A Squatter on the Lake

A Squatter on the Lake 

Four white plastic barrels
Fit inside a wooden frame,
  Lidded with old plywood
Since bleached gray by sun and rain

Yesterday while swimming,
I found a whole dead sunfish
  Encrusted on its deck,
Sun-baked tough as leather,
His fish face grimaced hard,
  He was left there with a purpose, 
He as someone’s calling card

And today, there it is,
That orange footed lake float squatter,
  Squawking rudely on my float 

  “It’s my float, it’s my float,”
   He calls the Seagull-ettes to know,
  “It’s my float…”

Not twenty yards away,
But I can hear the neighbor’s talk,
  You are too close, yet not enough
For me clock you with a rock

Middlebury Gorge

Middlebury Gorge

Toes on the edge,
The thought of accidental death is
  A word there is no word for,
Son of survivors, his lineage
Is all ancestors who had children before they died,
  Another word there is no word for,
And there are girls to impress,
Down in the gorge, on the rocks,
  Where a clear golden river flows
Just like beer with mountain foam

“Don’t dive, hold yer nose and
 Be sure to wear sneakers ‘cuz
 Yer feet ‘ll hit rock bottom”

On the ledge of the bridge
The thoughts of injury inspires,
  Break a leg, yer arm, hit yer head,
Spend some time in a hospital bed
And everyone’d come around,
  Sign my cast,
“I could’a died,”
Girls will swoon “Ooh!”

”Jump jump jump,”
There is a crowd chant down below,
“Jump jump jump,”
His voice or theirs he does not know,
“Jump jump jump,”
Don’t bother count three two one go

  And he jumps

The Innocents

The Innocents

Around and round a drone yellow bee,
Sipping nectar brewed for humble bee nuns,
  Probes each purple floret gleefully,
She draws her head, crawls on the crown,
To the next fresh floret on the way
  As she works her row around

Soon lands a sister aslant of the first,
Commencing to work, she’s filling a need, 
  Fresh flower faces yet to nurse,
Black elbows caked in yellow, persistent on she plows
Sexing pistils curved in rows,
  Countless hundreds on the bough

Virtuous drone, do you know the difference
Between your honeycomb hexes, and
  These wild flowers that you mate, (or even what sex is?)
When you’re done here to another you’ll move
Where on you’ll work, chaste making love,
  Another virgin rendezvous

Splinters on the Boardwalk

Splinters on the Boardwalk

I remember fearing that
  If my flip flops slipped off, my kid feet
Would be splintered by the rough wood of the boardwalk,
  Sunbleached and dessicated,
Boards laying diagonal,
  Barkers before their stalls at right,
Benches and the rail overlooking
  Sand and sea surf rolling left

After a day at the beach
  Mom wanted to show me the boardwalk,
Or her boardwalk, this storied place
  Where her Father had brought her,
I don’t recall wanting to see it,
  More like she was the kid this afternoon

Us walking along, my mother commenting
  On the attractions that had been here, or there,
Each having been replaced by a new one since,
  And my mind elsewhere

“Are you listening to me?”
  We’d stopped before “The Yacht Club,”
Basically a green water circle that ‘yachts’ went around in,
  Obviously on wheels,
Rolling over ramps unseen below the green,
  Immatating how a rolling a sea cruise feels

“Mom, I want to ride the boats…”
  “How much?”
The Italian Barker said “A quarter,”
  “Wow, rides used to be a nickel!”

“Are you listening to me?”
  It’s you and I a generation later,
We’re stopped outside a ride called “The Speedway,”
  Boxey plastic racing cars that went around an oval race course,
Plywood street painted ramps providing the ups and downs in the illusion
  Of a Monte Carlo race track

You said “Dad, I want to race a car!”
  “How much?”
A Pakistani Barker answered “Three dollars,”
  “Wow, the prices have gone up!”

When Stars Go Out

When Stars Go Out

Whither the faerie fireflies,
  Glowing only in a summer’s memory,
Extirpated by lawn treatments laid down too hard,
  Leaving only this squid-ink gloom in our back suburban yards

Except, sometimes - is that a bright blink, in the brush?
  Must be a trick of the light, an optic nerve that twitched,
A stray reflection in the glasses I never had glare protected,
  For a second look shows all is dearth and dark again in the dusk-night’s absent light,
While city street lights obscure the glow of evening stars
  Making them too as seeming put out,
And no - that was a plane behind night trees,
  With landing lights descending on a breeze,
Now that Rachel Carson’s silent spring
  Has become our millenial summer stillness

Yet again, like steel on a flint, they are the sparks that light my memory,
  So long ago …

  … A July 4th weekend,
Our parents had brought us to our Great Uncle’s cabin,
  On Chebeague Island, Maine,
His old butterfly collection upstairs,
  Pins through their hearts, flying under glass,
A white boxer slipping a brown one the Ace of Spades between his toes,
  Dogs playing poker in a picture frame,
With oil lamps and antique things,
  Humid night memories too many to recall

When our Mother pointed out “Kids, look at the fireflies!”
  As she waived us outdoors into the clear night yard
Where the Milky Way spilled down before the tree-line, upon the ground,
  A blinking neon glow lamp mist in which we gleeful ran around,
Next Mom brought out something from the kitchen,
  One for each of us, and then
We chased the flies about with mason jars,
  Clamping them under the lids,
My older brother discovering he could catch some by hand,
  Four hyperacive kids spellcasting with magic hurricane lamps

Next morning we came down and discovered
  She had let them go,
“Mom! Why did you put the fireflies out?”
“Because it’s morning, and when the sun comes up,
  That’s when all stars always go out”