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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Southern Exposure, 1967

 

Southern Exposure, 1967

I know the white South, warn her
but she wants to see Mardi Gras
and I love her madly. 

Jackson, Mississippi has ‘colored’ restrooms 
unmarked because illegal, watched by 
a rooster man, teeth of yellow, neck of red
shouting, poking fingers in my chest,
scared by my beard, her beads.
She pulls me back on the bus. 
“Peace,” she says. “Peace.”
Which saves a lot of grief.

Beyond Baton Rouge
a greasy white man in a banker’s vest
beckons a little black girl: 
“Come sit on my knee.”
She’s scared. She goes.
He says she’s a precious peony
which he grows for the fragrant flower
though the more he says peony
the more it sounds like picaninny
as he bounces her deep into his lap.
He squeezes her ribs with his fat hands
saying he wants to take her home 
and plant her in his best soil of the Delta.
All the while the girl’s mother sits 
across the aisle, eyes a narrow slit. 
Every passenger’s lip, grim. 
Every eye, flame.

In the weird dynamic of the South in 1967
the whole bus simmers 
on the verge of explosion.
“No peace,” says my love, 
rising. “No peace with that.”
The driver slams to a stop, says: “Off. “
“Us?” we say.
“Yeah you,” he says. “Get off, hippies.” 

By the side of a swamp she sobs.
“Hold me,” she says. “Just hold me.” 
We walk a mile. 
A shack is selling fried frog legs.
As we stand by the road with greasy thumbs
a woman stops with a Plymouth 
back seat full of puppies in a swirl 
of black and white and brown.
One licks our fingers, instant bond.

The Greyhound driver likes puppies, 
lets her ride on our laps to Saint Lou.
A practice child, then nanny to our kids.
Here, meet Nola the river dog.
“Peace,” Nola barks, “Peace!” 
with a Cajun accent, meaning “I’m watching 
you so don’t mess with the kids.”
Then with a warm tongue she licks your hand. 

…..

First published in MOON Magazine 
Thank you editor Leslee Goodman
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