Category: Poem-A-Day 2013

the wall

there are so many poems
        I’ll never write
no matter how firmly they press
        against my ribs
trying to burst from inside me
        into the heat I was warned about
I won’t write them because
        to set them free
would leave my softest tissue
        exposed to the open air
blood vessels turning red as they
        bathe in the oxygen
though I may be remembering that
        incorrectly
yesterday she asked if you had broken
        some structure inside me
like a load-bearing wall
        that keeps me standing straight
it would be easy to say yes
        but it wouldn’t be true
the problem was never a collapse
        but a slow erosion
like that beach on Cape Cod
        where I played as a child
now just a few feet of sand and weeds
        bordering a parking lot
to go back to the earlier metaphor
        I’m rebuilding the wall
no, more than that, I’m strengthening it
        so it will bear even more
and unlike the last one, my new wall
        has a door
so that when the time is right
        I can let myself out
or let something beautiful in

9 April 2013
Auburn AL

dada’s home

Jesse is
associated
with chance
not as art
but completed
through my own
subconscious

court reveals
its dissatisfaction
where artists cope
by making madness
push at understanding

Max used methods
to attack the mind
the mechanical
a violent emotion

HUDSON:
central dream
divine human vision
long tears
have long been

mired in the photogram
I use objects in the dark
expose
and create

8 April 2013
Auburn, AL

/ / /

This is an erasure poem based on one page of the program from today’s Dada exhibit at Auburn University. Oh, and the title is a punning reference to this lovely but lyrically disturbing song by the Delfonics:

pineapples

pineapples grow on our pine trees
here where the birds sit atop the stoplights
singing Hank Williams songs
our dogs know how to count
some even understand English
and while you may have to drive forty miles
to buy whisky and beer
when you get there, the package store
will be playing Marvin Gaye
or Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
and when you get back
there’ll be a blanket on the grass
and laughter in the air

7 April 2013
Auburn AL

the captain

the captain does everything
with a gentle precision
an attention to detail that shows
in the way he moves his hands
the way he checks the lines

we’re floating on Lake Martin
talking about Tolstoy and mountains
and the best way to react
when you’re hit by an unexpected gust
he tells me to drop everything
stop trying to control it
and the boat will right itself

later the conversation shifts
to other kinds of storms
I say to the captain
in my experience
all you can do is keep moving
gather the people you need
stop trying to control it
and the boat will right itself

6 April 2013
Auburn AL

destinations

we take the trips
we need to take
on paths
we never knew
existed
not realizing
until we arrive
this
is where we
needed to be
all along

5 April 2013
Auburn, AL

66

when I moved from New York to Tucson
I drove across the country in big leaps
first down to Chapel Hill to visit friends
then over to Lexington, Kentucky, to visit family
then from Lexington all the way to Amarillo
twenty-two solid hours of driving
in a Ford Festiva with nearly bald tires
and a tape deck that broke halfway across
I was fueled by cheese & peanut butter crackers
and the desperate need to Go West, Young Man
as an anomalous kid who grew up on Nat Cole
I made my way to the highway that’s the best
but like most things I grew up dreaming about
the reality was shabbier, or forgotten entirely
there were a few half-open restaurants
selling half-remembered knickknacks
with those two famous digits
but the highway had passed mostly into legend
like Plymouth Rock or the OK Corral
so I pulled back onto the big beast 40
left those twin sixes behind me
drove toward my new life

3 April 2013
Auburn AL

beachhead

waiting on a bench
with the sun in my eyes
my hand slipped
off the rudder
this is the spot
where my boat ran aground

2 April 2014
Auburn AL

the truth about water

There’s a sound
the creek makes
that only lovers
can hear.

31 March 2013
Auburn, AL

painted sky

they’re on the lawn
he’s on his back
sweater under his head
for a pillow
she’s propped up
on her elbows
looking down at him

above her is
an Alabama sky so blue
it looks fake
it’s warm, there’s a breeze
bees are filling the bushes

he wants to sing her
every song he knows
and all the songs he doesn’t, too
he wants to reach up
put one hand on her cheek
sit up just enough to kiss her
a long kiss that takes its time
a kiss that is itself a poem

30 March 2013
Auburn, AL

it’s not a cairn

what’s the name for an intricate series of relationships
whose desired outcomes are difficult to predict?

when is it OK and when is it not OK?

what is the meaning of the rule and to which situations
is it best applied, given the complexity of human life?

to whose attention should I direct these questions?

what did you mean when you said that thing you said?

about whom is this poem being written, and how is that
to be determined without more data?

how many plots can be wedged into one life?

are these small-town situations or are they also possible
in a big city where the people whiz around like protons and electrons?

what do you call a pile of rocks in the woods?

29 March 2013
Auburn AL

Thursday
(after Frank O’Hara)

this morning I bought a bag of Chex Mix
from the Study Pit in the library
(“with a hint of Worcestershire”)
ate it back at my desk in Spidle Hall
washed it down with water
from the fountain in the hallway
I went to Opelika with friends
walked around enormous warehouses
full of paintings and sculptures
and one old resuscitated piano
had a falafel pita with onions
avocado, mushrooms, spinach
and Dijon mustard, which I think
comes from France but they still
serve it here in Alabama
drank a Barq’s root beer
then went back to my office
ate some Olive And Sinclair
Southern Artisanal Chocolate
with sea salt in it
“hand-crafted” “small batch”
“slow roasted” “stone ground”
and after all that I listened to a guy
playing the ukulele much better
than I can play it
but nobody famous died

28 March 2013
Auburn, AL

/ / /

This poem is an homage to Frank O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died.”

the monk and the jay bird

there was a Blue Jay in my yard today
I’ve always had an affinity for them
they remind me of the Catholic church
mostly of Father Edgar, the Franciscan
who was a friend of our family
when I was a child in Lenox
he called me “Jay Bird”
I had only a vague idea of his job
but I knew it involved a lot of time
thinking, praying, meditating
even as a little boy, that sounded like
a good way to spend your time
I’ve left the weight of Catholicism behind
but not the desire to wear the clothes
of a thinker, a healer, a holy man
the builder of a loving community
I’m grateful for Father Edgar’s example
all those years ago
I still think of him
every time I see a Blue Jay

27 March 2013
Auburn AL

the listener

he never wants to read another book
he simply wants to sit under an oak tree
while she reads to him with her soft Southern voice
the accent she worked so hard to lose
reluctantly regained in recent years
imagine Whitman, Carruth, even Douglas Adams
slipping off her tongue like rain drops off the leaves
he thinks he could be content with that
for as long as she cared to read

26 March 2013
Auburn AL