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Category: My poems

POEM: After Jack

After Jack

You start with the legs crossed
or kneeling or sitting in a chair
with your hands just so or no
particular way at all.
The breath comes slow, deep
or else it doesn’t: who’s to say?
In the brain an alto sax plays
and then Pedro strikes a guy out
and then there was that one time
you told someone how you felt
and it didn’t go well
and then something is scuttling
through the leaves outside
and then you think of calling her
or think of writing to them
and then dinner tonight,
maybe try the Indian place?
Oh that’s right
you’re supposed to be breathing.
I mean you ARE breathing
otherwise there’d be a whole new
set of problems but you’re not
paying attention and really
attention is where it’s at,
where it’s all it’s at, as
Lenny stumbled that one time
after he’d taken up lecturing
rather than bits.
Breathing, right, you won’t forget
again
but you will probably because
today the zoo is full of little imps
and they love jumping
on the Samsonite of your memories
and then there was the time
you took the dog back
because it bit a kid in the neighborhood,
busted right through the door
and chased the kids around and got one
and then you think of the way
they asked if you ever expected to be
with someone like them
and how that question has never quite
sat right, you know? and yet
you did expect it
but now it’s over and it always
comes back to that in the end doesn’t it
the overness of it all and then
you remember to breathe.

/ / /

25 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 35 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: But I Am Your Child

But I Am Your Child

My father never looked for me.
In more than 30 years he never wrote,
never called, never
showed up outside my school
or at my job,
never spotted me through a fence
playing with my sons at the park.

It’s been four years and my parents
are clearly content
to let this silence stretch
into permanence,
to hold on to the other child
and pretend she was the first
and only.

/ / /

24 August 3023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 34 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: A Journey Of 1,000 Miles

A Journey Of 1,000 Miles

My first guest was a nun.
I hadn’t talked to one
since the second grade.
It was for a 5-minute feature
on people doing good work
in Rochester, New York.
I was in a studio, she
was on the phone.
As soon it was over,
I pressed a button
and erased the whole thing.
I broke out in a sweat.
Took a few deep breaths.
Then I called her back
and asked if she’d do it again.
Sure, she said, I think
I can do it better anyway.

/ / /

23 August 2023
Charlottesville NY

This is poem 33 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Chasing Answers To Questions Unknown

Chasing Answers To Questions Unknown

From the moment Father Edgar walked into the room,
I knew I wanted to be a monk.

When we changed teams, moving across the street
to the Methodists, I decided to become a minister instead.

At 15, newly into prog rock and Depeche Mode,
I discovered it was possible to not believe in God.

I flew 10,000 miles to clap hands and bow,
to ring bells and make mochi and stare up at statues.

For Christmas in 1997, Jen bought me a book
about the Lotus Sutra. It was over my head.

Three years later I was in our spare room, incense
burning on the credenza, legs folded, hands in a mudra.

Over the next two decades I went back to the cushion
time after time, trying to quiet the monkeys.

Eventually I threw in the towel, but somebody threw it back.
After all, a frood has to know where their towel is.

/ / /

22 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

Thanks to S for the title.

This is poem 32 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: I Thought I Recognized Your Foul Stench

I Thought I Recognized Your Foul Stench

Chris was Leia.
Wade and Jeff were stormtroopers.
Kevin played keys.
I was Vader.

There was balsa wood involved.
And free weights.
A cardboard Death Star.
And Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough.”

If none of this makes sense, what can I say?
We were nerds, it was the 80s.
It was either Odyssey of the Mind
or learn to throw a ball.

/ / /

21 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 31 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Contingency

Contingency

I had a plan.
For if it happened again.
A late-night,
tiptoe-to-the-kitchen,
find-the-right-drawer,
then-back-upstairs plan.
I came up with it as a kid,
never expecting to need it
as a middle-aged man.
But there I was in the kitchen
with his rage-trembling body.
I went for the drawer
but she stepped between us
so I ran for the car
and drove away.

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 30 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: These Are A Few

These Are A Few

Our toothbrushes, side by side.
Waking up next to you.
Eating tuna rice.
New Jersey.
Watching Bake Off
or Tony Bourdain
or Chef’s Table on the couch.
Driving for hours, singing along to our playlist.
Running errands around town.
Using little nicknames
for one another.
Falling asleep together.

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

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Morning Haiku: 20 August 2023

Morning Haiku

Jack’s cat,
gone—
then back!

standoff—
spider on the wall
above my bed

tinkling bells:
dog walkers
pass my bedroom window

bedroom clothesline—
morning breeze
dries my shirts

/ / /

20 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

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POEM: Officer Unfriendly

Officer Unfriendly

I would grab a bullhorn and taunt the cops.
I’d make fun of them right to their faces,
from a few feet away, to make the workers laugh.
Picket lines are long and hard and too cold or too hot.
Morale is kept up by humor as much as righteousness.
I shouted insults at the cops, whose faux unions
are always on the side of the oppressor, who stand
in their own picket lines, firmly opposed to justice.
I used my whiteness, my maleness, as a shield,
provoking and absorbing and deflecting their anger
from the workers who didn’t look like me,
who couldn’t afford any trouble,
but who were marching anyway because
they knew that enough was enough.
I didn’t teach my kids to ask cops for help.
I told them to never talk to the police.
Unless you’ve got a bullhorn and a big crowd.
Then you can make an exception.

/ / /

19 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 29 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: The First Time

The First Time

Junior high auditorium.
(It’s an old folks home now.)
Jazz ensemble show.
They got to the solo spot.
Mr. Boyce (now deceased)
stepped to the electric piano.
A kid rose in the sax section,
the school’s soprano sax shining
in the stage lights, to take a solo.
The drummer kicked into action,
Mr. Boyce pounded the keys,
the kid closed his eyes and blew
until a whole new future
stretched out in front of him.

/ / /

18 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 28 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Worth It

Worth It
for John

The scar on my left knee
is from crashing a BMX bike
I was only riding to be your dad.

/ / /

17 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 27 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Leftovers

Leftovers

A flood took the journals and photos.
An auction, the music and memories.
A minivan, too small for the books.
I am what remains.

/ / /

16 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 26 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: Treasure Chest

Treasure Chest
for Bernie

I cradled you in my arms as the anesthetist
held the tiny mask over your face.
Your soft eyelids lowered.
You were cooing as I handed you to the doctor.
It was the gentlest sound I’d ever heard.
Parting from it was the hardest thing I’d ever done.
He took you through the double doors.
I returned on shaky legs to the waiting room.

/ / /

15 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 25 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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POEM: The Waldo & Lobby Show

The Waldo & Lobby Show

We pulled random CDs and records off the shelves,
knowing some of the bands but not all.
“Dorina” by Dada.
“Enid” by Barenaked Ladies.
“Everyday I Write The Book” by Elvis Costello.
Lenny Bruce’s “Captain Whackencracker” sketch,
found on an old LP in the back room,
and played during National Smoke Out Day
because it was pro-smoking and we were edgy teens
with control over the airwaves.
There was a payphone down in the courtyard.
The number was written on the studio wall,
so we’d call it during our show and ask random questions
to whichever passing student picked it up.
Sometimes we’d give out prizes. Some of them were even real.
We made an ad for our show that was nothing but explosions
with the name of the show at the end.
I said “airwaves” earlier but actually the station was cable-only.
You could listen to it in your dorm if you hooked up your receiver
to the college’s cable system, but our motto was:
“You can’t get us in your car.”
The station was called The Bear.
We were Waldo & Lobby.
And from the summer of 1992 until the spring of 1993,
we were invincible.

/ / /

14 August 2023
Charlottesville VA

This is poem 24 in a series called 50 Days Till 50 Years. I’m writing a poem a day between now and my 50th birthday. I’m going to try to focus on memories of my past, and the people who inhabited it.

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