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 2018. 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 
Wow! What important history to consider when juxtaposed against the times we find ourselves living in; thanks for sharing, and my sympathies extended to you in your loss of your haiku poet friend. My regards, poetthatlikesvellum…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you. Ron was a good man, a good friend. Funny, I had no idea that I would with a few short years also move to Indiana…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow . . . 6 years already since the poetry challenge?! Please make time stop flying by, Bob! And what a great tribute to Ron, whom I did not know but feel as if I do through this poem–sardonic, touching, haunting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh, how I wish I could slow down time a bit (except for the pandemic part). I keep thinking I’ll do another Tupelo Press fundraiser, but life has a way of stepping in…
LikeLike