The Days Left Behind

I asked the mourning dove

where to find the days left behind. 

"In the dew," she replied.

"In the wild grass

 on the slope beside the river.

Hurry," she warned. "Winter already whispers."

I asked the vulture

where to find the days left behind.

"In the fire pit," he replied.

"In the ashes 

full of hands and faces.

Go slowly," he warned. "They will wait."

I asked the falcon

where to find the days left behind.

"In my nest," she replied.

"I used them

for my children, bald and bottomless.

Go now," she warned. "My talons are teachers."

I asked the gentle mourning dove.

I asked the grim vulture,

but the lesson lay

at the feet of the falcon

in a slurry of time, need, and blood.

At 23 (for Bob Green--not the famous one)

Our mutual friend

had told you

how I used to be Queen of a very small tribe.

"It seems almost..." I said, hesitating.

"Like it really happened?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

"It did happen, but now

things are so different that it seems

ridiculous."

I sat there,

shot full of arrows like Saint Sebastian--

like him, not dying

but split and empty like a dead pew.

There are more gospels than they let on, you know.

This man loaned me two records--

Joni Mitchell

and It's a Beautiful Day.

Like poetry, it was love for life for me--

Hot Summer Day and Sweet Fire.

I left Illinois not long after

to Gypsy it in a small car with two teachers

off for the summer.

We read Richard Brautigan,

and wandered the bars in New Orleans, then Galveston

where I left both my crown and my grave in a coin laundry

on a Sunday morning.

______

Talking Monkey

 

I am a talking monkey--

I know this,

wearing the heavy suit of the corporeal. 

Please,

sit on the rocks of the ruin with me.

The stones have a warmth

left by the sun

 like a garland

around a young girl's head. 

Speaking as a glorified simian,

I love the pretty yellow

of the banana,

the seeded red of the strawberry,

and the deep rich purple

 of the plum.

Ill health, blood, bruises--

these bear the hues of these fruits

but theirs is a bitter course.

I am a talking monkey--

talking all the more, and most tediously

now that my tire

 stays still.

I used to swing on it, wildly!

like a chimp in a capsule

NASA's baby

headed for the stars!

Ah well, little pitchers have big ears--

never tell them the rotten truth

 about the circus

or the old hero peddling for the gawking crowd.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--

Music: The Rolling Stones Monkey Man 

A Conversation About a Dog

 "I see that I'm too late," I said

"You don't see a damn thing. Open your eyes," he said. 

There was a train due, or that had already departed, or

that never was, or that was, but had long since gone.

"I think about the dog. A lot. I miss the dog."

"There was no dog," he said, taking a drag.

"Think about it," he added, blowing smoke my way.

There was a dog, but not his dog, or not the dog

he thought I meant, which we never had. 

"There was a dog." I was determined, and a little angry.

He laughed and took off his hat, dangling it from his hand.

"Whatever you say, you fucking crazy bitch."

Trains look small at a distance, deadly from up close.

There is time for one to become the other, either way.

I didn't answer. I wore a veil like a death mask.

I wore a small tam like a zucchetto. Pax vobiscum. 

"Wait here forever if you want, I'm leaving," he said

and stood up, but lingered, finishing his unfiltered.

"You still love me. I know you do," I said softly, viciously.

"You don't know shit. Try opening your mail sometimes."

There are letters that form words, others that stand for things;

letters one saves for years, others forgotten on a hall table.

"I miss that dog. he was a good dog," I said,

but there was no one there, and the station was gone.

__________

belatedly for Dora's Dverse Poetics: Dialogue It In! I will share with OLN. 

Image: Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog

Music: Lydia Gray Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

February Light

 

Two months from the lamplit darkness that was December,

wrapped in a delicious affair with books, and poetry,

when I lamented the stubborn snow's refusal, once again, to visit,

February has arrived, changing the game, wanting everything its way.

This month has been as cold and severe as the lover who leaves

in the morning, after a thousand others, transfigured behind a screen

of secrets and silence. New snow is peaceful, people say, but no one

volunteers to go out and live in it, lie down in it, die in it.

Sometimes one wakes up confused, as if animated from inside

a capsule, with no history, no map, no landmarks. What then?

Maybe clarity comes with the next breath--or, everything remains

foreign, multiplying itself obscenely, crowded to bursting with horrors.

Sun on snow has the brightness of surgical lights to a person tied

down and drugged. The sun is the optometrist's penlight aimed

at an infected eye hardly able to bear it. It is February and the new way,

a cold intensity that can't be stopped, ravenous, stronger every day.

___________________

for What's Going On? --Light.

Music: Tears For Fears Pale Shelter

Equi Feri

 

We came out of the sun like flares

burning out our own memory,

landing like witless baby birds

and handed a brick in the heart before we even knew.

There is the sun, our personal searchlight

calling us not to sell ourselves for nothing. 

We played in traffic, drunk as monkeys,

carrying our Queen Boudica dolls for luck, dodging disaster.

Forever sneaks up, whistling our favorite song,

together with a creepy-crawly to keep us honest.

We have tried to express all of this, bright horses nickering

in the Earthbound Barn but meant for the roses, headlong, guided by the stars.

___________

for Word Garden Word List--Klara and the Sun 

Music: Junior Brown Surf Medley

Ode to L.

 

Here is an ode for you, my dear

to celebrate your ferric heart

and an idiocy of intimacy

as valueless as modern art. 

Here is a pot of chrysanthemums

with viper heads on every stem

to commemorate the quacks you quote

and your absolute belief in them.

Behold the cradle that holds the child

who turned to fog before she cried

and the trivia you cared for more

than the funeral or the fact she died. 

Who holds the torch and crosses eyes

at you in imaginary dance?

You, the center of the world

departing now by ambulance?

We were once and once was us

in kinder intervals that fell

into the ditch like cur and bitch

chasing cast-iron kites through Hell. 

________

for Word Garden Word List--Hapax

Scrapbook

 

Two parents, tidy as mints on a pillow,

produce three children who float into the world

like bewildered but bright confetti. 

The first lives inside a camera,

clothed in instructions and operating

the mechanism from within.

The second lives in the courtyard,

raised remotely from an upstairs window

by the detached shadow of the first.

The third grows inside a smoker

and can barely see. It is assumed she will be

a servant or a sparrow, but she is a fissure.

The second hates the first

and hides inside the family car,

finally using it to elope with an accident.

The first is made of mirrors,

the second of fists. The third grows

eyes on her palms and holds them up.

The first is successful and becomes a living myth.

The second is successful and has a skin of diamonds.

The third is on fire, shifting in the wind.

This is the story of the farmer's wife

she cut out their hearts with a carving knife

have you ever seen such a sight in your life

as this family, so proper and nice?  

________

for Word Garden Word List--The Silent Patient. 

Weight & Lightness

 

In morning, a thousand plans;

afternoon finds me recumbent

Hours become like contraband

and my plans undone but done with.

I feel unchanged, sitting by the window

but tire at the slightest exertion.

I watch as the evening bends low

and wonder at vitality's desertion.

But my mind! Imagination grown brighter!

While a simple chore leaves me breathless.

So I poeticize or read another chapter

and for the moment feel light, lifted, deathless. 

____________

for What's Going On? -- March of Time.

I have been a sad child and a wild addict and a recovering person, a long-time employee, been married and raised a son, been divorced and started over, called myself straight and LGBTQ, and I end as I began, with a love of dogs and poetry. What a long, strange trip it's been, but I am happy where I have landed. 

Don't forget that the Word Garden Word List remains active through Sunday. 

Music: Fleetwood Mac Landslide

Maury Wills

 

When I see the blackbirds and sparrows 

                                          speeding low in the sky

                                          ahead of a storm,

They remind me of a childhood summer

                                         and Maury Wills, the

                                         stolen base king.

I remember my father's barber crowing at the tv,

                                       "What a crackerjack!"

                                       as I waited in a chair, feet dangling.

When I see the red squirrel take over the feeder

                                      despite being smaller,

                                       I think of Maury Wills beating the odds

and the throw to second.

He disrupted the pitcher, catcher, and fielders

                                    like the neighbor cat in the ground ivy

                                    sure to pounce, just a matter of when.

His feet were his fortune, raising the dust sliding in

                                     on legs purple with dreadful bruises

                                      and red with rash, the Dodgers' captain

doing whatever it took.

When I see the grackle strutting with its gotten peanut

                                  I think of Maury Wills'  bright jewelry--

                                  the Hickock Belt, MVP and World Series rings.

The resourceful chipmunk makes me wonder, what is it like

                                to be smaller, quicker, cheeks stuffed

                                 while the circling hawk goes hungry?

Then I realize that I already know these things, even as

                                the years steal on me and I grow slower

                                sitting in my sanctuary, watching the action.

_________________

For Word Garden Word List--Mary Oliver. 

Process notes: Maury Wills is a lifelong favorite of mine, first for his baseball skills, and later for other things as well. He grew up in the projects in Washington DC and had no idea a black kid could hope to play in the majors until a Senators player named Jerry Priddy showed up at his local diamond to talk to the kids playing ball there. Wills never forgot it. Too small to be a slugger, he learned to switch hit and to use his speed, a forgotten weapon in baseball in an era of burly bashers.

   It was a long road to the big show for him, but when he finally got his chance, he ran with it (pun intended!). He went on to become captain of the Los Angeles Dodgers, break Ty Cobb's single season stolen base record, win an MVP award in 1962 and the Hickok Belt for sportsman of the year across all sports. He even made numerous appearances on television variety shows, playing the banjo--typical of him to choose such an instrument. 

   When his baseball career ended, and everything he had worked so hard to excel at was over, things changed. A girlfriend introduced him to cocaine, and Wills fell down, all the way down, into full-blown addiction. It took time, but once again the tenacity and drive that served him in baseball served him again in recovery and like me, he lived sober for the rest of his days. Maury Wills lived by his own lights, found great success his own way, and beat the devil to finish up on a high note. 

   I have tried here to combine Mary Oliver's eye for the everyday wonder of the natural world with the story of a childhood hero, Maury Wills. 

Music: Tracey Chapman Fast Car

Santa Anita

 

When I think of you 

                                     Daddy,

still to this day I see you in

                                               overcoat and fedora,

newspaper under your arm,

                                                  breath visible in the cold,

coming down the sidewalk from the

                                                                 train station--

I would run to meet you, overjoyed.

Years later,

                    post-divorce, me a

21-year-old 

                     home from overseas.

I stayed with you

                              and your new wife

that stranger, and you Daddy, 

                                                    you a stranger too

in the unfamiliar sprawl of L.A.

You took me with you to

                                           Santa Anita racetrack

with the beautiful thoroughbreds

                                                            ambling

in their easy gait, the jockeys

                                                    leaning forward

as if already running the next race.

                                                              I was looking

at the odds board and then you were gone.

I waited as the horses with their

                                                         strange wonderful names

finished race after race,

                                           feeling lost, and sad, then angry.

I still regret how I spoke to you

                                                       when you finally appeared

but you took it all with a funny smile. 

                                                                  Years later I realized

that you had gone to call the new wife.

                                                                      You just

couldn't be away from her, for me. 

Daddy, I don't know who you turned into.

My adored father

                               became someone who lived

with plastic over the furniture

                                                     and the Lakers on tv.

Oh for a ballgame with you

                                                 at Tiger Stadium

or another trip to the DIA

                                             to see Diego Rivera's mural.

I would run to you, overjoyed,

                                                     but you are gone,

just a sad California memory.

__________________________

for Dverse Poetics "Left In The Lurch" hosted by my friend Dora. 

Music: The Pretenders Back on the Chain Gang

A Divorce, 2001

 

I don't miss the arguments

or the madness,

the steady harsh hum of discord.

I don't miss hearing the dogs' toenails 

digging against the wood floor

as their sheltered world turned ugly.

I don't miss the eerie sound of

empty accusations

demanding confession of phantom sins.

I don't miss the sound of our son

begging you to stop smashing dishes

when I tried to escape to the bath.

I don't miss the slick drone of lawyers

or the jangle of keys to

homes changing hands. 

But when I sat down to eat

at the same table in a different kitchen

with the windows December-dark,

the silence wool-thick

and the opposite chair mute and empty,

I almost couldn't bear it--

almost couldn't face

the long wait for spring.

______

for What's Going On? -- "Silence"

Note: my divorce set me free, but at the time it was awful. I don't think I've ever written about it quite so baldly before. 

Don't forget, the Word Garden Word List is still active through Sunday!

Music: Gordon Lightfoot if There's a Reason

April Begins In A Graveyard

 

April begins in a graveyard

the stasis of winter broken.

Bold dandelion hold my heart

and everything said and unspoken.

I have done this, and that,

often for the last time.

I go gray as the sun moves over me

arranging my bones in rhyme.

Let the lawn grow long and wild, 

the caretaker drunk on his stool.

The old oaks must scoff at upstart April

and at me, a philosophizing fool.

April begins in a graveyard

with its bees more proud than the dead.

Let me doze on a bench in the half-shade

with my hand on the book still unread.

________

For What's Going On?--"April"

Music: Simon & Garfunkel The Dangling Conversation

American Girl In Euro Kicks

 

After midnight on the narrow street

high on a memory magnolia sweet

like a magnet where you don't belong

smiling lady sings a lonesome song

Across the plaza, under the bridge

where the cognoscenti live

down where a butterfly becomes a dove

what in the devil are you thinking of?

No mashed potato, no lime and gin

where the crows get black

sleep on the foxglove, dream of a peach

on a honey stack.

Hands like a swan's wing, feet like a hoof

slip the landlord, sleep on the roof

and in the morning, fleece the mark

mix with the rando's who live in the park

No chocolate candies, no baseball game

where the crows count six

collect the cats eyes, call off the dogs

keep the licorice sticks.

______

for Word Garden Word List--William Wordsworth

As I Said

As I said

in confidence

as i said 

from a holy book

as i said

at the emegence

as I said 

but could not look

These are the days of the Autumn's fall

These are the days of lead.

As i said

when we heard the trumpet sound

as i said

as i held your hand

as i said

as we knelt to kiss the ground

of this long-abandoned land

These are the days of the flying bird

These are the days of gold.

As i said

in bent and rusty words

as i said

with fingers crossed

as i said

to saints and conjurers

as i said

when  all was lost

These are the days of the swollen bud

and the bloom of scarlet red. 

_______

I dreamed this poem last night, or the main part of it anyway. 

Shared with The Sunday Muse #242. 

Leaving

 

We have been

leaving

for a long

time. First,

we

left the

fragrant grass of

lawns

and the 

copper smell of

pennies.

Later, we left

fine 

kisses

as if they were

old 

soda cans

first loves in 

aluminum bodies

10 cent refund in MI and IA.

Jobs, apartments,

houses, 

appliances and

various gods 

bob 

in our wake 

as we

age.

Now we can't 

get the damn toaster to work

let alone

move our bowels

or anyone's

world.

The finale

should be 

a snap.

After all,

we have been leaving

for a long

time.

____

for The Sunday Muse #234.

Benediction

There is a bell in the tower by the lake of the swans

and a blind priest with his stick on the path.

What hymn can matter to these bickering birds?

What pew can comfort the bewildered dead?

The swans trick the dead to come into the lake

and fool the bell to fall from the rope. 

The priest is found on the bench in the dawn

his mouth filled with feathers as if they belonged.

__________