Another Late Posting

 This poem was entered into the streetcorner box for the month of March, 2021.  It was inspired by my niece, who is a student at the University of St. Andrews, and by my introduction to a form of poetry called the duplex.

St. Andrews Duplex

 

Her nose is rimed cool salt the air of place

A football arcs toward Salvators and grace

          Lay near the goal if that were grace

          I held her like a kitten then amazed

She had no fear was not amazed.

I was monstrous fearful of my strength

          Fearful that my balance was my strength.

          You found a place to gauge the speed of light

The lowering clouds mute time and place and light

A woman came this way before this time

          A young woman had no use for time

          The oysters arced from her hand to the land

Another day ended silent or began

Her nose was rimed cool salt the air of place

Catching Up

I've fallen behind in posting the monthly poems, which are still going out to the box for the passers by.  The last two months have been poems about my father, now gone, who was a Sailor in WWII.  This is the poem for May:

You Rest

 

You fell among the fishes for a while

Perhaps a sunfish saw you pass

One dinner plate of sight

Just catching the glint of brass

 

Too deep already for the mourning words

The tinny music there above to reach you

And the gentle rasp of the flashing shoes

Upon the coated deck

 

It’s left to me the imagining

The tumble through the cold

And darkening

The way you might have done

 

And the settling there a bit atilt

The dust of the universe drifting down

Around your place upon the silt

Where still you rest

Turning Point

 I work at this but my command of Middle English is poor.  I like the sound of it, though, for certain subjects and moods.  

New Year New Life

 We are hopeful.

Arrival

 

Had you sneaked yourself here

From among the stars

A bit of mischief

Arcing across the quiet dark

To take your place before me

I’d have come up short in wonder

Listened for a boom or a whoosh

Cocked my head for a better look

To see you turning yours up to me

Ready to jump

Ready, ready, ready

Go

More Boys Coming to the Party

 A poem for December, 2020, inspired by the twin boys who will make their appearance as members of the family in the early months of 2021.

Twins

 

Like you, I know no moonlight where I sleep

A swish—one passing car—wafts through

My windowpane

 

I wonder what you sense

Your purchase fresh but strong now

There within my girl

 

A world without abstraction

Warm and wet at least

But what is that to you

 

You two

 

Entangled in the mortal sprint to light

More like me every day

Or what I might have been at least

 

At best my night surrenders to

The morning soon and soon enough

We’ll all three bathe beneath the moon

Something Political for November 2020

 There is usually a wafer of a firewall between my politics and art.  Hard to maintain that these days.  U.S. Attorney General Barr declared Seattle to be an "anarchist jurisdiction," for the purpose of extorting something with the threat of withholding federal money, or something.  It was silly, but not funny.  So, too, the poem.

Abcdarian Jurisdiction

 

Anarchy

Becomes us in Seattle,

Coming as it

Does with Nordic sense of order.

Effortless in

Fact. Who would have

Guessed? We make everything so

Hard as a matter of course.

I think we should thank Mr. Barr

Just this once. I

Know it seems so strange but

Little isn’t anymore. I

Mean he saw it on TV and

No one can doubt he had advice

On what an anarchist

Place would look like on the tube.

Quite frightening, I guess. I was

Remiss in not

Seeing the report on Fox

TV. It seems OK here though,

Unless I’m missing something

Vital, as I sometimes do.

We’ve all learned something new,

eXactly what I can’t yet say, but

You should know I love this chill

Zen Emerald City—anarchy & all.

 

Tardy Posting of the October 2020 Poem

 This one is based on a real set of memories of a short period of time many years ago.  

Hong Kong—First Approach

 

The ship pushed aside thickening new air,

Warm, damp, candied by the breath

Of people in precarious urban hives

On the musk green hillsides—

A caramel perspiration over

The fresh salt of open sea.

 

Flat glass and steel shards intimidate

The shore, rising like kept promises

Between the teeming bay

And the random ridgeline.

Stark puffs preen with quiet impudence

Across the brazen blue above.

 

A world uncanny that calls to me

“Welcome home.”