there’s this old typewriter, hidden
in a leather case, upstairs
at the wife’s mother’s house
when I leave it open, across
the bedroom during our visit
I imagine we type, late
at night on clacking keys, create
a susurrus of platen strikes
and ink swirls left on paper
by morning we wake, reading
words we don’t mean, anything
in particular
Interesting who finds a home in this music–
as Loretta sang, “If your eyes are on me
then you’re looking at country,” assumptions
be dammed. You’d think I got it from my parents,
who were more concerned with 60s pop, the Beatles, rock
and, later, gospel and contemporary Christian above all.
Guillotine’d by her worn curio:
Made by the wife of a dear friend and brother of mine,
the pen was just one shade
of the many rainbows she carries in her purse.
Not what one might consider a manly pen,
its slender body is topped with three beads
of various green hues
the first a bead covered in lime rhinestones,
the second a solid chrome sphere,
and the third a translucent pea-green
with light ridges ribbing it like a beach ball.
Only five dollars,
it was an easy price for the curious questions it would attract
along with the usual confused, but genuinely interested,
so why do you have a notebook at the bar?
(Inspiration hits anywhere,
so I want to be able to capture it anywhere,
and it makes a great conversation starter
for an introvert like me)
Really, it’s just plain fun!
A chance to do something a little different,
and when the questions come, it’s an opportunity
to redirect the inquiring mind, sober or not,
back to her, where hopefully
she’ll be able to sell more of the product
she puts so much time into making.
Most of all, though,
it was good to see how uplifted she was.
My friend, her husband,
would later thank me profusely
for how happy it made her
after carrying around these pens for so long,
gratitude that in turn uplifted my heart.
After all, how joyful is it
to see others enjoy what we have created?
Its these little gifts of love
passed back and forth
that could mean the world
and be the difference
between a good and bad day.
If only the world itself
could embrace this truth,
how much better of a place
could we make it into?
I’ve been called worse.
And really, I have the same
training as a cadaver dog.
Olfactory honed for rotten blood,
the decomposition, the hunt—
the eternal chase.
A solid remains searcher
can detect a corpse through
fifteen feet of good dirt.
Like me, canines are
incorporated into archeology,
the sifting & finding of the lost,
the hidden, and reclusive.
To patch holes acquired
along the way—
All poets sniff & snuffle
& scratch for the dead.
in the white square of April 21,
in his hand:
R. left us
followed by six black x’s
He looks like heaven but
smells like trouble
I can’t help but wonder
what he would taste like.
when I feel I’m good for nothing,
I can always write a poem.
Some days the rain comes down
as if from a twirling sprinkler.
Some days all I have are rocks
from the Dix River
and 6 liters of water
tinged with coconut.
Some days I have to change clothes a few times,
because I keep going out in the rain.
Some days I glimpse my neighbor, Travis
while I smoke on the upper landing.
He tells me about Minecraft
intersecting with his life
while standing in the rain
and even though I have been crying
about how some things in the world
seem beyond my grasp,
I feel like I’ll be ok,
knowing he stood in the rain just to talk to me.
He seems so unaware of how his genuine kindness is shining.
So I curl up cozy with the Kitten,
-she reminds me of a furry snail shell-
and I listen to the thunder
and the steady swish swish on the pavement below
bundled on top of the made bed with a yellow sweatshirt throw,
on a very cold, excessively dark and
rhythmically wet summer solstice.
In 3rd, 4th, 5th grade
I’d rack my brain
for The Big Lie
the one that would entice Fr. Glenn
into assigning me the penance
of kneeling at the commuion
rail to pray an entire rosary
– a great status symbol for the boys.
My only successful fabrication
was when I confessed to hiding
under the kitchen table to look
up the dresses of my older sister
and her friends baking cookies
for Girl Scouts (it was a lie
with a half life, for I was caught,
drug out and locked in the closet
by my sister before catching
sight of any cotton panties).
Confessions were on Friday
(so our souls would be pure
for communion on Sunday)
and on that day of my redemption,
after enduring the flaggelation
of Fr. Glenn’s breath and the scorn
of public repentance, I returned
to my pew to witness the snikers
of the boys confirming my ascension
into our loyal club of sinners
