For My Brother – Who Has Always Liked To Fish
In anticipation of dementia:
with a few words
he can be whipped
into shape
when his elastic line
of time stretches
and he waits
to be reeled back in
In anticipation of dementia:
with a few words
he can be whipped
into shape
when his elastic line
of time stretches
and he waits
to be reeled back in
what does the moon sing
when the dove flies beneath it
seeking her night’s rest
what does the sky feel
when the hawk soars deep inside
talons seeking food
what does the fog cry
when the sun has ambitions
to melt its soft heart
what does the earth think
and her sister the ocean
when poets wonder
after hashish
we trek to Tight Hollow
your translucent kimono
my SLR Canon
packed into a forest
so deep light flows
like sap
we undress
in a small bowl
carved out
of a flat boulder
we pretend to be
adam and eve
already
our musty scent
decays into a half life
Picking through bones
the hounds settle in for a fine dine,
no fights or instinctual
bickering over menu:
carcass of calf, eyes
plucked by black vultures.
The mother’s bawl breaks
my quite vespers
with the injustice of this
random dinner. In the dark sky
stars shine with emotionless light.
By dawn the dogs harass
the corpse under the fence
and my yard becomes a course
of rare veal. Cow, buzzards,
my night’s sleep – all denied
the chance to grieve.
Jim Lally
( 6/2/15)
It seems to be the same thing
over
and
over
again.
1) The number one leading cause of death in America is heart disease.
2) Exercise prevents heart disease, the number one leading cause of death in America.
3) If you are a sedentary rock, you will die of heart disease- the number one leading cause of death in America.
And, well, plank exercises
on sizzling concrete
have turned my elbows into
spicy scrambled eggs and
make it rather difficult
to type this all out without
shedding skin peels between
the laptop keys.
I could tell so many stories:
inhaling Papaw’s
Leather jacket and mountain laurel
on my first ride
through Red River Gorge,
Revving Nada tunnel,
the echo of horns
His lifting his helmet long enough to holler,
“Don’t get no better than this!”
Behind this Pinot Grisio and charcutrie tray,
Would anyone think to ask?
whose owner let him rust,
grime has worked its way into every crevice
and he’s escaped
the shop
to find someone
who can
reach his key
and
wind him up
Poem 17, June 17
Memory of Driving after a Snowstorm
I was thinking about you.
Particularly I was remembering
how you looked one night
when you answered the door.
It was not the pajamas you wore
that caught my eyes in the revealing light
from the ceiling. I drove trembling,
not from cold, rather from that memory of you,
& that is all I was thinking about until I glance
to my left. I thought I would love to have a farm
like the snow-covered one in the valley, a farmhouse
nestled far back, a barn not far away.
Having spent my youth, day after day,
milking Holstein and Ayrshire, seldom in the house
until late at night, I wondered why no internal alarm
went off. I thought how, if I had another chance
to watch red soil roll fescue into a plow’s furrow,
would I appreciate it as much now as I did then?
I remembered the scent of timothy & red clover rising
up to my nose as the sickle sang through,
& how mornings as I drove thirty cows, the dew
glistened on webs across the meadow. It is as surprising
to me now as those moments were when
quail or meadow lark would fly up, whistling arrow,
& leave me breathless the way you did on the night
& the moment darkness surrendered to the light.
Hello family,
I have been working very hard to become a Professional Rescuer.
It is a very serious job and people’s lives are at stake.
It is a lot of hard work.
We have class 9-11:30, pool 1-5, class 7-9:30. By 2:00,
I’m freezing in the pool. I do not have a lot of body fat!
The lifeguard director is going to put me on a weightlifting contract.
Instead of a swimming contract.
I’m excited because for a lot of the saves you need power.
Example, to get a passive submerged victim from the bottom of the pool.
I am making friends because of my personality and eno!
I missed Interlochen a lot and can’t wait to meet my campers!
If you could send as fast as possible, 2 jackets (the checkered and blue)
It gets cold.
