Big Sur

 

Back in bus-and-duffel days

turned out, less to than away,

half-high, with no plan,

I went up the coast.

San Luis Obisbo, Carmel, San Fran

and on up to Portland.

That's where we go now

--people my age--

but this was then

when I had no means, no ways,

and just my naivete.

Out in the water, somebody said

to watch for the whales.

They live in the dark underneath,

and like me, come up, then back down

without learning a thing or so it seemed.

On the bus some guy liked

Gordon Lightfoot

You've Been Talking In Your Sleep. 

He spoke my language like a native

better than the pidgin kid that was me.

He told me a blue whale's heart

weighs as much as a grand piano

and can be heard from two miles away.

Bye daddy, behind me down the coast--

thanks for kicking me out.

I wondered, as Seattle became B.C.,

what if it's all just big empty water,

and me lugging some big booming beater for nothing?

Or what if I'm all ears

but the watersong was never for me?

What then? 

And what now?

I look out these days not at California coast

but at Michigan lakes,

cold and deep, choppy or still.

I know only that I still don't know

and never will.

________

for What's Going On? -- Whales and Other Wonders.

Music: Bobby Womack California Dreamin'

Fireman

 

You're right, I was here.

The cats let me in, they are as untrustworthy 

as a broken elevator.

You're right, I had hidden

pieces of myself, like a nightbird's nest

right under your nose.

Sorry about the fire department.

Sorry about my dual nature, always waving my arms

for balance like a drunken signalman.

You know that they burn

saints and witches alike, and me most of all,

but thieves stole the taps

And you just sat there,

like Buddha of the first editions, plastered in poetry,

a wall unto yourself.

You're right, I meant me

but the cats advised me to say you, over and over

begging to be let in

then out

then in

just like them.

The firemen saved them--

the cats, the other tenants, the stairwells and stars.

Me? I died in the fire I had set because I was in pain, 

did not know how to end things,

and you were not there to get that blasé look on your face

and put me out. 

________________

for Sunday Muse #261. 

top image created with Bing A.I.

Song of the Chimera

 

The blackbirds are dying and sing their death

from stump and steeple, barrel and rail.

The police are called every time it snows

and they maunder in the fields, dithery and pale.

I have seen the Chimera

and your barn is burning down.

She is lion, goat and snake

and your barn is burning down. 

Morning appears and suffers a scalding dew.

There is a killer hiding where the lilacs grew

beside the porch of the rectory he burns and claims 

the Chimera is you, and you, and you.

I have smelt the Chimera.

Her skin is fragrant with misery and death.

In the ashes, I have smelt the Chimera.

Her skin is fragrant with misery and death.

In the field stands the papier-mache president.

His is the pomp of smoke house and sty.

The postman delivers catastrophes ill-sent

as the blackbirds call, and falter, and die.

There was love, some say

kept in jars on an old woman's counter.

The gloomy blackbirds beg her for rest,

rest in jars, there on her counter.

There is no more clattering, no good book held high.

There are weeds in the window box, crackling dry.

The killer is hiding where the lilacs grew

telling fools their fortunes from a blackbird's eye.

I have seen the Chimera

coming fast through the dawn

with seven devils to drive her

the Chimera drives on.

_______

for Word Garden Word List # 10. 

What Happened To Aunt Flossie

Arsenic in the wallpaper killed Aunt Florence,

her demise hastened by her habit of banging her head into the wall

at the slightest provocation.

Last time we visited,

my sisters and I chimed "Hello, Auntie,"

followed immediately by our polite curtsies

and more thundering head-bangs

which shook the house and dazed poor Aunt Flossie.

At tea, she spoke of being haunted by the spirit of a skunk

which had been living under the back stoop.

Her dog killed it, but the striped stinker in its anger

sought revenge.

We held our napkins to our faces in order to endure it. 

"How awful," we remarked,

upon which Aunt Flossie let her tea cup drop

from her fingers, and would have

banged most ferociously into the wall had we not instantly intervened.

My sisters and I are pious girls and we have faith

that the stinker will not be permitted to follow Aunt Flossie

into the golden gates of Heaven.

We shall miss her.

_____

for Poetry Pantry and Real Toads "scent."

4 American Sentences

   The image above was first used with my poem "The Girl Who Loved Hemingway."
                  I suspect she might also love American sentences.



Allen Ginsberg's American sentence, in case you might not know, is a response to his feeling that haiku did not work well in English. It is simply 17 syllables arranged how ever you like, and it must be, of course, a sentence. (That doesn't mean it can't have periods within it.) While haiku are normally concerned with nature, an American sentence can be about anything. Kerry, at The Imaginary Garden, first told me about them. And so here are four I wrote today:


my joints grind like old bricks. 
garden warms.
my cane is sturdy.
sun is strong.

dog, i am your mother
though i am not a dog.
bed is yours to hog.

baseball on tv.
dog and me on couch.
we sleep through several innings.

in age i find beauty in more faces
than i ever did when young. 

And so, I have written 30 poems in 30 days this April. As I depart The Imaginary Garden With Real Toads--like a tv actress or a back-up singer embarking on a preposterous and disastrous solo career--I want to say that the inspiration from all of you has been instrumental in the writing of so many of the poems on this blog, Coablack's House of Pain, and Black Mamba. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything. I will still see you when I appear as a  "legendary" (read: washed-up!) guest on the show. (Fireblossom as Aunt Biddy, with one line: "Follow your heart, Chrissie!") xoxoxox

a little road music:

Brick & Mortar, Beat & Breath

“I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods.”
― Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's: And Three Stories 

I used to live
there,
and there,
and there.

Sometimes, 
at odd times,
I dream of them--
that I am still living there,
with whomever I lived with,
slept with,
wounded with
there.

Look, here is the street
where I walked late one night,
my face wet with tears
when my marriage was breaking up.
And here,
here is the busy road where my screams stopped the cars
when my baby ran out among them.

Here is the table
where we ate Sunday breakfast.
I was doing impressions and had my ex and our son in stitches.
Here is another table
in the same house,
where I left my ring in a drawer
because it had lost its meaning.

Here is the yard
where my older brother put his football helmet on my three year old head,
and our dad snapped a picture.
I was bent at the knees, laughing so hard.
I could hardly see!
Behind me are the evergreen trees, new then,
that would grow so high and wild they finally had to be replaced.

Here is the door
where I carried in a four month old puppy,
to meet his new brother and sister.
They are gone now, and the puppy is a frail old man.

Loving brick and mortar seems absurd,
but we do it.
Loving anything with a heartbeat,
anything that needs to breathe the air,
anything that eventually will pass away,
seems crazy,
but we do it
again and again,
because it is worse to bear one's heartbeat,
one's breath,
one's dwindling days
alone. 
_______

for Play It Again, Toads #3. I chose Kerry's "The Story."