poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
fish tank
his entire world contained within careful boundaries
he can only go so far and no farther
he can’t grow his own food, eating only what others provide
he spends entire days without speaking to anyone
people peer closely, trying to understand but failing
it’s not clear whether he’s happy or just making do
moving around and around and around in the same patterns
but enough about me
let me tell you about the fish
9 February 2013
Auburn, AL
my once-a-day
getting out of her car on Magnolia Street
sitting on the new/old sofa at Mama Mocha’s
walking past me with friends in Starbucks
at the table next to mine in Amsterdam
two barstools down at The Hound
laughing with a friend in The Gnu’s Room
on the sun-covered Thatch Concourse
coming down the aisle at Kroger
she’ll be played in the film by Michelle Monaghan
and of course John Cusack will play me
why are you laughing?
7 February 2013
Auburn AL
/ / /
I see a particular woman in Auburn nearly every day. It’s a small town, so there are many people I see often, but not like this person. I see her so close to “every single day” that I notice if a day goes by without running into her. I finally introduced myself the other day, so I can at least greet her by name when we pass. Having just seen her this morning, and inspired by a good question and a good phrase from a friend, I wrote this poem. There’s no more to the story than that. Honest. The photo is by Jamieson Pryor.
Leave a Commentskylight, revisited
I awoke
to the rain
on the skylight
and though
this isn’t perfect
it’s more
than enough
for a Thursday
morning
7 February 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
The poem that closes my forthcoming book is called “skylight” and it’s very sad. So today I tried to capture a more contented view of that same set of conditions.
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| From My new apartment |
townhouses
there’s a country music DJ
who never expected
to be here this long
he wishes he had a house
so he could spread out
a young couple:
he studies rocks
she teaches Irish dance
to mostly willing children
next door to me, a painter
exposing her watercolor heart
and a guitarist who,
with a little whiskey and a cold,
can sound just like Tom Waits
up the little gravel driveway
in an almost-tower
on the third floor
another artist is making
herky-jerky videos of a dancer
next to her is a guy
whom none of us has met
but we’ve seen the boxes
piled inside his door
the architect who
built this little village
is still here, wearing overalls
making small adjustments
so is his wife, the life
of our continuous party
always ready with
a smile and a hug
and then there’s me
writing in my notebook
listening to my new birds sing
enjoying the last rays
of the afternoon sun
3 February 2013
Auburn, AL
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| From Christmas In PA (2012) |
Dear Bernie and John
I’m all the way down here in Alabama
a thousand miles south of picking you up
from school or from skiing or from the Y
I wait like a kid at Christmas for Skype
to bring the fleeting gift of your faces
it’s been two and a half years
since I stood on Glendale Ave
watching the Subaru drive away
that weekend I went to New York City
stopping along the Housatonic River
to stand on a series of small boulders
and pluck a large flat rock from the water
I was on my way to visit my own parents
I no longer speak to them, just like I don’t
speak to my biological father, who left
when I was four, the same age you were,
John, when we left one another
you and Bernie and your mother and I
we never had a plan to get back together
just a vague promise that we would
but I decided I needed to make a change
to try to find a way to be happy again
and that meant striking out
on my own for a while, to search
I’ve found something down here
I can’t say what yet, boys
but I’m figuring it out, day by day
before too long I’ll be standing
on solid ground again, and when I am
I’ll be back, I’ll be back, I’ll be back
29 January 2013
Auburn, AL
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| From My new apartment |
gifts from friends
the Buddhist prayer flags in my atrium
the lentil and mushroom soup warming my stomach
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots by the Flaming Lips
the moon seen from the rooftop
most days I miss the bridges and tunnels
but then I remember the flags and the soup
and the music and the moon
and I think I might stay here a while
28 January 2013
Auburn, AL
consequences
it wasn’t until
the bucket hit the water
that I spotted the spider
I hadn’t meant to drown
27 January 2013
Forest Ecology Preserve
Auburn, AL
touching bottom
I was six, maybe seven
we were all in the pool
at my friend Adam’s house
on a summer afternoon
at that age we mostly stayed
out of the deep end
but I got the urge to explore
I guess I was treading water
when my arms got tired
and I started to slip lower
just like that
I was looking up at the
fuzzy sun through a
rapidly thickening layer
of chlorinated water
my feet touched bottom
I must have stayed there
for an hour, maybe two
not needing to breathe
not really afraid
just accepting
I feel like I should
remember panicking
but it’s a peaceful memory
just the water and my
small body beneath it
/ / /
the way I heard it afterward
Adam’s dad realized
I was missing
and jumped into the pool
to pull me up from the bottom
I was fine, of course
well, as fine as anyone can be
who misses a chance like that
26 January 2013
Auburn, AL
Eli on fire
the back of the room was so dark
I couldn’t see my hands
but I could see his hands clearly
holding that silvery trumpet
a cloud of mist around the mouthpiece
the bell burning under the lights
and Eli, still as stone
and every bit as strong
calling down the walls of Jericho
in a basement under the West Village
24 January 2013
Auburn, AL
variations [(variations) variations]
I don’t understand
(I’m listening)
I like the empty spaces
I imagine Glenn Gould
I remember the night
on the floor (with Bill Evans)
feeling like Buddha
I’m searching for the morning star
in the surface of the lake
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
The version above is the third version of this poem. Here’s the second:
variations (variations)
I don’t understand what I’m listening to
but I like the way it fills the empty spaces
I imagine Glenn Gould hunched over the piano
recording take after take
I remember the night I finally got Bill Evans —
sitting on the floor of my studio apartment
in Tucson, listening to Sunday At The Village Vanguard
and feeling like Buddha on seeing the morning star
I’m searching for that same enlightenment
with the Goldberg variations
but so far the essence of the music eludes me
leaving me with glimpses of the surface of the lake
but never the depths of the water
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
Josh Rutner wrote a variation on this poem called “Two Song.” You’ll find it at joshrutner.com.
This is my second try with this poem today. Here’s the first version:
variations
I don’t understand what I’m listening to
but I like the way it fills the empty spaces
(Glenn Gould is hunched over the piano
recording take after take until the perfect
piece is born, delivered into the world with
a minimum of fuss but a lifetime of preparation)
I went through a phase where I was collecting
classical music, guided by a book I bought
I drove to work with symphonies and concerti
crashing or floating from my car speakers
(Glenn Gould and Bill Evans are, to me,
two sides of a coin, one interpreting, one
improvising, both somewhat odd geniuses,
to whom no one ever truly got close)
I listened to hundreds of hours of music
and certainly found a lot to love
(I remember the night I finally got Bill Evans —
I was sitting on the floor of my studio apartment
in Tucson, listening to Sunday At The Village Vanguard
and feeling like Buddha on seeing the morning star)
but like so much of my life, I think the essence
of the music eluded me, leaving me
with glimpses of the surface of the lake
but never the depths of the water
yet here I am again, Goldberg Variations
in the air around me as I search for answers
23 January 2013
Auburn, AL
MLK Day
all these feet and fingers and hearts and brains
all these lungs and muscles and nerves and veins
all in the service of the greater good
in these times, making art is a revolutionary act
beauty is a power that can vanquish despair
“this machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender”
if a banjo can change the course of history
imagine what all of us together could do
building a new world, one street corner at a time
21 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
PHOTO: Poets and others gather on Toomers Corner on MLK Day. [Photo by Brennen Reece]
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apples and peanut butter
(for Sally T)
a Braeburn sits on the tabletop
it’s destined for your ever-present backpack
nestled between your Macbook and
a new jar of Santa Cruz peanut butter
(I haven’t seen inside your backpack
but that’s what I imagine is in there)
Braeburn and Mutzu and Winesap
are words in foreign tongues to me
I’ve never tasted any of them
(to be honest, I’ve probably eaten
two apples in my entire life —
I didn’t come from a fruit family)
you make me want to eat more apples
not in a Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt way
but in the way the best people make me
want to explore new bits of my surroundings
peek around corners I didn’t realize were there
to find streets full of apple carts
20 January 2013
Auburn, AL
clothing
I have a painting of myself, half-naked
hanging on the living room wall
at times, a fully naked version
walks around the rooms upstairs
but even when I’m wearing my clothes
most of my vulnerable bits are exposed
19 January 2013
Auburn, AL
The Norphan
I remember when the Norphan first came to stay.
None of us had ever seen a Norphan before.
Mr. Mondegreen suggested that we put it out,
but we didn’t. It was so small and helpless.
Instead we set it in a warm bath, where
it played happily while listening to
The Velvet Underground & Nico
on a small turntable placed atop the toilet.
Not knowing its language, we had to
communicate via hand signals and smiles.
Over time we discovered it liked broccoli
but not lima beans. (And who could blame it?)
On sunny days, the Norphan would sit in the yard
watching the butterflies flutter by as it sang
“Heroin” or “All Tomorrow’s Parties” —
without the words, of course. Just a high,
flutelike voice beautifully recreating the melodies.
Then one Tuesday morning, ’round about nine,
Mr. Mondegreen came in from the yard to say
that the Norphan was gone. Where it had been
sitting on the lawn there was a single yellow flower
of a kind none of us recognized. I thought I heard
the strains of “I’m Waiting For The Man” coming
from over the hill, but Mr. Mondegreen said
I was hearing with my heart, not my ears.
We never saw the Norphan again.
18 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
I can’t remember ever writing a poem like this. The phrase “a Norphan” is a mondegreen, hence the name of the character in the poem. I heard someone read a poem with the phrase “an orphan” in it, and I briefly misheard the words. The drawing at the top is also mine. I think you can see why I chose words rather than painting as my medium.
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the sublime landscape and the apocalypse
we walked through streets overgrown
with the detritus of desperate lives
bordered on both sides by high walls
of grey concrete reaching for a grey sky
plastic bags and candy wrappers
wafted upward like hawks on thermals
searching for a glimpse of heaven
as if by magic, we came upon a tree
not a towering, majestic tree
but a tree nonetheless, alive and thriving
growing through the concrete
like Lieber and Stoller’s rose
people stood in clumps around it
struck dumb by the shocking green
the finding was all that it took
for us to know there was hope
and more than hope, there was strength
strength enough to search these streets
for the next root, the next branch, the next tree
16 January 2013
Auburn, AL
/ / /
This poem is inspired by the work of artist Orion Wertz, who has a show right now at the Biggin Gallery at Auburn University. The title of the poem, and the line “the finding was all it took” are taken from the talk Wertz gave before the opening of the show. The image at the top of this post is Breeze (Detail, 2012). Orion Wertz. Oil on canvas, 33″ x 25.5″
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