Only the ghosts of pumpkins past

October 31, 2012  (I was 67)

Only the ghosts of pumpkins past

embellish the old house now

Edgar Allan Crow at my window

beckons me to notice no water in the fountain

Spirits of a spook house in the garage

no longer leave their cardboard boxes

The thought of them residing there

in the dark of those casual crypts

unreleased for yet another year

pent up agonies of faceless masks

conjures a colder hollow fear

than those lit up hallowed eves ago

at my chamber door to ask for candy

Used to be us against them

from this week in October 2014  (I was 69)

Used to be us against them

now it’s us against us

What the f happened

One of us shot five of us

in McDonald’s and it wasn’t

even over money

One of our kids shot five of our kids

in the school yard

They weren’t friends except on the phone

and that wasn’t enough

It wasn’t over money when one killed

the best teacher they ever had

and five of our kids took pictures

selfies as she fell to her knees

Her last breath posted on Facebook

West Running

October 29, 2003  (I was 58)

         West Running

Things have changed Robert,

not so much on the old Derry farm.

What you wrote caused them to stop things there,

a sort of snapshot during one of your transitions,

like the set of a play after the actors have gone.

Though there was blue sky and full green of summer,

the memory is in sepia tones, the wood of the barn,

the wallpaper smell as I bent to read

the titles of your shelved books,

classics, and no surprises there.

I imagined the surrounding white of winter

as viewed from an upstairs window,

that strong-contrast theme again

and that working across the grain;

that contrary stream pushing away from the sea;

and that home burial dialogue

up and down the stairs.

without wind its scent emanates

October 28, 2002  (I was 57)  

without wind its scent emanates

unseen it enters the light

soundlessly it vibrates existence

lacking surface or texture it expands

like the taste of salt

under the tongue and into the blood

it is the minimalism that becomes one

a restrictive essence not the other

the this of a succession of nows

the definition of the word

and the consciousness of self

the fruition the expression the realization

of the so much more beyond

the doubt of insignificance

knowing both past and future are then

theirs

October 27, 2007  (I was 62)

                  theirs

Other peoples’ children praise the Lord

with no sense of his humility

pass judgment knowing they are judged favorably

Other people’s children have body piercings

They wear hindrances through every sensory organ

and cut-away clothes to expose their tats

Other people’s children withhold their opinions

Their restrained considerations

Produce an impeccable silence

Other people’s children know the value of art

is determined in the auction house

The true critic is counted currency

Other people’s children realize introspection

creates the illusionary devil of self-doubt

and can lead to self-denial

No child of mine was ever like this

because other people are the parents

of other people’s children

anchored

October 26, 2006  (I was 61)

         anchored

I’m a landlubber  I like the beach

but live off and on the land  If I had to

I’d live on a mountain trade the sand

take a stand for relative stability

I just can’t think with stomach churning

can’t be learning while heaving in the drink

Maybe I could adopt a seafaring philosophy

The sense of adventure is certainly admirable

but could I physically overcome the sway

of waves that destroy equilibrium

Beyond the visceral digestive distraction

within the visual disoriented distortion

the cochleate enigma so near the sound

seeks a foothold on the ground

Stan and Ollie meet Guy deMaupassant

October 25, 2010  (I was 65)

   Stan and Ollie meet Guy deMaupassant

Stanley knows Ollie’s most prized possession

is his fine silver pocket watch

an object admirable in function and design

After a moving van runs over Stanley’s Victrola

Ollie sees him wistfully put a disc to his ear

and finger each sleeve of his precious collection

Christmas morning Ollie unwraps a watch chain

fine silver with engraved fob attached

“But I sold my watch to buy your gift”

Stanley opens the box and laughs to see

the finest modern Victrola made

“And I sold my records to purchase the chain”

-I began a series of pieces using Laurel and Hardy as

representations of right brain and left brain perception.

Not an original idea, I got it from Colin Wilson’s study,

Frankenstein’s Castle.  More appear in other posts.

Today students stood around the halls

October 24, 1982  (I was 37)

Today students stood around the halls

under the old photographs

amused at what had been

They considered their own situation

and laughed that such righteous victories

as clothing choice and length of hair

ever needed to be won

They assumed opposition to such obvious freedoms

must have been weak and ineffectual

compared to the oppressions they face now

Some Slogans from the bulletin board

October 23, 1983  (I was 38)

Some Slogans from the bulletin board

of the 8^th grade English class:

We are the people our parents warned us about.

Define myself in a word, why that’s absurd.

Illiteracy is nothing to write home about.

To know is to know no no.

The little I know I owe to my ignorance.

I don’t trust him, we’re friends.

The first human to hurl a curse instead of a weapon

     founded civilization.

The difference between ignorance and apathy?

     I don’t know and I don’t care.

Exact Change!

The vulture flies with carrion luggage.

Anything not prohibited is compulsory.

A physicist is an atom’s way of knowing about atoms.

To think I live so near the sun! It dawned on me this morning.

When my ship comes in I’ll be at the airport!

north boy

October 22, 1966  (I was 21)

         north boy

Remote was the lake

and forest of pine.

A dull boy in the dust

from an open pit mine

knew Bohunks and Finns

and Dago Red wine.

It was little of books

that he knew but he’d take

three-two beer with his friends

beneath the trees to the lake

where they’d drink and discuss

the great lives that they’d make.

Education’s slow breath

engendered reserve

a dislike for his life

of un-sophisticate verve.

And he has yet to discern

the use it served.

If you were seven in 1952 in northern Minnesota

October 21, 2010  (I was 65)

If you were seven in 1952 in northern Minnesota

and you heard a plane overhead you looked up

It would be a small plane Piper Cub red

maybe silver but nothing big

and of course summer  If you were at the ball field

you might lie on your back in the grass to watch it

It happened every other day or so

You made the connection with the plane

knew someone was alone flying up there

depending on the sound of that motor

to get them back to that little strip in Hibbing

If the engine coughed more than once

you listened hard and looked harder

Your uncle said you had to stall it and restart

just to get your pilot’s license

It seemed dangerous to me  I wanted to learn to fly

I just didn’t want to have to use a plane

We rely on hypocrisy to save the world

from this week in October 2014  (I was 69)

We rely on hypocrisy to save the world

Were all who declare devotion actually practitioners

we’d have a chaos of justified warfare

to establish one theocracy or another

It is uncivilized to sanction brutality

except in the name of business

We leave the butchery to the ignorant and the poor

who best interpret canonical law in pictures

or metaphor lurid enough to be thought literal

Wealthy nations have their armies

They sell their enemies outmoded weapons

so instead the foes make missiles of themselves

and believe the fables of celestial bliss

that promise forbidden fruits of the un-ripened mind

Before

October 19, 2014  (I was 69)

         Before

If things were going to fall

they would fall into place

Wasn’t that the way the world worked

If a corner was to be turned

things were right around the corner

That was the way the world worked

If it was in the papers it had to be true

When they said You know what they say

There was nothing more to be said

stunt

October 18, 2009  (I was 64)

                  stunt

At a particular time for each thing

that we think and thing that we do

we become stunted

Suddenly or progressively we stop

or grind to a halt in the height that we grow

our running speed begins to slow

We eat what we ate read what we read

we sleep when we dream in our particular bed

Affects and attitudes are reflex and platitudes

expansive becomes exclusive variety intrusive

When we think what we thought

our forefathers thought we forget

that they thought we would think

I walk the invisible dog in the park

October 17, 2013  (I was 68)

I walk the invisible dog in the park

It follows without a leash

Sometimes other people’s dogs

half know the invisible dog is there

There is no canine confrontation

My attention is invisibly occupied

Other dogs chase squirrels they can see

The invisible dog chases nothing

I do not know where it sleeps  I do not feed it

It does not arrive in the car with me

Many dog walkers bag the defecations

Many of us do not  I go unnoticed

I don’t know what kind of shit the invisible dog leaves behind

It is not my intention to walk the dog

I am here for the exercise the light the serenity

which I achieve only in moments the dog minds itself

Most of the time it trots alongside

close enough for me to count its breaths

It is not in the car when I drive to the rest of my day

The distant wail diminishes but does not cease

I’d like the invisible dog to successfully run away

Whatever path I walk I remain a familiar scent

After a dozen years

October 16, 1977  (I was 32)

         After a dozen years all he could hope to be was clever.

Most often his work was simplistic, even superficial.  He was a

General Practitioner who recorded symptoms, wrote prescriptions

to treat the most predominant manifestations.  Not what you

would call a definitive diagnostician.  He wrote poems because

he could fit it all on one page.  Direct doses, the pharmaceutical

middlemen eliminated.

Long Tom

October 15, 1974  (I was 29)

Long Tom,

What ever became of intellectual clarity?

It was not so long ago

that we survived all the shit going down

by understanding our ultimate righteousness.

We knew it was advantageous to be firm and correct.

Our lives were all sixes and nines.

We mused on autumn afternoons;

you knew about Sufism and dervishes and Essenes,

and I knew about Emerson, Thoreau and Ahab.

We were focused on the whirl of transcendental possibility.

Now you have died privately

and I have stepped through to uncertain ground.

New ignorance is the product of old truth.

It’s the season

October 14, 1973  (I was 28)

It’s the season

Such an arrangement

Each week the same

every night a football game

or sports page to examine

rules scores and end zones

It’s all timed with commercials between

It keeps a man at peak efficiency

moving along with the game plan

Minor injuries are sustained without notice

Chronic aches are a part of the competition

The champion forgets fatigue

forgets injury and he functions

Sit back and relax

You’re in good hands Where the rubber grips the road

Fly the friendly skies

It’s the water from the mountain streams

and it’s football

Measuring Distance

October 13, 1977  (I was 32)

         Measuring Distance

Standing on one ridge

looking across the canyon to the next,

distance is deceptive.

The line of sight is direct.

The turkey vultures glide it in no time.

The mind flies as easily across

and does not understand the resistance of the body;

does not understand flight as unified commitment.

No command is given to fly.

And the trek down the mountain across the creek

and up the mountain

is the correct way to measure geography,

pacing the actual terrain,

making observations beyond geometry.

It’s a practice in the correct sense of place,

and perfect really, if you cant fly.

Art’s Event in Shallow Water

October 12, 1971  (I was 26)

Art’s Event in Shallow Water

Arthur Octopus has got

all these tentacles which extend

out and over around and about;

      one carries burning torches

      one orders all it touches

      one flexes all it’s muscle

      one drifts on every current

      one probes to break the surface

      one buries the dead

      one counts the other seven

and one strokes his jellied head.

for Lauren

October 11, 2001  (I was 56)

         for Lauren

The problem is I know where the years went.

In my better moments, I know some were misspent.

I see how often my focus was lost.

I know how much each word has cost,

too many times, when the story is told

of how my heat left others cold.

In my solitary contemplation of shade and sun

I’ve left a trail of communal work undone.

Yet at this time of new worldly strife

I watch you march with transcendent grace

as you maneuver into your life

striding to don an independent face.

So I believe the future of your land

will be written in a more confident hand.

I can’t see far ahead from here

from this week in October, 2012  (I was 67)

I can’t see far ahead from here

I don’t care what the seer once said

I still offer the dead a beer

There’s nothing I should fear or dread

From something in the past I’m blessed

knew when I headed west I’d last

Those before went too fast I guessed

Lives I’m sure they addressed half-assed.

Goin’ crazy on the freeway of the 90’s

October 9, 1995  (I was 50)

Goin’ crazy on the freeway of the 90’s

one way no off ramp minimum allowed speed

faster than that heading west only perpendicular

to the sun too bright to know better too

indifferent to be on a car phone in Japanese

vehicle with the ambience of an ambulance

headin home

Goin’ nuts tryin to read the erratic digits

of time in light emitted from a diode fed

by a battery soon dead but still trying

to inform me it is later than I think

that I thought time could ever be

in this brief eternity on the road

headin home

Burned out laid rubber squealed tires

passed on the right and left by the oblivious

unnoticing that I am where they are hurrying

to be or not to be to be more exact

always just a little late for work for it to work

out right oblivious that the work is

headin’ home

Moon risin’ in the rear view mirror pale

rider notices vaguely half blind from refusing sun

to set confusing the mind behind the eye

seeing or not seeing behind the moon the sun

in front still reflecting off the distracted thought

of moon and sun and flying down the road

headin’ home

from bad to worth

October 8, 1972  (I was 27)

         from bad to worth

The gold standard doesn’t work for me

I haven’t got any gold

Measure my worth by the ounce

I’ll leave your scale pan cold

Take your book and count my faith

my candle wick is short

If you find the flame insubstantial

how will you hold the smoke

If you’ve got a definition

you could mark my deeds

But for that you’d probably find

you’ve only listed my needs

What can I say to get love into the sonnet

All you have is earth and man walking on it

October Walk

October 7, 1973  (I was 28)

         October Walk

It rained through the night;

it was raining today at last light.

Electric moss lit the trees.

Slick leaves and ferns on the ground

gave light without the sky.

The deer paths needed hooves,

but I climbed to see clouds hurdle the west ridge,

dark riders pulling the wave and tearing away.

First I wanted it all on film,

wanted to record the echoing dogs still howling

and the quiet interrogations of every owl

on this day when the sun did not appear.

But nobody believes a movie.

Rising from a stand of oaks

a column of ground fog found warm currents,

spiraling spirit freed and fleeing home.

It was perception that made it all real;

it was a vapor perceiving a vaporizing.

The intolerable babble on pro football telecasts

from this week in October, 2012  (I was 67)

The intolerable babble on pro football telecasts

is easily muted and replaced with audio of choice

the Vivaldi channel off I-tunes for example

introduces a new amusing milieu

as does the big band jazz channel

Lyrical tunes may be apropos or juxtaposed

Nevertheless synchronous gems dazzle

more often than stale commentary

in stagnant format from tired announcers

and insipid remarks of sideline annoyancers

More remarkable the transformation of commercials

where carefully clipped images

carry context that doesn’t necessarily sell