8th in Line

Feb 28, 2016 (I was 71)   

            8^th in Line

The product I produced

was a minor attachment

on the assembly line

as the units passed through

at the rate of 150-200 each year

I was responsible for product improvement

Every year an updated application

was integrated into each unit manually

It took 180 to 184 workdays

to complete the process

The applications were complex

designed to fit the individual needs

of diverse units with specifications to be learned

even as they were continually modified

Upon completion the product proceeded

to further facilities before deemed ready

for implementation and use

in careers of service

mostly unknown to me

I have little knowledge

of how effective my installations were

Lost Beliefs and Faiths:

from this week in February 2009  (I was 64)

Lost Beliefs and Faiths:

Powerful persons and institutions are committed to upholding justice

Immediate Karma as anything more than random happenstance

A devil as root and keeper of all evil

Simple causes of most effects

Goodness and talent will be rewarded

Myths are extinct

Superstition is displaced by science

Time progresses

Answer to prayers

Religion as an agent of good

The word of God exists in written text

Divine promise purpose and guidance

Knowledge makes one wise

Those who learn prayers as children

February 26, 2013  (I was 68)

Those who learn prayers as children

repeat them under breath far into life

and may never learn prayers of the gods

who cannot listen to the languages of men

Prayers are not for the garble of utterance

nor the lost mind manifested in work

not supplications of desire

not expressions of nature

They are the sensing apart from sense

the knowing of being beyond body and life

They come to us between breaths

Not from us they are directed to us

Buying gas in Pleasanton

February 25, 1974  (I was 29)

Buying gas in Pleasanton

In the gas line

45^th in line

parked illegally

on the highway

trucks blow past

indignation

An improbable farmer on a tractor

in an improbable field grows smaller then larger

his slow tractor turns the long rows of dirt

The station man walks up the line with his NO GAS sign

An executioner  

Who will be cut? 

He walks past

Gulls waver in waves above the tractor

then drop into the broken swells

Fume tainted haze is the new morning mist

Line of car starter

firing like salutes

Policeman over a megaphone from his car

tries to clear a lane 

The sun lifts the morning sky

The station man shuffles two lines into one

as diplomatically as Kissinger

then sprints smiling

to the ringing phone in his service island home

With no return to report to those who never left

from this week in February 2016  (I was 71)

                       

With no return to report to those who never left

the voyage of exploration becomes one of immigration

the report a memory of that left behind

to those with whom we have come to live

They find it difficult to relate or care

about things that are not there

The insight inferred how similar it would be

to return to strangers left at home

The realization that no one now

counts us among their numbers

a nation unto ourselves

How did grammatical aspects come to be

February 23, 2018  (I was 73)

How did grammatical aspects come to be

so long and effectively unbeknownst to me

Perfective verbs express completion of action

and of course the imperfective verbs

express the incompletion of an action

or the completion of an inaction

In iterative I reiterate the repetitive

continuous action signified by the single act

Frequentatives are habitual actions I inhabit

Desiring to be desiderative

one verb derives from another

indicating my wish to perform the action

expressed in the original verb...

which I so often do

The sights are so easily lost

February 22, 2009  (I was 64)

The sights are so easily lost

the eternity of the universe

disappears in the details of days

less than a week in the man-made world

diminishes the being of world-made man

            walk in the dirt and on leaves under trees

            breathe in wind blown miles to your lungs

            acknowledge the calls of birds

  position the web of the spider

  between the eye and the sky

The sight of then and that of when

transports thou out of now

the this of this to the wish of that

reading the log or plotting a course

when you could be navigating

Postcards from Hell

February 21, 2014  (I was 69)

Postcards from Hell

You never know exactly where you are

A lot of mirrors and in each a different appearance

yet every one a recognizable reflection

Went to the portrait gallery

Nothing but mug shots

There is a distinction made between

those here for what they did

and those here for what they thought

but no difference is made by that distinction

We hear Oh go to Hell

is a favorite expression among the angels

Sometimes letters get through from above

mostly looking for drugs and alcohol

Finally saw some blue devils

They used to be Eskimos

Darwin used to be here

but he evolved

Things can get out if you can find the border

Thing is there are no definable borders

Screw up here

and you’re born again

  

Here we know

we all shared all guilt

a knowledge of which

those in heaven are ignorant

Roethke wrote

From this week in February 2012  (I was 67) 

Roethke wrote

  great first lines

    but like a fiddle

      he put it in the middle

    good place for that sound

  if first can be found

First lines I intend to steal as he is not looking:  

-I know it’s an owl.  He’s making it darker.

-A sneeze can’t sleep

-scratched the wind with a stick / the leaves liked it

-when you plant, spit in the pot 

-A pick likes to hit ice

-who stands in a hole never spills

All this time we spend in schools

from this week in February 1970  (I was 25)

All this time we spend in schools

learning to think, right?

But so many teachers,

so many in grammar schools, high schools

even colleges, we say, “Think along these lines,”

or, “What do you think of what he thought;

Ever think about this?”

Hell, we need to say, “Think of something

nobody ever thought of before.”  We

need to do that sometime.

That shouldn’t have to be said, right?

Some things are obvious in print

that never once make the action round.

Some words sound better than they mean

from this week in February 2018  (I was 73)

Some words sound better than they mean

Disdain is sworn to scorn but falls gentle as rain

Rebuff merely needs a hyphen to provide a slight polish

The music of odium too lovely to be malevolent

Taking umbrage might be carrying too much luggage

Antipathy a balletic step backward in courtesy

Maniacal a Broadway hit with dancing mannequins  

It’s a passageway like a tunnel through a mountain

February 17, 2018  (I was 73)

It’s a passageway like a tunnel through a mountain

as on highway 50 when you break through

the darkness within the granite to the light

blue and the spectacle of Yosemite Valley

around you and below you welcoming your descent

beside falling water under bright sun

through bracing air to settle and walk

the floor of the earth connected again 

The boring through that stone night

is a mediation a liaison a brush with the eternal

juxtaposed with the brilliant fleeting relevance to come

The squeaky wheel et al.

February 16, 2014  (I was 69)

The squeaky wheel:

a)    is a CFO

b)    eventually grinds to a halt

c)     ran over a mouse

d)    is a bar

A leopard cannot change:

a)    a flat

b)    the actions of an ant

c)     into a leotard

d)    but it sure can run

The bigger they are:

            a)  the looser the fit

b)    the more likely to be named Goliath

c)     the fewer to the barrel

d)    the smaller we seem

If you don’t like the way the table is set:

a)    set it yourself

b)    fire the maid (in Spanish)

c)     eat in the living room

d)    overturn the table

reality

from this week in February, 1975  (I was 30)

            reality

the carpet is on the floor

my tray is on the carpeted floor

my feet are at the end of my legs

I wear glasses

I feel drawn elsewhere

what if I dream I forget all my words?

Valentines from Hell

February 14, 2014  (I was 69)

Valentines from Hell

At last a place no matter

what you do nobody’s looking

And there is no one to care

             *

No lust unsatisfied

is no lust at all

Appetite alas

requires hunger

            *

A day of debauchery

and mourning

the death of love

            *           

Maid you have made

the repressive

less excessive

          

Hollywood in the mid-fifties was to me

from this week in 2014  (I was 69)

Hollywood in the mid-fifties was to me

whatever it had always been a dream

concealed behind studio gates and walls

where some people were chosen to give expression

to worlds imagined recorded and projected

upon the unsuspecting still living in the past

When I left the town diminished rapidly

it having never suspected 

I was exactly what the place needed