I’ve lost some of the prolific solitude

July 31, 2007  (I was 62)

I’ve lost some of the prolific solitude

the Island has formerly imbued

the slow breath of summer surf

cautious steps on wet stones to Akaka Falls

to cast intent on flower and fern

and darkening damp deeper view

where from insect rhythms and volcanic drums

inspired lava flows onto the page

I’ve made the invitations

cleared the runway and opened the door

become a bus driver and tour guide

a distributor of discount coupons

purveyor of geography and revisionist history

turned love of place into a place others love

left tart tropical fruit in the sun

to taint and over-ripen until

only hovering bugs can enjoy it

I have not found a way

to dissipate the rush or stall of traffic

to point out the off-ramps that lead

to the back roads of the right side of the brain

to the calm of the hinayana harbor

where each small boat drifts on its own quiet current

toward the mahayana cruise ship of common purpose

The few times I’ve done day labor

from this week in July, 2014  (I was 69)

The few times I’ve done day labor

I was underpaid unless hired by a relative

and soon I learned to labor relative to the pay

If you bought my time to bore me

I accepted only because the job needed doing

If the work benefited only you

I never accepted the contract

Never found anyone who could afford me

Teaching was never like that

I often did it for nothing

and that was everything

The excitement over the young communicators

July 29, 1970  (I was 25)

The excitement over the young communicators:

They love the media!

Be it recorded or visual

they have grown up with it

serving the role of grandparents.

Their message may seem trite;

clichéd yes, trivial no.

Their message is a universal feeling of a new generation

and the applause is for the accomplishment

more than it is for the message

(someone in a position of influence understands

something of what it’s like for me to be alive).

I was on the football team in high school

July 28, 2013  (I was 68)

I was on the football team in high school

I weighed one hundred twenty-seven

I was on the bowling team

carried an average of one twenty-seven

I was on the golf team

until I shot a 127

played centerfield in American Legion Baseball

hit .127 but fielded better than that

Once I hit a double but tripped over second base

I was a sub on the basketball team

We were losing to Coleraine by thirty-five

Coach put me in with 1:27 on the clock

I quit the next day told the coach

it was taking up too much of my time

I skated very well and liked hockey

but we didn’t have a hockey club

I learned all the strokes in a pool in California

but in Minnesota we had no swim team

So in college I majored in physical education

until I got good grades in English

and took up skiing by myself

The fingers of the student masseuse seek pain

July 27, 2006  (I was 61)

The fingers of the student masseuse seek pain

knotted muscle and impinged nerve

damages that offer opportunity

to practice crafts of applied pressure

Ripples radiate relaxation

from troubled spots in time

to my deep breaths that drown

shallow thoughts

Not only obvious issues of recent stress

more subtle mysteries of the tissue

send a message from her hands to her breath

She utters huh… before her brain can think it

then ratchet sounds in my hip and thigh

respond before I can remember

that slip on wet grass years ago

striding into a Frisbee throw

to impress upon young students

that I was now too old

She is good she brings back memories

back that made the wrong move moving books

shoulders blocked out of balance

during a high school football game

ankle cracked while running a trail

pain in mouth and neck from oral excavations

to remove wisdom and worse troubles

brought on by too much jawing

With studied precision she worked

my physical history to remind me

no pain is entirely forgotten

but our endurance is considerable.

That evening as the village lay bathed in moonlight

July 26, 2012  (I was 67)

That evening as the village lay bathed in moonlight

we perched on the ore dump south of town

One beer each only wants another

Out of that egg broke a plan

Who not home had six in the fridge

Your cousin’s dad had gin and they were gone

Good cuz we could refill the bottle with water

Upstairs key under the mat easy as that

Found the bottle poured a pint in a jar

Jimmy the look-out called out Car

coming down the alley

caused a minor spill  We had enough

diluted the remains dashed down and out

ran a block and gave a shout

down to the darker Home dugout

Seven-up and Beefeater from paper cups

before we ran the bases under the sandy moon

and fell on our faces sliding into home

I can’t move this stone

from this week in July 2010 (I was 65)

        

I can’t move this stone

at least not alone

Will you help me?

I can’t carry ‘nuf water

to make the teeter totter

Will you help me?

         If you help me

         I might help you    

         if you’ve got something

         interesting to do

I can’t get this fire

to burn any higher

Will you help me?

I can’t make the air

build a golden stair

Will you help me?

         If you help me

         I might help you    

         if you’ve got something

         interesting to do

There’s a lot of confusion going on

July 24, 2015  (I was 70)

There’s a lot of confusion going on

and that’s when some make money

A lot going on that is confusing

cashing in on something funny

There’s not a lot of winners winning

that haven’t won before

Not a lot of miners mining

a different breed of ore

Skip the lot of hooters hooting

not an owl among them sees

any wisdom in the shooting

stars shooting through the trees

So it is just a waiting game

July 23, 2008  (I was 63)

So it is just a waiting game

reduced to non-entity without a name

From the specific again to the general

the embodiment to the ephemeral

The building of nothing from the sublime

structure of now in the ever of time

The moon and howl not cause and effect

inflection and vowel not damned and elect

What can wait longest before it takes a turn

when the inevitable steers it astern

Edible red fruit reduced to seed

Was there a garden was there a need

Contract Negotiations

July 22, 1978  (I was 33)

Contract Negotiations

The organizer did all the real work

but no one called it that

figuring it was his life.

He had to explain the issues

explain that it was all right to demand dignity in labor

explain that the work was noble and good and valuable

explain that no God was appeased by sacrificing family

explain that the Company had big profits to share

that a job was a mutual transaction

that one need not be thankful to have and penitent to hold

that the collective power of the Worker is a force to be respected

that their division fostered the autocratic arrogance of management.

The organizer did all of that

and when he called for the vote and lost

he told them Some were meant to be peasants and slaves after all

something they had already known.

Touring Soudan Underground Iron Mine

July 21, 1976  (I was 31)

Touring Soudan Underground Iron Mine

Every green smile

pulled from under

the silly hard hats

issued at the entrance

tells the embarrassing truth

that we nineteen crammed

into this rumbling shovel bucket

on a cable to plummet

thirty-two hundred feet

through greenstone rock

and red vein ore

might ride this angle

all the way

to the darkest chamber

of this pyramid

to join with Julius

and his demon miners

screaming deaf from diamond bits

and pressure changes

five hundred forty fathoms

beneath an iron sea.

Pele ripples sky with her grey breath

July 20, 2008  (I was 63)

Pele ripples sky with her grey breath

shakes the wings of those flying in

to ask if we really want to land here

She knows we have nowhere else to go

and allows us to breeze in

kissing our feet as we touch down

to say she was only teasing

Aloha up close the breath of life

sulfuric acidic and most pleasing

The mechanical brush

July 19, 1978  (I was 33)

The mechanical brush as machines pass in the hallway

the spark that jumps from the lip of one electrode to another

the clap of like-charges meeting in midair

space hardware passing orbits after obligatory pirouette

modified mating move without the actual docking

a cool maneuver of recognition, a courtesy

Daytime programming never sells as well as night

The first time we listened to the alarm clock together

that was the beginning the impatient social harangue

standing naked and admitting obligation

bumping heads as we grabbed for the bell

Real Work

July 18, 1992  (I was 47)

         Real Work

I am trying to formulate a metaphor

         (when it probably should be discovered)

a metaphor of small rooms and solitary occupations

         (not a metaphor of cells and incarcerations –nothing penal)

a metaphor of security and containment –doctrinaire

a clandestine smoky environment absolutely exclusive

There is pursuit involved that might be obsessive

         (if it were not pursuit of disinterest)

a pursuit too casual to be academic

too peripheral to be intellectual

         (yet time consuming nevertheless)

a pastime more of impression than expression

It is the lazy animal consciousness

of a mammal with a roof over its head.

Family Music

July 17, 2009  (I was 64)

         Family Music

Once there was music

a pair of clarinets

in thin harmony and fragile strength

like hope and sunrise

bird call and answer

Once were molten golden notes

poured from bell of saxophone

pure liquid substance

permeated every room

like warmth and light

hits everyone around a fire

Once a complexity of melody

a galaxy of constellations

sparkled from a flute

to fill the density of heaven

like a continuity of wisdoms

that hold our myths together

Once there was music

made by those who could

Now only the percussive hammering

of one who could never hold a beat

An occasional lost echo

haunts a different reality

They went to war by choice

from this week in 2017  (I was 71)

They went to war by choice

to vent and give voice to rant

from a pent violence

They learned to kill

as a matter of will

Here’s your boots and how

your weapon shoots

You go to the desert

you dress like dirt

They take what they need to succeed

cover their bros’ backs

even when they seldom relax

Deployed rather than employed

never entreated utilized till depleted

In their minds fuses were lit

Things blew up to techno bits

They took what they need to survive

skills of the will and pills for the pains

Whatever they took they took home alive

Desperation lives in a singles apartment.

July 15, 1977  (I was 32)

         Desperation lives in a singles apartment.  He

drinks beer in the parking lot when he gets out of work at

11:00 pm.  When he is home his apartment door is open

and his chair is in direct line for viewing the hallway.  He

checks out anything that happens by.  He drives a black

sporty hardtop with gold and red striping. His life is waxed

and amplified.  His cool sounds filter down the hall.  This

guy’s first name is not Quiet.  He is on the firing line with

every chick that comes within range and he is in direct

competition with every other heterosexual male.  In mixed

company, all is fair.  In the company of other men, it’s

statistics, hits and misses.  He hates fags though he rather

suspects they find him quite appealing.

One by one I’ve slammed the doors

from this week in July 2017  (I was 72)

One by one I’ve slammed the doors

and had them slammed back at me

Mocking sounds curiously unfinal

as if there was something more to be heard

that no one cares to say

insincere admissions of guilt

humorous clinging to hopeless hopes

that any perception might be commonly shared

Without that achievements are meaningless

Our lives have become

petty failures of imagined magnitude

The result of unreasonable expectations

we did not deserve to have

Incident on Howard Street

July 13, 1976  (I was 31)

Incident on Howard Street

In Feldman’s Clothier where his mother had worked

a sales clerk asked me where I got my Dylan T-shirt

Certainly not in Hibbing I teased first

then smiled and told her Berkeley

She told me

she had been Bob’s next door neighbor

that she’d stored some of his stuff in her basement

I told her I grew up in Keewatin   

My wife graduated in Hibbing and knew his brother David

She said she was Mrs. Schneider

and one of her daughters graduated the same year

Bob removed his stuff some time ago

She served him coffee in her kitchen

and he gave her a signed copy of the album

with Blowin’ In The Wind on it

Later she saw a letter he wrote to his mother

Don’t believe all you read about me

I still brush my teeth everyday

Song Intention

July 12, 2013   (I was 68)

        

         Song Intention

The untold tale is the one we

live most fully now you see

beneath the layers of brown leaves

on the surface of memories

The primary consciousness dwells

in our deepest and darkest wells

and it’s echo makes you aware

that your shadow lives down there

It’s the untold tale that lurks beyond the light

the unsung song you hum through the night

The pulpy tale in the core seed

story essence not the deed

Mute awareness will not part

wrings itself to a cold dry heart

The energy source of our souls

costumes all our minor roles

unknown gems within the story

a subtle glow from the rocky quarry

It’s the untold tale that lurks beyond the light

the unsung song you hum through the night