from this week in February 1975 (I was 30)
Every tender sparrow…
those final flutterings
where hopes are denied
dreams resolved
the day is brightest
the air is clear
the stone will not fly
it wants the soft earth
the warm sun
the seed left in the clay
*
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is small
Hell my Uncle Nick could have painted it
It would then of course be entirely green
and up close smell of alcohol
January 8, 2012 (I was 67)
We are grown children
attentively inattentive to our parents
as our children attend to us
We want the care for our family
despite the family’s care of us
We are the grown children
cynical skeptics of our children’s dreams
doubting now we would ever dare
dream the perfect worlds we saw when
our parents dared their incredulous sarcasm
January 1, 2010 (I was 65)
Who Decides?
I sit next to her wheelchair at lunch.
I feed her. She eats everything.
She drinks juice milk water then coffee,
coffee with her cake. I make sure
the pieces are small. She looks at me.
She likes to hold my hand.
I stroke her cheek and her hair.
She looks at me as if she knows me.
A caretaker comes by, says, “Hello Rose.”
She looks at him and points at me.
“You have a visitor today, how nice.”
She looks at him and points at me,
“My father,” she says and looks at me.
The caretaker moves to the next table.
She looks at me, You look younger,” she says.
I smile at her, “So do you. You look younger.”
I take her hand again. I remember the coma.
I remember the pneumonia, the conference
regarding extreme measures. My wishes
my instructions, her comfort, her quality of life.
Now she finishes her lunch and looks at me
puzzled. Her forehead wrinkles in thought.
Her lips move soundlessly. She looks at me
and squeezes my hand. “Who decided?”
She glances around then looks at me,
“Who decides?” Instead of answering
I squeeze her hand. This Christmas
my family gives me things I need,
they are sure, a different car,
a computer with much more memory,
a subscription to a movie service.
I protest, I don’t need all this.
They say I deserve it. I look at them
and wonder who decides?
November 7, 2017 (I was 72)
Later that year he died but before that
he had designed and made a model house
of balsa frame and beams an accomplishment
a step up for a draftsman’s dream of architecture
I didn’t know he’d done it nor the hours it took
too young to have an understanding of any of it
From the backseat of the car I watched
He carried it out the door of the office in the rain
both arms under it as if he held the earth beneath
I’m sure I saw him smile coming through the wet until
I saw him slip and toss it airborne for ghastly seconds
before it shattered and splintered between us
from this week in October, 2010 (I was 65)
When did the first identity I might recognize
patch from an ancestor unknown
even a single generation ago
part of its soul into me
If they knew no one talked
If they wrote no one kept the script
If they sang no song was ever heard
I have not any art from them
from this week in September, 1976 (I was 31)
Occurrence at Sea
The Titanic has gone down in the waterbed
You made waves and there were no survivors this time
Clifton Webb and Debby Reynolds straight to the vinyl liner
No more to sing about there
I was too far gone to observe the individual rituals
Each water logged page of every sunken story print dissolving
Me clinging prone to a rubber raft in another ocean
The warm Mediterranean enclosed by continents
Away from tempestuous North Atlantic whitewater ocean storms
Icebergs with their cold asses beneath the sheet
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 2013 (I was 68)
The life of my wife is a grand success
she pushes the forward button
with determined persistence
moves things out of the way
or drags them along with her
She has a fear of finishing things
until she has begun two or three more
She sees the simple solution to complexity
but also draws out infinite detail
to explain nuances she has found
in any unanimous agreement
June 5, 2011 (I was 66)
My mother was on the Village Council
She first ran when I was twelve
I didn’t know she was going to do it
My wife is on the City Council
Been married twenty-five years before she ran
I didn’t know she was going to do it
I know I did not cause it
Forget the psychology of the subconscious
or purposeful co-incidence
It was not my fault
Really
I could never stand to sit
so long in long meetings
my mother to decide where the one
new street light would go
exactly
my wife to study survey consider
cross-town routes with freeway access
and judicial zoning to include affordable housing
but both of them mostly
to confront the guy whose pit bull broke
through the fence again
from this week in May, 1967 (I was 22)
Anniversary of My Father’s Death
If after my dissolution
Another life shall be,
I must confront my father
To see what part of him is me.
We both were young for death
So now we would renew
With mellowed eyes the expired years
In a consummate review.
But if (and more likely so)
The grave grants no volition,
I’ll lie cold and stiff and still
And rot in ancestral tradition.
April 7, 2013 (I was 68)
Read us a story we’d say
and of course we meant one each
Comic books before bed
and she would The three of us
atop the double bed she’d read
Little Lulu, Uncle Scrooge, Daffy Duck
Maybe Superman or Batman
Real super heroes were my solitary literature
Blackhawk
an international team of ethnic Caucasian stereotypes
Andre, Olaf, Stanislaus, Hendrickson, Chuck, Blackhawk
and the non-uniformed almost mascot Chop-Chop
who carried a cleaver for a weapon
Later often amused by Archie
I would prefer Betty to snobby Veronica
and Jughead saved us all from being jugheads
We grew out of her reading and the comics
But the peaceful choice to be engaged
in little communal stories never left me
How foolish would it be
to read them to her now, share again
small predictabilities and satisfactory conclusions
A good start for tomorrow before we ended 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
January 24, 2012 (I was 67)
Old Home movies recorded the artifice
we put in front of the camera
Even subjects caught candidly
viewed at this later date are characters
not the realities we thought they were
Their extemporaneous gestures have been exposed
For generations Hollywood caught wide emotion in Cinemascope
while our family demeanors captured the small screen
awkward impromptu interpretations of acting
No more! Home theaters Make Everything Epic!
One reality is as real as the other
With electronic edits added music and voice over
we can make it as unreal as it is supposed to be
January 14, 2012 (I was 67)
origami family
Folds in the single sheet of paper
create the geometrical planes we name
as individual shapes existing at angled
relationships to one another reflecting
varied shades of light ever more
intricately multi-plying patterns
one fold crosses another fold
as if they were separate entities
moving in opposite directions
through the origami universe
December 16, 2006 (I was 62)
family out there
Long it seemed like circumstance
moved the family along its way
an epidemic that made one listen
a death to change a dream
iron mine shut down for good
burned buildings to make one move
Storms in the winter won’t let you go
thaw of summer says get out now
Once I heard voices I had to make choices
choice by chance rarely by reason
beyond convenience expedience or season
Fearing not knowing fearing inability to know
No world to match the vision
no ambition to match the world
I’ve had neither the heat nor light
to bring us all together
We occupy our different days
In my haze I wonder about your weather
November 29, 1969 (I was 25)
Disturbed by my love
and my child’s nightmare
I stood beside the crib
trying to communicate strength
compassion and security
massaging her quaking form
firm back and smooth round ass
when I suddenly worried
that her dream was of me
October 27, 2007 (I was 62)
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
October 5, 1998 (I was 53)
My contribution to the talent gene pool
is marching tonight in practice
to the music of Zorro on the Amador field
senior Nathan and freshman Lauren
a week or so before the first field show
The band sounds strong this Indian summer evening
from our second story window three blocks away
I am proud to hear them define the moment for me
their public expression against my private reflection
During silences they receive criticism instruction praise
and the yard fountain resumes its melodies
a bus accelerates in arpeggio
the timpanic jet liner drones above Then the band
gallops out of the night under the pale moon light…
My 50% improvement by dilution is marching tonight
with a cadenced discipline and instrumental force
I hope will sustain heroic perceptions of self
from this week of September, 2014 (I was 69)
If you walk by the fountain
you will be calmed by its waters
If you walk in the desert
the hot sun will set to cool night
If you drift on the feathered breeze
you will light on the dewy grass
This is what the flute says
as you listen alone in dim light
Its notes bring the conscious breath
into plain sight the hum of life
From within her creative being
the musician colors the air
September 15, 2011 (I was 56)
In home movies more than sixty years ago
the family poses grouped as for a still shot
They don’t know what to do after the first click
keeps on clicking they look uneasy
Then they each wave their idiosyncratic salute
obviously on cue from the director/cameraman
as one by one they walk toward the lens
smiling as they are reminded in passing
leaving the frame which pans Grandma’s garden
The cameos are standard improvs
Grandma pointing to tomato plants blushing
The back screen door of his tavern opens
Grandpa steps out already looking older than he is
Young boy dons a leather football helmet
Young girl almost cartwheels on the lawn
Aunt Lucy turns to hide behind a tree
In the alley cars new then and humorous later
are classic relics now more well-remembered
than anyone who drove them
