Poems of Don McCormick
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“I am always touched and inspired by your thoughts and wisdom on such a
wide range of things. Though we may disagree strongly about some things
which are ultimately unimportant, we share many of the same thoughts and
values. I do not know what was in your heart when you wrote the essay on the
Persian Gulf War, but I do know that it made me cry, because it is a thought we
both share in our hearts and minds. I struggle to think of people who have seen
war first-hand ever coming back and thinking it is a "good thing." I love you.
Thanks for including this in your book.”
John McCormick, M,A., Senior Master Sargent, Retired, U.S. Airforce
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Acknowledgements
Thirteen people have been kind enough to read these poems,
essays, and plays. They have been frank enough to comment on
them and to suggest that many needed to be rewritten and edited.
I've attempted to follow their advice. This publication is an
expanded third edition. I want to thank them again for the
encouragement they gave to me and for the important parts they
played in the creation of this book. They are:
Ann McCormick, my wife
Vera McCormick, my mother
Sandra Dehaini, my sister-in-law
Ulric Sorensen, my friend
Larry Austin, my friend
Sandra Hamilton, my friend
Joseph Kennedy, my friend
Tony McCormick, my Son
Ann Stanley, my daughter
Jennifer McCormick-Ramos, my daughter
John McCormick, my son
Eric McCormick, my son
Jude McCormick, my son
Ken McCormick, my brother
Gwen McCormick, my daughter-in-law
The right to copy this Book is reserved to Don McCormick
It was written between 1984-2016
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Contents
Great Decisions ............................................................ 11
The Ending ................................................................... 12
Unforgiven ................................................................... 13
Julius Caesar Act III Scene 2 – A Reply ........................... 14
Footsteps ..................................................................... 17
Chelva .......................................................................... 18
For Chelva: An Uncoupled Elegy of the Heart ................ 19
Dancing Tolls ............................................................... 23
Significant Favors ......................................................... 24
It Was Not Just the Orange He Let Rot .......................... 25
Zen? ............................................................................. 27
Sand and Gold .............................................................. 28
Pilot for Governor ........................................................ 29
The Dead ...................................................................... 30
Mortality ...................................................................... 32
Life’s Rut ...................................................................... 33
Dreaded Destiny ........................................................... 35
Nothing ........................................................................ 36
The Loss ....................................................................... 37
Tenement Man ............................................................. 38
Not All of This is True, It’s History ................................. 41
Unknown Americans .................................................... 48
The Dance .................................................................... 54
Desire........................................................................... 55
Not Crossing the Road .................................................. 56
A Dream ....................................................................... 58
Denial of Citizenship ..................................................... 59
The Clear Sharp Light .................................................... 60
Contemplation About the Dead .................................... 61
Executive Travel ........................................................... 62
Love ............................................................................. 64
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Reflections on a Day I Visited ........................................ 65
Questions Waiting on Answers ..................................... 66
Requiem for the People in the Background ................... 68
The Simple Life ............................................................. 69
Shirking ........................................................................ 70
The Killing Instinct ........................................................ 72
Parts ............................................................................ 74
A New Gathering .......................................................... 75
A Long Marriage ........................................................... 77
Being Here ................................................................... 79
About to Bloom ............................................................ 80
Business ....................................................................... 81
The City and the Countryside ........................................ 82
Comfort........................................................................ 83
Conditioned Speech...................................................... 84
On the Highway between Memphis, TN and Hayti, MO . 85
Growing Pains .............................................................. 86
Finding Intimacy ........................................................... 87
Just Today .................................................................... 88
Kay ............................................................................... 89
Kay Dehaini .................................................................. 90
Looking for Comfort ..................................................... 91
The Mammoth is Down ................................................ 92
Moods.......................................................................... 94
New York City ............................................................... 95
Orgasm ........................................................................ 96
Pahnie .......................................................................... 97
A Private Moment ........................................................ 99
Sexual Freedom .......................................................... 100
Sharing ....................................................................... 101
So-Shu ........................................................................ 102
Tenderness and Joy .................................................... 103
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Mid-Life Crisis............................................................. 104
World Economy .......................................................... 105
Ethan’s Paradox.......................................................... 106
Enough, Enough ......................................................... 107
A Letter to a Friend ..................................................... 108
Above the Tension...................................................... 112
Ulric and Mary............................................................ 113
A Warm Winter .......................................................... 114
The Shot Horse ........................................................... 115
The Hidden and the Known......................................... 117
To Sandy When She Resigned ..................................... 119
Holding On ................................................................. 120
Tony ........................................................................... 121
Covers and Shells........................................................ 122
Short Rainbows and Gold in the Streets ...................... 123
The Nature of Poetry and Music ................................. 125
My Peace, My Quiet ................................................... 127
Work? ........................................................................ 128
Christmastime ............................................................ 130
Not Really Old and Sick ............................................... 131
One of the Transcendental Attributes of Being............ 132
Reclaimed by Nature .................................................. 133
Meditation on Illness .................................................. 134
Sam ............................................................................ 135
The Last Trip ............................................................... 136
In My Heart by Unity Stanley ...................................... 137
Clarity ........................................................................ 138
You and What I Write ................................................. 139
A Love Letter – Ex Parte Elatus ................................... 140
Babci .......................................................................... 141
Holding Thoughts ....................................................... 142
John Running Deer ..................................................... 143
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Notes Between Us ...................................................... 144
Mama’s Birthday 1987 ................................................ 145
Theory of Everything .................................................. 146
The Arrest and Incarceration ...................................... 147
The Jury Trial in the Town of Highwaymen .................. 149
Hal ............................................................................. 151
Teen Discussions ........................................................ 154
Dad ............................................................................ 155
Helen’s Shhh .............................................................. 156
High School Cool......................................................... 157
Talk ............................................................................ 158
A Measured Fear of Judgement .................................. 159
Thanks to George ....................................................... 160
Jude ........................................................................... 161
L' ESPRIT DE L' ESCALIER ............................................. 162
Pool ........................................................................... 163
Just One ..................................................................... 166
The Smith-Engelians ................................................... 167
Number Thirteen ........................................................ 168
Principles and Definitions ........................................... 169
Long Shirts and Tall Girls ............................................. 170
A Gray Day ................................................................. 171
Leaving, Not Leaving................................................... 172
Business Conversation in the Memphis Airport ........... 173
The Guinea-Pig Doo .................................................... 174
Alone in Knowledge.................................................... 175
Watching the Ceiling................................................... 176
Mother Theresa.......................................................... 177
Lost Memories ........................................................... 178
Summa Contra Genitales ............................................ 180
Not Gamblers, Just Locals ........................................... 181
Real Work .................................................................. 182
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Dancing ...................................................................... 183
The Choice.................................................................. 184
In Thin Air .................................................................. 185
Speaking Out .............................................................. 186
Afterthoughts ............................................................. 187
The Office................................................................... 188
Lon ............................................................................. 190
Power and Needs ....................................................... 191
Eighth Man ................................................................. 192
Eric ............................................................................. 193
Helping, Talking, Caring .............................................. 194
Annie’s Clarinet .......................................................... 195
An Ordinary Day ......................................................... 196
The Great Program ..................................................... 197
Nushka ....................................................................... 198
California ................................................................... 199
A Little Emotion.......................................................... 200
Michael ...................................................................... 201
Erudition .................................................................... 202
I Write ........................................................................ 203
Head Music ................................................................ 204
Ambition .................................................................... 205
Never a Day ................................................................ 206
The System ................................................................. 207
Sweet and Sour Something ......................................... 208
John ........................................................................... 209
The Urge .................................................................... 210
Luke ........................................................................... 211
Osculation .................................................................. 212
Our Company ............................................................. 213
More Than You Planned ............................................. 214
Jennifer ...................................................................... 215
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The Dream Pillow ....................................................... 216
Petty Clashes and The Death Penalty .......................... 218
The Hospital Rape ...................................................... 219
Humility ..................................................................... 220
Dump Cake ................................................................. 221
California Oranges ...................................................... 222
The D.O.D. Plan .......................................................... 223
Just Business .............................................................. 226
The Time We Didn’t Talk............................................. 227
Pedigree Charts and Pictures ...................................... 229
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Great Decisions
Great decisions have not been made.
Only the decisions to go on,
and not to be alone,
these are the ones we’ve made,
these are the ends of the plans we’ve laid.
It’s a fateful time for fearful masses,
for people frightened of all that passes,
for people just trying to save their asses.
Great decisions have not been made.
The clock is ticking our lives away.
The air we breathe is turning us gray.
We must decide if we will stay.
Let us all line up against the wall.
Let us piss on the bricks before we fall.
Let us glare at the soldiers and send them the bird.
Let us spit on the ground
and salute the government’s turds.
Great decisions have not been made.
We’re just waiting for the earth to decay.
We’re just watching the radiometer rock
while we work at the plant making argyle socks.
We’re thinking of what we ought to decide:
whether we should change the world or just go hide.
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The Ending
It’s like I said hello,
and you were dead,
and you never heard what I said.
Or maybe I said good-bye,
and you just cried,
and the love we had just died.
I can only guess.
I can only think about the mess
we could have made for all the rest.
When it was at the end
we laughed and sighed
and hid our eyes
and very quietly cried.
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Unforgiven
If I could forgive, I would.
I’d move on and forget about these
stinking clothes I’m wearing.
I’d sell my car and my house
and every piece of junk
that ever commandeered my life.
I’m sure they’d be too highthe folks wouldn’t buythey’d wait out my desperation.
They’d smell up my perspiration.
Where were you my deus ex machina,
my sweet, blind, dumb,
measured-by-the-thumb,
altar-struck, anti-fuck
reach for contemplation?
Where were you when craps were thrown
and crowns were down on trusty Come.
You let the bloody rake take both my arms
yet spare my heart and head
to not forgive you.
You were there; you can’t deny it.
It’s not your nature to go and hide.
I won’t forgive.
I won’t forgive.
It’s your fault we’re all such sorry bastards.
You deus ex machina;
you were asleep during all our planned disasters.
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Julius Caesar Act III Scene 2 – A Reply
“Bru. Be patient till the last.
Romans, countrymen, and lovers! hear me for my cause, and be
silent, that you may hear: believe me for mine honor, and have
respect for mine honor, that you may believe: censure me in your
wisdom, and awake your senses, that you may be the better
judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of
Caesar’s, to him I say, that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less
than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against
Caesar, this is my answer: Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I
loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living and die all
slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As
Caesar loved me, I wept for him, as he was fortunate, I rejoice at
it, as he was valiant, I honor him: but, as he was ambitious, I
slew him. There is tears for his love, joy for his fortune, honor
for his valor, and death for his ambition. Who is here so base that
would be a bondsman? If any, speak; for him I have offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak,
for him have I offended. Who here is so vile that will not love
his country? If any, speak for him have I offended. I pause for a
reply.
....
Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
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He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honorable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then to mourn for him?
O judgment thou art fled to brutish beasts
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me....”
A REPLY TO BRUTUS AND TO ANTONY AS WELL
We do not reply as did Antony
nor as a crowd of fools
swayed by sweet rhetoric and power.
We have survived the centuries
of vile death and of chasing coins
and of taking vengeance on the public works.
But barely, barely have we squeezed through
that tight ring of power-broker’s pointed knives
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by saying, “Yes, yes we are all Romans.”
Yet, we are playing the parts of fools
bound to carts and to mill stones,
no less than those they drug to Rome
and sold at the block for ten drachmas each.
We, who have been freed
and been given our seventy-five drachmas,
burn and kill in persuaded vengeance.
We have survived.
Now, we honor Rome, though we have changed
her name, reluctantly.
And we honor Caesar too and all he was in Brutus
and all of him that was brokered by Mark Antony.
From time to time there is an amnesty.
We let the lower masses swell
and we share our drachmas at the public wells
of industry and freedom while our bells
call us to the graves of every Caesar
and Antony and Brutus who gave us honor.
We are full of respect for our papers
that say we are not slaves.
We are content with the drachmas we have gotten.
We don’t know that what we have become is rotten.
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Footsteps
Be careful Jesus.
I hear you walking on my soul.
I hear the Battle Hymn of the Republic,
and I load my weapon,
and take aim at the rot,
and you step on my soul.
You are my careful Jesus.
You have no categorical imperative.
The passion of Peter and of Billy Budd
are the same to you.
You were there when Captain Rogers
shot down flight 655,
and he didn’t hear your footsteps.
We are scared of you, Jesus.
You're barefoot and you walk on soft ground.
And our souls are full of ringing sounds,
the sounds of guns,
the sounds of justice,
the sounds of trap doors opening.
Be careful my Jesus,
I hear you walking on my soul
and I don’t hear the drummer’s roll.
I don’t see the flags waving anymore
and I’m using my gun as a walking stick.
I’m ready for Captain Rogers,
and I’m ready for friendship.
I hear you walking, my Jesus,
walking on my soul.
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Chelva
Happy, she makes me happy
When she calls me on the phone
And when she greets me at the door,
She's happy and more, much more.
Often, I've thought, what if
When Chelva laughed
The whole world behaved that way?
All joy came and all sadness passed away.
I well up, I can hardly see to write.
I think if Chelva did not laugh with us,
No matter how bad the news,
Sadness would settle in and joy we had, we'd lose.
If she'll just smile, I'll shed her tears.
I'll explain to all who see her face
That her courage and her laughter are
The seams that bind the human race.
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For Chelva: An Uncoupled Elegy of the Heart
When I first met her she had a skin rash,
Cream colored spots on her burnt sienna skin.
The rash distracted me from her otherwise perfect complexion.
At the time, I didn’t know the meaning of the spots.
I must confess, I would never have guessed
Anything could have been seriously wrong
With such a young and vibrant girl.
But, after a little conversation, I forgot she had
Imperfections, because when she spoke
Her words had an undertone of laughter
And when she listened to you, she understood.
The longer you were with her the more you wanted to hold her.
That must have been her weakness,
That must have been the reason he wanted her.
And because he wanted her so much, she accepted him.
No one blamed him for what happened because it was love.
For her, too, it was love: open, gentle, passionate.
He got the sickness first.
It must have been very difficult,
Because they both knew they had acquired the seeds of death.
I don’t know what they said or how they felt.
Chelva never told me and I never had a reason to ask.
He died a few years before I met Chelva,
And she was without his shadow. She was whole,
In the way of people who know the Great Litany of
Peace, Mercy, and Deliverance.
I found out about her sickness
After she was admitted to the hospital.
We had a mutual friend who knew her much better than I.
He told me she had been HIV positive
For several years but had only recently gotten sick.
Before her sickness, she had been serving as a volunteer
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At the AIDS Hospice
In the hope that when her time came
The Hospice volunteers would care for her, too.
She even had hope that she might not die,
Because she had cared for a stricken man
And fallen in love with him,
And he had recovered and was living at home again.
She was young and strong, and she believed in miracles.
I listened and I cried.
I went to see her in the hospital, but I arrived after ten.
Her mother met me in the hallway before I could reach her room.
She told me that Chelva had already gone to sleep.
She told me not to worry because her baby would be out of the
hospital soon.
She was the mother, and she would see that Chelva recovered.
I left a book of poems for Chelva
In which I had written inside the cover
That her friends knew her pain and loved her dearly.
Her mother said she would give the book to Chelva, but
Later I asked Chelva about the book and
She told me her mother had never mentioned it.
Her mother, she said, was strange and a little difficult.
She didn’t want Chelva to know about pain.
Her mother always tried to protect her from frankness.
She would not admit that Chelva was going to die.
Chelva said that her mother was nuts,
Agreeably nuts, understandably nuts, but nuts nonetheless.
So, when Chelva’s hour came
Her mother insisted, contrary to Chelva’s wishes,
Contrary to the wishes of Chelva’s friends,
Contrary to the power of the courts,
That Chelva, who was almost dead,
Who was heaving for her last breath,
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Be moved from the Hospice
To the County Hospital.
Three times she called the ambulance,
And three times it came.
Finally, even though the drivers knew she was nuts,
Even though they knew the Hospital
Would not admit Chelva;
They took her body
And left it in the hallway of the County Hospital,
And her mother, who was nuts,
And some strangers, watched her die.
This was contrary to Chelva’s wishes,
Contrary to the wishes of her friends,
But it was the right sense of the world
For a young, beautiful, black woman,
Who didn’t count for nothing in this world,
Who didn’t even get her last wishes,
Whose body was delivered to the hallway
Of the County Hospital.
No one knew her but her friends,
And, like Chelva, her friends didn’t count.
They just had to watch.
They just had to go on;
And her good friend had to let it be.
He had to help her mother, who was nuts.
The funeral came and her family asked a preacher
To read the service. When it came time to preach
He said he had not known Chelva and he had nothing to say.
He wouldn’t allow the boyfriend, who had AIDS, to speak.
Instead, Chelva’s grandmother spoke.
She said how hard she had worked to raise her children,
But she said nothing about Chelva.
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It was an odd Last Rite,
Contrary to Chelva’s life,
Like no one had known her,
Like she didn’t count.
Her friends, who knew her are
Glad the world didn’t know her.
The world would have abused her more,
And left her in the hallway of the County Hospital,
And said nothing about her at her funeral,
And contrary to the wishes of her friends,
Forgot that she ever lived,
Except, of course, her mother, who was nuts,
Agreeably so, understandably so.
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Dancing Tolls
I've paid for more dances than I've danced.
I never thought it would be that way.
I remember hearing the band playing
when the hall was empty.
I remember seeing the young ladies in long dresses
waiting for young men in loose suits.
I remember the smell of powder in the rooms.
I remember having more dreams
than real life could contain.
I've paid for more dances than I've danced.
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Significant Favors
Whatever needs to be done,
needs to be done now and by us,
for our souls,
and for all the angels
who have tried to get our attention.
Deeds must be for someone else.
Then, when we die,
nobody will say we are Buddha’s.
We won’t appear to any wise men.
The newspapers will misspell our names.
We will rest in peace.
Michael died last week.
He was young.
He had lung cancer and the gods didn’t care.
He told his friends to dress his body in blue and gold,
and his friends, who were SCA Knights and Squires,
dressed him, saluted him,
and had the mortician burn his remains.
They took his ashes to the top of the mountain,
where, at sunrise, they scattered them over his waterfall.
His friends, the SCA Knights and Squires,
dressed in their colors, armed with their swords,
stood above and below the waterfall,
and screamed at the gods to make them care that one of
their last creative warriors had died.
But, that morning the gods were silent,
and the wind spread Michael’s
sun-touched ashes over running water
and he may never want to return to earth.
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It Was Not Just the Orange He Let Rot
He watched an orange rot, but never touched it.
He walked past it every morning and almost took it;
almost dug his fingers into its rippled flesh;
almost tore into the meat of it; but, at the last moment,
he changed his mind.
Each time he passed his hand over it
he saw it quiver, but, rather than take it, he made a fist.
“No,” maybe tomorrow, “he said, maybe, I’ll take it tomorrow,
when my mood is oranges, when I feel like lust.”
But, he never took it. He left it in the crystal bowl.
One day, when he saw that it didn’t quiver, when he saw
that it was going to sag and whiten, he shut his eyes;
and every day after, he held his breath. What had been
bright, supple, and full of tart juices that would burst
in his face and burn the corners of his mouth,
was greening and becoming putrid waiting on his last
two finger head-turned grip, a touch that would
complete a final ritual.
But he couldn’t, death and garbage didn’t become him,
so he covered it with a paper towel and
moved its crystal bowl to the porch.
Alice took it away and washed the bowl, and she
gave him that little sideways narrowed-eyes look,
and never said a word. She didn’t have to, they had
been together a long time, maybe too long, maybe
through too many silent circumstances, he didn’t know.
When they married she was beautiful, someone to look at.
Her blushed face and lace covered bodice drew him,
but he didn’t touch her because it wasn’t right.
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It was enough for him to feel her vibrations,
smell her powders, watch the red on her lips.
One day, before he really knew what was happening,
she began to be less particular about how they would
look together, not really concerned about his admiration.
He could tell she had begun to have doubts about the
things people see, like seeing was somehow not enough,
like it was the cause of something, a miasma;
and he, too, began to doubt.
Now, they just live in the same house.
They talk sometimes, but not often.
She buys oranges and puts them into the
crystal bowl, but he never touches them, never.
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Zen?
I don’t have AIDS, but I’d as soon have it
as what I have-- a pen and no real courage.
Write and talk, hide and think,
avoid people who carry signs.
I awoke at 4AM, afraid I had forgotten something.
Then I got angry because I cared.
I was puzzled because I couldn’t get in touch with nothing.
When it comes to ZEN, I’m a diseased cynic.
Maybe I’ll get a rash, and afterward nothing will matter.
When I awake at 4AM, it will be the itch,
not the stirring of my cowardly brain.
I will have lived in the present,
and not put off my life thinking, talking, and writing.
27
Sand and Gold
I think sand is as good as money,
but I’m almost alone in that thought,
except for a few people who know sand.
Most people think gold and silver
and odd, scarce things are the money.
There is more sand than gold and silver
and odd, scarce things; and not having sand,
unlike not having the would-be money,
does not make anyone poor.
I don’t think the world will change.
I think gold and silver and odd, scarce things
will continue to be the people’s choice for money,
The poor will guard this money with their lives
for the benefit of the rich and for the illusions of gain.
The rich and the poor will ignore the sand until:
Land must be raised,
A river held back,
A cast poured,
Time measured,
Water filtered,
Or any of the thousand common uses for sand
that make life abundant
and joyful,
but neither odd nor scarce.
28
Pilot for Governor
Pilot wasn’t joking.
He didn’t know the truth.
He could be elected today.
He could be Governor of Texas.
People look up to a man who is broad minded
and quick to handle business.
There are always plenty of prophets
thumping on books
and pointing out the obvious.
But not many men
can wash over the details
and get on with business.
Beat a Jew.
Kill a few protestors.
Keep commerce moving.
Truth just gets in the way.
It’s not efficient.
Yes! Pilot could be elected Governor,
that is, if Texans really wanted one.
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The Dead
I know people who are dead.
I know them as well as I know those who are alive;
yet, I don't know the living like I know the dead.
I expected Joe to die.
We talked and laughed beforehand.
I cried a little at his graveside funeral.
It rained, too, just enough to cool the ground
and keep down the flames before Joe got his bearings.
It was different when Norman died. He was only 48
and I was young and I didn't know a dead man.
Norman was a serious person who thought people ought,
and should, and could, and would -- that they were called.
Norman said to go as far as you can go
then let God carry you.
That way, he said, when you die it will be peaceful.
He was right, but it didn't rain at his grave
and I cried too much.
There was nothing to cool the earth.
No one should touch God, even if he will let you.
Rex never expected to die. He never went near God,
so, he thought he was safe. He, too, was 48.
He trusted doctors, but it did no good.
There was no funeral service, no ground to cry over,
No earth to cool. Belief is everything.
Rex never forgave his ex-wife for their marriage.
He loved his children too much for a man
who lived in one room.
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We drank a glass of whiskey in that room.
We talked of Norman.
Rex said God touched Norman and Norman died.
It made Rex shudder.
Like Rex, Bill had no funeral service.
Before he died he refused to wear any clothes.
He stopped talking to Ann.
On the last day, I helped carry him on a stretcher
from his house to an ambulance.
They took Bill to the hospital and stored him in a room.
I sat next to his bed and listened to his attempts to breathe.
I think he must have said,
"There, we're even." Then he expired.
I picked up his ashes from the Crematorium.
I remember thinking,
"Someone should have said something."
Bill had hidden from God for a long time,
but, finally, he had given up.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.
The ground was hot, but what could flames do to ashes?
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Mortality
It is the middle of my life now,
or maybe it's near the end.
I've no way to know.
The messages are dim and thin.
When I dream about the ones I love
I have visions of when they die,
And I well up, then, I begin to cry.
I see my wife as still as stone,
and myself weeping, weeping alone.
I see my mom in a bright floral dress,
laid gently, gently in eternal rest.
I see my dad, solemn and gray,
Sleeping in his bed on his last day.
And finally there is the worst sight of all.
Each child we've had I see fall.
I see them plunge into the sea,
and behind them, weeping, I see me.
Each time I awake I kiss the bed.
I thank God no one is dead.
But I know, I know the time will come
when these visions will be no longer dreams,
when everyone I love will die
and all I'll ever do is cry.
32
Life’s Rut
Our parents never said we wouldn't learn enough
to understand each other.
They never said we wouldn't know how
to fix what's wrong between us.
They never said we would have to live alone
with our thoughts and our desires.
They never said that all we've gotten from millions of parents
is what they've done that didn't work.
Now, we look at each other and we are dumb.
We repeat what we have heard.
We hear it ringing in our ears,
background noise for constructions we can't really use.
Here, we say, are six thousand years of recorded wisdom
and here is a list of wise men, yet unchanged.
We ache for what they never said,
us, dumb still, malcontent and ignorant.
We hand these books to our children,
printed on paper, bound in leather,
decorated with gold leaf and crimson paint,
wrapped in the preacher's words:
"Laughter it is mad, and pleasure, what use is it?...
What can a man do who comes after the King?
Only what he has already done....
How the wise man dies just like the fool …
What is done under the sun is vanity and striving after wind."
Millions of years of living,
six thousand years of writing,
have come to this:
33
We explain what we do not know.
We dig fearlessly in the rut we have inherited.
We dig the rut into the future earth.
When we die we give our shovels to our children.
We hand them our illuminated books.
We never tell them they won't learn enough to understand each
other.
We never tell them they won't know enough
to fix what's wrong between them.
We never tell them they are alone.
Instead, we say,
"Here, take our shovels, our books, our collective wisdom, and
dig.
Dig a rut deep enough to bury your fathers and mothers behind
you,
wise men and fools together,
dust and bones under the packed earth."
34
Dreaded Destiny
It is better not to know,
not to see so clearly
the things that you must do.
It is better to be adrift,
so much flotsam washed upon a beach,
sun-bleached and taken for an
interesting fixture for a blue bedroom,
or as fuel for fire to crack and to pop and
to waft smoke across some laughing bather's eyes.
It is better not to know,
to be adrift and to see life as it is;
worthless, full of accidents (sorely amusing),
washed and burned as fancy might have it.
There is no regard for unplanned destiny
and no value in having just appeared,
the broken part of another's cast off things.
But, when you know what you must do,
Angels weep for you.
They stand on a pin's head;
and their tears make rainbows for the dead.
They remind you of what you said,
of what you ought to do,
of everything you ever knew.
You await the courage of a pregnant mother
widowed by an uncensored act of God.
35
Nothing
Nothing is between the things that are.
and things are vast, but nothing is more than vast.
Even when things are not, nothing is.
Were nothing not to be we would not be.
Without the between there would be no things to be seen.
Nothing is the unbinding determination of what is bound.
The bound we call reality.
Nothing is the reality we ignore.
It is greater than bound reality.
And things can never be part of it.
We are among those bound things changed from star stuff
To slow star stuff and someday to star stuff again.
Our changes occur within the nothing that is.
Even before star stuff was, nothing was.
There being no in-between all things that were to be
and are now were but one speck of dust.
Relative to nothing there is no measurement.
There is no time, no space.
Only the eternal foam until Bang, there is in-between.
And the inflation makes our reality.
36
The Loss
I have a funny feeling something will be taken from me.
Someone will come to my house,
someone who is polite,
who speaks softly, who is careful about the words he chooses,
who knows something I don't know.
I won't want him to say it.
I will offer him coffee, a chair.
I won't ask why he's there.
I will be cold and my mouth will be dry.
I'll wait for him to speak.
He will tell me his quiet secret.
He will wait to let me cry.
I won't look at him.
Instead, I'll turn my face toward the window
And watch the trees wave in the wind as he leaves.
I'll remember what was taken from me.
I'll hear the dirt thrown from a shovel
hitting the top of a wooden coffin.
I'll smell the rain.
Everything that was joy will be gone.
The old photos in the desk will be still.
Everything will be fixed.
What would have been will not be.
The stillness and the cold will settle in.
I'll hear the rain.
I'll see myself pat the dirt with a shovel.
I know I will live a little less than I had hoped to live.
37
Tenement Man
The street was wide and damp.
It was in the morning before the sun broke.
Only a few cars passed by.
When they passed you could hear their tires mashing the wet
pavement.
I parked my truck in the wide driveway between the trashed out
houses.
I waited on the black men to come out of their places,
the places where they stay.
I was the tenement man's man.
I was the white man with the work.
We were going to clean up the houses.
We were going to fence them in.
We were going to bring back the toilets and the sinks.
We were going to put in the glass, light the rooms,
We were going to hook up the pipes and the gas.
We were going to make rent houses
so the places they stay would be real houses again.
And the people that stay would be the people that pay.
I was tenement man's runner.
I was the white man with the work.
When I came in my pickup truck in the morning when the sun
broke, when the sky was red, when the cars mashed the wet
pavement into a roar
and flung the road fodder into the yards,
they came out, just sober, just waking.
They were mostly old guys, but not all of them.
Some were kids looking for breaks.
Twenty came, I took ten.
Ten went away to where they stayed.
38
The sun rose and the street dried and the traffic came.
The morning odors went away.
The neighborhood was any you'd ever seen
where nothing mattered,
where life was day to day, a quiet hustle,
waiting on tenement man’s man to make some work.
It got hot early.
The young kids shed their shirts.
They let the dust cover their sweaty backs.
But the old men kept on their shirts and held the dirt off their
backs.
Ten truck-loads of trash was hauled away.
We began to see the places where they would stay.
The men were the usual types:
two movers for tomorrow's work call;
two noon drinkers needing cash;
two slackers holding back;
And four who moved along and did what was pointed out.
All were thieves just like tenement man,
Just like the whole world when they need,
when they bleed,
when there's no recourse.
Two really stole,
but you could buy it back next day, next door
at the tenement man's store.
Every day we did a little more.
Every day we got up as the sun broke.
We listened to the wet road.
We worked as the sun rose.
We moved the houses back into the flow of people.
We made the water run.
39
We made the toilets flush.
We made the heaters heat.
We made the lights burn.
We made the doors lock.
We made tenement man happy.
He would have his rent for a while.
Then I went away,
and the workers went back to where they stay,
into the houses with the wide driveways.
Soon their yards began to catch the street wash.
The summer damp pavements
and the passing cars filled up the tenement man's yards.
The sewers stopped.
The windows broke.
The houses turned out those that didn’t pay.
They said it would happen that way.
They said it wouldn't do no good.
They knew. Tenement man didn't know.
It's not where he stays.
It's their wet street and their hot days.
It's the places where they stay.
40
Not All of This is True, It’s History
I don't piss-off everyone.
Some people don't really know me that well.
When I remember the last forty years
I know why I'm apart from people
and when I'm close why they get so angry.
The first day of school, I ran away.
I hid in my grandmother's closet.
She found me and took me back to school.
I asked them to change my teacher, and to my surprise, they did.
They kept me for the full twelve-year sentence.
It seemed to me they were pissed-off the whole time.
When I was released from school
I went away to serve my country as a missile man
in dark vans with green screens and plotting boards.
There, in the vans, with the green screens and the plotting boards
we played war every day, never knowing for sure if it were real.
Bells rang and missiles were raised
and we counted down to the end of man or failsafe,
whichever switch was thrown.
I was forever tired, poisoned by the food I ate
into a sound sleep from which I was continually awakened.
Our clocks were marked in ZULU hours.
Watching them made me grow old faster.
I counted the days.
I turned the wheels that tracked the missiles.
I hid in the dark vans and stared blankly at the green screens.
I listened to the scratching of the plotting pens.
41
Finally, my country they let me go.
I ran back to school.
This time, not a prisoner, not afraid, I stayed
It was the best of times for someone who had just awakened,
a young man full of insensitivities and zeal
but comparatively old and wise, having served his country,
and having lost all illusions about such work.
I had married as soon as I was allowed to marry
to get out of the Army barracks.
We had two children while I played war and she became a
teacher.
I was not like the usual college kid, but too young and too blind
to know how little difference Army experience made.
It was the time before conspirators killed JFK.
It was when schools taught about the Red Menace.
It was when we (the white people I knew) believed that White
America saved, bought insurance, used Firestone fires,
burned Texaco gas, drove Thunderbirds, and drank Jax beer.
It was then that I turned my back on timely things.
I read books for thoughts from long ago
that no one really cared about.
School and work became just background noises barely heard
while reading.
I thought the important things
were said by Greeks and Jews and Latins.
I thought G. K. Chesterton was modern and that T.S. Eliot
was too much a pessimist to see the world I knew.
Then, the present world began to fall apart,
just like the old world had fallen apart,
Every day, before my eyes, in black and white, people died.
42
I began to think the world wasn't safe for anyone,
even those who knew its history.
I remembered the nerve gas classes.
I remembered the gas that had neither odor nor color.
It was known by the symptoms
the victims showed before they died.
I had made notes copiously, but without reflections.
The deaths I saw in black and white
showed symptoms of this gassing.
So, I reflected.
My classmates left for Vietnam.
Some were for and some were against the Red Menace.
Some went to Canada.
Some out-thought the system with theological arguments
the boards of tired old vets could not undo.
I grew angrier everyday as I heard Lyndon Johnson say,
in a language just like my own, "My fellow Americans….”
George Reedy told a small group of us how we could tell when
Lyndon was telling the truth, George said:
"When he pulls his ear he's telling the truth.
When he touches his nose he's telling the truth.
But when he moves his lips he's lying."
Years later that was funny, but then it was not funny.
Johnson was not dead and had not been connected to history.
He was connected to the bodies of the friends I'd had.
The one's who fucked-up fighting for or fighting against The Red
Menace.
Finally, I saw that Lyndon was just like other leaders who said
what was expected to miscommunicate
43
what the government wasn't doing.
In a while it became drum and trumpet history,
the kind that doesn't matter,
but then it was death and death mattered.
Then, people were gassed every day in black and white.
Today it is all different.
Today they are starved in living color.
Nothing, I did nothing then. Today, I still do nothing.
I piss-off people except the ones who don't know me that well.
A whole age has passed, an age of costumed people.
Some looked like motorcycle freaks.
Others dressed like Indians.
Indians dressed like insurance men.
The masses wore the costumes of their peers:
plaids for carpetbaggers
(now regarded as southern financiers at Tulane);
pin stripes for big shots and bag men
(now, fallen into disrespect because their bottom lines are below
the TV evangelists);
golf clothes for entrepreneurs
(now, no longer oil men and bankers);
blue jeans, white shirts and ties for assistant managers
(some costumes never change);
men's suits for business women
(secretaries, of course, wore their salaries on their backs).
I wore golf clothes.
I wanted to be mistaken for an entrepreneur
so as to avoid being taken for
an assistant manager or bag man.
When Nixon said he wasn't a crook
I had adopted a grand plan
for working on impossible socio-economic problems.
44
Of course, there are noble aspects to any enterprise:
buy term and squander the difference,
capitate doctors and hospitals,
proposition away bad government,
make love, not war.
Cheering for these causes made me feel better
about not protesting the gassing and starving of mankind.
Things got better though.
I received a Presidential Pardon from
a friend of Gerald Ford for crimes I might commit.
Nixon and all of us who received the pardons felt more secure
about our pasts and our retirements.
It was the last great noble act I can remember.
It started the age of electronic salvation.
The dark-haired look-alike sound-alike evangelists
marched across the fuzzy screens of
white middle class America.
These glad-handers taught us good feelings
through avoiding guilt
as they quoted long passages from
ancient Hebrew writings
while they begged for money.
They were all divine Doctors except for the self-chosen.
That great word, Doctor, had fallen
from the titles of the lovers of wisdom
onto the TV preachers and
also onto the transcripts of gym teachers
and masseurs and ticket fixers and social workers and barbers.
45
The certificates are for sale online for $32.
You can pay more and get them from tax receiving
Colleges and Universities.
I had read of this decadence.
It was not new to me. I had read History.
In the middle of this whirlwind of junk and money
and plastic cards for trading,
and false masks for picture taking,
there were two songs sung by Dr. Hook:
"Last Mornin" and "The Things I Didn't Say".
Those sounds redeemed the world
through hope born of heartache.
They unmasked the muddle of our lives
in simple lyrics and poetry.
I still can't understand why Ludwig Boltzmann
committed suicide after he had written K log W
and why Dwight Eisenhower didn't when he shot private Slovak.
It has something to do with bad character.
It has nothing to do with love.
The lovers are all dead.
I have watched them all die shot up with dope spread-eagle in
the middle of their papers wishing they had made a difference.
Now, I don't care if people are pissed-off.
Now, I watch the mockery of higher organization
and the mocks being led around by their dicks
while the abundantly fed have another free lunch
and so-called white trash, niggers, Indians, wetbacks and gooks
get to buy used cars and used houses and work in restaurants
and send their kids to public schools.
46
Everyone is not a cynic.
Some people still recycle cans, teach girl scouts,
grow flowers and play the piano.
They are like the Truman family before the war ended.
I saw a man drinking tap water and not wearing a radiometer.
He was not a cynic.
He was a Methodist and his children went to private schools.
On Sundays he took them to Church where they prayed for the
bishop and for the country and for the poor.
When everyone sang he prayed that his marriage would last,
that he would get more money,
that he would not be audited,
that his daughter would not get pregnant until she left home,
and that the dick that did it would be a Methodist mechanic.
Last week I listened to Lennie Bruce's last performance.
I had forgotten what a strict moralist has was.
I had forgotten how much he loved
Puerto Ricans, Blacks, Moses and Jesus.
And how little he loved cardinals and the mafia and,
finally, how he hated his life.
My uncle died in jail after having been beaten by a guard.
He hated his life too.
He wasn't cynical.
He always thought he would change and that he was wrong,
but he still stole the cardinal's ring and traded it for smack
which is why the guard beat him.
His daughter married a mechanic. I never see them.
If I did it would be very pleasant
because they just don't know me that well.
47
Unknown Americans
The time is now.
This is the year to tell the people,
to write about the most important things to do.
This is the opportunity, while we have our wits,
while we are unknown and have our freedom.
This is the place to cause changes.
This is the reign of disorder and arrogance
and fascination with credit and money.
These are the people to talk with, the unknown Americans.
These are the people who reject the lives of quiet desperation.
These are the people who have turned away from the cartoons
and the plastic cards
and the pop-up visions of actors in charge.
Now is the time.
We have waited long enough.
There is a clear vision of what we must do.
We must release ourselves from the prison of the dialectic.
We must unpin our jackets and our pants from
the Age of Reason
and from the Age of Kant.
We must rid ourselves of Smith and Marx and Keynes.
We must clear the table of all the shells
and the room of all the baggage.
We must not commit to any simple-minded system.
We must look at the important things.
We must look at the causes of death and sadness.
We must seek what will make us well and happy.
Here are the instruments of death:
your hand,
48
your friend's hand,
the hand of a stranger,
the hand of the company, of the government, of the system.
Here are the instruments of sadness:
your words,
your friend's words,
the words of strangers,
the words of the company, of the government, of the system.
Here are the causes of death and sadness:
the instruments are closed, fixed, and determined.
Here are the changes we seek:
an open hand,
food,
work,
free time.
To correct the company, the government,
and the system, swiftly,
before their hands close and their words condemn us
and our lives become fixed,
we must take away the instruments
of the company, the government, and the system.
We must make the powerful people tremble from an unknown
plan, take away the closed hand, change the fixed ways, and
accept an undetermined future.
Let death occur at the end of life.
Let us bury the old after their time.
Let us sing and remember them and cry
and hug the ground
and visit their graves
and pile stone upon stone
and plant flowers
49
and tend their places.
Let us think about everything they were
and carry all they were and their genes into every future.
But let us not close our hand and kill them before their time.
Every person killed before his time fixes the system.
Every person killed before his time takes our lives with them.
We are millions of years behind our destiny.
Our fists are wrapped around rocks and weapons.
We have killed and killed and killed
until the flesh and bones of our would-be lives have become the
fabric of our companies,
of our governments, and of our systems.
Now is the time to say no.
Put down the rocks.
Put down the sticks.
Put down the knives.
Put down the slings.
Put down the bows.
Put down the guns.
Put down the missiles.
Put down the bombs.
There is no argument to make.
There is no defense to take.
Put them all down.
It is all life that is cut too short.
It is millions of years too late now.
Let us put the weapons down.
Let hunger and famine leave us.
We have food from the earth not yet poisoned.
We have food to feed all of us
and to feed all the living things.
We have credits in electronic storehouses
50
in the names of those we have allowed to eat.
Now, let us collect all the names of every person on earth
and store them in the electronic storehouses;
and let us permit them to eat.
Fuck the companies!
Fuck the storehouse-tenders.
Fuck the reign of the past two-million years!
We can, all of us, have permission to eat.
No man need stand up because he fed the starving
and say he gave his life for his brothers.
That life, too, was shortened and robs us of our future.
It feeds the system.
It closes hands and freezes the ways
of the company, and the government, and the system.
Every person that breathes, works.
That is the value we will record in the electronic storehouses.
Let us deal with work.
There is every occupation
and more to do than time given for us to do it.
We must see work as what people do
rather than what we need for them to do for
the companies, the government, and the system.
We are the means to nothing.
We are no one's instrument.
Work is from the beginning until the end of life.
It is not related to whether you eat.
It is listening to sounds from within the womb.
It is watching and listening to your parents from the crib.
It is kicking your legs and arms and crying and cooing.
It is pulling yourself up on chairs and
crawling from room to room.
51
It is stacking blocks.
It is laughing when you're thrown into the air and caught.
It is coloring on walls and scribbling on paper.
It is saying rhymes and writing letters.
It is adding and subtracting numbers.
It is washing dishes and clothes.
It is playing ball and dancing.
It is writing sentences and paragraphs.
It is reading books and writing papers.
It is performing and talking and showing off.
It is courting and falling in love.
It is helping your family, friends,
and neighbors to eat and to be well.
It is music and art and science.
It is your time.
It is not another's time.
It is your life.
It is not another's life.
You are not the instrument of another.
Work is not lacking anywhere.
The companies are lacking.
The governments are lacking.
The systems are lacking.
Work is abundant
It is whatever you do.
Let all of us break the time pieces,
break the connection between the rhythm of life
and the assignments given by the instrument-tenders.
Listen to your body.
Open your windows and let the sun
and wind stream across your face.
Awake and do the hardest things first.
And when you're tired, rest, and when the night comes,
make love and sleep and forget whatever happened that day
52
whether or not it was sad.
Laugh when people tell you the hour of the day.
Hug them and tell them about the sunlight and the wind.
Tell them to stay home when it rains.
Tell them to listen to their bodies.
Tell them their work is what they do.
Tell them you broke your watch.
Offer to break their watch and laugh.
When you were a child remember
how your father threw you into the air
and you were afraid of falling
and you gasped
and you tried to cry
but when he caught you,
you laughed, you did not die.
Instead, you laughed.
Now your laughter is the measure of time on earth.
When you laugh, you know you have not died.
You have survived.
You know that someday you will die,
But today you have survived.
Laughter will cure you.
It will free the most determined things.
It will open every hand.
It will push aside every wall.
It is the last of everything we really need:
life, food, work, free time, and laughter.
53
The Dance
I don't associate with men.
They are too manly.
They have big dicks for every subject.
Yet, often they are so nice
That you don't see their erections
Until it's too late.
And then they leave
Amidst the odors of powders and perfumes
To do the death dances for the queens.
I don't associate with women.
They are too womanly.
They are pools of needs.
Yet, often they are so nice
That you don't see their melting pots
Until it's too late
And then they leave
Amidst to odors of powders and perfumes
To do the dances for the race.
I am alone
Amidst the odors of powders and perfumes
Shaken off by the dancers
Before they left,
Before they died,
Before their babies cried.
54
Desire
I want to go someplace
Where there are no modern things,
Where they've no wound metal
And no plastic,
And no silver,
And no gold.
I want to go someplace
Where you wear your soul outside,
And where your skin keeps you warm,
And where the earth trembles in the morning
When the sun shines on it,
And where you smell burning wood.
When I am finally there,
When I am at the place
Where the earth trembles,
Where the sun warms my skin,
Where my soul is outside,
Where I smell the burning wood,
Then I will be home.
55
Not Crossing the Road
"Wife threw me off of the porch.
No, I was in a car wreck.
Or, how 'bout, I was playing one-on-one
And I dunked a shot and twisted my knee
When I came down from the basket."
But the truth is:
I stepped off of a two-inch curb
In Manhattan on my way to the Deli
To get a salmon croquette with mushroom gravy.
I was wearing my cheap shoes
And my gray polyester and wool suit
And they just let me fall in the street.
On the way down it was a slow motion dream.
I thought. "Oh my God, I'm going all 'the way
Down to my balls and there's gonna be a new
Joint in my left knee."
Then "POW" I kissed the black slick street
Just forty feet from lunch.
You know how big people look
When you're flat on your back in a New York street?
They're all eyes and mouths and they curve over you
Like trees over a river bank.
Above the people you see the buildings
Shooting into the sky like dead weights
That pin you to the ground.
I finally sat up and caught my breath
And in a minute my friends,
Ulric and Carroll,
56
Picked me up and took me to the Deli.
Ulric cleared a path to the back of the Deli
As Carroll half carried me to the table.
The waitress followed us in and asked what had happened.
Ulric told her I had fallen
And she excitedly asked where.
I said I had fallen across the street.
She said she knew that store across the street
And that I could sue them for sure.
I said no, I had fallen in the street.
She said that in that case I could sue the city
And they would pay, she knew it.
I said, no, no, I wasn't suing anybody.
The street had not jumped up and hit me, I had fallen.
I said I'd just have some tea to drink and some ice for my knee
And I'd recover in a little while.
Ulric said that you had to live in New York to understand.
So, there I was, broken down in the Big Apple,
Stoic, joking with friends,
And crying out of the back of my eyes.
I knew that street-wise waitress had the key to the city.
She would not have missed the opportunity to collect
Had it been her fall and her twisted knee.
The Deli salmon croquette was great
And the people at the hospital were kind.
My friends put me on a plane back to Texas
And here I sit, a brace on my knee, crutches at my side,
Thinking about the other half of that salmon croquette.
57
A Dream
When I dream, I'm not what I am,
Unless I'm considering the being
I'd be, if I were not dreaming what I am.
I dreamed a man came into my bedroom,
And I could not see him,
But I saw a flashing knife in his hand.
I heard myself scream, "no, no, no,"
Yet no sound came from my mouth.
I got up in the dark to stop him
Yet I felt that my body had not moved.
The knife he held was like a light,
Yet it did not break the darkness.
I had known this man from childhood.
He had been in other dreams.
I screamed again until I woke my other self.
As I clicked on the bedside lamp,
The flashing knife went out.
The dream was gone.
58
Denial of Citizenship
I deny that I am a citizen of any country.
While the nation claims to have power over me
And power over the masses around me,
I deny that I am their citizen.
I am not even civil,
And I do not grant to the nation
Any power, whether for good or for evil,
To do or not to do anything.
I do not acknowledge any right
Of any corporate machine or
Of any "archy" to make boundaries that say:
“This piece of earth belongs to anyone. "
Nor may the nation issue papers and numbers to me
That limit my being to any place at any time.
What is the point?
I can't be crowded from earth except by death.
And he who kills me or kills any man kills his nation
In as much as it is good.
And in as much as it is evil he kills nothing,
And his nation was a lie.
So, no more of my life shall be spent as a citizen.
I will not be a witness for any group or for any cause
Nor will I be used to make others submit to
The will of the boundary makers and paper pushers
And the killers of the spirit of man.
I hereby return my numbers:18580446, 04359786, 0105729,
366413, 10298247, 368841, 8615719 and 10121314.
59
The Clear Sharp Light
I put two large pillows at the head of the bed
and a third long-wise across them.
I sat back on the pillows and let the light
from the window stream across my writing pad.
I relished that light.
I could see clearly the white paper, my colored
hand, the sharp marks of my pen.
My eyes felt young; they danced through the
letters, never guessing at what I wrote.
Before artificial light I suppose people did not
know how soon their vision faded.
If the sun starts your day and the dark marks
your rest,
Then reading and seeing are routinely done in
a blast of light where black is black and
sharp lines define the whole world.
Imagine the rhythm of life if it were just from
sun to dark and dark to sun.
You would match your natural gifts with the
energies provided and enjoy the light rather
than replace it.
You would leave the dark for feeling, for memories, for love.
60
Contemplation About the Dead
Much is said about the dead,
Who they were and what they did.
Selectively, it is always said,
The bad is left out about the dead.
And why not leave out the bad deeds?
Can recitation make the dead take heed?
Can they be recalled by words so bold?
That you could save their bloody souls?
What do we really know of afterlife?
Are souls in purgatory full of strife?
If they are, can we buy them out?
Will our currency have any real clout?
Let's say it's true we change their fate.
We pay up and God lets them skate.
It's a hell of a deal for all concerned.
The dead move up and the living learn.
When I die please withhold your praise.
Instead, buy indulgences with cash you raise.
Then I'll be forever blessed,
A happy soul the Lord let rest.
61
Executive Travel
Met a woman from Encino on the plane.
We were squashed into the last three seats
in a two-prop micro-plane built for hunchbacks
and between us sat a 300-pound construction worker.
She could hold down a good-sized helium balloon herself.
I've been considering joining overeaters' anonymous.
Needless to say, the plane flew nose-up.
And when the pilots dropped beer cans,
The cans rolled back under our feet.
The point is...
She lost in court.
First time she had been married.
Forty years old.
The S.O.B. asked her where she was going,
and she told him to fuck off.
The judge had just lost his estate to his ex-wife
And his new bride was pregnant and didn't like the apartment.
So, the judge gave the S.O.B. the house and everything else.
He thought he was hearing his own case.
She's going to appeal as soon as she wins enough in Vegas.
She'll get her shit back.
Hell, the S.O.B.'s lawyer didn't even write a brief.
He'd just been cleaned out by his ex
and had spoken privately with the judge.
Really, a screwing by a judge! — worse than the S.O.B. gave!
The construction worker lived across the street from her.
62
He said, "Look at me!" She did.
They didn't know each other or either of each other's friends.
Different class in the same town.
I don't think he had ever been married, or sober,
Except for this trip, which was or wasn't going to be his last to
Vegas...which was an okay town...but they burned his
building...and he couldn't get insurance unless he paid $30,000
for $100,000 coverage...which, of course, no sane man would do
unless he was going to burn his buildings...which, of course, he
didn't do...but whoever did was a pro that used napalm stuff you
could throw cigarettes into and it wouldn't light...but if you held
a lighter to it, then it burned up everything.
She said, "No shit! How'd you know that?"
He changed the subject to Keno...which he won big at in Vegas
by playing 2 and O five straight times and letting it ride...but
later lost the $12,000 out of his pocket after he threw a $100 bill
down the stairs to the paper boy.
About then we landed.
And the beer cans rolled back to the front of the plane.
63
Love
Love is like a red, red nose
that no amount of makeup will cover.
It raises the pitch of speech
and makes bulges in your clothes.
Nothing anyone says is taken lightly,
and they always look at your face
and then down at your neck.
Your response to “What's wrong?"
is forever a high note, "Nothing."
At which time, your nose glows,
you close your collar with your hand,
and ask in a low note about your messages.
Were this not so, I never wrote, and no man ever loved....
64
Reflections on a Day I Visited
I talked to only a few people, but the people I talked to
respected the little I had to say.
I was warned about windmills.
Four people agreed completely with the
negative summation of a barely important demonstration
which Drew called a mental masturbation.
Not one of us knew the answers,
and we tired quickly of the problem.
This morning I awoke as if nothing had happened.
I was convinced that people were ready
for any new thing they could understand.
I think now they were tired of trying to pick up
the near-gold watches with the slippery three-fingered hand
at the end of a toy crane in a glass bowl
at the noisy quarter arcade.
It's not what they must do, nor I.
I will be silent for a while.
Respect is not all it is cracked up to be.
65
Questions Waiting on Answers
The question is not existence.
It is not knowledge.
It is not truth.
It is not beauty.
The question is why we describe
what we think with words that
conjure no images,
limit no space,
stir no bodily parts,
and silence our brains?
Merton and other past thinkers
were full of piety when they said,
there is an unknown being seen by silent people
who are nothing in relationship to everything that is,
including the unknown god.
The seeds of contemplation are smaller than mustard seeds
and they never grow
and nothing comes from them
and they do not subtract from the unknown god.
Is that supposed to be “the Good” and is that what faith is?
H.L. Menken told Allister Cook
that if he (Menken) went to heaven
he would tell the twelve apostles he was wrong.
Can you do that?
Can you just wait to see how it all comes out
and afterward say, "Well, I was wrong."
How will everyone you know get even with you?
Is that why silence and humility play
such a large part in the notions of sainthood?
66
Suppose you had been Calvin Coolidge
and no one knew you were dead
because you had no ideas and you annoyed no one.
Would that be enough to qualify you
for a conversation with an apostle?
How many of us say and know everything?
Yet, when it’s all over, no one knows we're dead?
67
Requiem for the People in the Background
He got sick, and after a while, he died.
I didn't cry. I didn't really feel anything.
The pain in my chest could have been indigestion,
or it could have been my heart.
Whatever it was, it went away.
I knew I didn't know what it meant to die.
One day he and I were talking.
We said the usual “ain’t it awful” things,
and the next day he got sick, and he just died.
I went to his funeral.
He had a hundred relatives, people he didn't know,
people you talk to about your kids and work,
people who remember your past, and that's all.
After the funeral we went to his house,
and everyone joked and we ate his neighbor's food.
The relatives worried about the kids.
Well, they said they were worried about the kids.
His wife sat near them.
They didn't say much, but they cried.
I've thought about this for a long time.
It doesn't mean anything.
It could happen to anyone.
I don't mean dying.
That happens to everyone.
I mean seeing someone die,
and not knowing what to do about it.
I mean not talking to them anymore,
not having a friend,
not knowing, and just being silent.
68
The Simple Life
I just want to be lean,
and make a hard dick,
and find an easy lay.
Beyond that, I just want to pray.
When I finally die
I don't want them to say:
"He was fat, impotent,
and never prayed."
I'll pray for the people,
and I'll pray for peace.
But, mostly I'll ask that
the easy women never cease.
Then when I go
I can look the Lord in the eye
and say, "I did my best
but I tired and died."
69
Shirking
1 could have done more.
1 could have done it all.
There was time.
There was the opportunity.
There were resources.
So, why didn't I do it?
Why did I just walk around?
Why did I just look at the work?
I thought about it.
I talked about it in great detail.
So, why didn't I do it?
Did I just want to make misery for tomorrow?
Did I hope someone else would do my work?
No, I avoided the nitty-gritty
I set myself to suffer unrelenting failure
Rather than do what had to be done
When it had to be done.
Are there are others like me,
Shirkers of the nitty-gritty details?
If yes, can we be cured?
Will the tyrant or lover who provides the cure
Make us well forever?
Or, will the work doctor fall under the spell
Of us shirkers and
Avoid the nitty-gritty details of the cure?
I see the work doctors come and go.
They tell you how they failed.
They tell you how they succeeded.
They advise.
They don't get involved in the details.
70
We shirkers could come together.
We could hold hands and pray together
To The Great Shirker who set us free
With a big bang and riddle
And bundle of doubt.
The Great Shirker who watches
While everything gets colder and work dissipates.
He'll give us the needed inspiration to consume
The nitty-gritty with our grindstone noses.
We'll have power to feign love and enterprise
And ignore the colder frame of our future.
We'll be like The Great Shirker but lesser.
We'll let lesser creations run their courses.
We'll stop focusing on the details.
We'll do them and let them lose their heat
In the vast, cold future.
71
The Killing Instinct
The damned dogs killed both goats.
I heard the growling and the tearing of flesh,
But, by the time I got there,
They had torn them apart.
They were my backwoods neighbor's
pack of large, hunting dogs.
They had spiked collars and barrel chests.
When I came, they turned and looked me in the eye.
One dog had a goat by the throat and
was holding it off the ground.
The other dogs were tearing at the carcass of the other goat.
I knelt, rested my pistol on the fence,
And shot the dog holding the goat.
The others bolted.
I shot two more dogs before they could get over the fence.
Two made it over and ran zig-zag across the field.
I shot my pistol until it was empty, but missed them.
The dogs' instincts had killed the goats.
My instinct had killed the dogs.
Afterward, I thought of reasons,
But I knew we all had blood in our eyes.
I dragged the five carcasses to a field outside of the goat pen.
I dug a large trench and put the dogs
and goats into a common grave.
I dug deep so my dogs wouldn't dig it up again
And bring the stinking meat to my doorstep.
I thought about the stupidity of instinct killing.
I thought about my backwoods neighbor;
His hunting dogs were gone;
72
He would have to get new dogs to do his killing.
I thought about me.
I felt the rush of emotion over vengeance and spilled blood.
73
Parts
It's a tough day, a day to dwell on misery.
But I push it back and look at it.
It's laid out on a white cloth,
parts to assemble, in order, easy to see, but misery still.
There's time to fit the pieces together.
I pick them up and turn them face to face
to see how they were together before they were parts,
before the tough day.
It's hard to see how they worked together at all.
Once the pieces must have had smoother edges
and fit together in special ways I can't arrange now.
There are notches and arms
and elbows that don't mesh anymore.
I know it won't go back together the way it was.
There will be left over pieces,
ones with burrs and worn edges,
the misery parts.
I begin to rearrange the parts on the white cloth.
I study them and put them together two at a time.
I sand off the burrs.
I leave out the notched pieces.
I forget about the tough day.
I put aside knowledge and love and novelty.
I settle for peace and simple constructions.
74
A New Gathering
Essential things have disappeared.
Easy-to-do things have become hard to do.
I'm depressed and I get down on the floor
And crawl under my desk.
I want someone to say something new, something
I've not thought about before.
I want them to show me a new form,
to announce a new result, something meaningful, profound!
No one knocks at my office door.
I open it and crawl under my desk again.
Still, no one looks in.
The phone rings and rings.
I hear an answer.
It's my mother.
She wants me to take my stuff and leave.
She wants to go somewhere.
I'm afraid she'll go.
I'm crying for her.
She's so angry.
Her essential things never arrived.
Just me.
I arrived.
Some little hope she wouldn't be buried
by the hard things she had to do.
I remember that I tied to hug her, and she cried.
But she was ashamed to let me see her cry.
Two people come into my office.
They know I'm under my desk.
They know me intimately.
75
I tell them quietly where I am.
They come, and we sit together and cry.
We all wait on the others to come:
our mothers, our lovers, our children,
our fathers who act like men,
our friends who sit under their desks,
and our caretakers who count our things and wait.
76
A Long Marriage
We'll be together forever.
You can hear it in our conversations.
We agree on almost everything.
We vote on the same losing candidates.
We both shop at Wal-Mart.
Our neighbors always wave when they pass in their pickups.
Neither of us cares if the mailbox leans.
Our children won't go with us to the health club.
Our parents won't visit our wrecked house.
Our grandchildren prefer cats to being held.
This marriage could last forever.
We have only a few minor differences.
She thinks I should be home at six.
I don't mind if the day I come home is open.
I think she should have only one refrigerator.
She doesn't mind if I'll take the spare food to the office.
She thinks I shouldn't travel.
I don't mind if I can live out-of-town on weekdays.
I think the house should be concrete and flush.
She thinks it should be bare wood and 85 degrees.
She thinks the twenty-acre lawn should be mowed weekly.
I think it would look great as a virgin forest.
I think we should have a wooden dog
and recording of animal sounds.
She thinks we need a pet pig to go with the seven dogs, six
cats, two horses, seven chickens, and lone goat.
She thinks cutting wood with an ax is exercise.
I think cutting wood with an ax is torture.
I think hitting golf balls is a sexual experience.
She thinks grown men shouldn't play ball.
She thinks eating out is Nirvana.
I think eating out is a way to set my stomach on fire.
I think betting $1000 on cards is like flying a hang glider
77
She thinks betting $1000 is like cutting your wrists.
She thinks there are deep-seated truths in our inner selves.
I think there are vacuums hidden in the seats.
I think we'll finally agree on something.
She thinks it'll probably be to sue for divorce
based on irreconcilable differences.
All minor things, really.
Not like history, or religion, or science —
The big things that split couples up.
78
Being Here
If you can't laugh about it, it's not worth dying for.
Close your eyes for about five thousand years.
And when you open them you'll be
under about twelve feet of dirt.
An archaeologist will be removing the dirt with her pen knife.
She'll be cataloguing the broken dishes
and other garbage she found with you.
It's amazing that if you stand still the earth will bury you.
You must resist every moment.
You must sweep, dust, wash and dump all that dirt outside
on those who are standing still.
In some places that's all that separates the classes.
There are sweepers and dusters and the idle poor,
the future subjects of archaeology.
There is no escape from this certain future.
Even now on a plane 30,000 feet above the earth,
they collect the refuse, stuff it into plastic bags,
throw it into containers that trucks will hall
to the lands of those who can't move,
won't sweep, and don't vote.
79
About to Bloom
I saw a boy who was all legs and arms and so thin,
But was about to bloom.
He bounced when he walked,
And his nose stuck into the air.
He grinned thinking about what he'd buy
when he got to the store.
He was probably a pitcher.
His arm looked like David's sling.
When he reared back to throw
his foot blocked the batter's vision.
He was for sure a ten-game winner and a Little League star.
I bet his Dad thought he hung the moon.
I know his Mom did, she called him "My little man."
She watched his every step as he bounded from the car
And pranced across the parking lot.
The whole world wants a boy like that,
A boy on his way to everything,
Grinning and jingling the change in his blue jean pockets.
80
Business
Business is a thumping, grinding blind man's bluff
where the dim-witted hold fast to fond ditties
twisted by drunken mouths that never make sense.
It is never from the shoulder with the dumb honesty
of a young man who expects to lose.
Damn the brutishness of it!
Damn the grabbing!
Damn the killing of joy,
the slander of knowledge,
the worship of power.
Leave me just one soft handshake,
before we trade a pair of shoes for a box of bread.
81
The City and the Countryside
In the city the wrecked cars,
The dead iceboxes,
The old sofas,
The beer cans and wine bottles,
And the plastic toys
Are always on the move.
Big trucks haul them away
To the clanking garbage eating machines
That push the stinking, smoking trash
Into a heap of oozing poison
That will be born again
To attack its corporate makers.
In the countryside the wrecked cars,
The dead iceboxes,
The old sofas,
The beer cans and wine bottles
And the plastic toys are always still.
They are the framework for pastoral art.
It is art created by the all-consuming flora
That mocks our civilization.
Here, there is no fenced-in-heap-of-trash oozing poison.
Here, there is shelter for lizards,
Dirt banks for flowers and vines,
The end of labor, the passing of time.
82
Comfort
I feel soft, soft and quiet.
No pain, no grinding little noises, no salty tastes.
I lick clean water from my lips
that are sprayed with a cool mist
from a dancing fountain under a street lamp.
I sit and watch some leaves fall into the pool
and forget that I need anything.
83
Conditioned Speech
There are times when I struggle to say what I feel.
I think and think and still I say something
that's pointless, not really what I wanted to say,
not really what I was thinking.
It's anger welling.
It's "Goddammit! What's wrong with me?"
A simple expression was needed,
Perhaps, no words at all,
Just a look that would convey affection,
A look that would convey desire.
I wait for the quiet to come.
I wait to release thoughts
trapped by conditioned speech.
I long for such clarity.
84
On the Highway between Memphis, TN and Hayti, MO
They drained the lowlands on both sides of the levies
and they plowed the fields into a million rows an acre.
In the middle of the fields they built small frame houses.
They backed they tillers and tractors and plows against
the houses like tanks set to defend a fort.
In the fields they grow feed to feed the stock that feeds
Americans their ham and beef.
It's a temporary looking world, one that will be reclaimed
by the river and by the twisters
and by the earthquakes
and by the sun.
The farmers know it.
They don't waste their money on any fancy houses.
They live for this generation
because the Mississippi will take it all back.
The earth will shake, the levies will fall
and the land will be bottom again,
frame houses and all.
85
Growing Pains
Hurting, then talking, then not hurting as much.
Looking for the good intentions and for the rainbows
and for the hugs that follow the hurting.
That's what we want.
We want to move a little closer to a vision of our need.
When we find it, we want it to be fresh,
not full of doubts we've stored in paper bags
and lugged around for years.
We want a fine feeling, an agreement,
a growing up in a bright field of flowers.
We're waiting for the next time,
when the hurting and the hugs move us along in life.
86
Finding Intimacy
Frankness, not to offend
but to tighten the bonds of friendship is all we seek.
Who hears another's thoughts and is not turned inside-out
by the fear that he will not hear or not respond
and lose the intimacy assumed
and counted on in all our formal arrangements?
To hear words and to know the thoughts contained,
the motivations, the earnest desires,
the groping for the next conversation,
the setting of the future, that is the desire.
It is never just the words. Everything counts:
the last glance,
the way you move your hands.
Everything, to the last breath.
87
Just Today
I feel good today.
At least, I feel the need to say
I feel good today.
I read that I was
Walking backwards into the future,
My past spread out before me
As an example of the evil men do
And the tearing of the fabric of life.
I don't care.
I still feel good.
It's a physical thing.
It's like a shower.
The water is warm.
There's no rush to go.
I hold up my head
And draw steam through my nose.
I remember the night
A man knocked on the door.
I answered and sent him away.
Later he was arrested.
He was desperation I avoided.
Some day he will come again.
And I may suffer.
But today I feel good.
Today is a warm shower.
88
Kay
She always came to me, her tail wagging.
She put her nose in my hand so I would pet her.
She lied down and rolled over for me to scratch her belly.
She had five litters, all perfect.
Mostly they were red, like her,
But a few have looked like shepherds.
Two of her pups are still with us,
one red male and one shepherd male.
They run and romp and play,
And I have to scratch them as I did her.
The red male will hold my wrist if I try to leave.
The shepherd is really strange.
He's afraid I'll catch him and give him away.
He won't come right up,
But, when I pet Kay, he'll push in over her to be rubbed.
He really likes it,
But remembers the day we took his brothers and sisters away.
We couldn't catch him, and he's still running.
He doesn't know how much I admire his survival instincts,
His will to live.
He reminds us of the precious value of personal existence.
89
Kay Dehaini
Nushka said,
"I'll buy a large canvas and some paints.
I'll pick the daisies, a big bunch with long stems.
You can take as long as you require.
We'll hang the picture in our room.
I'll look at it and think of Kay.
I remember when she died.
They dressed her in a dark blue dress of dotted Swiss.
They put a bunch of wild flowers into her arms.
It was so beautiful.
I wanted to wake her and talk.
We still had not finished our conversations.
There were things we still needed to share.
There was love left unfulfilled.
When I see the October daisies, I think of her.
I still see the wild flowers in her arms."
90
Looking for Comfort
Every man looks for comfort in his associations
And finds it listening to joyous responses.
When you talk freely and when you laugh
your body warms and tension leaves you.
You are freed of the uncoupling feeling of somber days.
How I long to walk hand-in-hand with you,
To talk and spin yarns so long the day will slip by unnoticed.
We will lay down and turn out the lights.
We will retell funny stories until we fall asleep
in each other's arms, covered, warm and spooning.
91
The Mammoth is Down
We felled a tree from 1912.
It was next to the house, a tall oak with a huge trunk.
It was nearly dead.
A grapevine had consumed it.
The limbs fell every day.
We worried about that tree.
We thought the wind would come and crack it
and it would fall into the house.
It was a dream of an elephant charging through,
splitting the timbers asunder.
I stood away from the tree, looked at the trunk,
then up to the high branches.
I could see how it would fall.
It would go between the pump house and the gazebo.
It would crack over the concrete wall and fall into the yard.
Nothing would be hurt.
The earth would catch it.
The mammoth would rest.
I made a low cut on the downside.
I cut it higher on the watching side.
I was afraid as I reached midpoint.
I heard wood crack
I waited for the beast to point its fall, to commit to lying down.
It leaned just a little, as I had imagined.
A two-inch gap showed in the cut.
It stopped and waited.
I put the crosscut in the gap and made three more cuts.
It cracked again.
Then it began to roar.
92
We backed off, and you could hear six people gasp at once.
It was committed to fall.
It tore into the ground and settled.
We cheered.
The mammoth was dead!
It was just wood now, fuel for winter.
It was not the terror that stood outside waiting
to consume the house on a dark, stormy night
-- maybe even consumes one of us.
Now the feast!
Now the celebration!
93
Moods
I would write of love all of the time.
But love is not present all of the time.
Sometimes you don't feel loving.
You feel bitchy.
You snap at the heels of the smellers.
You growl at the bastards running around you.
Sometimes you hate.
You like hating then.
It gets rid of the bleeding ulcers.
It heaps just deserts on many around you.
When you are hateful people think you're normal.
It makes possible the fair exchange of hateful acts.
Because tomorrow will be their bitchy day.
Your heels will be snapped.
You'll be stared into the ground.
It comes around. It passes.
94
New York City
Brownest damned place I've ever seen...
Buildings, grass, trees, streets, water, people!
If people didn't dress,
there wouldn't be any blues and greens at all.
I like it, though. It's not boring.
You can't go to sleep if the town's up.
A Klanner would be freaked-out there.
A dedicated member would have to wear two hoods
and walk with his back against the wall.
He'd feel like a worm in a chicken pen.
New Yorkers aren't stuffy. They talk.
They tell you more than you want to hear... 'bout you, too.
I love the way they'll push you off the sidewalk
and still say they love you.
They've pride in those tall buildings,
but I laugh a little inside when I remember flying
into Denver and seeing the mountains behind the city
and noticing that the whole city and its tall buildings
looked like mold growing on a rock.
I thought, "That's how New York would look if it were here."
Big is just from the inside-out.
95
Orgasm
There is no sound for going mad.
There is no word to capture the queer sensation
that makes you tremble progressively,
until your body rids itself of all feelings, all fluids, all heat.
You are left oddly on fire yet frozen,
close yet flung into space.
You come down.
You're happy.
You want to do it again.
96
Pahnie
She was kind enough, but cold.
She kept her distance from everyone.
Her husband died.
Their children came and looked at his body.
They remembered how cold he'd been to her.
How he drank.
How poor they were.
How she had scraped their lives together day-to-day.
She didn't think about the things that had happened.
Once they left their baby in a buggy in the sun
by a stream while they talked.
The buggy rolled into the stream.
They couldn't catch it, and the baby drowned.
He never let her forget it, not once.
Then another baby came.
She felt better then, and she held the baby all the time.
One day they sat together, the three of them, on a balcony.
A funeral passed by below, and he began to scold
her about the one she had lost in the buggy, in the stream.
She was crying when the balcony broke and her baby
fell from her arms under a pile of jumbled wood.
The baby died.
She cried.
She grew old very young.
She worked and kept her distance.
She had other children as consolation,
but it didn't help.
She grew older still.
97
And distant.
But, she was kind.
He had been hard.
Her life had been hard.
But she lived a long time.
When her body died,
her children came to see her,
and they cried.
98
A Private Moment
pace, pace, pace,
up and down, up and down,
always hungry, always tired,
never caring what you eat,
never sleeping,
thinking, thinking, thinking,
turned on, aroused, awake, awake,
you lick your lips, your nostrils spread,
a flush of color spreads across your face,
you feel alive, excited,
anxious about your next encounter,
fully knowing, fully expecting,
not caring about the mundane,
but letting the meaningless acts of the day,
mark the face of the clock,
until thinking, thinking, thinking
fades into dreams.
99
Sexual Freedom
It's easy in your mind.
Nothing is complicated.
There are no barriers.
In a sense there are no bodies,
no sensations,
just a consummation,
an unfolding like the development of an organism from an
embryo.
You see pulsing new growth in all directions.
When there are two bodies it's different.
One must respond to what is in the other's
mind without resistance as in a dance.
It's floating on a salt water wave
in a deep ocean on a dark clear night.
It's you and her and a universe of possibilities.
100
Sharing
When your thoughts are private
And there is no one to share them with
There is a loss of feeling,
There is a sinking sensation,
A realization that regardless
Of the profundity there is no point.
If you are truly alone then
Your thoughts need not have been.
They make no difference at all to anyone.
When there is just one person with whom
Private thoughts can be shared there is gain in everything.
Just making a small noise
And hearing a response is meaningful.
You can say things poorly or well,
Quickly or over a long time,
Simply or profoundly,
It makes no difference.
The sharing has given the value to your thoughts.
It's the difference between joy and sadness,
Comfort and loneliness.
It's why we don't give up and die.
101
So-Shu
We sought a word for love-making more acceptable to all,
A word with no negative connotations.
Not any "Oh, my God! ," blushing, knee-jerk,
Hold-your ears, easy-to-say word.
We wanted a word that said
Love and lust remembered.
A warm feeling,
The essence of kind encounters.
She said if it had a "sh" sound,
It would be soft.
I said it should be an onomatopoeia
To enhance the memory.
I said, "So-shu."
She said, "That's it."
Now we can express ourselves.
We don't have to look around before we speak
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Tenderness and Joy
I can find time for children
As I grow older.
I see little else that matters.
You get up.
You work.
You eat.
You talk.
Sometimes you laugh.
Sometimes you cry.
Things turn out for you or not.
Then the children come.
They climb into your lap.
You hold them and talk.
You play.
You love each other.
The other stuff doesn't matter.
It's always there or not.
The children are just for a time.
After that time, they are memories—
Good ones.
The ones that count.
103
Mid-Life Crisis
Will you be okay?
I mean, once you decide
Which joys are yours,
And how complex your life will be,
Will you be okay?
Will you laugh?
I mean, when your anima or animus dissolves,
And you can grasp tightly the flesh and bones
Before you,
Will you laugh?
We are here.
We, who fear the psychic penetration
Are waiting to see
The beginning of our individual lives,
We are laughing.
We're okay.
104
World Economy
"Lunch cost more than its price."
So, from whom or what was the price extracted?
We sit smugly sipping our beer
While Indians in Brazil
Drag worthless logs from the forest
And dump them into the Amazon
From where they float around the world.
The labels on our beers are made from the logs
And they are worth more than the lives of the Indians.
Our drink with lunch cost more than its price.
I got two pesos change and the bartender laughed
Because the coins fit on the tip of my little finger.
Whatever order those copper coins represented
Had been lost in the last generation.
Zapata is dead.
Long live his hats in the Taco Restaurant
And give us two more Coronas without the labels.
Tell the Indians to rest.
Let our lunch not cost so much.
Let them keep the trees and live.
105
Ethan’s Paradox
He stood eye to eye
Next to the grazing cow
And stamped his foot
And the cow jumped back, afraid.
Then he laughed and turned his back
And mooned the bovine beast.
Where did this fearless child
Lose his respect for giants
With hooves and horns?
Had he not been restrained
By his mother's gentle hand,
He would have wracked the cow
On her nose and chased her
Across the field, laughing.
Even now my heart is in my throat
When I shoo the herd away
And when I hold a horse.
Here and now I see this baby in
Complete command, no fear at all,
And I am only planted calmly
Next to the herd because
I pretend to be a man,
Having let my child flee
As fast as feet will take
Him to the other side of
The gate where he peers
Through safe from the grazing cows.
106
Enough, Enough
He comes by once a week
in a pickup tuck
and leaves a check in her mailbox.
It was his mailbox too
for forty-one years,
but one day, when he turned seventy-one,
he just up and left.
Enough, he'd had enough!
They'd never gotten along.
The house was too nice, its windows were too big,
It was all something he had never wanted. So, he left.
He built a woodshed to live in and he goes fishing every day.
Once a week he drives by her house in his pickup truck.
He leaves her a $200 check in the mailbox.
He pays the bills too.
She divorced him.
She couldn't figure out why he acted that way.
She didn't want him thinking
He could just leave a check and pay the bills
and wash away forty-one years of marriage.
It was a nice house.
She never kept him from fishing.
People ought to be able to say what they want to
without some old fart running off to live in a shack,
and tying to buy off his conscience.
Hell, he never paid no attention to what she said anyway.
107
A Letter to a Friend
My dear friend,
Here is something from me and from Chekhov. He is still dead.
We are still alive.
You're crying for the things that are not. You're not crying for
the suffering that pokes you a little to let you know that you're
alive.
"The beds in the room are screwed to the floor. Sitting or lying
on them are men in blue hospital gowns and old fashioned
nightcaps. These are the lunatics."
You told me you were sick and I believed you. You do not have
to die to prove it. That would be going too far.
"He was stopped and brought home, and the landlady was sent
for a doctor. Dr. Andrei Yefimych...prescribed cold compresses
and laurel water, then sadly shook his head and left, telling the
landlady he would not come again, as one ought not interfere
with people going out of their minds. "
If you can succeed in just doing nothing, call me at once as both
of us will have become successful; you in doing it and me in
having suggested it.
"The doctor stopped admitting any new lunatics long ago, and
people who are fond of visiting insane asylums are few in this
world. "
If just one more thing goes wrong, I don't know where in my
brain I will store it. There are just so many things to remember,
but if I do not keep this last thing how will I know to get even
with the gods. They will laugh at me and I won't know why.
108
"Morals and logic do not enter into it. Everything depends on
chance. Those who are put in here, stay here; those who are not,
enjoy liberty, that's all. And there is no morality or logic in the
fact that I am a doctor and you are a mental patient - It's pure
chance, nothing more."
Mary said that you seldom ate ice cream. I think that may be the
cause of some of your bad luck. I've thought about it many times
since the night she took me to the ice cream shop in Glen Cove.
It's comforting, like masturbation and good music. If you eat ice
cream, you don't want anything else.
"My most esteemed friend, don't believe it! he whispered, laying
his hand on his heart. Don't believe them! It's a trick! All that is
wrong with me is that in the course of twenty years I have found
only one intelligent man in our whole town, and he is mad. I'm
not ill. I've simply been caught in a vicious circle from which
there is no way out. And it makes no difference to me now what
happens."
Rather than just do nothing as I've suggested, do just one thing.
Doing nothing is too difficult. If you do just one thing and then
fail, well, it's just one thing and what does that matter?
"This accursed life!' he snarled. 'And what makes it so
mortifying, so galling, is that life will end, not in any
recompense for suffering, not with an apotheosis, as it does in an
opera, but in death; a couple of attendants will come, take the
corpse by the arms and legs, and drag it down to the cellar. Ugh!
Well it doesn't matter.... our day will come in the next world. I'll
come back as a ghost and haunt these swine. I'll make their hair
turn gray."
It's too bad we can't just do things without knowing what we are
doing, and without others knowing what we are doing and
agreeing. It's not a mental effort. Mental efforts are quick and
easy. They don't use much energy and they are perfect until the
109
time comes for a demonstration. In the end all of the work and
all of the reward are in the physical effort.
"My God, my God....Yes, yes....You were pleased to say that
while there is no philosophy in Russia, everyone philosophizes,
even the
little nobodies. But what harm does their philosophizing do
anyone?.... So why this malevolent laugh, dear friend? And why
shouldn't these little people philosophize when they have no
other satisfaction?.... For an intelligent, cultured, proud, freedom
loving man, made in the image of God, to have no alternative to
becoming a doctor in a stupid, dirty little town, and spending his
whole life applying leeches and mustard plasters! the quackery,
the narrowness, vulgarity! Oh, my God!"
If I had a choice, I think I wouldn't read anything. Of course,
there is no choice. I've analyzed it carefully and I see that books
are full of chapters, and chapters full of paragraphs, and
paragraphs full of sentences, and sentences full of words and
words full of letters and letters are just ink splattered by force
onto paper. So the final substances are ink and the force that put
it there, and I live by that. It's a universal principle.
"After dinner Mikhail Averyanych came bringing a pound of tea
and a pound of fruit candies. Daryushka also came and stood by
the bed for an hour with the expression of dumb grief on her face
and Dr. Khobotov visited him. He brought a bottle of bromine
drops and ordered Nikita to fumigate the ward.
Toward evening Andrei Yefimych died of an apoplectic stroke.
He first suffered violent chills, and nausea; something loathsome
seemed to permeate his entire body, even to his fingertips; it rose
from his stomach and his head and flooded his eyes and ears.
Everything turned green before him. Andrei Yefimych realized
that the end had come and remembered that Ivan Dmitritch,
Mikhail Averyanych, and millions of others believed in
immortality. And what if they were right? But he felt no desire
110
for immortality and gave it only a momentary thought. A herd of
reindeer, about which he had been reading the day before,
extraordinarily beautiful and graceful, ran by him; a peasant
woman held out a registered letter to him. ...Mikhail Averyanych
said something. ...Then all was gone, and Andrei Yefimych lost
consciousness forever."
When Bill died I had been watching him for about three hours.
He would take deep breaths and his back would arch and his
chest would fill with oxygen from the clear tube that was
connected to the blue nozzle in the wall. Then the air would go
out of him with a loud rattle. His body would not let him die. I
thought; it takes more than bad luck and thinking to kill
someone. You have to sit on their chest and unplug the clear tube
from the blue nozzle. The body won't die just because it is
suffering. There has got to be a reason. There's got to be nothing
left to do.
There are many things to do, and you are not yet immortal, and
no one is standing on your chest and the oxygen blows freely in
your rooms. You live in a big city and you know more than one
intelligent man and they have not yet been given blue hospital
gowns. You still have some luck.
111
Above the Tension
There is tension.
Not below the surface
But on the outside,
Plainly showing.
The raw edge
Of every statement
Heats your ears
And sets your jaws.
You can hear your teeth grinding.
You can feel your nostrils spread.
Not one thought
Builds a bridge.
Not one word
Softens the feelings between you.
You wait for the right dig.
You listen for a phrase to turn around,
To prove your position.
Somewhere else
You've built a tower to sit on
To look down on the conflict.
"There," you think, "above it all I'll spit on the hot debate
And I'll look skyward.
I'll cut the ladder I've climbed.
I'll let the crowds swarm without me.
I'll listen, but I won't look down.
When the tension has passed,
I'll wish I had a ladder.
I'll wish the sky were not so boringly blue.
I'll wish the swarm below included me.
112
Ulric and Mary
He waited.
He waited a long time.
She saw his red hair grow thin.
She saw his red beard turn gray.
She saw his nose change shape.
Still they waited. It was not their time.
Everything between them was shared.
But for one thing, they waited.
What they were could not be said with rubber stamps
Of courthouse clerks and clerics.
Somehow all they've been to each other
Could not be turned into a set
Of preconceived conditions
Rolled out to use—
Like a recipe from his Viking grandmother.
So, they waited until the slate was clean.
They waited until it no longer mattered
If they changed any sun-singer's mores,
Until it only mattered what
They wrote on their slate.
They outlasted all of the other things
They thought they were.
They outlasted all of the other conditions
For happiness and security.
Now they've come to write on their slate.
They've come to tell their friends
That they love to be lovers,
That they love to be friends,
That they can keep company
Throughout their lives.
Each pulling up the other after the falls.
Each laughing at the other's foibles.
Each caring about the other's tears.
113
A Warm Winter
The winter is still warm. It's probably the rain clouds
holding back the north wind
and pumping in warm air from the tropics.
It's a kind season.
There are no blue knuckles,
no iced windows,
no dead batteries.
The wood will last the season.
The horses will look fat in the spring.
The dogs won't block the doorway.
It's a lazy time.
The air barely holds back the spring buds
People don't talk much about the weather.
Soon it'll be forgotten.
Greens will paint over the dismal grays.
114
The Shot Horse
Jennifer said, "You know, Menefee shot Red and he buried him,
too.
He said Red tore his fence, so he shot him."
I said, "Our horse?! You mean Menefee shot our horse?
What kind of bastard would do something like that?
I can't believe it! The bastard must be nuts. I'll call the sheriff.
Shootin’ horses that ain't lame can't be legal. It can't be legal!
What can a fuckin’ fence mean to a man anyway?"
Then Luke said, “Menefee didn’t shoot Red. He jist said he shot
Red.
He said Red is behind his barn and Red tore up his fence tryin to
get to his mare.”
I said, "What the hell's goin’ on here?
Why would Menefee tell Jennifer he shot Red and buried him?
Don't he know how people feel about horses.
He’d a’ been lynched for sayin’ he shot a horse that wasn't lame.
Why the Sheriff would of been too late take him in
after the neighbors heard what happened."
Then I calmed down and went to see Menefee.
He was as nice as could be. Asked if I owned Red, that chestnut
colt.
Said he was out back of his barn and actin’ wild.
I brought some feed, walked out in the field where Red was
runnin’.
It was pitch black out but Red heard me and smelled the feed.
He ate like he was starved and I led him to the road
and after he saw the way he went home and stood
by the gate ‘til I let him in.
The kids all swore that Menefee said he shot and buried Red.
115
He probably said it, too.
When I was walkin’ back Menefee said to me,
"That colt of yours tore some of my fence tryin’ to get to my
mare.
I put her up though and he jist run up and down the fence all
day."
So, I’ll bet he told those kids he shot Red.
You know, to get even 'cause he was mad
about two horses tryin to fuck,
like it was immoral or something.
Lyin’ to kids, that’s more like it.
The usual stuff adults do,
like pullin’ fire alarms on Sunday.
116
The Hidden and the Known
I thought about what he said we had in common:
a relativist’s view of truth.
I thought about what he said about reason:
an absolutist's way to find truth.
It was so dull, so academic,
so outrageously beside the point.
I gazed out from the bedroom window
over the tops of spruce tees
into the crystal clear mountain sky.
I knew that men of reason often just stumble onto truth
and their reason sometimes cover falsehood
like religion paints the face of God.
I saw a relativist's tiger:
cold, fragile, porcelain,
in the world of absolutes.
I saw an absolutist’s elephant:
trunk raised, standing on one foot
applauded by a circus clown.
General things, these are general things
and they give rise to general thoughts.
There is nothing but humility in the vision
of shadows in Plato’s cave.
There is nothing but common sense and scribbling
on the blackboards in Einstein's room.
I am really in despair about this problem:
117
men marking time consuming
and expelling gases and bio stuff
and doing ceremonial dances
and after marking time, thinking;
seeing an absolutely unknowable reality
related to everything.
It's arrogant to say it's meaningless.
That would presume a wisdom we don't possess,
a wisdom never claimed by our ancestors.
God, I want to despair,
but I look out of the window
over the spruce trees
into the crystal clear mountain sky and I ache.
I think perhaps it will be today
when the trillions of neurons click
and fundamental truths so apparently hidden
will become known.
118
To Sandy When She Resigned
Roses, roses, roses then bitter herbs.
I had a bursting need to say it all,
To have that little talk.
I watched you mark it down and draw me out.
And the little talk turned to poppycock and wrangle.
I twirled a rope around my head
and up and down around my body.
I disappeared behind a flashy act,
a step1ess dance with a useless rope
that hid the things I really felt.
The whole show was just show.
It never really mattered.
It wasn't really worth it.
This is what I meant to say:
I love Frank,
He kissed me last Christmas;
I love Fay,
She hugs me with her laughter;
I love Tom,
He gives out inspiration.
I love Sid,
He helps, though you want to choke him.
I love Tony,
He plugs and does almost what you ask him.
I love you,
You care about what we're doing.
I've put down my rope.
My legs are folded under me.
The dust will finally settle,
and there we'll be:
Frank, Fay, Tom, Tony, you and me.
Friends, the friends we want to be.
119
Holding On
I have been feeling very melancholy.
Years of never being sure of what I have done
or what I plan to do will turn
out right have taken their toll.
I wish money were a solution, but I've had it, and it isn't.
In the best of times, the cold, broad sword of
boredom lies across my chest and makes me afraid to move.
The cold it radiates ripples
my flesh and dries my tongue.
This damned depression is a block to learning anything at all.
I can't say I know any art, any science, any language, any
skill that another does not know better.
What I know is the shallowness of my own thinking
and the fear that I cannot learn.
It is a curse to long to be wise and knowledgeable and good,
yet to be burdened with a certain inadequacy of mind and spirit.
Given time, perhaps I could solve this.
Yet, I know the uncertainty of the moment.
I know especially the uncertainty of the next twenty years.
Should everything end here, I would know at least
I had love, some happiness and a share of laughter.
120
Tony
He has a keen mind.
He wants a reward.
He doesn't know that his mind may
be his reward.
But he has needs.
Little needs...a play sword, a few
gifts for his family, a nice dinner,
a tire for his car, some blacksmith tools.
Not much. A few things a keen mind deserves.
It's not really fair, you know.
Rewards should have handles, not just
Yearnings and trips in the mind.
121
Covers and Shells
I could hear the steady rush of wind above the bed.
It fell over me like an invisible blanket of snow.
I was so cold I could not sleep at all.
It was the first time I had been alone.
It was the beginning of the end of my life.
I thought about all of the conversations we had had.
I could not understand why we did not understand.
I could not understand why we were angry.
There you were talking and crying.
And there I was angry and steel faced.
I had performed.
I had danced.
We had loved.
We had laughed.
But finally we had turned our backs on
everything that had been good or bad,
We said, “Is it over? Have we spilled the last drop of blood?
Have we killed everything we ever loved?”
I forgot about the cold blanket of snow.
I forgot about the wind falling over my bed.
I forgot about our painful conversations.
I listened to the rushing sounds above my head.
I let the dark close in and claim its dead.
122
Short Rainbows and Gold in the Streets
There was a short rainbow in the Western sky.
It was real wide and had a cloud on top of it
and a cloud below it
and it peaked out of those clouds
like a wavy test pattern on a Sony Trinitron.
I told mom to look
and she turned her head East.
She said she didn’t see anything.
I see a lot of things that way.
I see them in the West.
Things that never were before,
Real pretty things,
strange things,
gold laying in the street.
When I look at that stuff in West,
People look East.
I think I'm connected back-to-back to the people I know.
That's why when I look West they see East.
I'm thinking of having truck mirrors hooked on my sides
and reaching around back to the people
so I can share my visions:
wavy rainbows,
stars,
kissing Buddha clouds,
and gold in the streets.
A man wanted to file his claim today.
He had seen the light.
He had seen the gold in the streets.
He had seen a lawyer.
He had seen an adjuster.
His wages had been lost.
123
The short rainbow in the Western sky had drawn
him from the paved path into a ditch
with the jumping star
and the Buddha clouds.
He couldn't work for months
even before this vision of gold in the streets.
But now he had staked his claim.
His lawyer had quickly filed it.
The adjuster had looked into the Eastern sky and written the
check
That’s why this country’s great.
We Americans have our visions of rainbows
and we just stumble in the golden streets.
I thought the short-wavy rainbow was beautiful.
Mom finally saw it too.
First one in sixty-seven years, she said.
She should've seen the jumping stars
and the kissing trees
and the Buddha clouds
and the fat moon
that went down in the West in November.
124
The Nature of Poetry and Music
I know a woman who says that poetry is just a hot dick
looking for a wet connection.
She doesn't use those words
but her meaning is clear.
I've heard the same thing said about music
by a big shot philosopher from Rice in '66
who just split from his wife at forty
and was doing 69 at night
with the band's drag.
The woman I know is probably right-on.
It's easy to see the masturbation in Edna's work
even when her lover's dead.
It's okay though
because people should make love somewhere
and a poem or a song is better than a wet rag.
I wonder what is in a philosophy
that a Rice Professor could know (along with the woman I know)
the essence of poesy stimulation
and cum away smug
that they know what you're doing
but I don’t know.
I want to guess it is a metaphor like
a tall black man with golden watches,
fur seat covers,
and cash, which he got a song
and a rhyme,
and which he takes home and uses freely
'til someone rents them from him.
Don't get me wrong.
I think the woman I know and Rice philosopher are both right.
125
It's the phonies who dress to listen to them
and who sell the season tickets
and always support the arts crap
that I really respect.
They make all of this possible.
126
My Peace, My Quiet
Sick, I'm sick
and tired, I'm tired.
I'm no longer a driven man.
I'm no longer called.
I'm just lying here
and I'm crying for us all.
Everything I've ever wanted
is just a grasp away.
Everything I care about is here
if I could only stay,
if I could fight another day.
But I'm sick, sick
and I'm tired, tired.
I'm no longer a driven man.
I've gone to bed.
I've covered my head
and shut out the light and the cold.
I'm going rest, now.
I'm going to bury the life I've slayed.
In the morning I'll be alright.
I'll be up and ready to fight.
I'll hear the bell,
the bell from hell,
where battles rage unending
I'll join in. I'll go to war again.
And then
sick, I'll be sick again
and tired, I'll be tired
until finally, I'm never driven.
Until, at last, I'm just forgiven.
127
Work?
You mean get up in the morning
Go somewhere you might not want to be
and do stuff piled on the left
and piled on the right
and listen to some long winded coffee breath
tell you to get it done by five
and how ‘bout the American way
and the polish work ethic
and how wetbacks are taking all the work?
No, I don't want work.
It's being in the grip.
It's the line to the furnace.
It's not what god does.
Ain't we gods?
Ain't we the image of what was
before anything was?
Amen!
And more.
Eat the fruit from the trees and the grass
and slimy stuff
and sea bass.
Lay back, out of the grip of fools.
Work?
No, I don't want any.
It's for the grippers and the gripped.
It's for killers and the victims.
It's not for the images of god.
Come on now,
Either everything is work and honored
or it's oppression
and death reigns
128
and death's chosen;
the commissioned,
the lawgivers,
the teachers,
the tax collectors,
and the enforcers,
Keep the gripped in the lines to the furnaces
Productive to the last breath.
Workers redefined not in his image.
129
Christmastime
When, when, when will it all end?
When will it begin?
When will a gentle touch
warm my soul?
When will I be told?
I saw an owl today,
far away, far away.
It made me want pray
It made me want to say;
not today, my soul, not today.
There is a sadness here,
a sadness that should never be.
It's a looking in, a looking in,
a reaching out for me,
a reaching for the things to be.
Now I'm going to schedule the fun.
I'll let the whisky and the water run.
I'll let the darkness hide the owls.
I'll let the earth open her bowels.
Now it's Christmas, let's have fun.
130
Not Really Old and Sick
When I walk I stumble a little.
I hold onto rails. I touch walls with my fingers.
Before I stand, I make sure my weight is over my feet.
I don't think I'm old and sick.
When I get mad I say what I think.
Sometimes the consequences of my anger are grim,
but most of the time what I say doesn't matter
and those who hear me just laugh.
I could be old and sick even if I don't think so.
When I sleep I have bad dreams.
Usually, I'm driving a car off the
road into a highway construction site.
I crash through the steel rebar
and plunge down a steep embankment.
I wake up before the end.
I'm not ready to die, not old enough,
not yet sick enough.
When I think about the things I know,
It seems I've stopped learning
I could start again, anytime.
It is a matter of will,
a way to avoid evil.
I'm not old and sick,
not really.
131
One of the Transcendental Attributes of Being
Even though a strong faith may carry most of us through every
travail,
the mystery that upholds that faith is riddled by doubts
that a God could possibly be interested in our movements,
thoughts, or very short lives.
Suppose we just said there are mysteries within mysteries
and by avoiding killing ourselves too soon or too late
we can be content our star stuff changed to a better fuel
for a future explosion of the star we fly around from 1 to 100
times.
We may, in those trips, have life and have it more abundantly,
or we may suffer and relieve suffering,
but we will not solve the mysteries.
During this spin, God will speak to us in our own voices
and we will make music and pictures
and war and then we will cry and cry
and the people whose time has not yet come
will say we were loved,
because that’s one of the mysteries
that keeps us from killing each other.
132
Reclaimed by Nature
I bought a wasted field behind our homestead.
It had been a dense pine forest owned by a lumber company.
They harvested the trees and left the stumps and branches
in piles on mounds of gray dirt between the ruts of the logging
trucks.
My little Kubota tractor with the five-foot front-end loader
was no match for the waste piles and deep tire ruts.
I needed a big bull dozer and skilled operator to change this mess
into a field for fruit trees and grass for animals.
This can be our lea, our little clearing,
our patch of shy in the forest.
It is only six of forty acres they cut,
but the rest will return to dense forest.
By then I’ll be dead and my little patch of sky we be all I needed
and all I could manage with my little Kubota and my old weak
body.
I sat on the ground in the middle of our tree covered homestead,
the little trimmed pine forest that was once a hayfield.
I thought how quickly the plants take back the land from us.
They fill it with quick grasses, then trees, then animals.
I watched the squirrels jump between the trees
and the birds pecking at the ground and chased into the air by
dogs.
I’m living just long enough to watch these meaningless changes
We have wrought in the span between nature’s blooms.
133
Meditation on Illness
By Jennifer McCormick
There is a piece of death
Inside me, sometimes a grain of sand
And other times larger.
It plows fine rows around my heart
Anticipating a rainy season.
I have a compass without letters
And when my sweat dries on the glass,
Death grows keen. It swoops –
And fixes its claws into my character.
Efforts to master it are lost –
It is a cozy in my sock drawer,
Or a child building sandcastles
That wash away into the ocean.
There is no escape from the known.
So, I fly my kite in a hurricane
With a spider's filament.
134
Sam
He was alone.
He had been waiting 18 months for a project to be approved.
It had been approved that Friday, but he didn't know.
He drank alone.
He shot himself on Friday.
The police found his body on Monday.
They took it to the morgue.
His daughter claimed it.
She had it burned.
There was no service.
I had known him for two years.
I liked him.
He was smart and funny.
I should have loved him.
I should have reached into his hell with my hand and taken his
gun.
It's dangerous to meet people.
There is too much responsibility to love,
too much that can be lost.
It's not good news.
It’s not doing what you ought
It’s weak.
It's humiliating.
135
The Last Trip
He talked endlessly while gathering memories
from every nerve in his brain.
It didn't matter who listened or what they understood,
he was packing for his last trip.
He was so lucid he sounded like another person.
The details of his childhood, every thought, came together.
He was in a grocery cart, cold wires pressing against his bare
legs,
pushed from isle to isle by his mother.
He was in a bar with his father too late at night
sitting under a table on a sticky floor.
He was hiding in the hold of a ship,
having been chased there by a knife-wielding
wine-deprived Italian seaman.
He was sixteen in the back seat of a car
with a forty-year-old woman
who knew him too well, too early.
On and on it went until everything had been put away.
He stopped talking, then he began to rattle when he breathed.
His chest heaved and fell repeatedly.
Finally, he was silent.
I knew he had taken all of the spirits and charms with him.
We burned what remained.
We scattered the musk smelling ash
under a mulberry tree where he had sat and talked with friends.
136
In My Heart by Unity Stanley
I wrote your name in the sand,
But the waves washed it away
I wrote your name in the clouds,
But winds blew it away.
So, I wrote your name in my heart,
And that’s where it will stay.
137
Clarity
A simple answer will surprise you
when the question is important.
You may reject it out-of-hand,
not even consider the solid "click" you hear
as the piece falls into place.
The question which need not have been asked was
already pregnant with the answer.
It leaves the mind racing and the person mute.
138
You and What I Write
Of course, I don't write what I believe.
I write what you believe
And what you disbelieve.
I write your thoughts.
I'm your conduit for truth and falsehood,
For laughter and sadness,
For common sense and hidden meanings.
I’m your sunny day and your cloud filled sky.
I'm your dark night and your fluorescent moon.
I’m what you think I am.
I’m you.
139
A Love Letter – Ex Parte Elatus
I love her for all the reasons you say and believe,
and for all the reasons I say and feel.
I love you for all the years we have,
for all the tears we 've shed,
for all the laughter,
for all the hard times,
for all the comfort and pain.
There is no defense of these emotions.
I can neither fight about it nor judge it.
If we parted, any two,
we'd carry all of the feelings,
all of the images,
all of the excitement,
all of the hurt.
It's not a hornet's nest to knock down.
It's us.
It's what's in our minds, in what we do.
It makes us go on to another day.
140
Babci
“How do. You looks good,” she said.
“You want coffee with half nah pooh?”
I laughed and I hugged her.
She was the first to approve of me,
The first to give the okay for me
To love their Nushka.
They called her Babci.
They said she was a devil when she was young.
But I couldn't tell that.
It didn't show on her.
To me she was more than kind.
When I came to court she sat by me on the swing.
We talked and laughed and sometimes
I understood what she said and sometimes I didn't.
It wasn't important because she loved Nushka and me and she
left her love and good humor with us for all of our lives.
We still say, "How do?" and "half nah pooh" and "frankfeeze"
and "garageky" and a hundred little words invented by Babci.
141
Holding Thoughts
In your mind you have long continuous conversations.
You say it one way then another.
You fill in the answers.
You make the objections.
You plead.
You think.
You look for the right phase.
On and on it goes,
in your mind.
What will the real conversation be?
What thoughts will you hold back?
What reactions will you avoid?
Can you really control what will be felt?
Is it foolish to play as if your thoughts didn't matter
When feelings matter?
What is the difference in a thought and a feeling?
Aren't feelings just thoughts you let your body feel?
How odd to avoid the feelings and have the thoughts,
As if our bodies would die from the feelings.
142
John Running Deer
The settler put a post every three yards.
He strung the post tightly with barbed wire.
He went to his house in the center of his land.
And painted signs that said:
"NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT."
He posted his signs every thirty feet of fence.
He was a man who owned some of the earth.
He was a happy settler.
People stopped when they saw his signs.
They had respect. They went around his earth.
Like him, they believed in owning parts of earth.
They thought violators should be shot,
Those who did not respect private property.
John Running Deer thought
How strange to see the earth fenced
And people so happy it is that way, defined.
Look how they guard the dirt that will bury them.
Look how pleased they are to kill the violators.
John Running Deer owns none of the earth.
He is the only free man.
He laughs when he sees how they pen themselves up
And guard the dirt that will bury them.
143
Notes Between Us
It's going to take longer for him than for any of us.
He's not slower. He just has further to go.
We could push and fight and we probably will,
But it will do no good
It will only diffuse our anger.
Let's wait, wait on him.
He's like my lazy, arrogant soul,
Unwilling to face the hard road.
I want him to grow.
I want him to love someone not his kin,
Someone he's not dependent on.
I want him to say he's okay.
I'll wait, I'll wait on him.
144
Mama’s Birthday 1987
I 've been dependent on you and your kindness.
But you've always been the kind of person
One could depend on.
I remember how you dressed me,
How you held me, how you fed me.
I remember how you laughed.
I remember going with you everywhere.
All these were good memories.
They are about loving and caring.
You must have feeling like that about your mama.
Now you must be thinking about your childhood,
Your birthdays and the people that loved you then.
Now it's your birthday again
And I'm glad you were born.
I'm glad you're my mama.
Thank you for the birthdays,
Yours and mine.
145
Theory of Everything
I apologize to the scientists
And to the mathematicians.
I apologize for not being one of them.
If their language were mine I could do strings too.
I could appreciate the universe they know.
I could show my proper respect,
Make the appropriate chalk mark,
Move the T.O.E. along another notch.
I appreciate the generosity of their translations,
Albeit metaphors and similes
And hand painted illustrations
That make quarks and electrons into art.
I appreciate the humor of the compactor
Who found a thousand ways to collapse
The ten dimensions down to four
When all that was wanted was "one way."
I appreciate the humility of those who know
Everything there is to know today
And mutter about the vast unknown.
Can you imagine the odd feeling of scientists
Who lay their hands on the fabric of reality
Working each day on a Theory of Everything
And desperately seek a demonstration?
This apology may mean more than the prizes
They will receive for their T.O.E.
If, when read, some great person to be
Should work more on these mysteries.
146
The Arrest and Incarceration
The trial is set for Thursday.
The charges have been filed.
The cash bonds have been posted.
I am ready to be duly tried and judged.
The charges are as follows:
"Bright lights following and disorderly conduct"
The bond was $200 cash
Paid to the JP in the town of highwaymen.
Here is my case as I choose to remember it.
I was driving properly to the right at 55 MPH.
The highwayman was sneaking along the highway left.
He touched his brakes as I approached
And pulled in right behind me.
He shown his spotlight in my mirror
And flashed his red and blue lights.
I stopped, he stopped, he got out
And swaggered to my left front door.
He stood back and said:
"Give me your license and your insurance card!"
I said sarcastically, "What did I do wrong?"
He said, "I asked you for your license
Not your lip, so get out of the car."
I said, "And who are you to make such great
Demands, you highwayman in tan."
He pulled open my door, grabbed my shirt
And yanked me from my seat.
He spun me 'round, cuffed my hands,
And bent me over the car's trunk.
He said, " Now I'll tell you what you did,
Bright Lights and God knows what else you've done.
147
I'll run a check on you and see. "
I said, "Fuck you, you ignorant shit, I'll sue
You for all you're worth and the fuckin' city too."
He said, "Now I 've got you. You've gone too far.
You've insulted an officer of the law.
It's downtown you'll go to cool your heals
And think about your crimes:
Bright Lights Following and Disorderly Conduct. "
To the can I went sitting on my cuffed hands.
While he smiled and let me rant and rave.
They took my wallet and my keys and belt.
They took prints of all my fingers.
They let me make one call home
And when I did my daughter answered.
She said, "mommy's asleep and I can't wake her unless it's
really important."
I said, "Annie please don't hang up, just go get
Mommy now or else I'll never get home. You
Understand? This is your FATHER. "
Mommy came and made my bail
And I'm out awaiting Justice.
Thursday the judge will come.
The jury will be summoned.
I'll plead my case. I'll take my place
Beside the other drivers the highwayman has captured.
148
The Jury Trial in the Town of Highwaymen
The courtroom was packed.
Defendants and Jurors mixed throughout it.
A lone prosecutor came into court
And sat near the judge's bench.
Cops came in and out and hours passed.
The people wagged their heads.
They talked about the government being dead.
Finally, the lawyers formed a single line
In front of the prosecutor's desk.
Case after case was dismissed.
And the people who brought their lawyers
All walked out, free, but light of fees.
At last, there was only me and all the jurors.
The prosecutor asked how I'd plead.
I said, "Not guilty, of course."
He smiled and said we'd have a trial
But he wouldn't take undo advantage of me.
He said he'd offer me a deal.
I could pay the fine for Bright Lights Following
And he'd dismiss the Disorderly Conduct.
I told him, “No, I'd come to plead my case.
I thought the whole town should hear it.”
He said, "Fine, but let me ask you about a few things
The officer has written in his report."
I swallowed hard and said, "Okay let me hear the words that
he has written."
He leaned back and held out the paper and read, "The suspect
said we here in this town were all crooks and I was a
motherfucker."
Then he asked, “Is that what you said?"
149
I swallowed hard again and reached for some pride,
And remembered how deaf my mother got when I
Used words not meant for polite society.
Then I said, "Yes, that's what I thought and
I'm willing to wait on the jury's verdict."
The Judge came in. We all rose.
Then he motioned for us all to be seated.
The first witness was the highwayman.
He sounded so humble and full of truth.
He was clear in all his answers and
Factual to a fault.
I knew I was sunk for sure.
His silver tongue would convince any hometown jury.
It was my turn to question the smooth-tongue S.O.B.
I asked him simple questions like why he flashed
His brake lights before I had passed
And why he hadn't told me my offense
When I had rightfully asked.
He got all mixed up and lost his train of thought.
He sounded like he didn't know what he'd done
Or how he should have acted.
The jury glared at him and I knew I'd won my case.
I rested, they retired, but returned in about one minute.
The foreman told the judge they'd found me
“Not Guilty” on every count and
The judge said to set me free.
Cleared at last of these great crimes:
Bright Lights Following and Disorderly Conduct
And calling the highwayman names
My mother disapproves of from me.
The jurors, of course were just getting even with
The Highwaymen and their collection agency.
150
Hal
Hal came into Denny's.
He looked around, walked to the counter,
And sat next to me.
He looked at me but didn't speak.
He was tired.
It took a few minutes for his body to settle down.
He ordered something from the senior's selections
Something small, something hot.
In a little while he spoke to me.
He said, "Just drove straight from Portland, 920 miles.
Left at four this morning. "
I responded with surprise
And sympathy in my voice.
He looked pleased and he said,
"Look at these hands, they're shaking.
I not used to these trips anymore."
We exchanged a few more feelers.
We got past the amenities among strangers.
He began to feel good about me.
He said his Dad and Mom were professional people,
Engineers, but he had taken another road.
His Dad knew he would and told him,
"Hal, you don't know art or music like your sister,
And you don't want to go to school, so
You'd better do service for people, good service and
Don't think about the money."
Hal remembered that advice all of his life.
He still thought about the money,
151
But after he married his wife helped him:
She thought about the money and he did the service.
He liked the way I listened.
He decided to tell me about his mentors,
Two industrialists, cronies of the big wigs at Ford
And GM, wigs themselves in steel and rubber.
Hal worked for one of them.
He gave Hal good work and status.
Hal appreciated his mentors.
He said he couldn't imitate how well they lived
Or how they managed their businesses.
He just picked up their spirit, their honesty.
I said I knew what he meant.
I told him Pirsig's story about his student who
Had a mental block about writing an essay.
She couldn't think of anything to say about Bozeman, Mt
Pirsig told her to narrow her topic down
To just one street, but still she blocked.
He said to narrow it down to one building,
The opera house and start at the left most brick.
She went to the store across from opera house
And began to stare at the bricks and to think.
She wrote a five-thousand-word essay.
She had found her thoughts and was not trying to
Imitate something already written.
Hal liked that story.
It confirmed what he had done.
Hal had driven all day and half the night
To make sure his customer got scheduled service.
His helper had had to attend a family funeral.
Hal had to honor his company's commitment.
Hal sold washers in five states to hospitals
And hotels and soon he would add chemicals too.
152
He had pictures of his boys at 9 or 10 and he liked to talk to
them from time to time.
I was glad I had met Hal
It was nice to touch someone personally
When I was a lonely traveler,
He sent me a card at Christmas.
I sent him this poem.
153
Teen Discussions
They bitch and bitch and bitch and bitch.
We moan and moan and moan and moan.
They have these petty needs to go and go and go.
Yet, all they hear us ever say is, no, no, no, no, no, no.
"But Dad, " they say, "It's not the same
For us today, you don't know how it is.
We have to go and go and go and go.
So don't pick on us poor kids.
You know you've never been there.
You're old, old, old, old, old.
Why, you and mama both are stuck in mud.
We know your parents locked you up.
They dared not let you leave the house
For fear you'd have some fun. "
Then mama said, "But not your Dad, they let him out
And see how he behaves.
He'll tell you how bad it is.
He'll repeat our favorite plea, No, no, no, no, no, no,
And if you ask him why,
He'll say because, because, because,
Because the reasons are all the same.
154
Dad
"He hasn't written a poem about his father yet.
He has always loved and admired him, so why,
Why hasn't he written a poem about him yet?"
I thought, yes, why? Why have I waited so long?
Then I reflected on my life.
I remembered that my thoughts and my responses,
My concentration and talking
Have to the last word been woman centered.
Everyday there has been a woman talking with me,
Teaching me, advising me, loving me, doing for me.
Filling my conscience mind with words and images.
So, my poetry came from those roots.
Dad came from another kind of expression within me.
He laughs, but I recall mostly his silence.
He's tough, but I recall mostly his gentleness.
He lets you come with him anywhere
And you feel comfortable about it.
He never takes the last of anything
Unless he gives it to you.
He is not words or images.
He is backbone. He is determination.
He is encouragement. He is forgiving.
He is all of the things you can't say
And can't imagine.
155
Helen’s Shhh
Shhh, they read my mail.
It's like a bloody prison.
Whatever little things I want to hear,
Whatever private communications,
They think are in the fucking post
To share with all.
So shhh, shhh. They read my mail.
But you write me anyway.
Just address it to England.
They all know me very well
And will bring your letters to me
Straight away because, you know,
They read my bloody mail.
Say it anyway.
I'll tell them all to go to hell.
They deserve it
If they read my mall.
156
High School Cool
She wears new wave.
She plays the flute.
She dances with her friends.
She's got it altogether man.
Stand back, she'll tell you how and when.
You gotta be in style, in time with the moves.
You gotta shop the malls, stay away from fools.
You gotta find the funky things
To wear at funky times.
You gotta know how to put' m down,
Keep the boys all in line.
You don't push the buttons
That send the folks into a spin.
You stay cool around grandma
Or she'll take back her favorite pins.
You read the books, write the tests.
You do your algebra and history.
You ace it all and walk the halls
And know it’s not all mystery.
You're high school cool.
You don't run with fools.
You carry your own new wave.
In a year or two you pass those dudes
That didn't have it altogether,
The cats that didn't stay.
157
Talk
If you don't talk, you can't talk.
You think. Others talk as you think.
They fill in what your talk would have been.
Soon their talk replaces you entirely in their minds.
You think, they talk.
Talk for you and for them.
Soon you're everything they want you to be.
They have said your part, put in your words.
Filled in all of the answers you should have said.
You think, think, and think.
You are alone in your world.
They no longer need to talk for you.
They know what you will say.
Why should they listen to themselves say it for you.
You think. They talk.
For you there is only thinking.
You are apart. There is nothing to hear.
You have visions and smells but no sounds.
They are cut off. You are cut off.
So talk, say what you think
Or only they will talk.
And talk will collapse on them.
They will know they are alone.
You too will be alone.
All of humanity will have to be rediscovered.
158
A Measured Fear of Judgement
You think if you say what is on your mind
Someone will judge you.
Someone will cast his values over you like a pall.
Your soul will be carried away in a black Mariah.
You think you choose who will share your secret life.
You will judge who has the right to hear you say
What is less and less and what is less dear,
You're wrong. You don't know that your mind
Enriches the lives around you.
It drives out the ghosts that turn
Their evil eyes upon you.
There is no honest expression
That can be judged.
What is hidden Is lost.
What is withheld becomes dust.
159
Thanks to George
Thanks,
Yes, I say thanks.
Every year I go visit a turkey after dressing.
And I say, thanks to George.
You don't eat like that every day.
You eat like that just once a year,
After that day you eat something like that
For about three weeks straight.
But thanks George.
Because in these three weeks
You rid yourself of all desire to eat turkey,
Dressing, potatoes, cranberries, and
Gravy with insides.
Especially, thanks for not working on Fridays.
George didn't mean for that to happen.
He probably just had indigestion and couldn't
Go to work and seeing George not working
Spread to the entire nation.
So, thanks George.
A gracious belch from all of us Americans.
160
Jude
Jude the dude's not rude.
In fact, he's downright nice,
We like him twice.
He makes us laugh.
He waits until your serious lecture
To your most serious daughter
About your less than adequate
Access to culture in your pastoral squalor.
Then he pipes in
That she could bring friends
To the Splendora cattle barn auction,
That, he says, is real culture.
Out goes the serious discussion about
The relative values of country life
Until his sister stops laughing.
The dude I’ll wait you out.
He'll pick his moment.
He'll make you laugh.
We love him.
161
L' ESPRIT DE L' ESCALIER
"It is of lessor quality than you think.
See how the movement does not work
Well within this frame.
The tone is wrong.
I think the subject was lifted from another work,
A great work not widely known
And not remembered by most critics
Except the few of us here.
No, I would say the value is not there.
It's a spoof to take in the uninformed."
"Uh, well, uh I, perhaps..."
"Goodbye, my friend, we should talk again
As I see we do so completely agree. Tah Tah."
"Shit, I see the stairs.
And that pompous ass is where?
No greater art has yet been shown.
What does that dope know of tone?
The color was to enhance the mood.
No frame was even needed.
It would have been a carpenter's addition.
Petty simple minds do not care
About the great thoughts you have
As you ascend the stair.
I'll post him a strong reply.
I'll watch him choke and die. "
162
Pool
The divine editors met.
The main man held up a list of sins
That had been published in Texas
Shortly after The Great Awakening.
It was an official copy and
It had been incorporated into the
Civil and Criminal Codes of the State.
Some reprints of it were on laminated cards
And were sold at truck stops everywhere.
The main man said the was generally right,
As right as any short summary could be
Given the correct interpretation
By a man of the book.
However, in reviewing the list he, the main man,
Had found pool among the names of taboo games.
The main man could not believe his eyes.
How had so many editors missed that error so long?
He thought at first the list was fake,
That it had been printed to promote the movie,
The Music Man.
But no, the official list in the Mansion
With the Main Man Seal on it had the same error.
The error might never have come to the attention
Of the main man but for an incident in Humble Texas.
Two brothers fifteen and seventeen years old
Had tried to play pool in a local game room.
They were refused a cue stick.
The manager read them the rules from the civil code.
He then pulled out a copy of the divine editors
List of Official Sins published in 1845.
163
He pointed directly to pool among the sordid games.
He said that adults should not let kids under
Eighteen years old commit sin in public.
Well, the brothers nearly folded under the weight
Of what they had been about to commit.
They said, "You mean we can play electronic war,
Futsball, miniature golf, ride up-side-down with
Young girls in a dark tunnel under a waterfall,
But we can't play pool?"
The manager said, " yelp, boys, it's a sin.
It's in the Book. Sin is okay after you're
Eighteen years old but now you'll just have to be
Happy with tunnel rides and video games."
This conversation was heard by the main man.
He was chalking his cue at the time.
He knew at once he had a major religious issue
On his hands that could erupt and bring down
The whole system of published sins.
He called an emergency meeting of the editors.
They knew in advance that if they scratched
Pool off of the official list then millions
Of believers would drop the main book
And start a new church based on the
Old book of pool, rightly showing orthodoxy.
People would leave the church.
Church property would be in danger.
The question whether the corporation or
The congregation owned the building
Would be drug through the courts.
On the other hand, if they didn't correct the list
People like the main man might discover the error
In the official book and lose their faith
In the editors and the Book of Sins.
164
The main man and his editors decided to print
An ERRATA and to give it to anyone who asked
For an opinion about the pool listing.
In this way both sides could be kept in the fold.
The first group would stay because they could
Always cling to the Original Book Of Sins
And ignore the ERRATA.
The second group would stay because of their
Pride in having diligently sought the truth,
Corrected the book and possessed the ERRATA.
Anyway, who cares if kids can't play pool.
It saves the game for the hard cases
And for the old men.
165
Just One
No, I'm sorry, you can't have but one.
It's a rule.
If you take more than one
Someone else will suffer.
The consequences are completely predictable.
You simply must not take more than one.
Others have tried, you know.
The result is always the same.
Someone else suffers and you are less for it.
That is the truth.
No one has ever gone far against the truth.
Once I had a similar experience.
It was as predictable as rain.
I knew right away that more than one was too many.
There was simply no time for it.
You only live so long and
There is too much to learn and
Too far to go.
If you took more than one
You would suffer,
Someone would suffer.
My God, we don't want that, do we?
166
The Smith-Engelians
Every day we work and scheme
to keep the money moving.
We check the pulse of every bank.
We talk to entrepreneurs.
We are all arch-capitalists, bound by our commissions.
We run down the bureaucrats, the petty regulators.
We point our fingers at the salaried kinds
Supported by the systems, laggards, bums,
The poor teaming masses.
We say push them back
to help them catch their boot straps.
Every night we go home to write about the situation.
We chase away the ghost of Adam Smith.
We pull out our notes on Engels.
We ride the collective thoughts of dreamers.
“We want it all,” we hear them say,
The work is to work, the boss is to pay,
The grind is to grind the money out,
But not to grind our lives away.
Flush to be, we want for everyone.
But pay our commissions on time.
We dream that we are Smith-Engelians,
Weirdos of world economics.
167
Number Thirteen
I've watched him all day.
I've seen him watching the other players
Run back and forth from goal to goal.
They run, kick, run, fall. They never stop.
Thirteen is waiting to be called.
The two footed dynamo from St. T. High
Is coiled like a spring.
Every thought saved to transfer to action
The moment he is called.
They score and up jumped the bench.
But Thirteen sits still and saves his emotion
For the moment he is called.
He has the reserve they may need.
His time will come he knows.
Then the coach calls.
Thirteen stands, touches his feet, bends his knees,
Dances on the sideline.
He transfers his emotion to his body.
He runs onto the field.
They run, kick, run, fall.
But there is no score as the whistle blows.
No matter they've won.
Thirteen has played.
His day is made.
Eight full minutes uncoiled.
168
Principles and Definitions
Life is better than death.
It is intelligent self-controlled movement.
Health is better the sickness.
It is painlessly and artfully doing life.
Variety is better than sameness.
It is more than one kind of healthy life.
Love is better than hate.
It is the feeling you get when you want everything
And you have it at the same time.
Knowledge is better than ignorance.
It is representing variety exactly
In all four dimensions both
In your mind and in your demonstrations.
Peace is better than agitation.
It is particular and collective healthy life
Without thoughts of love,
Independent of knowledge,
And regardless of variety.
169
Long Shirts and Tall Girls
Her Dad's long shirts make her look taller.
His sweaters go just right with her mother's socks.
If she had a new blue jean jacket
And a new bag from Palais Royale
Her life, this week, would be complete.
She would have the perfect ensemble,
The clothes that make going to High School
An important event.
She would be in control of the scene.
She would be a High School queen.
Yesterday she almost ripped up my suit.
She saw in it a new wave look.
I know that someday this all will pass.
My clothes will not be shared at all.
But in the meantime
I'm keeping them all
In the trunk of my car.
170
A Gray Day
The ions were all wrong.
It rained all day.
This morning I sounded angry.
I wasn't, but I sounded angry.
I wrote barely two pages all day.
Tomorrow I'll have to do them again.
I hid the real work in my briefcase.
In the afternoon I tried to look cheerful.
I chatted with Lee.
I played “ain't it awful.”
I was afraid I'd screwed up all my business.
People called and said they were reconsidering.
I told them to go ahead and reconsider.
I finally went home and went to bed.
I was trying to hide from the day.
Tomorrow would be better, I thought.
The bad feelings have just peaked sooner this year.
I'll drink some eggnog and eat lightly.
I'll watch the grandchildren ride their bikes.
I'll hug my wife and fall asleep early.
171
Leaving, Not Leaving
I left.
I just got up, packed my clothes, and left.
My dirty clothes were in a garbage bag.
My other things were in a beat-up clothes bag.
I didn't wear socks.
I looked like death dressed in a wild man’s clothes.
This was it, finally.
I was loaded down and moving.
She closed the door and stood in front of me.
She said, “I want you to know that I will always be your wife.
And if you change your mind, come back. I’ll be here,
waiting."
She hugged me, and we began to cry and we couldn't stop.
Then she couldn't let me go, and I couldn't leave.
We said there is a bond, and if we break it,
we will surely die, each of us.
I laid down, my sacks fell to the floor,
and she came and laid next to me.
And we stopped crying.
And we stopped thinking.
Then we fell asleep.
172
Business Conversation in the Memphis Airport
“How much you take for all of them?"
"Don't know. How 'bout ten? "
"Not enough."
“Eleven?"
"Too low?"
"Trade something and cash maybe?"
"Maybe."
"Six hundred sides and three cash?"
"Not enough cash."
"Four hundred sides and five cash?"
"Not enough sides. "
"Four-fifty and four-fifty?"
"Sold."
"Wednesday, okay?"
"Sure, but your trucks, see."
"Fine, Wednesday, then. "
173
The Guinea-Pig Doo
No matter how expertly I cut her hair
She thinks I 've mucked it up.
Her arrogance astounds me!
After all, I taught her how.
I 'm the one who went to school, got a license, practiced some.
People paid me money to muck up their hair.
They never told me how to do it.
Oh, I'd ask in a general way how they liked it.
But they let me do it.
They never parted it and pinned up parts
To protect them from my scissors.
Why should a student wife do that?
She says it has to do with style.
Fat chance!
No matter how It's cut, when she shakes her head
It falls into the classic "Guinea-Pig Doo”!
I know I shouldn't say that, but she knows it.
So does everyone else.
174
Alone in Knowledge
When he was very young - in high school - he was reading.
And, in reading, he found knowledge.
He saw into the subject.
He saw its vastness.
He saw that there were not limits, no end,
That a whole life could be consumed in that pursuit.
Knowledge was God.
Order was there to discover.
And it filled you up.
Your mind could take you away forever.
But there was his body.
And it screamed for some satisfaction,
some attention, some reality.
Then life was made to adjust to all demands:
Live in the world of knowledge and
Answer your body's screams abundantly and often.
And freedom and God are yours, though you are alone.
175
Watching the Ceiling
There was a very important Oxford study.
They reported that people watching the telly
Were really watching the ceiling.
They did not say why.
I say the entertainment was light
And the telly was floating to the ceiling.
And when the show was not light
The subjects just wanted to listen without
The distraction of seeing tiny people moving.
Maybe all of that speculation is wrong
And the ceiling is where the telly should be.
The Oxford study is just a lie
Reported by Monty Python.
Oxford doesn't really exist for Americans
Except as a shoe and a street in the Heights.
It's all a conspiracy to keep us inside
And away from the carnage on the highway.
I'm looking at the ceiling now
And, my God, the telly is on.
176
Mother Theresa
She does the most obvious tasks one-by-one.
She has no preconditions,
No settling on what should be done.
No concern for probable outcomes.
There is trouble.
She sees it.
She tries to fix it.
You look every day at the same troubles.
You say, "What if I should do it wrong?
What if after I begin I should discover
It could have been done better another way
Or by someone else, the right person,
The person truly responsible.”
She doesn't hear you.
She doesn't cotton to those thoughts.
She fixes troubles.
She stops the pain.
She's not inside of her head with thoughts.
She fixes the most obvious wrongs,
She is a sword with no handle.
She humbles the church.
She makes the authorities look weak and small.
She improves humanity.
177
Lost Memories
Mama held my hand and we both waved to
Daddy as he got on the train.
We were going to join him in two weeks in Salt Lake.
He had taken me and Carl for ice cream
before the train departed. We loved him.
There were nine of us altogether.
Our lives were secure: a home, a car, money,
things to do and places to go.
We were going to the mountains.
Everything was sold: the house, the car,
the big things we couldn't carry to Salt Lake.
Salt Lake in 1918 was the New West.
Daddy had $3000 from the sales.
He used a little to rent us a house for a few weeks
until we joined him.
Mama was uneasy.
She was afraid something would happen.
She had six kids and was pregnant with the seventh,
and Salt Lake would be a foreign country,
unlike Texas, and for-sure unlike Illinois.
The whole idea of going someplace because of oil was foreign
to a girl from a normal school in Illinois.
She wanted assurances when he left.
She said, "Frank, just two weeks, right? Then we'll come?
That was May.
In June, Daddy sent a note to say he had arrived
and was looking for a house. Nothing else came.
He disappeared from our lives.
178
By July we were without anything. We all cried together
every night. Grandpa came from Illinois, He tried to help.
The neighbors built us a little house.
Mama took a job cooking at school.
Carl quit school and went to work delivering milk.
We decided Daddy had died. Someone must have killed him.
Why would Daddy leave when so many people loved him?
He must have been killed.
We wanted to bury him so we could forget, not blame.
We wanted to get on with our lives without the scars of doubt,
without the guilt and hate.
When we were old, my sister dug up all the old memories.
She went out to look for Daddy again.
She found an old man in Oklahoma by the same name.
She went to see him. She told him the story.
He said he was sorry-sorry he was not her
Daddy, sorry it all had happened.
She still thought It was him, but it didn't matter.
Nothing replaces a lifetime of lost love and a childhood of
waiting for Daddy to take you for Ice cream.
Everyone grew-up, found jobs, married,
had children, and died.
My Grandson found the records of William Frank, my father.
He had just left us. He married a rich woman, lived in Denver
and died an old man undeserving of the children he had left.
His house sold last year for $1,500,000.
My grandchildren removed his name from the family tree
and put in Carl’s name, my older brother, who,
with Mama, cared for us and loved us.
179
Summa Contra Genitales
When God is watching people tend to speed up the judgment
process so that your sins are clearer to you.
You’ll be able to take time away from your petty concerns
in order to select the proper clothes for your interment.
How do you know they know God is watching?
They will tell you, of course. It's in the Book.
God does not watch you in church, or during Bingo.
But He always watches when you masturbate.
And he watches everyone fuck.
You can find that information in the
Summa Contra Genitales.
180
Not Gamblers, Just Locals
Las Vegas natives don't gamble.
At least they don't appear to be gambling.
I mean, who would expect someone at work to be gambling?
Of course, when they 're not at work,
they sound like Jersey or Miami natives,
And you wouldn't notice if they gambled.
You'd expect it,
And they wouldn't tell you they were from Vegas.
Which is why the people who live in Vegas
Are said not to be gamblers.
181
Real Work
Thinking, talking, writing, showing off among friends,
that's the work we want to do.
Not the nitty gritty finding, calling, serving, proving, working
your ass off for fools kind of day-to-day shit we really do.
Tough, I say, they only pay for nitty gritty, unless, of course,
you 're the heir and the nitty gritty was done before your time.
182
Dancing
I danced last night to country music.
I felt the sounds and moved comfortably
around the floor with my girl.
We danced slowly.
We danced fast.
Forward and backward, waltz and shuffle.
Everything felt good.
We drank a longneck and a gin.
We sang along with Willie, and Waylon, and Hank.
We laughed, we hugged.
It was an easy love ritual.
We had a good time.
We're going to dance again.
183
The Choice
There, there is the future.
A design of joy taken from today's landscape.
Projected.
Seen a special way, in in a special place.
A personal fit.
Not like the day-to-day arrangements.
184
In Thin Air
Two silver pens lost in two weeks!
I 'm angry about it.
It's the clutter, not knowing where to put things.
They' Il probably turn up.
But not now. Not when I really need them.
I see people who put everything in order,
People who have simple tools for years
And use them and know where they are.
God! If I were like that, think of the freedom,
Think of the time saved,
Think of the peace!
What would it take?
Would I be a tyrant?
Would I be forever sorting, arranging, cleaning, repairing?
Funny. I don't see orderly people doing all those things.
Maybe my clutter is blocking my vision.
I hereby firmly resolved that the next pen I lose
Will be on top of a clean desk, under a bright light.
Afterward, I’ll check into the psychiatric ward.
185
Speaking Out
You can say what you feel if you say it right away.
When you wait, the give-and-take begins.
You say what you think you feel or
What you think they will think about what you feel.
By the time it's said, you will preface it with:
"You won't think this is important, but….”
What you felt is suddenly and forever lost
In the conditions of discourse.
Of course, everything you feel isn't worth hearing about.
But there's no need to destroy it before the world has had
Its chance to judge you and your feeling.
You might be OK without a screen.
186
Afterthoughts
She's being 'way too nice to me.
I 'm having a hard time adjusting.
I ought to pick a fight just to keep in practice.
She's trying to make us both perfect;
Or at least a little less awful.
She wants to live Just one day at a time,
But I know she’s bound to be thinking about what I'm going
do.
I should pick a fight just to keep in practice.
She's holding back.
I know the big one's coming.
I ain't hardly changed at all.
She’s going hit me with an uppercut while I'm sleeping.
187
The Office
I like the people I work with.
We have competition, intrigues, fights.
We have a "Let's get the shit done" attitude.
It makes the day interesting.
We are a group of people captured by someone else
And sentenced to this company.
Little thought was given to our living together.
We are Stalag 60 or Camp 123.
We are any of those places where people have to work out
their existence and find bonds of love and friendship.
We talk about each other to each other.
When we are angry, we let it spill over to the guards.
Then we re ashamed.
We repent.
We make a new pact to keep it in the family,
lie to the outsiders, and work out the problems.
We wait for the time when we can hire
Really competent people to do our work.
We probably won't hire such people because
We’ll want the fodder, like us, to keep up the team spirit.
We can't imagine people who have to be managed
Rather than worked with, fought about, and loved.
When we’re finally rich, the money people will come.
They’ll take away our homemade clothes.
They’ll disband our "ad hoc" committees.
They’ll replace our "Let's get this shit done"
With management systems, MBA's and Ph.D. 's.
The fodder will be blasted away.
188
The bottom line will matter more.
Then we won't like the people we work with.
We’ll have to be assigned to Camp Number 124.
189
Lon
He said he had no ambition.
Once he had it, when he was to be a monk.
He had prayed and studied, and worked, and obeyed.
He had been happy with ambition.
Then he heard of a rule:
Monks had to be virgins.
He confessed aloud that he wasn’t.
They threw him out and with him, his ambition.
Now, he said, he may be getting ambition again.
But he's looking for direction.
He says ambition must have a place to go.
He should probably be a monk.
Times have changed.
There's a monk shortage,
And hardly a virgin left.
190
Power and Needs
She’s crushed by the power people have over her.
She’s angry and scared, every thought runs up for the taking,
Hoping the doing and saying will not conflict.
She wants no clash, no dividing of the days and nights,
no fear of a lonely future. She needs a little trust,
a little freedom, a little less focus on power.
191
Eighth Man
You look down at the ball, then up to the hole.
You imagine hitting it straight toward the cup and plunk, in!
No thinking-not about the grass, not about the dew, not about
your grip, just the vision of the ball dropping in.
You feel frozen.
Then your hands move back too fast.
The blade of the club brushes a clump of grass.
You hit it too hard.
Straight, but too hard.
Goddamnit! Another 5!
Eight over. Last man again.
It's so easy, yet the simple things slip away.
A little tension is everything.
Eight extra shots.
The world looks at you play and says, “Pro.”
You look and see the eighth man whose score never counts.
192
Eric
“No problem! Yeah, that's it! Quid me vexerat?”
"Dad, only one move separates Tom and me.
This time I 've got him. Checkmate.”
Just now he's opening up.
Just now he's found confidence, bloomed, stretched out.
He's always been hard-working.
If you wanted something done well,
Without asking, there stood Eric.
He didn't say much. He held it in.
But now he's bloomed.
The world is his and he's taking it laughing and saying,
“Quid me vexerat?”
193
Helping, Talking, Caring
He's out of bags.
It would be better if he didn't wear clothes.
I watch him and help him clean up the mess.
I'm accustomed. I can't smell it anymore.
It's like if you smoke. You can't smell smoke.
He's so angry.
He cries, but doesn't want me to see him.
What difference does it make now?
Hell, all life Is just cleaning up shit.
You wait for the breaks,
When things are clean and quiet,
When you feel good.
You wait until he's got a new bag supply.
194
Annie’s Clarinet
I want to see Annie play her clarinet.
She wakes me playing the metronome.
Tick—tock. Tick—tock. Tick—tock.
She was sitting at the piano doing her first lesson.
Reading notes aloud and marking time.
I could hear the clarinet already, rich, clear,
getting up for first chair.
Just imagine, Jeni on flute, Annie on clarinet,
Jude on piano, and me, their father, listening.
Great band, huh? Great band!
I see myself saying that to the father next to me
whose son plays the drum.
195
An Ordinary Day
Money is everything, except for sex.
Unless it's a serious conversation, then it's love that matters.
Unless you’re hungry, then food matters.
Until you hurt, your need turns to driving.
But you find the car won't start.
Then you walk and while walking
You think existence is the primary question.
It's your total concern.
Then not being is everything.
Money is forgotten until you reach the store and
Discover that you’ve forgotten your wallet.
196
The Great Program
It's a great program.
I think I understand It.
It must first be submitted to the simple-minded committee.
You’ll hear from them in a few weeks if not sooner,
or perhaps, later.
The simple-minded committee says
the program's not possible.
Nothing like it has been tried before.
Or if it was, they 've not heard of It.
And there's not one court case to follow.
Two members, of course, did not understand.
But three said that, of course, it wouldn't work.
It wasn't needed, but if it was
We'd buy a company that'd already done it.
They said, “Check back with us, of course.”
Some simple-minded group may try the program.
If it works, we will, of course, want to buy it.
We 're a big company, you know.
We’ll always be here to listen.”
197
Nushka
She reads! God, she reads!
Everything has meaning.
Everywhere there's someone who already knows,
Who has had your problems, who has found a way, or not.
It's not just any book, but a path.
One thought to another.
She's inpatient for me to catch up,
To find where she is, her thought, her emotion.
She seeks the inner-self another has laid out,
has pushed into the broad daylight.
She asks if we’re dealing with primitive instincts or physics,
biology, moral issues, or universals.
Is it okay or hateful? Is it important?
Will it last? Shall we suffer?
She reads! She finds the answers-all of them.
Then she pulls you along with love.
Painfully.
Longingly.
198
California
“Can we have water, please?” said like it was free,
available everywhere, expected to be there
because you 're human and its human fuel.
What a surprise to go to California and
have to ask for a glass of water!
No charge, but still no water on the table.
I suppose some people don't drink it.
That's why they don't put it out unless you ask.
A little savings measure.
Makes the state look good.
Thrifty-minded people
(but probably dry, running on less fuel).
I drink every glass they pour.
“Can I have water, please?”
199
A Little Emotion
I learned a little today:
how to say I know I offended you and why.
I said I was sorry. And I was.
And I looked for the reflection of my words.
I waited. I talked a little more.
I saw a little understanding pass your eyes.
You softened. You scolded.
You changed to the ordinary this and that
of an ordinary day with a little peace,
a little consideration.
200
Michael
It didn't look too bad, really.
He was in a lot of pain.
But it was only the front of his legs, his chest,
and a little of his face.
His little boxer shorts had kept the blast
away from his private parts.
He had kind-of turned his eyes away at the last minute.
We were all in sterile gowns, and gloves, and masks.
I changed his catheter every few hours.
He wanted his mama.
But every time she came in,
She cried so much she couldn't stay.
His daddy was away.
The family thought it wasn't too bad,
and his daddy hadn't been told to come.
About the third day, he stopped crying.
I stood over him a long time.
I saw him thinking, “That's all I can take.
It's not worth it. I'm alone.” He died.
I was angry.
Stupid shit! Who wants this stupid shit?
He's not even mine, and I can't stand it.
I'm his mother and his father.
Where the hell is his God?
201
Erudition
She thinks I 'm erudite and can 't fool anyone with that Texas
hokem: "Oh gosh, ma ' am, I don 't know 'bout that."
She won't buy my folksy talk, and she doesn't believe my
“humble pie” endings.
She thinks I 've read great books and heard serious lectures
and solved problems in major disciplines,
that I can talk at cocktail parties.
Then she thought and backed off a little.
She said, "Let's not go that far.
Your mouth will surely outdistance your mind
and ' faux pas' will replace erudition.”
202
I Write
I write for the well lived,
those who are awake during all the conversations,
those who have seen the cracks in the sidewalk and
the low branches of climbing trees.
I write for the pensive,
those who miss the salient point
because they were thinking of the point before.
I write for the criers,
those who see everyone else's pain and
feel it in their own bodies.
I write for the dreamers, those who remake the day with
combinations of events that never happened but should have,
with joys unrealized, and fears that shake existence.
I write for women, those who have time for feelings and
thoughts, who suffer and complain, yet seek you out to fix
matters, and tug at all your heart until you write again.
I can't write for the erudite, those who know Bullwinkle and
Bugs Bunny. When you write for them you must be learned,
not just a listener and observer of small events.
203
Head Music
Why will music play in your head,
yet you can't sing it? At least, I can't.
Damn few people I know can, but it plays in their heads.
It's a curse.
It's a message pipelined to your brain.
It's the wide road.
This means the Church is right!
You've got to package that stuff with
music if you want them to believe.
And you got to go after those evil songs
that corrupt the righteous.
I hear two kinds of music: Church music, love and no sex;
and the other kind, love and sex.
I can't remember that gospel music
except when I 'm in Church,
but I never forget the other kind.
It's the real head music.
204
Ambition
People have had doubts from time to time whether
I would come to work at all.
Well, they can relax.
I decided I don't need to work anymore.
No one will notice that I 'm not working.
I don't do anything but carry on conversations
With people who don't work either.
I will concentrate on marital bliss and demonstrate that a
Relationship can be built one day at a time through alternately
Dog-fighting and hugging.
I will regard the virtues of my spouse,
Though she lies to strangers about their faults and
Tells me the truth until it pains me.
God can ask no more and probably doesn’t.
Well, I resolve that in the future
I won't be tricked by fame or fortune
So as not to notice the bright candle in the carved-out
pumpkin
Or the little boy rolling the firewood down the hill.
Of course, it pains me to think of the day to come
When I’ll be content to watch the grass being mowed and
To write a new biscuit recipe every day.
205
Never a Day
I don't want to leave until it happens.
You think if you just insist, just wait,
then someone will give in.
The bricks will fall.
The little shit that doesn't matter will be glossed over.
Your champion will march from the heart of the little man
whose arm you twisted, whose ear you captured.
You just wait.
How could I have said it better?
What else could I have done?
Should it have weighed more?
Maybe a binder would have been better than a folder.
When they call, it will be like a long, fly ball to right field.
I’ll run to the fence and make a great catch.
Everyone will cheer.
I'll bow.
We’ll be winners.
I'll call them. That's what I’ll do.
They'll expect it anyway.
Why not?
No one there. No decision.
No one cares. Just wait. Just wait.
206
The System
You feel foolish with pen and small writing pad in hand.
Playing roulette. Betting Red.
Each spin Red.
You write 2, 4, 6, 8. Bet 10. And wait.
Red or Black, doesn't matter.
Black: the bet goes up. Red: you cross off your winnings.
How many blacks?
How deep will it go?
14, 18, 22, 26. How deep?
Then Red. It turns Red! Your list grows short.
Your $20 's made.
Your heart settles back into your chest.
It beats a little more slowly.
Again? Should you start another series?
Can you last?
God, you hope it's short!
Red! Red! Red! Red! A quick $40.
No pain. No need for pushing your heart.
Regular breathing.
Don't watch the ball!
Watch the marker.
Then add. Then write the bet.
Then wait, wait, wait for Red.
207
Sweet and Sour Something
Right in the middle of the plate,
Next to the carrot slice and the fried chicken breast
Lay a slightly green, elongated vegetable cube.
I pushed it around with my fork.
I said to myself, “Honeydew melon.
The damned Chinese will put anything into
a chicken dish put sugar on it!”
But honeydew was just too much, I thought.
“Hell, they 've gone crazy!
Pineapple, that's different: international, a statement,
a way to say you walked on black sand
before the bloody Christians came.
But honeydew, that's a damned wetback breakfast.
You don't put that shit in Chinese food!”
Just as I started to shout at the waitress who understood only
numbers, my wife said, “How do you like the cucumbers?
Nice idea, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Nice idea.”
208
John
John coughs at night.
He sounds sick.
He suffers for his wife.
He suffers for the hard times they've had.
He wants to quit smoking, but he lights up.
And he coughs a little.
He's going to a hypnotist to cure his habit.
But I fear there will be no result.
No one makes you forget the hard times,
The things you can't change.
John will probably die of smoke inhalation.
He has no freedom to change his life.
Each day, he says, has to support itself.
He will not owe tomorrow for yesterday.
He takes the profit out of his own body,
One drag at a time.
209
The Urge
Agitation. When the juices run, you can 't sit still.
You pace. You look for paper, paint, pens,
Anything to mark on and with.
God! Just to write about it relieves the aching.
It's like if you don't get it now it will never come again.
It's a stirring agitation.
One hundred attempts waiting, and no paint, no paper.
It's why people paint walls with colored powders and egg
white.
There’s no time to wait for the material you want.
Craft is nothing.
You feel you can turn dirt and food into paint and wood
And rock wall into paper.
210
Luke
He's very nice.
He likes to laugh.
He can take a joke and tell one.
And handsome!
My, it’s hard not to just look at him!
He's been around, though.
He's fought and cried, been down and gotten up.
He's smart now, ready to start. Ready to make his way.
You can 't hide from him.
He sees you.
He can't hide from you,
And he knows it.
So, we begin again.
We let laughter
And kindness lead us.
We wait, hopefully.
211
Osculation
The correct word used in the proper place
falls from your lips and you didn’t even
know you knew the word.
Had you ever seen it you could not have defined it.
Had you been given the definition,
you could not have said the word.
Yet, you have said it correctly and at the right time.
It was a word in a thought pulled on a knotted string,
a knot in the middle connected to the knots before
it and the knots following it.
Take “osculation,” you'd never use that word unless
you saw two men embracing and
had to explain it to your children.
And “micturition.”
Whoever does that? Only nurses lecturing students
who are learning to collect urine samples.
Those words are never-stand-alone sounds,
those that give rich meaning to life.
They are just knots in a thought string.
212
Our Company
The state of mind which enables us
To do this kind of work is akin
To that of the religious worshiper or lover.
The daily effort comes from no deliberate intention or
program
But straight from the heart.
(plagiarized from Phaedrus)
213
More Than You Planned
Mary's daughter got pregnant
-she thinks on the school bus.
Could be. There 're a lot of kids on that bus
And it's a long trip to school.
Mary's not happy about it.
She was past wanting babies around.
She was past all that worry and fuss.
She was tired, dog-tired.
Mary takes the baby to the store.
People say how cute the baby is,
That Grandma should be proud.
Mary says she knows, but she's tired.
Mary's daughter's back in school now.
She’s happy about the baby.
She plays with it.
Grandma takes care of it.
It's okay. It's what you put up with.
It's family. It's the way things are.
No breaks. No really lucky breaks.
Just a bus ride; a little more than you planned on.
214
Jennifer
First chair, all “A's.”
Looking for sterling silver, low B and a better sound.
It's easier to play, Dad.
It's like my teacher has.
If that's what you need, then that's it.
It's just money.
Even if you don't have it,
You’ll squeeze it out.
Who wants a daughter that has a nickel plated flute
When silver sounds so much better?
I’m sure that next year first chair will be gold.
And gold will be easier to play.
Dads with musical daughters are an easy touch.
215
The Dream Pillow
I was awake.
The room was dark except for the clock which said 4:30 a.m.
I heard a tap, tap on the glass at the kitchen door.
Then I heard the door open.
I couldn't get up.
My body would not move.
Nushka was holding onto me,
And she was fast asleep.
I strained to hear a walking sound.
I looked to my right across the bed
At the bedroom doorway,
Afraid and unable to say anything.
She came into the room.
She was short, about four feet.
I thought at first it was my daughter.
She walked around to my bedside.
Her face was a white mask,
Like a hockey goalie's mask.
I tried to yell to wake up Nushka.
I finally said, "No! No! Don't come!”
Then I awoke. Nushka awoke.
She said, "What were you dreaming? "
I shook for a while, then I got up.
I said, "Nushka, take my dream pillow now.”
After a Conversation
She said you walked with Gregg, an everyday exercise.
216
When you called, it sounded as if you had been crying.
I wondered how you would make it tonight.
I wondered if you would go.
Can so little lost of a past mean that much?
Are you crying for what is not yet, for what might be lost?
Is every person you see a confidant?
What a wringing to be strung out on everyone’s emotion!
Everyone is a lost soul, you too, and me.
My God! Turn the shit off!
Rest! Think a few positive things, and do them.
Think and laugh.
217
Petty Clashes and The Death Penalty
Petty people make us angry.
God sprinkles them around the world to try our patience.
He usually succeeds. Our patience is lost.
Everywhere we turn there, pen in hand,
Stands some badge of authority
Ready to correct our errant ways by citing rules.
He takes our names and sticks us with outrageous fines.
For what we cry, for what?
That silly rule, fool.
We have a choice, of course.
We can ignore them all, badges, rules, and petty interruptions.
But in the end you will receive the death sentence.
The bureaucrats will have found you
Another habitual offender.
Finally, you will be hung.
218
The Hospital Rape
Mamie's daughter said her mother said someone
was raped in the hallway outside of her room.
The nurse said it could not be.
Perhaps Harry took a leak or
Joyce took off her blouse, but rape was doubtful.
Besides, she said, Mamie could not see
and must only have heard what doubtless
must have happened.
Mamie's daughter cried.
She said her mother did not lie.
The nurse investigated.
Mamie said it was true.
There was no mistake about what she heard,
"Take it out! Take it out!"
So, it must have been a rape-and Mamie nearly blind!
Her mother never heard screams but a man ran past.
She could smell him and it was strong footsteps
and a woman said "Take it out! Take it out!"
and in a hospital! My God.
219
Humility
John Franklin had been a hard-working,
honest man all of his life.
It didn't matter.
He lost his job.
He lost his car.
He lost his house.
He borrowed money from a friend, then from his relatives.
He couldn't pay it back.
He couldn't find work.
He looked.
He tried.
His banker friend couldn't help him.
There was no basis.
There was no way to give John money.
He had no assets, no job,
The banker had a job.
He had a home.
He had a car.
He was not like John.
One day he saw John at a neighbor's house.
John was helping just to be doing something.
The banker went to the neighbor and
told him that if he would hire John,
then he, the banker, would lend him money to pay John
until John's work could repay the loan.
The banker made the neighbor agree not to tell anyone
about the loan, especially not John.
We don't know whether the loan was repaid.
We know neither the neighbor nor
the banker ever spoke of the loan again.
220
Dump Cake
"Just pour a can of sliced apples and
a can of chunky pineapple into a large cake pan.
Dump a box of yellow cake mix on top of the fruit.
Sprinkle some pecans on top.
Put it into the oven for one hour at 300 degrees."
Finally, something she could cook.
You couldn't screw up because you didn't even have to mix it.
Good and simple. And better than store-bought pie.
She did everything just as she was told.
She watched the pecans burn and the cake mix dry to a
powder.
She said, "Not even this! Why me, God?"
Then, so as not to be defeated, she stirred it all together
forming a yellow, chunky goo.
The family said, "Well, Mama cooked again."
Then he remembered!
He had forgotten to tell her to put butter on
top of the cake mix before cooking so it would make a crust.
221
California Oranges
I almost stopped the car, walked to the grove,
and picked an orange.
They were so bright orange,
and I'd never tasted them straight off the tree.
Then I saw a produce stand and saved myself from petty theft.
I had this sensation of tender wedges in my mouth
and sweet juices squirting past my lips as I chewed.
I stopped at the produce stand, walked straight to the oranges,
and picked two beauties. They cost eighteen cents!
I thought, "My God, I ought to buy twenty bags and resell
them!
But I suppressed the urge.
I couldn't wait until I got to the car to peal the first orange.
I put two wedges into my mouth, bit down, and said,
"Aw, shoot! Tart! not really sweet!"
I thought, "What's in this ground?
Is Monsanto the owner? Glad I didn't buy twenty bags."
222
The D.O.D. Plan
The Colonel spoke to his Staff before the meeting with the
Insurance Companies as follows:
“In the last monthly meeting we gathered to discuss the
D.O.D. plan for health Care and the impact that cost, would
apply to the military member verses the civilian eon tractor
and or hospital Now we have all agreed that the plan is sound
except for some minor corrections on page two—hundred and
ninety which must be amended prior to the plan becoming
effective. These corrections should be made before the next
monthly meeting but we will set, the suspense at sixty days.
At, which time the entire package will be reviewed and any
further suggestions will be taken under consideration. This
should take no longer than sixty clays but we will set the
suspense for the review at ninety days. At which time we will
meet to review the package to see if it still meets the
requirements for the military member. The entire process
should take no longer than six months but we will allow one
year before going to final copy "Are there any questions?”
Someone said, “Yes. If we wait one year to go to final won't
the entire application be outdated?
The Colonel replied, “I will take the question under
advisement and could the person please submit the question in
triplicate on the proper form through proper channels and the
reply should take no longer than forty-five days but allow
three to six months in case there are any revisions.”
The meeting was dismissed and the Colonel left knowing that
he had perpetuated his job at least another year.
223
Next, the Colonel spoke to the Insurance Company
Executives as follows:
“The D.O.D. is reforming (a long acronym),
a two-billion-dollar something like health care
that costs the D.O.D. its allocated funds.
Some of you gentlemen - the ones the D.O.D. has a list of were sent a five-hundred-page application
that said a fixed fee would be paid
because men and women in and out of uniform
wanted more health care but couldn't afford it
which is why the D.O.D. wasn't asking for a fixed fee
and was putting emphasis on a system of
in and out ambulatory care that we can call by any name
as long as the quality is determined by the D.O.D.
You should think about it and express your opinions which,
of course, will be read, but the goals of Congress
were what the D.O.D. would emphasize and
of course, would use their own standards.
The private sector should join hands with the D.O.D.
and drive down the costs but, of course,
when and if they did, the benefits would have to increase
in accordance with the standards of the D.O.D.
which was now interested in an in or out ambulatory care with
nationally unknown entities that would offer and bear the risk
as defined carefully in the five-hundred page application.
Are there any questions?"
Someone said, "Yes. How much did that application weigh?"
He didn't know.
224
He thanked everyone for having lunch with him and hearing
how the Army works.
The Executives said they knew how the Army worked and
that we were sorry he had not been sitting with them to hear
the (acronym) reform speech from the other side.
225
Just Business
There is no money but it doesn't matter
because we think it is not over
and soon there will be money.
Even if we are wrong it will not matter.
What matters is that another day has passed
and we were happy.
We had not planned to be happy.
We had planned to work.
Seven people called to ask about our IBM.
Was it sick? Did it need repair?
Had we touched it and violated our contract?
But the IBM was well and we were happy.
We said even if the IBM were sick we would be happy.
It didn't matter.
The IBM was just a machine to add numbers,
to glow green, to write white.
Once it added and glowed and wrote
it was like any sum or summa
of commonly liked numbers and words.
We really didn't need the IBM.
Most of the really well liked numbers and words
were already in our memories to be recalled for checks
and letters to people already respected.
So, what if our IBM were not working?
It’s the numbers and the words the people want
not the adding, and glowing and white writing.
The one's we remember are just as good.
It doesn't matter.
226
The Time We Didn’t Talk
I share what I have to share when we're together.
(Most of the time we're not together.)
We're doing the stress things, making hay all of the time.
It's a sharecrop and it's hard to eat, tasteless and dry.
But it's the milk the stress thing gives.
So when you're zeroed, yet it's still our time,
the little things I have that are not straw stay hidden.
They die a little choking death inside of me.
So, of me you get what's inside your head,
inside of a stress-shielded hurt soul.
There, in your mind, I'm a morbid curiosity,
a pack of phosphorus sticks,
beaten up baggage,
the image of what people think a man ought to be.
Here I am, next to you a kin, but zeroed too and mute
Straw all over my uniform.
Still, still I want to share
because there is no future better time
and there may never be another time.
It's just a little converted straw stolen from the stress things.
227
228
Pedigree Charts and Pictures
229
230
Replace William with Carl for moral reasons
231
232
2015 Christmas Picture in the Sunshine on the Porch
But only 6 of the 16 grandchildren there that day
Dan Stanley as Jesus, Annie as Mary,
Eko, Unity and Max as suffering children
233
Jude, Aviendha, Gwen, Zander & Jared
Damian, Oshi, Juan Carlos & Jeni
234
Sean, Danielle, Jake, Paige & Eric
Luke McCormick
235
Ashley, Marion, Stephanie, Austin, John, & Kevin,
Desiree, Sherry, Tony, & Sara
236
Austin, Stephanie, Marion, John, Karen, Neils, Don & Ann
237
Dominic McCormick
Hasan, Ethan, Sandy, Mariam
238
239
240