Frozen Shark

 

Frozen Shark

A busload of first-graders I bring
to the Academy of Science Museum
where (weird best part) we watch
workers with forklift and cables
hoist a frozen great white shark
into a glass-walled freezer but
(weird worst part) the forklift coughs.
A cable creaks.

A monster swings toward us
so in reflex I reach up my hands
against iceberg shark snout
jerking my backbone (a crunch)
enough for forklift to adjust
while the thought flashes
What if my fingers weld to this beast?
They don’t
but my lumbar joints
scream in pain. You’d do the same.

Lunch in the academy courtyard
by a fountain full of tossed coins.
On a bench I lie supine, resting spine
while poor kids, my class reach in water
up to armpits plucking treasure, soaking
pockets. Nell a speedy girl gathers the most.
A boy, not poor not my class hangs back,
watching, then asks speedy girl Nell
“Can I have some of your quarters?”
Oh labor. Oh life.

Nell shares, then sits by me.
“Why’d you give?” I ask.
She shrugs, offers me a coin.

At day’s end I tell you this.
You ask “How can I help?” as you
apply heat, soft fingers to my back.
Here love, let us share
one damp penny.

…..

First published in Speckled Trout. Thank you editors Kevin McDaniel, Nancy Gillingham

Best Concert Ever

 

Best concert ever

Spread a blanket, edge of crowd
eat fried chicken not dancing
Jerry far away a tiny bobblehead on stage
flash of a beatific grin

Toddling child appears naked before us
says “Poop” a complete statement
parents somewhere dancing
the need immediate smelly

Selected by this child we
have no diapers no wipes
everyone oblivious dancing he has
black ringlets smudged cheeks trusting eyes

There are moments
—when you look into a lover’s eyes
—when a tree is falling
—when a child is in need
the world stops except that one thing

Jerry stops
the whole amphitheater silent
airplanes pause midair
as we improvise with napkins
glug of white wine for cleaning fluid
dancing skeleton T shirt
folded and knotted as diaper

Saturn his name
stays with us we are Saturn’s rings
until mom and dad appear frantic and so sorry

We say we’re honored he chose us
Thank you so much they say
but—no, the music never stopped

…..

First published in Storyteller Poetry Review—thank you editor Sharon Waller Knutson

Note: Nominated for Pushcart

Welcome to the Woodshop

 

Welcome to the Woodshop

Young Kai at the age
when muscles grow quicker than caution
after his worst fuckup ever
shall spend a day in his father’s woodshop
and they shall build an urn for Kai’s future ashes
because dad thinks it’s time
for Kai to think ahead

First step, Kai, is to choose the tree
whose life ended to enclose
your dusty shadow

There’s pine sweet as sugar, eagerly shaped,
easily injured by careless blow

There’s oak so hard your enemies can’t nail
but so resistant your teachers can’t bend

There’s acacia like a pretty dancer
with freckles dancing in curls of grain,
fickle to the chisel

There’s walnut so dark
you want to touch and stroke,
disrespected by fools who seek the blond

There’s redwood the pacifist
bending to gales, outliving fire,
outlasting dinosaurs, thriving in fog

Or there’s bird’s-eye maple
staring back at the life
you’ve sanded and shaped

From seeds to sawdust
what shape your grain, Kai?
What color your soul?

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Haugen

The Museum of Transport

 

The Museum of Transport

Where is the red canoe?
    —Lashed to the roof of the van.

And the van?
    —Overheats. Stalls in Sacramento,
    so kids and I explore a paddlewheel
    riverboat converted to hotel.
 
Kids like it?
    —Meet a man shaky on a cane
    shows us what used to be the engine
    room. Says it was stinky and scorching.
    (“Like our van!” kids say.)
    Now it’s a wine bar.

So the van starts?
    —Not yet so we walk to the
    Railroad Museum. Step into a
    Pullman sleeper car, feel it rocking.
    As a child I rode one like this.
    It rocked.

Then the van starts?
    —Runs, stalls in Placerville.
    Kids and I push it to a shady spot.

What do the kids say?
    —They’re used to it.

Do you get there?
    —Yep. Finnon Lake.

And the red canoe?
    —Patiently waits. Never breaks.
    We untie, bring her down.

Worth it?
    —Sometimes, driving freeways,
    the brain overheats. Here, the antidote.
    We paddle, we glide. Lunar light
    splits the water, smooth as syrup.

Do you camp?
    —Frogs peep. Campfire murmurs:
        —It’s a long road to the moon
        but someday you may travel there.

And the red canoe?
     —May she never be history,
    never museum.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig. Thank you editor Hayley Haugen.
Painting by Janet Katherine MacKay.

Gift

 

Gift

In my head
I hold a mental map
of all the pipes beneath these streets
because I laid them there;

and in my fingers, spark
of all the wires
on those poles
because I strung them there;

and in my muscle,
lift of lumber — stud, joist, rafter
ever after because
I nailed them there.

Child, I built your bone,
your vessel, your nerve.
Now dance, now play.
Now taste your father’s kiss.

…..

First published in Visitant —thank you editor Andrea Janda
Photos from Pixabay

Lion Dreams

 

Lion Dreams

Harvey lurches, never walks.
His body is a puppet strung loose.
Can’t hit a baseball to save his life.
Roger the bully calls him Special Spaz.

I like Harvey, like his questions
that teachers won’t answer.
Questions like “If a lion eats you,
do you enter the lion’s soul? And then
when the lion dreams, do you dream?”

Next time Roger calls him Special Spaz,
Harvey says “We’re each special in our
own weird way. You’re special, too.”
“You calling me weird? Huh? You—”
That’s when I get grade-school famous
for kicking Roger in the nuts. Which
makes me special in that weird way.

A few decades pass to now,
this grassy park overlooking the Pacific
a continent’s width from Atlantic grade school.
I’m sitting on a black metal bench
eating a KFC drumstick. A man
beside me with short white beard,
white hair in a ponytail, tosses popcorn to
strutting doves and says “If you eat chicken,
do you swallow chicken soul?”

I gape, we laugh, we marvel at the meeting,
shake hands. His arm jerks at the elbow,
loose-jointed. Grip firm.
He says “I teach Theology at Long Beach.”
I say “I fix houses. Rehab and restore.”
“You remove the rot. Funny,” he says, “how
we are what we are before we ever know.
All of us, from conception, we are
swallowed by lions.”

…..

First published in Red Wolf Journal—thank you Irene Toh, editor
Photo by “mystery cat” on Unsplash

May 4, 1970

 

May 4, 1970

All our earthly tie-dye rags plus
a mason jar of muddy Mississippi water
because we’ll never see that river again—
you, me, one dog crammed into a Volkswagen
aimed at Vancouver, Canada for permanent exile—
when we hear the news on crackly AM radio:
Kent State. Four dead.

A truck stop, Little America.
As we walk in, we see jaws clench.
Tough crowd. Could be my T-shirt—
    STAY HEALTHY
    AVOID DRAFTS
Waitress—cowgirl boots, red white and blue
sash on her neck—pours us coffee, two cups.
“I’m so sorry,” she says and glares
at a trucker who is flipping us off.
You add cream, and it curdles. Spoiled.
Waitress without asking dumps your cup,
brings another and fresh cream.
“My bad,” she says. “Shit. Ohio.
I’m so upset. Sorry.”

Just that, fresh cream. A little warmth
from a waitress who is doing her job.
You touch my hand. “We can’t go,” you say.

Future can change so fast. Ours,
steering east, Saint Lou, re-dipping our toes
along the cobblestone levee among
seagulls and cigarette butts as we pour
the mason jar back home.  

Four dead. We stay.
In kindness, we work for them.
And that waitress.

Note: On May 4, l970 the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University anti-war demonstrators, killing four and wounding nine students.

…..

First published in Moss Piglet. Thank you editor John Bloner

Coming Out of Retirement, Age 70

 

Coming Out of Retirement, Age 70

A milestone
like re-losing my virginity
as I crawl under a deck
among spore-puffing dirt,
as duff prickles my navel
as I jack up a beam, then pound and pry
with unsure muscles to remove a rotten post,
install another, then lower the jack again.

Humping toward me over curling fern,
a woolly bear caterpillar who knows inborn
of construction, of transformation,
who seems to say —

Welcome back to funky earth,
to sawdust in nostrils,
to splinters under fingernails,
to blood-seeping scratches
    discovered in the shower.

Welcome back to a world
built better by your body.

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual. Thank you editor James Lewis
Photo by Micha L Rieser

The La-la of Life

 

The La-la of Life

Grandson,
unlike most of humanity
enjoys the sound of my singing,
so together we make up songs.

He with green eyes, jug ears
and the occasional goofy smile
is an honest audience, a toothless critic
who enjoys lengthy vowel sounds:
    ooo ooobie  
and
    gree-een eyes, green eyes,
    gree-een eyes, green.
He frowns upon hard consonants.

Did Beethoven sing to babies?
Did Buddha? He shoulda.

I compose, grandson edits,
new melodies fill the room.
Don’t listen.

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual —Thank you editor James Lewis
The photo: yeah, that’s me in 2007. The grandson is now driving a car.

Airport, Burlington Vermont

 

Airport, Burlington Vermont

Two men in T-shirts are sun-roughened,
muscular in the non-gym way.
They know physical work.

On the window glass the older man
with smudgy finger sketches a map
from memory. He speaks of a trickling spring,
a field cleared by hand, a fence of stone.
A grandma who swore she was a virgin,
a grandpa who swore she was not.
Twin graves on a hill. Sold.

The younger man says, "That little farm,
every time I set foot on it, I felt hugged."
Embarrassed, they each look away to the tarmac
where jets are rolling for Newark. Chicago.
Some damn city. Now boarding.

…..

First published in Califragile—thank you editor Wren Tuatha
Photo by Dan Petit