December 28, 2019 I was 75
Gee Theodore Roethke
I wish I coulda met thee
Even if just my Prof
probably woulda been enough
I'd laugh at your wit and your dance
give a shit if given half a chance
light side or dark side outsider inside
I'd listen to your stuff and know when's enough
from this week in December, 2019 (I was 75)
Whew
We work so hard to deify
the source of our belief
and as well to damnify
to bring our opposer grief
What we know we know so well
that any others belong in hell
We steal the truth like any thief
clap the sin from our hands in relief
December 10, 2019 (I was 75)
It is not that prayers go unanswered
but most often the answer is No
Not spoken emphatically but in tacit practice
Answered prayers so rare as to be
not miracles but fallen to the realm of coincidence
Unanswered prayers so numerous as to defy odds
randomness descending to inevitability
The fate of the lucky is to be doomed another day
often a matter of congenital circumstance
from November, 2019 (I was 75)
So often with partial mind
thinking seems inept
yet one-eyed sight is not blind
common sense and image kept
Inspiration needs a spark
deep thought seeks the dark
Most time we avoid the glare
to see our dappled shadow there
When rid of that shade inside
comes a task in view
Art and focus must decide
what half a mind can do
From this week in November, 2019 (I was 75)
The longer the story the less I believe
particularly if I’m telling it
The certainty we seek in detail
is obscured in patterned perception
related in rhetorical embellishment
Synonymous-ness is what we seek
to explain the inexplicable
What else was like what just happened
what other creature behaves as such
when was it we ever felt like this
In exacting a classification first
is found correspondence then distinction
Immediate constituents are purposefully adjacent
a functional significance in both
similarity and difference
from this week in November, 2019 (I was 74)
One learns the rules of the games
most common to the region
fields arenas or stadia
casino tables and race tracks
Games about winning require deception
How much can I get away with
It takes more skills than game skills
subterfuge something under the table
city council and Chamber of Commerce
subtle maneuvers and crass power grabs
psychological chicanery extortion
Stock market or bowling
It’s all about the roll over
How big are your balls
from this week in November, 2019 (I was 74)
The Perfect Fifth
Not the life within but the inner life
the two are not the same
The life within is of heart and lung
the vehicle we strive to maintain
The inner life floats parallel
but may drift ahead or drop behind
Llife within feels its mortality
Inner life invents eternity
riding on a cloud
*
If a story be told in verse
make sure the story may be sung
If the tale should languish on the tongue
attempting to tell more than it knows
all that language becomes a curse
and probably better laid out in prose
from this week in October, 2019 (I was 75)
The weight is a common metaphor
When applied its meaning is rarely mistaken
responsibility and expectation
Once taken up it must be carried
to satisfy a faulty perception
a self-conceived obligation
in the karmic progression of choices
a repayment of nothing owed
a vengeful protection of lost allegiance
the totality of guilts and regrets
that refuse to pass in time
the presumption of Atlas
refusing to cast it off his shoulders
a failure to laugh at a ridiculous endeavor
September 14, 2019 (I was 74)
My grandfather owned Joe’s Tavern
a three-two beer joint with a few old regulars
He was Croatian but some Serbs were among them
A couple thousand miles from home
can turn enemies into drinking buddies
My Uncle Pete owned the Vene Qua
just up the alley and across Hwy. 169 from Joe’s
The Qua had a hard liquor license
since it was home to the Legion Club
Anyway after Sunday Mass my cousin Peter
would have to clean up the place
It was an Iron Range mining town
One time I must have been 11 and Peter 13
I was with him sweeping up
(I refused to empty and rinse the spittoons)
After restocking the coolers
we would sample a recipe
from Uncle Pete’s Bartender’s Guide
Peter decided we’d try a martini
gin vermouth ice and an olive easy
It was so bad we tossed it and ate the olives
burnt our lips and couldn’t figure out
why they were so popular in the movies
from this week in September, 2019 (I was 74)
There is little to be understood about natural impulse
as it is unthinking it is unreflective
spontaneous and arbitrary
lacking cause and reason
unplanned and unconsidered
They say he had more guts than brains
thought going for broke was the only way to go
He flirted with death but courted disaster
wore a shirt that said Harebrained Audacity
from this week in August, 2019 (I was 74)
You say you want to migrate to Mars
Even at my most adventurous
I wouldn’t accompany you to Best Buy
Let alone a planet named for a War God
Left alone to my own device
I’ll become a citizen of the Old World
while you forage in the Newer Frontier
We’ll refer to you as The Colonies
and repeat exaggerated stories
of your encounters with the Natives
Not even your discovery of gold and platinum
would lure me to share your artificial atmosphere
July 4, 2019 (I was 74)
Are These Connected?
Inversion is a first attempt at rejection
repudiation a word learned later
The difference between
I shall turn the world around and
I’ll kick the world in the ass
Ambition is always a case of eating
fast enough to avoid being eaten
Just because you can’t think of it right now
doesn’t mean you’ll think of it later
Sure I could say I’ll try to be nicer but
abrasion has its qualities
in eventually smoothing things out
so they can take the shine
The Poets’ Basketball team:
The Iambic Five
June 12, 2019 (I was 74)
I have never been that man
though that man passes through me
I take note of that man
though that man notes me not
I am as invisible to his sight
as he is vivid within mine
his expression my impression
Effortlessly that man’s thoughts become his actions
more clumsily my actions merely thought
May 20, 2019 (I was 74)
We are given to play with the light of day
given to fright at the dark of night
taken to mark the sound of the lark
bound by the pound of waves on rock
halted under the echoes from caves that talk
ponder what is meant in the lavender scent
chill in the taste of a scavenger for waste
We thrill at the touch of velvet on skin
Such is the sense of enchantment we’re in
from this week in 2019 (I was 74)
If Rosa Parks had a car
she’da run down old Jim Crow
History determined her a star
It’s just the way karma go
Inevitable’s inevitable
April 13, 2019 (I was 74)
By U S standards
I may not be well off
but I am excessful
learned how to want
what was possible to get
and got possibly
more than I deserve
and the nagging fat
that goes with that
What degree of comfort is illegal
in a place unknown for its restraint
and where charity must be deductible
March 3, 2019 (I was 74)
Finding the way strewn with stones
that man fled lightly and quickly across them
Through a driving snowstorm he trod
upon the indentations of those gone before
reaffirming footsteps for those who follow
Across the rope bridge over the river
one bare foot carefully in front of the other
tried the resilience and influence of sway
At a crossroad chose without hesitation
between paths worn really about the same
knowing either led exactly where he was to go
Passing within a village or city he came to know
his destiny was not a destination
February 15, 2019 (I was 74)
The day was a swirl and flow of eddies
Grey clouds curling round the comet of blue
Do-se-do called by the gusting wind
Bright streaks of rain through sunlit sky
Curtsy and bow of bay and pine to circle round
Bobbing heads and twisting trunks
Song and sway of feng shui
Turn and return of two seasons at once
Verse and reverse weather going and coming
in decided indecision of Yang and Yin
Every moment not busy being winter
was busy being spring
Putting on and taking off apparel
appropriate gesture for a state of mind
A youthful embrace of the natural elements
experienced caution encountering extremities
remembering the dance that others now dance
Breath of air washed cold and clean
mindful iteration and reiteration
from this week in February, 2019 (I was 74)
I’m envious of the facility of fingers on strings
to vibrate the air with music
the vision of the artist who perceives the light
in the colors applied to the canvass
the discipline of an athlete who has honed a body
to accommodate the requirements of motion
I admire the sequences of deduction
that narrow the scope of speculation
regarding the possibility of purpose
from this week of 2019 (I was 74)
Poets on Poetry Speaking to Me
Why hasn’t America won the battle of the Iambic Five? -Karl Shapiro
Frost had particular poems he said he “liked saying” -Robert Frost
I think I am a saying poet -John Ciardi
hearing the words as if they were spoken to me -Ray Sheele
like conversation…not so long it taxes attention -Marianne Moore
I like the spare interactive play of talk -Josephine Miles
I can read aloud in my natural speaking voice -John Holmes
Those I took least seriously were least labored -Michael Hamburger
without forethought as if it were waiting in the wings -Howard Moss
to surprise me with how much more I knew than I knew -Robert Wallace
written quickly with rightness and concentration -Elizabeth Jennings seems to carry within itself a melody I can hear -Langston Hughes
the parts at play with one another -Brewster Ghiselin
to say something with as much simple lucidity as I could -William Dickey
progress through images to a point it makes a statement -Galway Kinnell
you realize something you could not understand before -Greg Corso
I fancy it sounds like a different better poet than myself -Philip Larkin
planned and grand and helter skelter and unexpected -Robert Lowell
rooted in the secrecy of life and means more than it says -Stanley Kunitz
a mix truth & lies I don’t feel like confessing which is which -Ann Sexton
and an impulse to maintain dynamic interplay of the two -Denise Levertov
Realization of the utter amazement of finding myself alive -Alastair Reid
