Spark

 

Spark

I’m delivering firewood.
You’re leaning over a triple sink, 
sleeves rolled up in a baggy sweatshirt, 
elbow-deep in soapy water scrubbing
93 soup bowls in the camp kitchen 
where washing dishes is punishment
but what could you do wrong?

Your hair is a swirl on top 
like black soft-serve ice cream 
with one lock loose over the forehead. 
Cheeks shiny. You reach overhead 
in rubber gloves for a can of Comet cleanser 
(stretching, exposing belly, unaware) 
when you see me and try to push 
the straggle of hair from your face  
leaving little bubbles among the freckles. 

You smile.
Your teeth are straighter than mine. 
You say, “Want a potato chip?” 
“I’d love one.”
Sparkle eyes, green.
We’re sixteen.

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual. Thank you editor James Lewis.

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Librarian, Potsdam, New York

 

Librarian, Potsdam, New York

In the old stone-step library 
    housing epic tales
a glorious woman with glowing hair
    color of late-day sky
dances like a flag on a used-car lot.

Her silver dress clings—
    snakeskin with a bulge where
she swallowed a bunny.

She tap-dances 
    rat-a-tat-tat heels 
across wooden floor 
slapping stories into shelves 
    adventures in volumes
while the womb a perfect partner
    follows her lead.

She flicks overhead lights
meaning you must gather and go
    check out the legends
    or leave them behind.
She’ll lock all doors 
    caging you in
    or shutting you out
as she dances onto the stage, 
the great theater of motherhood
    tales tragic and joyful
as we all live our own drama.

…..

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig — thank you editor Hayley Haugen

This poem was inspired by a librarian in Potsdam, New York who danced, literally danced over the floors beneath the high ceiling as she shelved books while in a corner I was among a gathering of St. Lawrence County poets. Her passion internal, oblivious of anyone watching. Her belly was high drama, her slithery dress a silver flame, her clicking heels a startling counterpoint to the slumbering books. Here’s to that child—may you grow with that love. 

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Nurture Nature

 

Nurture Nature

In pots Mom nurses 
avocado saplings 
(94 —today’s count)
in stages of leafy growth— 
root-bound, crying for transplant— 
plus a couple hundred pits 
suspended in jars of water, 
waiting to sprout. 
Or not sprout. 
Miscarriage is common 
but tossing a pit into trash 
would be like tossing a baby, 
says Mom. 

The saplings don't like this climate 
under redwood trees in coastal fog 
but that's life—you don't get to choose 
where you’re born. Ask any teenager. Ask me.
Come visit, try our guacamole. 
Take some home. And some babies. 
Please. Before they grow dotty and old.

…..

First published in Autumn Sky Poetry by editor Christine Klocek-Lim
Image by johso

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Instructions for Smart Toilet (Addendum)

 

Instructions for Smart Toilet (Addendum)

If you smell smoke
stand up immediately.
Remain calm.

Grab extinguisher first
—not your shorts.
(Always hang extinguisher 
within reach of toilet.)

Smother flames 
with foam.
Pull up shorts
if not too painful.

Reboot toilet
—or—
Call tech support.
Please
stop shouting.

…..

Photo from odditycentral.com

Note: As a man in Xiamen, China, used the “smart” toilet in his home, he first smelled smoke — right before the toilet burst into flames. He didn’t have time to pull his shorts back up, but he did manage to capture pictures of the toilet with flames emerging from the bowl. Other incidents of toilets bursting into flame in China have been reported over the last two years. (From News of the Weird.)

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Missouri Magic

 

Missouri Magic

Sitting in dirt, on our bottoms 
(our rumps, little Lily calls them) 
at sunset we wait for Aunt Meg’s 
evening primrose to bloom. And they do! 
As if spring-loaded they burst open 
flinging their scent, bright yellow
(like a smell-bomb, says Lily). 
After one night of blossom, Aunt Meg 
tells us, the petals will drop off. 
“The original one night stand” she says, 
a joke which is lost on Lily.
I’ve brought my girl from California 
to see family and the simple glories
of the Midwest. She’s fascinated. 

Across the lawn we behold fairy lights 
winking, rising to the trees.
“Do they like sugar?” Lily asks. 
So we fill a jar with blinking bodies. 
Add sugar. Make up a song:
     Firefly firefly 
     twinkle twinkle
     With these sweets
     we sprinkle sprinkle
“Do you hear me?” she asks.
They seem bored. We let them go. 

Heat lightning in a cloudless sky—
God is answering the bugs.
Locusts clatter like a freight train.
A whippoorwill calls making the music, 
Lily decides, of meteors. The air 
so full of sounds, so darkly green, 
so muggy with moisture—this night 
so thick we can hold in our hands.

For a finale we wave sizzling sparklers 
spelling our names against the stars 
and then it’s bath time, bedtime.
No rockets. No boom. Just glory.
Fourth of July.

…..

First published in Storyteller Poetry Review. Thank you editor Sharon Waller Knutson

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Love Poem for a Sunday Afternoon

 

Love Poem for a Sunday Afternoon

First, undress. Put on worst clothes.
Plus headlamp, gloves, dust mask.
Enter crawlspace. Think not of Hades.

Slither on belly over rat shit. 
Curse plumber for poor design.

With wrench, unscrew cleanout plug. 
Recoil from explosion of black goo 
spraying face, eyeglasses, worst clothes, mask. 
Ignore smell.

Feed metal snake into pipe. Ignore 
phallic thoughts. Keep feeding, 
turning until you feel a breakthrough. 

Pull snake out bringing more disgusting goo. 
Repeat—feed snake, twist, bring out. 

Find cleanout plug that blew ten feet away in 
puddle of black muck. With wrench, reinsert plug. 
Turn it tight. 

Slither out. In driveway blast snake 
with hose water. Blast self. Remove clothes 
before entering house.

Take hot shower. Scrub. Soap generously. 
Watch water swirl around drain, then disappear. 
After shower, get dressed. Or not. 
Tell your love it’s fixed.

…..

First published in Freshwater. Thank you editor John Sheirer.
Yes, that’s me in the photo, just before entering the crawlspace.

Here’s a video from Freshwater of me and the poem: go here for video 

My Day with You

 

My Day with You

Sunlight
through honeysuckle hair
with haloes of red
as you bend to
shake me
wake me.

I plumb
in the empty house of a billionaire
who is younger than us
who could crush me with a signature
while all day a bird in the wood
sings like a donkey in distress.
You’d laugh if you heard.

Driving home
through mountains
I see a giant man on a giant horse
galloping up a distant hill.
He seemed bigger than a tree!
You’d be amazed if you could see.

Now in bed
as you bathe
I see through the window
rising haloes of
yellow moonlight.
When you join me
smelling so fresh
between flannel sheets
below the frosty panes
we’ll share stories
of our day.

…..

Note: the day was July 27, 1984 when I wrote this. Working couples with 3 small children may barely see each other except at night. Yet somehow, in my mind we spent the day together.

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Fannie and Corydon crash my wedding

 

Fannie and Corydon crash my wedding

Corydon’s photo flash powder 
blasts the room as he asks 
How much are you paying 
the waiters and cooks?

Fannie wants to know 
Are you pregnant yet?

More than a century they’ve been ghosts. 
Matter of family history, they birthed 
my grandma six months after marriage, 
same day President Garfield was assassinated. 
Corydon published a newspaper, 
Democrat in a Republican town
until the printing plant burned down. 
Go figure.

Fannie as a hobby crocheted homilies 
for the Presbyterian ladies such as 
STOP THE RAILROAD BOSSES.

Grandma as their child endured
schoolyard taunts. Which may explain
why Grandma was an old lady all her life,
always proper. But she comes to our 
hippie wedding, her ghost.

Corydon offers a toast:
May your love bear fruit. 
May you nourish the poor. 
May you poison the rich.
Tell lies, you will be elected.
Tell truth, you will be shot.
May you tell truth regardless.

He leaves a silver dollar 
and a note under his plate:

Nothing has changed.  

…..

Note: There are ghosts at every wedding, though they wait to show up years later in the photo album of our memory. My own small wedding (it was the sixties) had more ghosts than guests. My wife and I were high school sweethearts. Still together. Our wedding party grows larger all the time.

Photos are of Fannie and Corydon. 
First published in Live Encounters. Thank you editor Mark Ulysses.

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Never Point a Loaded Politician at any Human Being

 

Never Point a Loaded Politician at any Human Being

My first job, no trifle,
I taught kids to shoot a rifle.
Gun safety at summer camp, on the range,
no one thought it strange to show 8-year-olds
to cock the bolt, squint and squeeze.
Blow holes in the paper target, please.

That same summer
I had a girlfriend, cute as molasses.
We met every night, hid our asses
in the boathouse under canoes.
Her expertise was teaching peace.

Next summer, age 18
I told the Draft Board I was pacifist
but the job history, me a crack shot.
They said not.

Kissinger lied.
Nixon lied.
Young men died.

Age 25, on impulse at a garage sale
a .22 bolt-action rifle I bought,
same model I once taught
and it came with bullets in a box
plus thirteen pairs of jogging socks.

Wore the socks, raised three kids
strong as molasses to be mindful,
to be kindful while Reagan lied, then Dubya,
Iraq oh my God and Dick Cheney
who never heard my safety rules
filled his hunting buddy with buckshot
and lied. And speaking of liars—
look now. Wow.

Grandkids come merry as molasses,
mindful and kindful and I tell you
when I die, bury me in jogging socks
with ammo, the whole box
plus that rifle, never shot.
First job is now my final task.
Teach those ghouls gun safety:
be mindful, be kindful. Don’t lie.
The best weapon is never fired.
The best war is never fought.

…..

First published in Poets Reading the News. Thank you editor Sonia Greenfield.
Photo is from an NRA web site.

Note: Yes, I still have that rifle. It makes people uncomfortable to know that. So I wrote this uncomfortable mess of a poem. Just sayin’…

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Ceasefire

 

Ceasefire

At Dog's Bluff
children swoop on the rope swing,
drop to muddy water.
Some daredevils climb the rocks
thirty feet above the swimming hole
and launch, disappear in the brown,
pop up gasping.

One girl stands frozen at the limestone edge,
a statue of fear while people shout
"Jump! Jump!”
One shirtless man watches silent and scowling.
It’s his daughter up there.
Scars scattered like stars over his back.
I can’t help myself, ask “Shrapnel?”
He fixes me with a glare. “Uh-huh.”

Just then she jumps.
Murky water. Five seconds. Ten.
She pops up. Dad exhales,
breathes again. Away from him, free,
hair trailing black and wild,
she swims toward boys.
“Which war?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”

…..

First published in Slipstream — thank you editor Dan Sicoli.
Photo is at Dog’s Bluff on the Big Piney River in Missouri. The girl midair is my daughter.

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