Spread Sheet

 

Dec. 30, 2015  (I was 71)

 

                  Spread Sheet

 

The accountant sets the figures in rows and columns

The arrangement of these ranks and files

is a story to be understood

swift smooth forward movements of addition

Leaps of multiplication make future projections

Offsets are deficits backtracking subtractions

that tell a different tale tone and direction

revelations on the other side of the point

The accountant knows fractions are where lives are lived

in the minutiae of the daily entry

that very human attempt to measure profit and loss

extending the graph of the big picture

once confined to a cabinet now stored in a cloud

 

It is repetition that makes us believe

 

from this week in 2015  (I was 71)

 

It is repetition that makes us believe

the lord has something up his sleeve

Nothing like a natural scare

to prompt us into fervent prayer

Nice to have a verse in mind

when we find us in a bind

Recalling something plenary

from our childish memory

gives us the hopeless hope

we’ve not yet been given

quite enough rope

Considered before sleep

 

from this week in November, 2015   (I was 71)

 

        Considered before sleep

Avoided Nam being young and dumb

student deferment through ’66

Graduated married a teacher a father

classified exempt until the lottery

Then turned twenty-six too old to be taken

reached a militarily untrainable age

locked in my recalcitrant ways

Dumb luck the smartest thing I did

Poi Boy

 

November 18, 2015  (I was 71)

 

                  Poi Boy

Morgan Toledo farms kalo in Waipio Valley

he and his family crew (it’s taro to you)

In watery fields they plant the shoots

nurture the leaves that broaden in the sun

as the roots swell in the sodden soil

They harvest bulbs bigger than grapefruits

From each they trim five new buds

then scrub and chop the dense tubers

They’ve mechanized to a mechanical crusher

eliminating the tedious pounding

Brother Henry tends to the mashing straining

mushing bagging and labeling by hand

manhandles maintenance of the new machine

Lavender paste with almost no waste

The demand is far greater than

five thousand pounds produced each week

Morgan Toledo has plans to expand

five times the plants next season

from newly cleared fields to nourish the industry

Locals complain fresh poi is five dollars a pound

When they think about it they pay it

She may run

 

October 19, 2015

 

She may run

when I can’t walk

She has fun

when she can talk

Though I may not be erected

she may be elected

I don’t know to what office

I’m leaking from an orifice

Asking why, I’d implore her

then probably vote for her

Today in Waldport Oregon

 

October 1, 2015  (I was 70)

 

     Today in Waldport Oregon

Forty-five years after the date

I optimistically predicted it would happen

smoke is drifting into the body of the legal system

I also thought it would alter attitudes

Such are the musings of those who think

they have encountered a path to a universal logic

An older friend raised a brow and dropped a jaw

Not in my lifetime he said and was tragically correct

Sometimes it takes a mobius path of persistence

to be turned down and around again at last

to come upon those whose motives methods and modes

only vaguely relate to my initial perceptions

The Intrinsic Connection ‘tween Magic and Evolution

 

Sept 27, 2015  (I was 70)

 

The Intrinsic Connection ‘tween Magic and Evolution

The magician nurtured deception

It kept him alive in the tribe

If skillful and cunning

he was seen as supernatural

Modest displays induced fear

feigned humility gained respect

Awarded the title of shaman

granted him time to observe and concoct

He crafted an arcana or aroused conviction

So was born scientist and charlatan

I changed my opinion of you

 

from this week in September, 2015 (I was 70)

 

I changed my opinion of you

when you turned away from the ocean

You stood under the palm staring up the mountain

Such is the place with no third choice

I was there to see you begin the slow ascent

No one seemed to notice your discreet departure

You reached the shadows of the trees

without turning another head

You changed tack to come up the fall line

cast away the anchor to catch the wind

I watched you breathe and imagined the scents

fragrant pine eucalyptus camphor and myrrh

I changed my opinion

Out of the house before anyone knew

 

August 17, 2015  (I was 70) 

Out of the house before anyone knew

across the park behind the band shell

at the village hall library read a mag

around the school closed for summer

past the Catholic church under the water tower

Through a neighborhood where neither of us lived

I saw the ghost in the trestle underpass

looking for me as he waited there

to walk beside along the tracks

The few who knew him didn’t see me

The few I knew did not see him

We walked past twilight in solitary accord

eager and content in the presence of silence

shared a language of few words

and other sounds drowned in darkness

How do I feel about:

 

from this week in July, 2015 (I was 70)

 

How do I feel about:

The law of averages

         So so I guess

The law of attraction 

I’m repelled by it

The law of supply and demand

         I want what I have

The law of the land

         So often the law of the landed

The law of diminishing returns

         Alas we all return diminished

To the victor go the spoils

         A spoiled victory

The law of cause and effect

         So convenient when valid

The law of gravity

         Grave enough

The law of badges

         A show of smell

The law of the jungle

         Eat all that you kill, love all that you eat

In the heat and light the bright seek shade

 

June 25, 2015  (I was 70)

 

In the heat and light the bright seek shade

One thousand words can replace a picture

It was tough going when the tough got up and left

It got the grease and was never heard mousing around again

There is only a little bravery in indiscretion

This man’s trove is that man’s rubbish

There was over-salted soup in a kitchen full of cooks

Next to God everything is clean

It wasn’t gold but it was gAUdy

We knew how big they were by the sound of their collapse

We knew what to do in Rome but not in Constantinople

It was the best laugh I ever had but it had to wait

Birds fulfill expectation without obligation

 

from this week in May, 2015  (I was 70)

 

Birds fulfill expectation without obligation

Their voices are always welcome

I don’t care who they are or what they say

Conscious awareness translates even the wind

The song Sunrise Serenade evokes WMFG radio

in Hibbing Minnesota winter 1952

lying on the carpet feet against the steam heat register

The theme and title of their morning programming

music and announcements of school closings

It was the season I learned to love the crows and owls

who stayed with me while the others flew

to Minneapolis and south to Iowa

Here in Hollywood the skree of turkey buzzard

is the archetypical sound to indicate desolation

desert isolation and desperate circumstance

The owls and crows asked and answered

They give their temperate and tropical cousins

the humor of contrast in their suburban tunes

The false pride of one who buys a house

 

from this week in May 2015 (I was 70)

 

The false pride of one who buys a house

after familial generations lived in huts

to live now among the estates others were born to

It is a failure to recognize the nature of humility and station

Wild plants grow only as tall as the windbreak

and as strong as the seed from which they sprout

Often the migrant in flight from one desperation

must learn to survive in another unaware

of new masters who never show themselves

behind the brand names they’ve invented

We are ever left appreciating pebbles among the gems

seeing through a magnifying glass while hearing

of the wonders found by those with telescopes

It’s the pretense of accomplishment by one

among those who own the accomplishments of many

 

The remains of my mother were buried today

 

March 25, 2015  (I was 70)

 

The remains of my mother were buried today

 

When he became the rose she became the brier

His heart blossomed her skin toughened

When petals fell she preserved the fragrance

in the very root of her yearning soul

Intemperate times strengthened the thorn

Attempts to wrest her hold on memory

met by stinging barbs of comparison

until after years no similes were needed

staunch years brittle and worn

Leafless sixty-four springs later she rests

next to him with so much to tell

 

In the Pleasanton Sports Park

January 13, 2015  (I was 70) 

 

In the Pleasanton Sports Park

a line of eighty foot pines

borders a path to a playground

plastic swings slides and climbing things

Last Wednesday was windy and whistling

an exhilarating walk through buffeting gusts

the evergreen’s dance as in a tribal trance

I go wherever I blow cried a kid on the monkey bars

Round the perimeter I picked up the pace

felt the gale blast back side then face

an agitation of worked up blood

rarely felt since a Northland youth

Sudden sounds of roots up torn and cracking limbs

from back on the path where I’d just been

Children yelled the huge tree fell

but this being Pleasanton it dropped the other way

Kids laughed and took pictures on their phones

Blown away alone I stood apart

Having grown up on the realistic Range

I found the outcome strange

The interpretations of the influences of chance

 

January 8, 2015  (I was 70)   

 

The interpretations of the influences of chance

reading the cards or the leaves in the cup

lines in the palm or drop of the sticks

the stars the stones the kernels the shadows

the figures in the clouds and the scorch in the pan

The feces of whatever species you revere

looked at long enough makes you a seer

Pick a random book off a random shelf

cut to random words relevant to your self

Right and left brain in tandem

tell you there is no random

Iconic things are the benchmarks of society

 

from this week in 2015  (I was 71)

Iconic things are the benchmarks of society

minor stabilities we take for granted

I’m not talking grand national monuments

I refer to the daily familiars that serve our craft

without reference to memorialization

 

The telephone evolved within a logical vision

for more than a century then morphed

into something different every year

and unrecognizable after five

The last thing you want to do with a phone is call

 

The key to the car or the front door

is no longer a tool to operate a mechanical lock

We gain entrance by unseen impulses

It changes the template in the way we think

We do not set the tumblers into motion

we depress a button and hope the order is sent

 

All rooms should have more books

than a rosary has beads

When you run your fingers over them

they recite a verse from within

a reason to justify the places they occupy

They signal an awareness of ideas

that continue to measure their relevance  

The menehune are serious folk

 

from this week in 2014 and2015  (I was 69 &70)

 

The menehune are serious folk

you can tell by how they play

In the dark it’s go for broke

on lava slide they made that day

 

Serious are the menehuene folk

You hear it in their songs

sung in throaty lower notes

against the throbbing gongs

                  *

The menehune are serious folk

they plant and pull and pound the poi

they be tough and gruff as any moke

to pry and punch and poke be joy

 

Serious are the menehune folks

they peel your fruit and steal your tools

practical are their kind of jokes

they no suffer gladly any fools

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

When the self-addressed stamped envelope

 

from this week in 2015  (I was 70)

 

When the self-addressed stamped envelope

returned marked Rejected

or stated so in curt form-letter language

I thought they meant the enclosed manuscript

But I was young and it was so much more

They rejected the very idea that it was worthwhile

for them to take the time to put it in the SASE

distasteful to moisten the glue to seal its fate

But they did it because it was their job

In the end they felt they had the final word

from some anonymous writer even if they had not

I learned to repay rejection with rejection

It is an easy thing to learn

At the farmers’ market an unsavory acquaintance

is easily ignored among the selection of peaches

The committee appointed to draft a mission statement

doesn’t miss a missing member

A class shouldn’t require dinner at the professor’s house

It is a presumption beyond the scope of course description

Reunions should be as brief and meaningless

as the memories they rekindle

So in spite I mailed another failure in

With a return envelope addressed to them