Nothing But View

Phantoms a non-dark night raise

untuck & wrinkle sheets, rout the freedom

sleep might bring, posit an all

glass back wall, banish the laundry

upstairs till nothing but view’s left —

thrilling as artwork Leonardo’s

pencil drew until someone

mentions cost, that someone

the checkbook, upgrade relegated

to dollars & cents totted in columns & rows —

the total sum twice the eyeballed

guess. Grumble back to the catacombs

disappointed though not bereft.

Every insomnia gins new marvelry.

Elder Folk

What more could we want than raised

veins & wrinkled drapery, freedom

to study whatever we want all

day long — Archaea & botany,

coding & cross-hatch stroked left

because we might be Leonardo

or otherwise nameless, someone

struck off the rolls, someone

turning into a tree, relegated

to might have beens, ushered to back rows

where catarrhs & reddened eyeballs

won’t be noticed, mired in catacombs —

let it be known — we are not bereft,

no, we are rife, fertile with marvelry.

Cigs

Chesterfield, Dunhill, Kent,

Marlboro, Pall Mall, Parliament,

Tareyton, Viceroy, Winston —

anyone missing the obvious reason?

Raise your status, men, gain class

by puffing weeds named after brassy

titled folk the likes of you’ll never be —

lords & admirals ruling the high seas.

Dig your ditch, flog your broken mule,

smoke three packs a day — let Kools

take the place of Players once you’re fifty

& hawking up mucus gobs. In brief,

stifle the grudge you were suckered on.

Every smoker knuckles to black lung.

The River Charles

Tommy at stern, Johnny or I paddle

bow. The river forks to Mine Creek

where algae-capped turtles spot us & dimple

under. The bridge’s arch sinks deep

& comes back around — slow ripples

sweep the circle. Every day of the week

a river run, one kid in the middle.

Summer heat, thick woods, weeds

whir with grasshoppers second fiddle

to hairy woodpeckers hammering trees.

If we do (but we don’t) cut the babble

we sometimes spy a white-tailed deer.

Today the time, canoe, & dear Tommy

are long gone. The river — it’s still clear.

Sting

Yellow jackets have one sting to spend —

thus the communal species legacy

dooms each individual to end

its life to keep the greater family free.

My foot labels the sudden sting abuse,

responds with startling pain, doesn’t forgive

the insect’s natural unconsidered use

of what its tribe demands to stay alive —

sacrifice one to leave the rest alone.

I drink a beer. I ice. My foot’s deceived

into believing most of the pain is gone.

Surely the watermelon I chose to leave

out on the table for children to eat was the

reason this kamikaze had to be.

Milton's Milking

Yesterday so much to say, today nothing

beyond eat breakfast, take a shower,

strip the bed. Nothing like housekeeping

to fill blank time, nothing like blank verse

Milton writes to fill his blind hours.

Does he walk while he composes, testing

one Satanic conceit after another?

Every circuit a household blessing

for those charged with Milton’s well-being.

Out the garden door to the wall, reverse

direction. He never hurries, always fondling

his dog, sniffing every tree & flower.

He walks until he hears his minder’s voice —

time for Milton’s milking. He has no choice.

November

behind the grocery

a shopping

cart bulges

a blanket arranges

the square of ground

cloth, paper, plastic mounds

one of them

the occupant’s face

a dog

— untied, uncovered —

shares the dwelling

tossed uniformly
bludgeons relocate

it won’t rain until November

Play Perfectly

that a man would be            in fact men are not

           more often than not fatal            childbearing does not

takes decades            fed up indifference to

           anything in life            what was broken start over

no one else            ear comes first    play perfectly

Bantams

The dozen bantams stand here & there

in hay-sprinkled brown dust, feathered

muffs around their ankles. Trees twenty

feet away disappear in the fog. One after

another flaps up into a box to lay quail-

sized eggs, white & brown & unspeckled

& so small, so strong, they’re too much

work to break & eat. The bantams rush

to humans, they skitter away. Here is

clean water, there grain, in the shallow

hole fresh mounds of vegetable compost.

How are we different? Eating & giving

& expecting someone we rush to & skitter

from, our books & bicycles false essentials.

We finger lettuce leaves for slugs the birds

would make short work of. As night falls

they crowd into roofed boxes, locked away
as we are — in houses, beds — all night.

Landscape

The 45-degree slope of redwood branches

slung from the tallest tree is gravity’s equation.

Branches of younger trees bend to the moon,

show sky between them. No gaps in the tallest

tree — no, not gaps but small feathered zones

filled with gray fog & car noise. Staying here

among sounds of affluence, traffic, drought, fire

I remember why at home I foster silence.

Leaf fallen from the tree, tree an imaginary

construct formed entirely of leaves — space

where the tree stood, leaf on the bare earth

dry dark shriveled — wet black dissolving.

What constitutes ethereal landscape?

From scarce remains a backbone springs.

Nest

Cane by cane, hand saws skive

the bamboo grove, expose the nest

woodrats have woven leaf by branch —

their vast home now wrenched, bunged

& listing. Rats small & large scramble

down the inner stalks, infants tumble

— two cling to a startled cutter’s hands —

these young abandoned won’t survive.

Strung like rags from a dozen canes

the battered buckled nest sifts & sways.

Who knows what remains inside —

more young, more dying — the stench

around the ravaged grove takes days

to subside. Rats, for all that, abide.

Obligate Carnivore

What’s an obligate carnivore? she asks, quite

the sensible question & one such a child — never

lets a chance to learn go by — is obliged

to ask, any & all words about science — biology, weather,

& food prep — TV contests every night anticipate

tomorrow’s kitchen experiments in sous vide & al dente.

The child is a sponge though we’d asked for a chordate.

Her headlong drive to soak up the world

implies spicules at least for backbone — calcium carbonate?

This morning’s adventure a guided whirl

through a candidate private school — Mom’s fed up

with seeing her forced into the median mold

where every child must do math — chop chop —

the way they’re told. The child protests! She gets how

to do it elsewise — in her head — not a so-many-step

process, instead an eyes-roll-up picture show

whereby she thinks, explores, & triumphs —

okay, it might be a wrong answer, a few below

or above ideal, still, we watch her galumph

over obstacles, long jump & pole vault oh so high —
ride ‘em cowgirl — eight-year-old queen of defiance.

Inter Alia

How have you discovered this?

By thinking on it continually.

What one does, what Newton did

others do in smaller doses.

What comes when one closely

listens — time, weather, spheres.

What happens in the dark inside.

Outside — refractory bright of day

like a high-spirited horse breaks

down hedge, obstacle, small

minds in sequestered spaces —

quaestiones, breakneck ride

cross uncharted ways, in full

two- & three-dimensional regalia.

Drawn until one's driven inter alia.

Loose Halyard

A relationship is dependence —

you cook, I wash.

The end of a relationship is a knot

untied — the wash not dried

or brought inside.

Though you know (or can learn)

everything you need to stay alive

you can’t remember what's the purpose

of crossing those T’s, dotting those I’s.

Relearning that takes three years, five . . .

easier to do without than figure out how.

Whether the end was fast or slow

recovery is woefully stalled —

steps so small they’re not noticed

until they’re habit.

Doesn’t matter why a relationship ends

if the tie bound forever.

The loose halyard flaps against the mast

day after day, night after night

& it’s somehow not your boat —

you can’t climb on board & cleat it.

Nature Is Your Lover Now

I dream of insects — large bright green

grasshoppers, the woman picks one up

when I thought she might have shied —

bright green insects in my clothes

balanced at the edge of my plate, grass-

& leafhoppers, brighter than ambient.

What if it’s too much light? Dead bugs

& lint balls surround me — extricate

disentangle embrace, what I culled from what

Susan said, my very own battle ground

sunrise over the lake, the slothfulness

of morning impedes me — shoulder of pond

base of tree, an egg at every hand

clang of a metal container, behemoths

bearing loads across a bridge, shelves

laden, artificial universal largesse.

Where are the gaps for what has been taken?

What won’t be replaced? Fill each gap

with sleeping stones waiting for stories.

A lake is a suburban compromise, mirror

of light, humble reflections, now pink

clouds in standing water — green black

purple silver. Nature is your lover now,

Laurel says — once I discovered Nature

& everything else were not all the same

I became the sassiness of mallards

strolling the dock, an egret fishing

familiar, the golden golden green marsh.