My Loona McGoon

Another Vineyard memory.
One of Chris's and my favorite haunts is the bar at the Ocean View Restaurant. (There's no view of the ocean from there, btw...)
But real Islanders come round there, and if you're friendly and have a minute they'll tell you stories....

My Loona McGoon

"So, do ya not believe there are hand prints on the moon?
  you buy me a pint and I’ll set tell you straight son,
Sure, some say astronauts left foot prints on it,
  but I can tell ya that’s all fake, Government propaganda shit,
Ever notice there ain’t no stars behind Neil Armstong?
  ‘cause he’s in a warehouse, Ya never seen ‘em…,
But I gone too far, I skipped ahead a few parts,
  thanks guy, for the pint, I’ll go back to the start,

I’d been clammin’ on the outer banks, you know, the shallow ones anyway,
  when I got back to ma boat at the end o’ the day,
It’s never too fun, returnin’ to Nantucket,
  the seas very big and me boat’s just a bucket,
Then a storm blew up strong and it blew up right quick,
  but I’m an old clammin’ man, an’ I don’t get sea sick,
As the swells increased, the boat leaned up to starboard with each wave,
  she leveled off up the top o’ the swell, leaned to port on the downside,
  to level again bottoming a ‘tween the last and the next,
Over and over, this rolling motion,
Over ya know? ‘Way-O’, and over ‘Way-O’ we’d come,
  ‘til I felt as I’d never been sober, like too much strong rum,
‘Way-Ooo-Ooo-Woah…

An’ all the time the swells grew up higher an’ we rolled to top,
  (I say we, I mean me boat, me clams in the hold, and me)
Then I noticed, up there, clear above the mist, could see stars!
  we was in the heavens, the inky black heavens, pin-poked by starlights…
  (Ya never saw them on those ‘moon lanidings!)
Then we rolled down the lee back in the mist
  only to roll up, stars and stars again,
Was then I noticed the moon rising,
  not while deep in the waves of course, just when crestin’ up top,
An’ it were coming closer and closer with each time we rised, and with steam!

That old cheese meant to ram me, like a ship that won’t stop,
So I climb up on the pilot house,
  not so concerned with the wheel as preventin’ a collision
And as the swell rose up and we saw stars again
The moon herself were straight above, and I’m the only thing
  between her and smashin’ my boat.
So I put me hands up an' I steadied an' fended her off,
  these hands, see! These hands! pushed off from the moon!
Then we rode down and up again the next swell
I could see she was past,
  though we were lucky not to get caught in the wash of her screws,

Naw, I can see you don’t believe me,
  buy an old salt a pint, and he pays you back with a yarn,
Yet I can prove it, it’s true!
When again back at port, and on land,
  I noticed there was Moon Dust under me fingernails,
I scraped it out with me pen knife ‘n put it in a jar for me girl,
She wears it for eye shadow, Moon Dust is good eye shadow,
You ask around and she’ll tell ya,
  she’s my girl, she’s my Loona McGoon!"

  

The Gleaning

This time of year, in years past, Christine and I would spend a week or two on Martha’s Vinyard.
We have some memories.
In retrospect I have come to regret this, as I think that caterpillar may have made an interesting pet.

The Gleaning

We stepped into a garden store
  where waterfalls of flowers poured,
  from the ceiling to the floor,
Where cement Saints and Buddhas adored
  a bushel basket full of corn,
I said to Christine;
  "Corn meant maize to the Indians, and wheat to the British,
  although no one ever calls Indian corn British maize,
  like maize were corn and corn were wheat,
What loco in parentis taught our forebears how to eat?"

Now they were sandy, the corns,
  as if picked up from the ground,
  like a rutabaga or carrot,
  not as wholesome corn is found,
True, stalks will bend in a strong wind,
  to grow so on at an un-right angle,
  too low to greet the combines tines,
And the imagination easily minds,
  of wagons overflowing their bins,
  or the bump of a wheel spilling excess yield back again,

I said to Christine;
  "By ancient law these are the right of the poor,
  who come at dusk to glean their score,
  that they may know harsh hunger something less, ,
So how they come to this bushel basket here?
  could one poor soul have sold these ears to the shopkeeper,
  from what he had of his rightful share
  in deference to himself ever shucking another cob?"

Since priced by ear and not by weight,  
  I didn’t mind sand in my freight,
And there and then bought two, by the front door,
  which transformed me into a fantastic thing,
  for while as any of God’s made beasts I’d two ears before,
  I now left an unnatural, an Argus audientes sporting four,

On our way home we pondered;
  "Who is this, ‘the poor?’
  who desires gleaning corns no more?
  I live on a budget, so I could be needy, doubtful though,
And I’ve met homeless who deny it still,
  the need for charity and good will,"

Once home I washed the ears and shucked
  then stopped, declaring ‘Oh my, yuck!’
As the sight of a caterpillar, green the size of my finger
  digested me of all Christian thoughts,
Once showing Christine, I did not linger
  to march those ears a quarter mile,
  past where by roadside farmers piled their compost,
To a field, once a maze of corn, having since been shorn,
And invoking Our New England Yankee God
  chucked the gleanings back from whence they came

July

I know it's August.
In Japanese, especially in ancient Haiku and Taka collections, they arrange their poems by season, Spring - Summer - Autumn - Winter - Love - and Miscellaneous. 
We don't often do that in the west, though I wish I could with this blog.
But then it would be hard for you here to find the latest.

July

July the goldfinch perches
  upon the tomato cage which stands
To be crawled up by runner beans,
  towards his remembrance of last summer,
The nasturtium, zinnia and sunflower,
  not yet Goldfinch, it’s not your hour,
Young rabbits chase about the hedge,
  other birds’ nests have hatched and fledged,

But you, petal yellow with white piped wings,
  you wait until late summer to sing,
Then thistle and seed cones past sprung will have hardened,
  including these, the flowers of my oak barrel garden,
In time their petals you’ll pull and shed,
  then pluck the grains from every head,
So summer friend, please come back soon,
  it’s just that now we’ve one first bloom

The Dunmore Rock

I promise, as July ends this is my last moon and spoon about either Vermont or Lake Dunmore (for this year anyway). Yet here is an interesting character, for as all it's bliss and terror is ascribed by us it is deserving of poetic immortality.

The Dunmore Rock

I know whereof, in depths unknown
  up from the brown green a thing renown
  that mocks how mountains rent the level sky
In the mouth of South cove it tickles the serene lake,
  radio waves it casts in droves
  from the head, that stone pate unseen,
  except those said ripples sent from what’s hid below,
  an immobile coursing pretender of muskrat or monster,

Somewhere is a picture, an old sixties polaroid,
  of Uncle Charlie who stepped out of his boat
  and stood upon that rounded rock,
  mocking he can walk on water…
Oh Charlie! Are you Jesus?
  the places you will go to tease us!

Yet I know the Dunmore rock in a different vein
  it’s lurking deception and danger just the same
As you run the mid lake eastside, far past Watherhouses,
There, beyond the emerging point,
  before you pass to port of the island,
Tip up your engine, pull up your dagger,
  for you may not see it,
That circle of wavelets gets lost in the breeze,
  and you must keep watch, do not run through at ease,

I of course, when I pass through, must find it,
  it vexes me, it’s my Moby Dick,
How like Odysseus Sirens or the Gorgon Herself ,
  I am compelled to wonder and stare,
See the jagged scars from it’s tearing of hulls,?
  see the white paint dents, with shag lake algae waiving between?
  they invoke the image of shred seal lion meat,
  gore in the jaws of the Great Shark,

No, I do not avoid, I paddle to it,
  I reach out with a kindly hand and I avast me to it’s crown,
Peaceful, I so anchor with this pet rock, 
  for fear abates, phrenology divines a kinder presence,
  you tame manatee, you simple submarine Saracen,
Spirit of the lake, all year I contrive to return,
  to float in your timeless current,
  to offer benedictions at your altar,
  to lap in the waves of your prophesy,

And now our time has come, again, and gone,
Wonderful obelisk, set by the glacier lang syne,
  I must hove on, yet I push off wistful,
My hope we’ve not met our last time

Hooooooo-wwaasshhh!

Still in the midst of summer, I'm pining for the lake in Vermont.
Here's a memory of something Christine and I saw fly over Moosalamoo one night...

Hooooooo-wwaasshhh!

(Note - at the end of this poem, the reader is invited to shout out the name of the title)

Not a falling star, for parallel to the Earth
  a thing unpinned to Heaven wreaked,
  and over the mountain brightly streaked,
Of these, the largest which dash above our peaks
  are fireballs, stones that circle earth for ages,
  then gouging through the atmos at perigee they rage
  flaming out once they’ve broken through the turn, again,
  and yes, rare times some explode…
Now this was a diminutive and momentary sun,
  matching on it’s course the ridge upon it’s run,
With curly-cue’s of fire flash lapping on behind,
  wagging it’s tail all a spray, the night’s fiery fountain
  as it arced over tonight’s velvet mountain,

This brilliant chameleon bore an ever re-growing tail
  of orange, red, yellow, blue,
  each outgrowth sparking bold and briefly through,
  as by an invisible hand each suddenly picked,
  and blown out as quickly as a kindling click,
Ask me,
  was it consumed by or did it exit our sky?
  for answer I’ll not even try,
As then just as briefly as it came
  the ball smoked out above the ground,
  naught by but starlit ash and my memory to be found
Then seeming all was dead – it spoke!
Can you imagine what it said?

 

A Ripton Sunset

From Lake Dunmore, if you climb Mt Moosalamoo, go past  the snake point, past the mountain peak, the path comes to a ledge, from there you cam see Bread Loaf, on the north shoulder of which Robert Frost had his summer cabin.
If you choose not to climb a whole mountain, you need only drive up the Middlebury river (road,
Rt whatever), past the gorge, halfway to the college on the left there's a picnic stop and then just a few yards on there's a dirt road. Park at the white house, walk up a path about 100 yards. It's up there.
I visited too many years ago. I need to return to Vermont more often.

A Ripton Sunset

There never was a sound from this cottage but one,
  can you hear it? the wind is a scratching pencil,
  the etching and revision of natural verse,
Share with me the sunset cowl arising behind
  Moosalamoo, enshrouding Bread Loaf with the dusk
Here, the oak tree he leaned against and sat before
  while poking fire embers with a walking stick
  given him by Tatoskok, used so every night,
  until burnt and blackened to such a pencil lance
  that he might write upon the landscape, sparing scrap,
Sit here on this scone of stones where he scratched his crown
  (perhaps) while college undergrads attend around,
Tally here, the score, in this field we well know,
  the mown grass he scythed, made hey, neat parsed six foot rows

My 2nd Amendment Bomb Pop

I have about 2 dozen poems in various states of completion. Some on summer themes, some not.
The easy ones need little more revision at this point, but the longer, more meaningful works will take more time.
Case in point - here's this, best described as a satire of the bane of warm weather porch time; Electronic Ice Cream Music.

My 2^nd Amendment Bomb Pop

If there ever was a reason,
  for a civilian like me
To own his own bazooka,
  it’s a truck like thee,
With your electronic Ears Hung Low
  all a blasting from your horn,
As on you roll, again, again,
  by day all day and morn
With your Doppler shifting music
  you change into second gear,
You go round and round the neighborhood
  you are both far and near,
With your ebb and flow acoustics
  you sound royally most queer,
And nobody buys your ice cream,
  so please go, get out of here
I see you selling cherry pops
  and also chocolate bombs
I’d like to pop your tires
  or have you run over my bomb,
But as I said at the beginning
  a bazooka would be best,
So you can sell ice cream in hell
  and finally let me have a rest

Fa-Pooom!
   Ahhhhh!