Pine Mountain Cemetery VIII
Tuck and Lige
There’s more than one secret resting
On this steep hill under stones or not.
Lige is buried just to the right, but
What you can’t see next to him lies
The best kin he swore he ever had. A
Kentucky Heeler, the village knew as Tuck.
For dogs, even good ones like Tuck, one
Finds a likely spot and that’s the end of it.
Not for Tuck. Never was that near enough.
Once saved Lige from a rattler in a battle
Scary enough to make a grown man run.
Dead snake, sick dog, long nights.
Another time he found a corn crib rat hole,
Smart enough to save the crop. Pigs
And Lige were grateful when snow flew.
Never a stranger crept onto the cabin,
Salesmen went round the other way, Tuck’s
Growl meant don’t think to mess with us.
More than snakes, rats and drummers
That dog was brother, child and mate.
He kept the house and man warm, safe.
Lige carried him up in dead of night, dug
Deep, wept, laid him in a soft leaf bed.
Kept silent, bought the lot so to rest right there.
Cemetery could and would see lot worse than
A friend that gifted every breath to a man
Who needed the love and care Tuck freely gave.
clock –
determine time
The clock returns
an approximation of time used.
The time used so far;
the number of seconds.
The standard allows for arbitrary
values at the start;
subtract the value returned from clock
to get maximum.
Note that the time can wrap around.
On several implementations,
the value returned by clock also includes
the times of any waited-for children.
(separate) information about the caller
and its children, may be preferable.
clock was implemented on top of times.
—
Found poem (erasure) from the Linux man pages
Original text:
https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/clock.3.html
When I close my eyes
shapes outline the darkness there
but don’t blot it out.
O big-toothed shark, giant
python & elephant sloth, I’m not the type
to kneel at the altar, but ribs, jaws,
& teeth of the Pliocene Epoch I cling
to your tough remnants.
What it must have been before gas
pump & bullet. Before light switch
& cockpit. Your swampy
church with its jumble of snails
& slugs. Your warm oceans
gurgling multitudes. Cousins
in the thick trees with their long
red-brown arms & lemon-sized
brains. O gibbon, swinging branch
to branch. O orangutan, roving
the floor of the forest. I bow
to you as you nest high
in the trees, as you tramp
out a path for me, an arrogant
humanoid, waiting with weapons.
The manifesto of thunder
written in its electric scrawl
lightning carving a darkened sky
an anvil hammering sound
Lightning has a rich script
cursive, jagged, jolting
the sound of chaos chasing each line
there’s an order to the disorder
But what message can we read
tucked between those lightning flashes
chaos in cursive script
what’s the writing in the sky?
This storm is no Morse code
lightning has become a knife
carving its message in the sky
this is the manifesto of thunder
The Rattlesnake coffee
slithered down my chin.
You made a chiding noise–
I stopped
my impulse
to clean myself.
You kissed the drink
clean from my mouth and face.
Two more times, I repeated the mistake
but not too much by mistake.
A gray cloud wafting
Rests
Over my head
A black crow walking
Stops
On the sidewalk
The baby next door-ing
Looks
She wears a hat.
Where is her briefcase?
Everything is absurd.
The king watched over his kingdom on top the highest tower,
Ruling his subjects with grace and contentment,
He believed his rule will be long and prosperous,
The king was wrong,
Within the week a single person ruined him and his kingdom,
Now he walks ruins at night,
Remembering what was,
Thinking how he’ll never be the same
I avoid the formal poem.
I realize this is about control.
Like an aperture, I only let in so much–
I was once a very different person,
I realize.
This is.
About control, I try and keep a clear mind.
I was once a very different person
easily hurt by the actions of others
I held close.
A clear mind
isn’t the most fun, but
easily, hurt? Nah.
The actions of others?
I held.
Close.
