wee hours, awakening
from a doze to frosted windows
the neighborhood silent, asleep
24 November 2013
Oak Street
Category: Poem-A-Day 2013
wee hours, awakening
from a doze to frosted windows
the neighborhood silent, asleep
23 November 2013
Oak Street
burning eyes half-closed, head full of cotton
time to get under the covers
await the cold November morning
21 November 2013
Oak Street
falling through the floor
she was on the second floor
of the old country barn when
the worn wooden slats cracked
under her diminutive frame
undermined not by weight
but by unstoppable time
as her body slipped down
into the expanding hole
her grandfather leapt for her
razor-sharp mind outwitted
by his 70-year-old frame
he grabbed for her arms
but she’d already vanished
as if she’d never existed
his fingers clutched the air
she’d recently passed through
air that was now filled with
the sound of crying from below
where she was sprawled, unhurt
on a pile of new hay
20 November 2013
Oak Street
my first night in Japan
(for the Inoue family)
I slept for twenty-four hours
at least that’s how I
remember it happening
then we had miso soup with
tiny clams in the bottom
of each wooden bowl
we were seated around
a dining room table
on regular chairs
all things I’d been told
not to expect to find
10,000 miles from home
it was my host mom, brother
two sisters and me;
obaasan ate in her own room
we brought her a tray, some
for her, some for the shrine
to her late husband
it was when we put our hands
together to remember him
that I fell in love with Japan
19 November 2013
Oak Street
more birds than I’ve ever seen at once
flying in a great horde above Atherton Street
off to conquer a warmer kingdom
18 November 2013
Oak Street
unpacking
a pair of her jeans
in my laundry bag
along with the Tufts sweatpants
we shared back and forth
it was inevitable
a note scribbled on
one sheet of white paper
telling me she loved me
and couldn’t wait to come home
pictures of us kissing
the notebook she gave me
when I left town
the one in which she wrote
her “this isn’t the end” letter
she was wrong, we both were
as I carried all the boxes and bags
from the little storage room
to the moving van in the lot
I remembered the spring day when
we filled up that little room with boxes
then I got on a bus, headed for
who knew where or what
and by the time I got back
it was over
17 November 2013
Oak Street
it’s unusually warm for November
tonight I’ll be in Brooklyn again
ready to say my goodbyes
16 November 2013
Oak Street
daylight savings time
we change the clocks for the farmers
even though we barely have farmers anymore
but at least when I walk to work each morning
the sun is rising over the valley
so I guess it was all worth it
15 November 2013
Oak Street
Eighties Music
I’m singing along with Phil Collins
at the very top of my vocal range,
listening to Three Sides Live
as if nobody lived downstairs.
How many times did I drive
our old Ford Escort (the car
I always tried to borrow
because of the tape deck)
blasting this album or Signals
or Bring On The Night or
Songs From The Big Chair?
I would sooner have left the house
without my pants on than leave
without music to listen to.
And then the trick was to get
the tape to the exact right spot
so when my girlfriend got in
there’d be a good song playing.
I doubt she ever even noticed.
We didn’t really have the same
taste in music. Other than maybe
Paul Simon. And now, decades later,
Talking Heads. But I didn’t know
them then, other than to know that
her older brothers liked them.
Earlier this year a British friend
and I drove through the Tennessee
countryside listening to OMD’s
Pacific Age as it was beamed from
a satellite to my phone and then via
Bluetooth into the rental car’s stereo.
In a way, we live in the future,
but we also have immediate access
to every piece of the past,
assuming someone set it to music.
13 November 2013
Oak Street
the sound of a big truck
or a hard, cold November wind
pushes me deeper under the blanket
12 November 2013
Oak Street
Veterans Day
all the people in my office
are wearing red shirts today
because it’s Veterans Day
even though no one but us
knows why we’re doing it
meanwhile, on an average day
18 veterans commit suicide
one in seven are homeless
nearly a third live in poverty
families use food stamps on bases
so please, beat your drum elsewhere
stop flying your planes over
stadiums during the National Anthem
spend that money on those who served
and stop making new veterans
11 November 2013
State College, PA
ending
the flame is hot and bright
at the tip of the incense
it looks miles above the pot
of white ash waiting below
a puff of air through pursed lips
brings forth the smoke
and the smell of winter nights
on tatami floors, hot mugs
of green tea fitting
perfectly in cold hands
further down now, the ember
no longer glows, but
the smoke is heavier in the air
it catches the beams of the
autumn sun through the
narrow kitchen window
this is the time to sit quietly
to follow the breath
to be aware of the sounds
of cars on the street
wind in the bathroom vent
the stick is burned down
nearly to the bed of ash
it doesn’t know, of course
that in a moment it will end
its brief flame snuffed out
nothing left but the lingering
scents of clove and cinnamon
captured as tiny grains floating
in the last rays of sunshine
10 November 2013
Oak Street
it wasn’t until spilling
half the miso soup from the pot
that I remembered I own a ladle
10 November 2013
Oak Street
smoke from a new stick of incense
fills the cold room
with the scent
of a Japanese temple
or the small room
on the second floor
I used to meditate in
the one I had to unlock
with a kitchen knife
9 November 2013
Oak Street