OCTOBER

 I like to think there’s something vaster than myself,

Hidden in the past, to be rekindled by a word…

-- John Koethe, “Belmont Park”

Sitting on my parents’ green sofa and

staring out the big picture window, as I’d

done so many afternoons, the room

empty of music and books, except the west

wind blowing through the screens, curtains floating

like a ghost, and here it is October,

the apples have ripened and the corn picked,

the wind gusting, unnatural so late 

in the year, 85 degrees and the trees

bending in the deep blue of memory,

sitting as I’d sat for days when my mind

slept after so many pills, the drowsy

wordlessness, empty as the vacant lot

across the road, hearing ghosts whisper

in the periphery, soulless waiting

for consciousness to return, but here,

the wind washing the world and sweating,

thinking of nothing but the fullness

of feeling, feeling now as if there’s nothing

but feeling, and waiting, staring

out the window, at the oak branches

dipping, the same brunt grass, and the vacant

lot, the anxiousness of space full of nothing

but the wind, and now, caught between that

emptiness and fullness, alone and thinking,

this is how he wanted to pass, his breath

labored by the shrinking lung and asbestos

knots, to simply scatter like ashes

in the wind, sleepy, drowsing consciousness

drifting, swept free of memory, only wondering,

wondering, all of my life waiting

for this moment, for this passing, this wordless

yearning, all the hours playing baritone,

filling the brass with something that swelled

with feeling, the elegy and all the wondering,

wandering, all the yearning to feel

something known as love, and loss, and the hope

and the hot wind off the harvest fields, what

the west carries, empty and fulsome, it’s

all passing again, like it always has,

for the very first time.

 

BLACK FRIDAY

Sitting here on the back deck ensconsced

in my down coat, I watch the wraiths of my breath,

vagrant souls fading under the sun. 

I’m drinking coffee and writing poems,

desperate and delicate poems about

the season, how the stiff leaves scuttle

across rime-frosted grass, how shadows

from the cedars stretch toward death.  I think of

my old loves, the bike races around Lost Lake,

the solitude of running lost in the woods,

seeing those lost photos from Joy of

that skinny punk squatting beside the greenhouse

writing poems, all of these surfacing on

Black Friday, alone and under the sun, wishing

all the time that I knew just one thing, something

I cannot see or know, something just

beyond the surface, like the shadowland,

where all the meaning lurks, like a truth

somehow knowable, but it turns out there’s nothing

there, nothing beyond the sun perched on the cedars,

the wind scuttling the leaves, and like the wind chimes

and a breath withheld, I can only hear

the neighbor’s hound yelping.  Even with this

coffee and crisp tingling in my fingers

I am slowly nodding off, drowsing

in the sun, dreaming -- if this is all

there is then this is failure and loneliness

at once, ecstasy slowly and exquisitely

fading from that very first captured breath —

that jolt into being! -- and now, sitting here,

years later, the chilling tendrils of breath

dissipating in the blueness, soon even this

will pass and I’ll think What was I thinking?,

What was I seeking?, beyond this, this,

and then, this.

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

Spring forward, fall back.  This year the clock was

set back late, so for days our circadian

rhythms slumbered like sluggard somnambulists,

sleepy-eyed dullards sporting Venti Starbucks

to replenish our sun-deprived souls. And so

the days of costumes and ghouls and trick-or-treat

buffoonery dragged on like an endless dream.

REM-cycled jack-o-lanterns and ax-murderers,

Snow Whites and Little Mermaids, witches and seahags,

harlequins and zombies and hobos, gypsies

and goats and ghosts–it’s a dream world of pop

culture and myth, Michael Jacksons and Hercules,

Sleeping Beauties and Marilyn Monroes,

Obamas and banana-nosed Nixons, and

today I’m in the back yard sunning myself

and raking leaves, the detritus of memory

and the death of photosynthesis, drinking

coffee and reading some sun-drenched

philosopher’s poems--let’s say it’s Neruda,

but it could also be some ancient Greek

whose pagan senses seem too awake and

luscious for this tired climate, it’s the first time

I’ve felt the sun in ages, all those memories

roiling up like waves at the shore as I rake,

and the sun warms my hands, my hair, it feels

as if I’m coming alive again like I did

years ago, back in college when all of those

ideas that cluttered in my mind simply

fell loose, one by one, tumbling like the leaves

falling all around me, how delightful

that feeling was, to awaken to the world

again, the senses and even the memory

of the senses, the patron of wet leaves,

the sting of sweat on my neck, the slight ache

in my shoulders as I rake, stretching

my face to the sun to feel the sweat and

the chill rising from the ground, from the west,

and the yearning to do something, something

yet unknown, it was the premise and promise

of love, or something, of springing forward and

falling back, at once, and letting it all go,

if only for a moment, and then wondering,

What just happened?, and When will it happen again?

As I fall back into time, not quite so alert

but seeking the same warm cinnamon doughnuts,

the same cold cider, the same feeling of being

lost again, and the wonder of that.

THOU SHALT COVET

How craven! How chicken-hearted!

My milky-calved darling, my precious

Ultramarine lorikeet!  Lapis lazuli

Peahen all clumped and hissing,

Thatched tongue churning!  I am

Your begrimed rooster, your

Bug-eyed chanticleer…  Beware

My curved claws, my love-spurs,

My squawking wings!  Who are you

To resist my love spool?  My yolk

Song?  My bodacious feather creams? 

Nuzzle with me.  Strut and enter

My bower.  

EAST

At the corner where roads 

intersect beyond the harbor,

beyond the last driveway,

the last dock, the last pier, 

one last stretch of stones, a

last gasp spreads itself 

to join the dying great lake

where six swans swim white

against the firmament.

The lake has fallen.

Stones surrender to muck 

and weeds.  The swans are

unreachable, motionless 

except to bend their  sweet 

elegant necks in the cold deep, 

gliding effortlessly.  

This is what it means to be

alone, without thought 

or intention, stuck here 

on this island's end, knowing

you will always be lost.

Out there, beyond the glimmering,

you see the faintest shimmering, 

the ghost of all you've left behind.  

BOATS AND ANCIENT RIVER GODS

All summer outside my

window the river traffic

glides by, great lakes tankers

 

laden with cement, bleeding

at the hull, 3-masted schooners

with dories trailing like orphans,

 

sailboats and yachts and boats

of every size and class —

all day the drawbridge yawns open

 

for maritime commerce

and pleasure and sport,

fishermen in oilers, pot-bellied

 

Hemingways commandeering                  

cigarette boats and catamarans

and pontoon boats festooned with

 

Italian Christmas lights and

mylar balloons bobbing

in the wind, flotillas

 

of kayaks, canoes, racing sculls,

rowboats and powerboats spilling

to the gunwales with bronze-skinned

 

buxom-bikinied mermaids, their

luxuriant hair waving, but

it’s the working boats that

 

grab me, the meat and potatoes

fellas, the gargantuan

barges hauling pyramids

 

of coal and scrap metal in silence,

pushing back the water in

a garland of brown foam,

 

the tugs churn and shudder against

the current, bringing tons of dark freight,

and on top of each heap sits

 

one sea gull, fat and lordly

like some ancient river god,

resplendent admiral of our fate,

 

 

our fear, comedians of

the waterways, philosophers

or the harbor, pompous poets

 

of the people they

stare down on,

dreaming our demise. 

 

We are their subjects, their slaves,

their minions, fated to

                                    await the coming disruption

 

when order will be restored

and they will once again

reclaim their right to ascension. 

 

 

 

RANGE LINE ROAD

Driving the island roads, slowly, 

     with the windows down, feeling 

          honeyed air glide over our skin, 

we spotted them looping 

     in the magnificent blue sky, 

          four eagles swooping, sporting 

in a figure 8.  We followed them 

     as they arced and swooned, pulling 

          onto the roadside weeds to wonder 

at their splendor.  We made love 

     under the aspen, naked and 

          shameless, the wind chilling our flesh, 

tense, almost savage, three times, 

     without pause or thought, yet sensing 

         the eagles' infinite flight, the 

fresh-cut hay, the wasps buzzing 

     and their stickiness, ridiculous 

          butterflies fluttering everywhere.  

Later, driving in silence, we 

     spotted an eagle in the road 

          pecking at a black rabbit and then, 

at the last second, flying off, 

     its giant wings just missing 

          the windshield -- we felt wingbeats 

in our hearts! -- and jolted in the ditch 

     to watch the twilight.

ISLAND

When we are too old to ride our bikes 

or each other we will ride the ferry 

here to this island every fall when the chill 

fills the air.  We will sit in adirondack chairs 

and look out on the bay's white waves, the deep blue 

churning, grey clouds rolling over us,  

silver birch like old bones behind us, dark 

cedars brooding.  We will no longer speak.  

Our children will not know what to call us.  

We will live in our memories -- you 

a little girl sleeping in your grandmother's bed, 

elm leaves washing in the Louisville wind, 

the sun dancing across your eyes.  I will 

dream of things I never really knew and

the jabber of Michigan crows crying 

like a baby we left somewhere behind.  

We will see the copper sunset 

in each other's eyes, smell 

the wheat in each other's hair.  

Bury us like an old rowboat 

rotting on the roadside.  

Cover us with dirt, and 

in the springtime plant a myth.  

It will grow.  

S O L S T I C E 2 0 0 9

Definitely!  Those grackles on 

     the deck sound like mynah birds!  

Old salts celebrating 

     the oil-slick boat slips and 

channel marsh at sunset.  

     Vinegar fries and your thighs 

nestled in mine at Cap'n 

     Sunfish's, the old clock tower 

in the west is just a shadow, 

     and in the east, as the lake chill 

blows in, and the fishing boats 

     sputter in on low choke, marsh 

geese natter and complain, the 

     boozehounds here are happy on this 

midsummer night braying, cackling, 

     lowing, whinnying,  you can 

see the stars radiant in their 

     faces, these cake eaters!, 

the wind behind their eyes swirling 

     like the heavens, water stirring 

in the reeds, their souls.  And so 

we are reborn, naked and sensual, 

drunkards, philosophers, swingers, 

     refugees, survivors of the 

hunt a wumpus, the ancien

     regime.  

 

AFTER THE RAIN

After watching the tugboats 

     pushing time around 

          the river's mouth and eating 

jambalaya, we headed back   

      to work on the riverwalk

           talking of poetry and soul, 

the voice of the human spirit, 

     and it was then, sizing up 

          all the boats moored at the slips 

that we saw the floating 

     milk bottles, the water-logged trees, 

          the used rubbers, and then 

the bloated rat floating 

     on his back, a buoyant blimp, 

          his feet rigid, delicate and 

exquisitely chewed clean, 

     his shriveled tail limp  

           bobbing in the slow current.

MORNING INCIDENT WITH ROBIN

Yesterday I was on the deck 

reading the paper, drinking

 

my coffee, the usual usual, 

when I heard the thump, then the 

 

crash, a copper-headed robin,

it just missed my glass bowl of yogurt

 

and blackberries, he lay there, stunned,

 staring at me, shrugging his shoulders. 

I knew he would die.  There was no use

 getting up, no use calling anyone,

the crash was too hard.  Sure enough, 

in exquisite silence, he rolled 

 

on his back, gasping but not 

gasping, blind, wings thrashing 

idiotic.  Then his legs stretched 

and stiffened and his claws 

curled like tiny fists.  We sat there 

as the sun warmed us.  I thought of 

my friend I’d talked with the night before, 

how we’d perched in the fading sun 

until the lake chill claimed us, and words

didn't matter.  She was seeking

 

a window to crash in to,

and I was  thinking Hey, 

C'mon, straighten up and fly right.

DREAM OF DESIRE

I dreamt of the two girls 

making love in the cottage, 

all of the windows open, 

the sun gentle on their 

bodies as they frolicked, 

lace curtains billowing 

with every slow delicious 

tortured breath.  It was my job 

to witness, to circle 

the cottage, snaking through 

lake weeds, and try not to spy

on their lascivious wrestling, 

how they clutched and stroked  

with ardent fire, how their 

Innocent fingers and toes 

splayed on the sheets.  

I tapped my temple and 

tried to bury myself 

into the pleasures of 

ontology, gratifications 

of ruminating sophistries,

the still life of succulent

peaches and the sweet 

indulgence of syntatic 

sibilance.  And when they 

were finished they stood 

on the porch all spent and 

bent naked, satisfied 

and leaning against serenity.

The one with lavender hair 

grabbed her cheeks, still wet with 

lotus-eating and love-tears -- 

as if to wipe away her joy -- 

and then she peeled back her skin, 

slowly unzippering her flesh 

to reveal, like a chrysalis, 

herself, her stunning perfect 

nakedness, and I stopped 

to admire this miracle 

of becoming, her shoulders 

and breasts baring themselves 

to the sun's sweetness, and 

when she shrugged herself free 

from this soul-slip, this enraptured

suit of honeysuckle 

tongues, she invited the lake's 

stray dog to munch on her penis, 

to devour those wet petals 

like a chewy caramel 

while her strawberry-blonde 

lover looked on, in mild 

amusement, almost 

amazement, smiling at me 

as if I'd never know 

their pork-pie serets, 

their bald-faced lies and 

surely their cocky lustre.