Posts for 2020 (page 70)

One  

The war didn’t come to the streets of this city. Not this time. Perhaps another. Still, little boys dress as pilots, with wings on their tunics and pistols in the holsters of their Sam Brown belts. Serious-faced girls wearing nurses’ caps and aprons paint the flyers’ flesh wounds with food coloring before applying bandages. Nobody cries. Nobody dons angels’ wings. It’s just a game.  

Two  

The street is damp, littered by shattered apartment walls, overturned flower pots, the empty helmets of absent soldiers. This war is ending. A boy in dirty clothes and ragged shoes picks through a sprawl of broken rifles, while his sister examines a sewing basket thrown from the next street by a blast. Overhead, the latest occupiers change flags on the higher parapets and rooftops. There are ripples of cheering and impromptu celebrations.  

Three  

The streets are safe for civilians now that the guns are silent, the bombers made redundant. The clean-up is well underway, with rubble gathered neatly and papers checked for fugitives. Up the street, a man with a briefcase glances at the camera, as does a closer woman holding another man’s arm. Some things can’t be undone, set right, like his shattered eyes or the burn-scars distorting her left leg  

in her last hours
oxygen levels dropping,
my mother, blind for many years,
describes her hospital room
and gets the colors right  

secured in silence
the monitors and machines now turned off  

she feverishly leads a charge
up and over a mysterious hill, urging
her comrades to make haste  

now visits Camp Louise, lectures
her campers on how to use
their wood carving tools safely              

hears the Philadelphia orchestra, nods
to the music, but can’t tell me
the name of the piece    

she holds my hand, feels my ring   
   and in a voice clearly meant for a young child:    
      This feels very pretty, little girl.  Who gave this to you?  

My Mommy, I answer, thinking we are playing  

Ah, your mommy must love you very much         
      she says to the unknown child in front of her  

Yes, she does, I attest, while she slips further                     
Yes, she does

Let’s all get up and dance
to a song that was a hit
before your mother was born,
though she was born a long,
long time ago. Your mother should know.
Your mother should know. Uhhh-oh!

This is one of those spells that
work best at crossroads.

It also helps to bring along
your favorite orienteer.

Calm your mind-
Remember all of this is only fabric.

Time and
space are
easier to bend around the New Moon in Cancer,
often close to a Solstice.

If you plan well and pack right,
a good Equinox will do.

Gather your materials:

— a few anointed candles
(rubbing the outsides with cooking spray while
singing with Duran Duran, David Bowie,
or whoever calls to you from a past decade
will do in a pinch),

— a companion who conveys
“Yes! Do that!” when you mention
the tiny tugs that amuse your heart
(this can and should be you),

— a bundle of sage
(best if from a dear friend- but any incense
or even a stick will suffice.
Just get something that once grew.)

This spell really works.
There aren’t any publishable details.
It’s made of wonder, trust,
praise songs, and gravity wells.

Science
backs it up. Science
and holistics and magick
support each other, like clockwork.
Here’s proof:

— All the times
you were mistaken
for someone else
who must move and look like you
in a space you’ve only
occupied for a few years, but you’ve
yet to spot such a twin.

— Deja Vu.

— The Philadelphia Experiment
(never talk about it while
traveling foreign roads unless
you’re willing to get a little lost).

— Places where the crossroads
mirror each other. One gas station
and the same gas station
catty corner
(that’s where time was bent
so well that even commerce
could not unbend it).

When you are finished,
it is normal to feel doubt.

It is then that we recommend
you wait 3 days and ask a neighbor
if they can spare a wormhole.

Their answer will indicate
how effectively your spell took
(success might take multiple rites).

Their answer has nothing to do
with how fortunate you are to have
your neighbors.

Alternatively,
offer The Vivaldi Earworm
to a cat, a fox, a possum,
a rabbit or a raccoon. Wait.
If they even once disappear,
leave their prints, or multiply
anywhere within the span
of what passes as 8 days, you know.

To see where time leads, feed
a historian, a psychic, an economist,
a political theorist, a psychologist, or any scientist.

When you’re ready to make time
stand still, sponsor a painter,
a photographer,
a baker or a cook. Artisans
of cheese and liquors also work.

To steal time, plan ahead.

When there’s a
storm
coming
and the dog
hides
under the bed
shaking
and the little hairs
stand up all over
your body
and the
weather radio
blares
listing alert
after alert
for your area,
so you drink a
beer and sit at
the kitchen table
hoping
the dark sky
isn’t as ominous
as it looks,
hoping
at least the
electric
won’t go out
because despite
the ongoing
pandemic,
you have deadlines
and online meetings
and a to-do list,
hoping the
static
coursing through
your body brings
productivity
or change
or something good
and doesn’t mean
you’ll be huddled
in the basement
with your kids
at midnight
again.

Once a year I get to reflect

on all I’ve ever known a man to be.

Which is to say absolutely nothing.

I am fatherlessly fathered.

I remember whose freckles I have.

Whose clenched fist and rolled tongue.

My fatherless Father’s Day

is the elephant in my therapy chart.

My Freudian slip.

That daddy kink I have yet

to develop fully.

I grieve a life

not yet complete.

I grieve a life

I’ll never have

and perhaps

always deserved.

An ambiguous mourning

walking herself down an aisle.

Imagine a holiday,

exactly for that.

To be back on the river
To be back in the concert hall
Among the trees
Among the lights

I have never needed to run
or to be in a library
this badly in my entire life

And with the time apart
The currents will seem softer
The information more valuable
The rehearsals more sacred

I will remember this
forever
taking nothing for granted ever again

and knowing
that nothing will ever
(or should ever)
be the same ever again.

The sun has moved
only an inch
in four and a half thousand years.
Should I admire

suddenly anxiety surfaces
met with resistance and some remorse
why am I misunderstood
people have a way of twisting accounts
actually, the anxiety is ever present, it does not arrive perchance
I have news and it’s somber
what you expect might not ever be
try to see the positive, cheering myself as best I can
I will prevail
even in melancholy because what choice do I have

Yesterday, my nephew turned a month old
and I’ve just now gotten the opportunity
to see him for the first time,
a long overdue visit incorporated
into long anticipated vacation,
a chance to finally get out for a while.

I had hoped to be at the hospital
standing next to my brother so proud
as his son was brought into the world.
Wanted to be there at the house
when the babe was brought home,
the place he will be from.

Pandemics don’t allow for those things, though
forcing suspicion of visitors,
turning family into environmental hazards.
To protect the vulnerable, we must
be willing to make such sacrifices.
I just hate being reduced to text message spectator.

But when emergencies allow for an exception
it’s a moment not to be lost,
thank you God for this opportunity.
With time, visits will be more common, natural,
and I’m grateful to receive this little introduction.
He looks just like his father.

I love a good board
One from an old barn that screams
Dry rot
I love the way it takes 3 or 4 coats of paint  to cover
And the back is always exposed with its years
A good board can be found in the creek, in the field, in the yard, 
In your dreams of folk art splinters
God, I just love a good old board