The dead tree in the neighbor’s yard
blends with all the others in winter
Yet in full summer, dead branches bent
in the direction of the prevailing wind
it stands alone
Angular, stark, russet
against the panoply of green
Maples, oaks, locust, sweet gum, box elder,
redbud, dogwood, hemlock, pine
Sentinel to senescence
The soul of wit is a pair of tongs
Silver maybe, probably pewter
Nickel-plated
Chromium lobster clamps, a wandering appendage
Scuttling across a silent kitchen floor
The scalloped edges are the aesthetic decision of the artisan machine that thought it up and stomped it out. It’s spine is an indentation.
Runner’s stretch. Forward
fold. Seated back twist. Bound angle.
Chest stretch in doorway.
Don’t be fooled—five minutes
daily will cure you of nothing.
Daily, LIVE to STRETCH.
*Apple News, via RED, posted 22 June 2023
I would look up to
The distant stars for perspective
But above me there are only
Grey blankets of
Low hanging,
Moist and ready clouds.
Below me there is wet grass,
Shy white mushrooms between the blades
Aggressive sharp wildflowers
Every place where even an inch of dirt
Can be taken
I can hear around me the rustling
Of some fellow early riser
Furtively moving in the green
To find food
Shelter
Or
I smile to myself
Maybe they
Too look for inspiration
On this fertile earth
Or maybe they look above
At me
And wonder as at stars
In Vest Kentucky, 1974, down by “the hole” in Knob Bottom Branch under Yellow Mountain; preacher Harlow stood on a slab, knee deep on the edge where green water held still and dank against the drought of summer. The place was shaded by locust trees, poison ivy and arching kudzu. He held an infant baby in his arms and soothed its screeching yowls by shouting at the gathered crowd:
God above, bless this child that we give over to you today
May she be born again by this baptism that we perform
But hear us Lord, we are distracted by the nervous urgent talk of men
They say much loudly but mean little
Their talk is remote and confusing
Today men seek the world of the material
The world of flesh of money, of power
They deny your spirit world, oh Lord
Men rush at great speed in roaring machines
They hurl themselves up into the air into nothingness
At great expense, at great risk; and, why
Simple horse sense would tell them that there is nothing up there
No air, no water, no gravity, nothing to be found
Except maybe God, who might be saying:
“What makes you think you can reach heaven this way?”
And men might be saying: “Do not talk thus, these are modern times.”
But the sacred book has already spoken to them of
The folly of reaching ever nigher and higher for what, they do not know
The holy Bible says that it came to God’s attention
The people of Babel were building a tower to reach the Kingdom
In order to enjoy the fruits of which they were not worthy
When the children of men builded a tower to heaven
The Lord came down to see the tower and the Lord said:
“Behold, the people are all of one mind and all have one language
“It seemeth that nothing will be restrained from them
“Go to and let us approacheth them and confound their language.”
And so the Lord scattered them and their language became as babel
The brick layer called for bricks and was sent none
The crane operator called “heads up”
The workers below did not undewrstand his call and so were crushed
The confusion continued until the tower tumbled
True these are not Bible times nor Babel times, even so
Have men not builded towers of electricity and motors and steel and pride
Have they not intended that their work reach unto the heavens
Have we not heard the language of scientists
Uniform and numerical and as cold as babel
What fools we are to cry out in alarm:
“Airplanes drop to the earth and crash
“Rocket ships fly high into the sky and nothing is found”
I hear the Lord speaking: “No, do not use that machine to search for heaven
“Scatter ye scientists, cease thy language of uniformity,
“Confound you, do not look to sky for salvation
“Look to your family, your neighbors, your church
“Look to Jesus for salvation, for peace and happiness.”
Now let me ask you friends, do you want to fly through space
Do you want speed and power. You have it
God has already given you a flying machine and one lined with comfort
On God’s flying machine, no need to be strapped in
No need to have a fish bowl on your head
No need to pump in water and gravity
On God’s flying machine you bask in the sun, you walk in the woods
You eat a chicken dinner after church on Sunday
And, thank God, there are no system checks
On the modern plane, there are hundreds of checks before takeoff
Is that gauge right, is that wire tight, is the fuel topped up, seat belts?
But on God’s green flying machine, only ten items to check
So let us do God’s countdown:
Ten: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
Nine: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house
Eight: Thou shalt not bear false witness
Seven: Thou shalt not steal
Six: Thou shalt not commit adultry
Five: Thou shalt not murder
Four: Honor thy father and mother
Three: Keep holy the Lord’s day
Two: Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain
One: Have no other gods before me
And: BLAST OFF, paradise, here we come
And: I baptize thee child as witnessed here today
He dunked her all the way in
Said: “Can’t have no Achilles’ heel.”
It seemed they were sleaved from the same cocoon,
those doormen wove from the ruins of brutalist buildings
beat to a wheezing plaster.
Obie would smudge a man’s nose
into raspberry jam and then
buy a lobster dinner.
He’d wince at the spalls of petrol pressed
with the scarcely intimate lace of a looming
life and ask about signs and birth stones,
sussing out fakes from ordained identities.
Just one evening,
the Bronco’s patio perched
like a train car trammeled or
stole through the loping oaks,
the macadam and swales slumped shouldering
seamless snow,
Obie and Fagan had
elbowed a man through the port hole,
all of the bar flies scrunched like
nymphs obscuring the skim of a kiddy pool,
cribbing the splintering stanchions, haughtily
gawking at some young stranger smudged and
stuttering, stumbling, scumbled across the snow,
a scabbing inkblot. He cried something illegible,
none of the spluttering stir or the tupleted gossip
framed the reason now three brooding boys had
urged him over the snow-swoln road tinged
buttery yellow with beaming lampposts.
A girl wept over a crowded corner, everyone’s
make-up slurred to a kind of Frankenthaler
none of them cared to talk about,
all of them knew it already, and
nothing among the mincing meat
of mice and men might
argue it otherwise—
there stood a man decried, and Obie’d
the heaviest arm of the surly pride. The blood
lapped over and under,
the snow-swathed thumps no
more than a paint brush maybe
a manic Kline once
scraped across
floundering cotton. They left him
curled in the street like abandoned boots,
like licorice sickening Jim McKay, and Koope,
with whom I was just discussing a
ball of light he recalled having sat
on his headboard, keeping him company,
slipped through the stanchions,
meat that floss loosed unto a cankerous gum,
and decided he might try kick the can and
cracked his gum-swoln sole across
Hey, Koope!
Stop. They’re calling the cops.
They’d called the cops, perhaps a Samaritan gesture.
Koope sweat through his sweater, left galvanized,
chipping quaint dirks of pine from the stanchions,
probing them into the idling elbows of muttering barflies.
Obie conceived of a cut of meat.
Some patrons drank. Some patrons watched.
And me, left scrubbing a cigarette over the jawless limestone,
gawked, left swallowing bubbles of rank and sickly shock
and trying to summon the blood above cheek bones,
reeling, pale as the blood-swoln snow—
It was then I remembered that I was a universal donor
who, ruefully, shamefully, never gave blood. No,
never gave blood, no,
hardly a paper cut,
hardly a scab picked.
Back then, we were free
range kids, our lives
unfettered by adult
supervision.
At only 6, we walked
in pairs to the town pool,
a quarter mile through fairy
tale woods,
rode bikes to the little
league field. The only
grownups there were coaches.
We climbed old apple trees
up to the slenderest creaky
limbs, watched the game
from our high perch. No one
told us to come down.
someday soon, “doctors”
will point a laser at your head,
tuned to pass through bone,
to burn a tiny fold, deep
within the gray matter
of your brain
the “doctor” will press a button, and
all your cares will disappear
worry becomes
indifference
conviction becomes
submission
faith becomes
apathy
love becomes
obedience
all that,
and then
his finger slips
Stars at the Straz
Penelope takes
me to the Opera
of Odysseus, we try
but are in it
then out of it
nodding on & off
like Trojan horses
sleep runs deep,
the symphony is naked
conductor without baton
someone hands him
a yardstick, centi-
meter by centimeter
we slither through
Monteverdi,
inchworms on our
way out of Troy
