Just another poem about the Apocalypse followed by reflection

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

First the city went to the dogs
And then it went to the cats
Great cats prowling the streets
Crossed at the crosswalks
Merged with shadows on Broadway
Invisible to almost every eye that dared look

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

Take the elevator to the seventh floor
With guns ready safety off
Enter the gallery
Pretend to look at art
Have a snotty thought
How does this improve the world?

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

Say something to the man in the vest
Are you the artist?
No Are you?
Leave with him
Take the island ferry
Talk in the stern by the wake

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

Talk about your life
Open your heart
Toss your cigarette into the turbulence
As if it were an old movie
Toss in your wallet too
Ask the man in the vest to show you his wings

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

As the lights of the buildings wink on
And the whole city begins to vibrate
And swell with a myriad of tiny voices
And the boat has stopped
And begins to rise like a great white riverboat
Now leap back to the earth

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

From the floating palace made of bones
Walk back to the city on the water of the bay
You don’t often get a chance
To walk on water filthy or not
But never doubt
Or the cats will pounce

Shoot before you get shot
Fly the coop and don’t be late
Make a beeline for the finish line
Duck the clothesline
Speed up at the stop sign

………..

Reflection:

I have a friend who had a big dream recently that was full of apocalyptic symbolism. In her dream there were catamounts prowling the city streets. It was very ominous because nobody could be sure where they were. They would appear and vanish just as they do in the forest. (They were even in the buildings.) Here in Vermont catamounts are supposed to be extinct but every once in a while there are sightings. A friend of mine and his wife saw one cross right in front of their car on a remote country road and I once saw a perfect footprint about the size of my palm in the silt of a drying up streambed when I was walking in the mountains off-trail and it was not a bear-print. The image of the great cats moving into the city also reminds me of the beginning of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” when Casca reports to Cicero that he encountered a lion on his way to the capital, a strange portent in itself, but the strangest part was, the lion ignored him. This picture, of a preoccupied lion walking through the streets of Rome, has stayed with me for 40 years. It always felt eerily timely to me. Would any sane person deny that we are living in Apocalyptic times, now more than ever, with the president (our Caesar) lying a hospital bed with Covid? Like Caesar, he is tragically clueless and has been ignoring all the omens of a world that is hanging in the balance. He may not have a soothsayer, or a wise and prescient wife, but he consults the polls, (his oracle), and most polls are stacked against him.     

One thing I want to point out is how fast the poem is moving right from the start. I want the reader to jump in and feel swept along, nervous and defensive, looking over their shoulder, distrustful of every shadow. I also want the poem be light-weight rather than oppressive or heavy-hitting. The chorus and stanzas are embedded with lines that are supposed to make us smile, such as “duck the clothesline” and “toss your wallet in too”.

Don’t delete followed by brief reflection

Don’t delete

Please don’t delete

Whatever you do don’t delete

If you read just one poem today

This message could make you rich

You have been selected

Offer will expire

Act now or

Don’t

Don’

Do

Delete

…………
Reflection: This is a light poem. Sometimes I realize I need to lighten up, as a poet I mean. After writing a poem like “Outside”, there is a part of me, a shier part of me, that is like that student in the 5th row whose face is red and he is slumping in his chair, but his hand is raised to about the level of where his head would be if he wasn’t slumping. Yes? He says: I have a poem. The rest of the fantasy is, the class likes it and he feels encouraged to share more of his poems in the future, all of which are on the light side and some are quite funny. I may be calling on him some more these days!

Outside and a reflection on its writing

1

I’m tired of periods and
Words that end sentences

I’m tired of waking up to
Days that end in oblivion

I’m tired of writing sentences
This sentence is out of order

I am at a mountain lodge
I am the timekeeper

The workshop gets started
The conference room is filling up with students

Papers are being handed around
I hand his watch back to the facilitator

I am outside of time
When I have my phone

There are no mountains
I don’t have my phone

I am out of time
When I look at the mountain

Outside the window
I am outside

A purple cloud is behind the mountains
The mountains are behind this poem

This poem is behind time
This poem will never end

It isn’t about anything
I’m tired of this poem

2

I’m tired of this poem
It isn’t about anything

This poem will never end
This poem is behind time

The mountains are behind this poem
A purple cloud is behind the mountains

I am outside
Outside the window

When I look at the mountains
I am out of time

I don’t have my phone
There are no mountains

When I have my phone
I am outside of time

I hand his watch back to the facilitator
Papers are being handed around

The conference room is filling up with students
The workshop gets started

I am the timekeeper
I am at a mountain lodge

This sentence is out of order
I’m tired of writing sentences

Days that end in oblivion
I’m tired of waking up to

Words that end sentences
I’m tired of periods and

””””””
Reflection:
In this poem I am stalking continuity, both as a dreamer (since the poem is exploring a dream) and as a poet (the poem being the whole universe of the experiment). Achieving continuity requires the ability to move in and out of time and in and out of the conventions of language, for example, escaping the oppression of the period, or the “complete sentence” or even the linear thought. So the purple cloud is behind the mountain, the mountain is behind the poem and the poem is behind time. Where am I? I am with the poem but #1 states in the last line: “I am tired of this poem”. If that was all I wrote that might be concerning!

One solution to escaping the downward spiral of part 1, which involves the reader, is to track the lines of the poem backwards. By so doing I solve certain problems, one being the problem of being stuck inside the controlled narrative. Another solution is to give myself permission to use a sentence that is “out of place”. (Within the universe of the poem, this is equivalent to a tectonic shift.) Another is to be honest, within the poem, of my own waning interest in the poem I am writing. Fatigue during the writing process is not unusual by itself, but working into the poem bespeaks a kind of lucidity. (We have all heard of lucid dreaming, but there is also lucid writing.)

Apparently I am saying that with my phone (with everything that represents) there are no mountains and presumably when I have my phone, I am not outside, not really. Without my phone I am where I can see the mountains and I am outside of time.

In #2 In the very middle of the poem I hand the watch back to the facilitator. That means I have stepped into being a lucid time-keeper. I don’t need the watch to keep track of (worldly) time anymore. I am in the workshop but all I have to do is look out the window and I am “out of time” with the mountain. #2 ends with “and” with no period.

In writing this poem, I have transcended the poem that I am “tired of”, that is, I have stepped free of the poem that is about nothing. . . I think what I mean by “this poem isn’t about anything” is that nothing I can write about holds up to the timeless reality of the mountain, which (if you read between the lines) is where I am heading.

However that doesn’t mean I am leaving this worldly life just yet, but it does seem like I am figuring out what that might look like when I do, by choice or by dying.

Two poems for these pandemic times followed by a brief reflection

Cherry tomatoes

On the deck
Tomato vines wander

Cherry tomatoes
Red as lipstick

Hang in a cluster
Behind the railing

Right where we
(And even the chipmunk)

Failed to spot them
Until I happened to be

Looking out the living room window
Dancing to Smokey Robinson

Estate Sale

I

We pass an estate sale
And pull over.

In the shade of a few maples
3, 4 and 5 dollar tables

The books are 50 cents
Spread out on a blanket.

We don’t need anything:
(We just don’t want to go home yet.)

No furniture, vases, bookends
Ornate hairpins

Trivets, mirrors
Lamps, mugs or plates. . .

But then I spy
A little yellowed

Staple-bound
Victorian era booklet:

“Old Mother Mitten
And Her Funny Kitten”

II

“The dog and the cat
Were having a chat

When pussy cried out with a mew,
Dear old Mother Mitten,

Just look at your kitten
She’s going to drink mead with you.

When the supper was over,
The kitten moreover,

Did stand on the top of her head.
So the dog he declares,

They must sleep in their chairs,
And none of them got into bed.”

III

This book made me smile
Which I hadn’t for a while

My sense of humor was lit.
I read it with pleasure

This serendipitous treasure
Of quirky Victorian wit.

All the way home
I was lost in this poem

In a parallel world if you will.
If things just get worse

I will live in my verse
While everything else goes to hell.
…………..
Reflection: Both of these poems offer snapshots of a life during Covid. Both are a little quirky or written from an eccentric, (unselfconsciously self-centered?) perspective. For example, the tomato vine does not grow around its pot but “wanders” over the railing where it fruits in hiding. Dancing to Smokey Robinson is also a very private or possibly secretive activity, in that the dancer is dancing alone, in his own space, enjoying an old Motown hit. In Estate Sale, the discovery of the Victorian booklet is like diving down the quintessential rabbit hole. The description of the cat drinking mead with Old Mother Mitten and the dog, balancing on her head and sleeping off her hangover in a chair is reminiscent of Alice’s Adventures Underground (original title of Alice in Wonderland). In these poems I wanted to explore how Covid has turned the world upside down, so sometimes it might feel like we are dancing on our head or dealing with a hangover or losing ourselves in rabbit holes where nothing is as it appears.

Frogs followed by a brief reflection

We approach the pond
Leaving our shoes

In the wet grass
The frogs jump

In a chain reaction
The closest ones first

The sound of little splashes
Then we settle

Watching them slowly return
The mirror to the water
………..
Reflection:

I broke this poem up into two-line stanzas to go with the haiku character of the imagery. The poem is like a guided meditation moving from sense to sense. The first two lines are the threshold, the second two lines are sensual or tactile. (Our shoes are off, the grass is wet.) The third stanza is the least sensual, mostly descriptive. In the fourth stanza the imagery is auditory and the last stanza is visual and meditative. We have already settled but the frogs have to settle before the water returns to how it was before our presence alarmed them.

Summer job followed by a memory

 
His job today is to learn to tie his shoe
His father’s last stern words
No lunch until you tie your shoe
 
Neither of us looking forward to the looming ordeal
We spent the morning outside
Taking advantage of a beautiful day
 
By 11:30 we were getting hungry
Time for the dreaded tying of the shoe
I picked a little park where there were no distractions
 
He untied his shoe and looked far away
OK give it your best shot I said
Do you want me to get you started?
 
He looked at me soberly and nodded
Your turn now I said watching him tighten up
But after just one loop he panicked
 
I can’t do it Gary Don’t make me do it
Tears began to flow Such depths of despair
As I had never seen I tied his shoe for him
 
Let’s get lunch I said
Everyone knew him The usual?
There’s that smile that makes my day
 
The whole time he was eating his sub
I was imagining his father’s interrogation
His angelic face a vision of perfect joy
 
……………..
Reflection:
This is a true story. About 20 years ago I worked with a young man who had Down’s Syndrome. My job was to accompany him throughout his day, get him out of the house into the community and help him have a good summer. He was a happy person and was easy to be with. His father was the problem. He was strict and grouchy. I remember the relief I felt of driving out of their driveway in the morning heading out into a beautiful day. There is another story I like to tell about working with this man. He had a heart-connection with those who have passed away. One time we were driving past a wake and he politely but persuasively begged me to stop so he could pay his respects. I thought of the repercussions if his father found out that I let him attend a wake. I pulled over and explained that you have to be invited to a wake. He broke down sobbing, “But these are my people!” That plaintive declaration still rings in my ears.