The Theory and Practice of Rebellion
Such small lives we’ve led,
diffident, quiet, until
provoked.
Remove our words,
we become steel
and sharp stone,
fletched softwood
splitting the air,
string reverberating,
singing resist,
resist.
Fear not
who we are now.
Consider tomorrow.
“The Theory and Practice of Rebellion,” first appeared in Outcast Poetry.
Many thanks to editor Sean Lynch for taking this piece.
Strollermelon
In the summer I roll them from grocer to bus stop, little bonnets
affixed, cooing all the while – cantaloupe, watermelon, honey dew,
casaba, canary, sugar, you name it, they all come home with me,
in pairs or solo, snuggled tightly in blankets and ensuring
dropped-jaw, raised-eyebrow gapes from those who approach.
Don’t they look just like their mother, I ask, and no one ever disagrees.
Everybody is so nice, even the teen-age boys who no longer offer up
their seats. But Damon, who recently purchased new pants to impress
Wanda-I’m-An-Attorney, enjoys whispering secrets to us. Did you
know they’re actually berries? And that some are called fruit,
others, vegetables? They’re not much good for pies, though. I just
call them “Mel,” which is funny because I know that you’re not
supposed to name something you’re going to eat, and really, I do
recognize the difference between sentient beings and plants, but
then candidate Harumph comes to mind, and how do you explain
him and his followers? When cool weather approaches, I turn to
squash. Happy acorn, the elongated, sad butternut, pumpkin. Each
holds a niche in my heart, and I love strolling down the sidewalk
with them, humming tunes, adjusting stems, planning meals.
“Strollermelon” was first drafted during the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30-30 challenge, and was published in Quiet Letter in April 2017. Thanks to Plain Jane for providing the odd title. One never knows what’ll arise from sponsored titles!
Take Away
Take away the blackness,
what does night become?
Remove arugula’s bitterness,
the reddened prints on a slapped
cheek, or yeast from leavened bread.
The coroner’s mask denies emotion.
We possess no less now than we did then.
One hand holds the root, the other, a trowel.
Soil, compost. Ash. Water, dreams. Renewal.
The economy of dying continues.
One mother stands alone, cradling pain in
both arms. The second shares her shadow.
“Take Away” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
If Ahead I See
Gray skies filtered through light,
eyes adapting space,
the possibilities of the
horizon or a foot
lashing out in reflex,
what do I learn?
The house finch sings as if
all air will expire at song’s end.
Falling, I release this misplaced trust.
The path, muddied and crowded with fools.
“If Ahead I see” is included in my chapbook, From Every Moment a Second, available for order now via Amazon.com and Finishing Line Press.
What We Say When We Say Nothing
The rain has died and everything follows:
black, white – the law’s supposition. Their bodies
glisten only in memory. One says look at me from the steel
table as the scale registers the heart’s
weight. Another cries uncertainty in the most certain
of circumstances — laid open, emptied then closed,
the simple mechanics of ritual and form. Throughout my
dreams a line of dark figures shimmer in the cold
corridor, end-to-end, supine and unmoving, assigning
loss. I have fifty-six years and more questions than
answers. The drought testifies to a wrong. A woman
visits her son, a father weeps. Our silence, complicit.
My poem, “What We Say When We Say Nothing,” was published in Glass: A Journal of Poetry in January 2017. Many thanks to editor Anthony Frame for taking this piece and aligning it with some great poems.
From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Poetry
In the evening I pour wine to celebrate
another day’s survival. My motions:
up to down, left to right. Glass
from cabinet, wine to mouth.
And then I return to the page.
The character for stone, ishi,
portrays a slope with a stone
at its base, and I take comfort
in knowing that as my knee aches
at the thought of climbing, ishi exists
in descent only. A volcano belches,
producing hi, fire, rising above the
cone, while earth, tsuchi, lies firm
beneath the shoots pushing up,
outward, and ame, rain,
consists of clouds and dotted
lines and the sky above. But if
wind is made of insects and
plums, do I assemble new meaning
without fact or wisdom, form
or assumed inflection, left to
down, up to right? Consider water,
its currents, its logic and needs.
Consider truth. This is how I think.
* * *
“From Left to Right I Ponder Politics and Poetry” appeared in Bonnie McClellan’s International Poetry Month celebration in February 2017.
Gulf
for M.V.
Which looms wider, its sky or water? The birds, here, too,
reconvene in greater streaks. This morning I stomped around
Paisano, examining the grasses and soil, the rocks and various
configurations of clouds, and listened to experts discuss
prescribed burns and how the land’s contours can determine
sequence and efficacy. The mockingbird whose territory
we occupy has disappeared. Perhaps he’s just moved on.
I heard a red-bellied woodpecker yesterday, but never saw it,
and of course the rattlers at the ranch are still underfoot, just
less apparent this time of year. I looked closely, as always,
but never spied one. What else did I miss? The rich people
on the bluffs bulldoze habitat, poison creeks and erect their
Italianate villas, caring not a whit for the breeding warblers
or the landscape, although they might pony up a few bucks
for an environmental charity if sucked-up to properly. Given
a choice between the two, I’d pick the snakes every time;
they don’t smile or offer spiked drinks and stories of their
conquests, and usually warn before striking. Even a minor
deity might take offense and crack open a new fault in the
earth between this place and theirs, widening it by inches
with each presumption, every falsehood, whether shaded
in unrelated facts or illogic, until that shifting space could
be spanned solely by a bridge planked with truth and good
manners, and, yes, by mutual consent. Looking back, I
find many examples of these bridges collapsing in utero,
but we keep trying. Your story of the gulf coast storm
reminded me of weeks spent on calm water, and seeing,
no matter where I turned, blue meeting blue, from horizon
to horizon, the sky never broken by bird or cloud, born
anew each day, always looking between, never down.
“Gulf” was published in West Texas Literary Review in March 2017.
On Air Conditioning
The man who owns everything wants more.
Another offers his sandwich,
accepting grace with a smile.
Like vapor condensing in a coil
to remove heat from the air.
Difficult to comprehend.
Harder to live.
My poem “Snails” is featured on Vox Populi, one of my favorite sites to visit. Vox Populi’s mix and quality of poetry, politics and culture astounds me.
My poem “Letter to Schwaner from the Toad-Swallowed Moon” has been published at The Hamilton Stone Review. Much gratitude to editor Roger Mitchell for taking this piece.
O at the Edges 