cartoonish doctor of my pre-teen youth?  
  I read way too much Mad Magazine back then

It is a head,
Shirt collar and face have formed below,
And it’s Larry Fine! Orange hair now white in parted triangles,
  A one Stooge Rushmore in the sky
 
No Moe or Curley standing by?
Only their old fans would ask why,
I’m told this happens all the time,
  Old jokes and Heaven seldom rhyme

  

The Other Side

The Other Side

I was told a messenger would ride by,
By a window I waited, from where I could spy,
Yet all I saw upon the road heading west
Was my misty reflection, my foggy old ghost

I reached out trying to pass beyond the specter,
He met me, probing finger to finger,
We hand to hand, I could not pass,
He stood my guard, fiend of Black Mass

If a messenger passed in the night’s ink,
It must have been that then I’d blinked,
I met no messenger riding by,
By land or sea, none called or cried

The dawning light brought on the day,
My ghost guard faded fast away,
And I, here where I could only be,
What is the other side to me?

Tripod the Dharma Dog

Tripod the Dharma Dog 

Late night
  Dark was the temple on Zen Mountain,
I leaned upon the rail of the second floor hallway,
  Overlooking our zendo, as from a theater loge balcony

From its left hand entrance, below me by the han
  She walked in, the three legged dog,
Beloved companion of a woman on retreat this week

Without much ado or sniffing about,
The dog hopped to her stop before that first zafu of the row,
  The one a yard before the Roshi’s seat,
Upon which without a bow she sat

Coincidence? Her owner joined me at the rail

“Your dog,” I gestured, “Tripod, she sits well,
  Perhaps we should reserve her seat at the next sesshin,”
“She has a name you know,”
“I know, but we long ago dharma named her ‘Tripod’ for when she’s here”

Guests bringing pets to the temple was stated not allowed,
But always she was brought anyway,
  Always was an exception made, for
Tripod, the Dharma dog,

Her owner relaxed,
“She’s not so young any more, seems only last year I housed trained her,
  Using puppy pads, until she was old enough to go outside,”
I asked “Puppy pads?”
“They’re disposable, you teach young dogs to go on the pad, you throw them away,
  They’re square, like the zabuton mats under the zafus, but white”

One for the Buddha, One for the Dharma, one for the Sangha,
We revered Tripod,
  We claimed her has our temple heir to that Buddha dog of old Joshu’s

“It’s funny,” she went on, “This time of night,
   At home, she usually goes outside,
   But not here, when here she comes up here,
     I wonder why?”

Ploughshare

Ploughshare

I found it,
In clearing the garage, I’d got as far back
  As laid sedimentary layers can go,
The bottom of the allegorical archeological dig,
No more stone axe heads, arrow points, obsidian knives,
  Meaning here, the garage backwall

It’s white and pink and green with a shoulder strap,
It’s a Super Soaker, you can believe it?
  She bought it for a gardening tool!

“I hear if you fill it with bleach you can repel Woodchucks’” she’d tell me,
“I hear they don’t like the smell and if you hit them in the eye they really don’t like it”

She and her Father bragged of gardening as a perennial joy,
  Planting on a Saturday,
  Flowers in the sunset,
The camaraderie found setting out tarps before a frost,
  Deformed green tomatoes ripening on the sill

A garden joy totally eradicated when we walked out it it,
 “Oh look, a squirrel bit this tomato, just one bite and it’s ruined!” or
 “I just planted these sunflower seeds and all my shoots have been chewed by rabbits!”
  (Done later, I discovered, by gnawing Japanese beetles, come from miles around, attracted by the pheromone beetle trap they’d hung but feet from her seedlings, and doing more to bring in more by teasing sex than reducing any already here)

Their gardening was a counter insurgency,
  Fielding mines of fox urine scent darts,
Hav-a-hart traps for Groundhogs to be released miles away,
  Who then were seen again the next day,
And next the Super Soaker, that once innocuous commercial summer fun toy
  Refitted for a nuclear option,
Which, like of all war’s decisive options was soon obsolete,
  Thereafter abandoned in this arsenal of garden obsolescence, the garage

Which now I hung on the backdoor handrail,
  Where it looks, not the least,
  Like an antique bomber in a war museum

Time for a beer break from cleaning,
  Sipping in the garage doorway,
The old WMD didn’t seem so loathsome now,
  Pink handles, white gunstock, emerald water tank,
I fancied it a multi-colored balloon animal,
  The kind, which tied by birthday clowns,
  Spark happiness and chatter

And attracted, with curiosity, a humming bird,
  Emerald as the water tank, white underparts
  (only the males sport a ruby gorget)
Inquisitively inspecting the tank for flowering florets,
She the green drone, come to attend her mothership,
  Humming with a cat’s purr

Here was the garden I’d always yearned of,
  Why I hadn’t seen her before?

Orion’s Playground

Orion’s Playground

I’m driving East after early February dusk,
  Frost wrote Orion looks a neighbor climbing over your fence,
Hands and one leg grappling over to vault the high rail,
  And so he does,
As Orion hops down into our roadside towns,
  I imagine his dog barking for being left behind
By this Childish Colossus of stars running amok, mischief night,
  Through the dark frigid neighborhoods,
Leaving no footprints, but making dogs bark
  “Woof woof woof”
Irritating homeowners,
  “Bad Dog, quiet down!”

Midnight, and my route’s turned South,
  Where the rascal is at it again, playing high in the sky,
Acting more the shoeless country kid
  Than the ancient hunter of lore,
Forever throwing a ball for his dog,
Who is forever, leaping in the overlap
  Of anticipation and retrieval

Early before dawn and further far,
  So further far from home,
My route now leads me west,
  Towards where the cosmos settle down,
There young Orion lies in bed on his stomach,
  His faithful dog curled and guarding sleep at his feet,
As I step into a place that serves only eggs and bacon,
  Just for a moment smell ‘um,    hmmnnfff-ha,
The thought of coffee makes me nervous
  When tired I’d ought to be in bed,
  So I have my breakfast for dinner

And when I come out,
  Orion’s playground has turned blue

Sunday Morning

Sunday Morning

As a carton of Neapolitan ice cream,
I like my Strawberry over here,
  My Chocolate over there,
  And the Vanilla in the middle

So when our Very Episcopal Reverend told the parable
Of the woman whom the Buddha tasked to return
  With THE mustard seed,
  From a home never knowing grief,
Ending with how she lived a long life helping the poor,
  I melted,
  I puddled

How can this Buddhist Bhikkuni become a St. Theresa?
  Well, didn’t she?

Your Bridesmaids

Surprisingly, (except for saccharin anime) I could not find any online pics to go with this fanciful poem.What's wrong with the modern world, never to have thought of this before!


Your Bridesmaids

Your Bridesmaids in bolts of gay dresses,
Each skirt the cosplay of an inverted flower,
  Which from each bust and waist bell billow

Sally, feigning leafy gestures in green sleeves,
  Mocks a tulip pink, bowed in the rain,
Liz-Beth hops in her yellow daff frilled hobble skirt,
  Draped below a matching hip cinched tutu mane,
And Tiny Julie, a purple furtive crocus bloom,
  Is misting lavender from her atomizer,
Wafting the fresh Spring of fairy womanhood
  Around about your wedding and the hall

I wonder, should your party dance in hula lei,
  Would each satin bloom, hiding invisible pistol clappers,
Ring in floral carillon a serenade,
  For you, and I, all in the room,
And of course too, your handsome groom?

Now you, blinding bright as the bouquet
  Of a dozen white roses, held downward,
Seem about to be thrown away,
  But for your timorous bridesmaids, who,
Holding fast with you in all, feel not yet ready
  To book our clique’s next wedding day

But I, so happy,
  Am trying not to cry,
Perhaps it is all this flowered pollen couture
  That conspires to redden my something borrowed blue eyes,
And between tears, I think now, yes, I’ll marry you,
  If you would but whisper the word,
Yes, even while
  You stand hand in hand,
With another man,
     Yes  

(Ok, I did find these, but they're not what I'm talking about)