42 Minutes Before Sunrise

 

42 Minutes Before Sunrise

I let the dog out the kitchen door
and stand guard on the porch
with big beam flashlight 
against mountain lions 
(although what would I do?) 
so the poodle pees on a fencepost
while from silhouette of tree
an owl hoots a great horned 
farewell to the night 
and from shadowy forest floor 
wild turkeys awaken 
gobbling indignant squabbles.

Poodle lingers, 
leg still cocked though dry 
as if he, too, savors this moment
while from dark branches
against a quickening sky
robins, finches, grosbeaks in song
declare their territories, call their mates
and (I believe) express their joy 
like a choir without a conductor
lubricating the sunrise
because for birds as in opera
transitions need music.

…..

First published in The Russell Streur Anthology

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The Moment After

 

The Moment After

Numb from the crawl space, 
from cobwebs and cramps, 
from weight of wrenches, suck of mud, 
from cruel finger-scrape of crusty pipe
I open the gas-cock, dimly aware of
a hoo-oo-ooting sound as wearily, stupidly
to relight the pilot I strike a match and 
WHOOSH 
a comet of fire slams me to a wall. 

Fast the body moves 
before the mind reacts. 
Scrambling on hand and knee 
for an endless instant— 
I shut the cock.

The moment after in stillness, 
    my right arm is smoking.
The moment after from my sizzled beard, 
    the scent of singed hair.
The moment after from my lip, 
    the taste of ash.

And like a wild river
    blood throbs through my heart.
With a rush of air
    lungs expand.

Before pain can muster
(and muster it shall), 
in the moment after 
I have senses, spirit. 
The soul burns, my love, 
blessed to the quick
with life.

…..

First published in Verse-Virtual, thanks to James Lewis, editor

Note: I wrote this poem after a terrible horrible no-good day when yes, I nearly blew up a client’s house (and myself). How lucky, how wonderful to be alive.

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When Voices Blend

 

When Voices Blend

I’m no musician but one summer 
for campers with my guitar 
I sang sad folkie songs.

Tell old Bill, when he comes home
To leave those downtown gals alone
This mornin’, this evenin’, so soon…

Another counselor, Reggie 
with the better voice, high tenor 
joined my low in a harmony that thrilled,
sent electroshock quivers deep in my chest. 
Closest we ever came to touch. 

Reggie black, me white. 
Inside him, a sadness—you heard it 
in the notes, the tinge of blue.
Girls always sweet on him. 
He danced, laughed, shied away. 
Queer, back then in Missouri, a dirty word.

I didn’t understand the mechanics 
of harmony, how the notes, which way.
Same so, the culture of gay.
 
And the world shot us out 
like pepper spray. No contact 
until a photo, Facebook, an obit saying 
in New York he taught music, drama, 
beloved by college kids, appeared 
on stage with Meryl Streep. 

Oh Lord, tune for me my old guitar. 
Fingers are stiff but in a Mendocino fog 
after half a century comes the music 
of memory, the mystery of harmony, 
the shock of love—this morning, 
this evening, too late. 

…..

First published in Rat’s Ass Review 
Thank you editor Roderick Bates

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Getting to Yellowstone

 

Getting to Yellowstone

Breakdown in Idaho so I walk with little Lily 
to a hovel of a house where Lily says 
“This doesn’t look like a happy place to live”
because she wonders about such things. 

A woman’s voice “¿Quién?”
I explain with gestures we need a phone 
if she has one. Door opens. Cautious, wordless,
face sweaty-slick, she lets us enter.
An ancient dial phone on the wall. 
Lily says “We’re safe here.”

Tow driver Ethan crams Lily and me 
into his cab, cool toward us until Lily 
clutching a book, always a book, asks 
“Would you mind towing us to Yellowstone?” 
Then he smiles. We chat.

Ethan’s from Oakland, California
so I ask why he’s in potato land.
“I prefer the slow life,” he says
but his wife doesn’t so she has a job in LA.
Lily says “How will you have children?”
Ethan laughs. “Slowly” he says.

Lily and I set up a tent in Ethan’s back yard.
Awaiting repair we read Mr. Popper’s Penguins 
by the Snake River where penguins don’t dwell
but might find ice-cold water. I tell Lily 
we’ll reach Yellowstone by and by. 
“No hurry,” says Lily. 

…..

First published in Hobo Camp Review 
Thanks to James Duncan, editor
Photo by Jacob W Frank

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Private Parts, Private Thoughts

 

Private Parts, Private Thoughts

Terry comes over for our Tuesday walk.
He bruised his leg pretty bad 
going down some rocks on his motorcycle 
so we don’t climb any mountains today, 
just walk the roads and talk about private parts, 
the concept we impose on children
who are born without privacy 
until we lay down the law at some point 
for their safety, our comfort, society. 

Terry was seventeen in Cincinnati, 
she was fifteen and curious, 
they shed privacy together 
for an entire summer.
I remember skinny-dipping 
on a sandbar of the Meramec River 
in Missouri with friends, 
private parts flopping, wet,
the same summer as Woodstock, 
I guess it was something in the air at the time,
never expecting fifty-six years later 
to be homeowners with SUVs, 
old hippies with grandkids, 
reminiscing. One of the Meramec girls,
Debbie, died in a car wreck a month after.
I still recall her breasts slick with the river,
upright, untasted. 

We each are wearing broad-brim hats, 
canvas sombrero for Terry, 
funky fedora for me, 
and we wonder about the lost custom 
of tipping one’s hat to a lady, so we try it, 
tipping “Howdy ma’am” 
and then simply “Ma’am” 
like the laconic cowboys of old movies
as we arrive at the pond in the center of town. 

Suddenly we both share a glance,
something in the air. Strip our clothes,
keep the hats on. Wade into the pond.
Cars drive by but nobody stops.
Fish, bullfrogs make way.
A great blue heron takes flight.
Squishy mud between our toes,
simply wading. Glory. Hot day.

Still wet, we pull our pants on.
A sheriff’s deputy stops his cruiser,
leans, lowers the window,
says there was a complaint,
two old men naked in hats,
personally he doesn’t care but
the young mothers seem the most upset, 
what if the children saw?
“Haven’t seen any,” we say,
“but we’ll keep a watch.”
We tip our hats to the officer
and walk home with our private thoughts,
mine of greeting Debbie still a young lady
in heaven. Howdy, ma’am. 

…..

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

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Quarter Acre

 

Quarter Acre

In my undeveloped lot
you can walk a trail 
formed by hooves, 
by generations of deer 
followed (but rarely)
by pawpads of lions.

In my undeveloped lot
quail warm their eggs
in nests of woven grass
or gather a kindergarten 
of bustling chicks.

In my undeveloped lot
grow oceanspray, hazelnut,
snowberry, thimbleberry, 
elderberry,  blackberry,
coffeeberry, currant, 
a buffet for songbirds 
who gather and gossip.

In my undeveloped lot
stand trees of straight fir, 
patient redwood, generous buckeye, 
scented bay, calm cypress, 
rock-hard oak, big-leaf maple
where squirrels scamper, raccoons doze, 
fox and skunk and possum wander
while crows call, vultures perch, 
where owls call to the stars.

In my undeveloped lot
a lot has developed.

…..

First published in The Russell Streur Anthology

Photo is of my undeveloped lot. The ladder (which I built) has been there 40 years. Nobody remembers why.

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Beauty is your death beheld

 

Beauty is your death beheld

This mountain in the rising sun, 
these waters home to loon, 
these pines pulsing with sap,
this handful of berries wild and blue, 
all this and more your body shall become, 
all this and more your spirit shall join. 
Behold the glory you shall be.

…..

First published in Northampton Poetry Review 
Tom Harding editor

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Spiritual Plumbing

 

Spiritual Plumbing

Terry and I climb a narrow trail 
in search of an old water intake. 
We find rusty pipe but no collection box. 
Mountain plumbing is constant crisis 
as storms re-engineer the landscape 
while three hundred houses wait to wash.
Terry, you should know, operated 
the water system for years and years
in our old hippie town. 

Moving on, we walk around the once-reservoir
that collapsed in the winter of ’82.
Now that was a crisis. 
I say I used to come to this hilltop 
every day at sunset with my dog
to meet a woman with her dog
to witness, to feel in our flesh 
the cool, the color, the end of the day. 
Terry says thirty or forty years ago, solstice, 
he used to come to this hilltop to drop acid 
with his merry prankster buddies.
“When was the last time you took LSD?” I ask.
“Last week,” Terry says.

Terry, you should know, is seventy-two
with cardiac plumbing that has 
weathered a few storms. 
He says the trips are milder now, sweeter, 
like spring-water from the glen on the hill 
above his cabin, gurgles out slowly 
but worth the wait at the end of that trail 
where only coyotes go.

…..

First published in  The Summerset Review 
Thank you editor Erin Murphy
Photo by melanie (mathey)

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Sometimes on a quiet road

 

Sometimes on a quiet road 

you have to stop your truck, 
step out,
admire streaks of pink,
the soundless sky. 

Breeze chills your cheeks. 
A vee of birds way up high. 
Unseen children in the dusk 
shout about rules of hide and seek.
Beyond the trees a glow,
somebody’s kitchen. 

Here comes a beagle loping 
through the meadow weeds, 
tongue lolling, 
eyes bright.

And you drive away knowing
you’ll never see that same sunset,
those birds, hear those children,
meet that dog
ever again.

…..

First published in Hobo Camp Review Thank you James Duncan, editor.

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At Last

 

At last

Dirty dogs with weary paws
trot the dry-weed hill,
plop down beside me 
with toothy grins
slobbering pant-pant-pant.

One dog with fur of old hippie beard
snorts at my pocket, trace of doobie.
Other dog with fluffy brown 
of big-hair New Jersey woman 
here on rocky Pacific coast
studiously with warm tongue
cleans a scratch on my ankle.

When motorcycles approach,
both dogs raise hackles, growl.
No collars. Feel the ribs. Hungry.

I walk, they follow at first,
then take the front as if all along
they’ve known the way home. 
I’ve been adopted by the mother and father 
I wish I’d had so I fry a dinner 
of turkey burgers to share. 

They are old. Vet bills 
will be enormous. I don’t care. 
In this life you don’t choose your spirits.
They choose you. 

…..

First published in I-70 Review. Thank you editors Maryfrances, Gary, and Greg.

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