This poem is dedicated to the memory of haiku master and good friend Ron Evans, who provided and sponsored the title for the Tupelo Press 30/30 fundraiser challenge I participated in during August 2015. Ron passed away in September. I miss our pun-filled exchanges, his zany sense of humor and our wide-ranging discussions. Life continues, but the light has dimmed…
Calvin Coolidge — Live or Memorex?
They say the wind in Alvarado bypasses closed doors, slips through
book-laden walls and plate glass and into your dreams where it circles
and accumulates, whirling, whirling, steadily gaining force, gathering
loose pages and errant thoughts and memories too combustible to
burn, ignoring time’s compression and the gravity of dying suns, forever
counting, talking, thinking, looking up and out between the long nights.
unable to sleep he opens a window daring the wind
The 30th President of the United States breathes and writes at the junction
of an invisible house and a wheat field in Alvarado, in the guise of a
74-year old haiku poet. No longer the solemn ass, Cal laughs and speaks
and observes his two birthdays, recalling Harding’s scandals and Dorothy
Parker’s “How can they tell?” with equal relish. Sometimes he dresses
in tails and top hat, and speaks in 17-syllable phrases. Sometimes.
spitting out sake in the shadow’s glare death forestalled
Alvarado’s laureate is leaving it all behind – the presidency, the books,
the kolaches – catching the next breeze out of town, a silver-tongued
dust devil riding the word, spewing puns all the way to Indiana. But
buried in a waterproof box near Oswald’s grave, 314 cassette tapes
capable of shattering crystal carry his voice further than their unwound
lengths, whirring incessantly, celebrating life, praising the long wind.
standing in the sun wisdom blows by no questions today
O at the Edges 
Wonderful. Especially liked “catching the next breeze out of town” with the wind leaking in to the poem through the cracks.
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I enjoyed writing this one – the title was a bit rough to get a handle on, but Ron was a wily old man and knew how to get me going.
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Your haiku would please even Basho and Shiki.
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Thank you! I wanted to write haiku worthy of Ron’s approval. 🙂
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Beautiful poem, thanks for sharing!
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Thank you. It was my pleasure!
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So fitting reading your poem with Silent Cal at the center, no longer the solemn ass. Last night I was writing poems in the Calvin Coolidge Room at the Forbes Library in Northampton, MA. for our own 30 poems in 30 days fundraiser. Cal was mayor here before he was president. I absolutely love your haiku embedded idea, like a chocolate croissant — a little extra in every bite. Keep slinging those tasty poems.
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Thanks very much! I wanted to honor Ron’s devotion to haiku, and they fell into place as the poem emerged. Funny how that can happen…
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Of course, not knowing Ron Evans, but one gets the flavor.
And you get Coolidge, Dorothy Parker, and our love-poet-President Harding all into it.
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Ron was a one of a kind guy. The poem is full of inside jokes and bits of our exchanges, which ranged wildly.
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Death often births good poems , I find.
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It does indeed, Simon.
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