April 23 No Apologies
Unranting reason.
A small flock of children in the park, across the street.
Skunk: I got in trouble for spraying a cop.
Rabbit: I thought you had better scents than that.
Grasp thoughts and seize them.
Swinging and sliding and running so fleet.
Tire one: You’re looking mighty low.
Tire two: I’m feeling pretty flat.
Don't let your heart lie.
Then splashing and laughing, they run to the lake.
Butterfly one: Remember when we were caterpillars.
Butterfly two: Yeah. We were kinda creepy.
Don’t let your soul die.
If nobody drowns everybody gets cake.
Yawn one: I like being me.
Yawn two: Don’t do that, it makes me sleepy.
April 24 I Wanted to Write About the Rain, But My Thoughts Had Other Plans
The clouds are coming in again.
Dog walkers pick up pace and leave their shit behind
To be washed away (they wish).
Warm inside, and mellow of mind
In dry wood crib above the sprinkled street,
I sit with my feet atop the desk,
Leaning back in my Aeron chair,
And write these words with little care,
As though sun were shining here, not there.
But when the pen rolls to its last jot
A near gulp, like a glottal stop
Rises from inside my gut
Or else a tensing of the butt.
The walls of the cracked Red Sea shake
And starts to dribble, stream, and quake
A tide of redness caving in
As Pharoah’s teammates try to swim.
And me, American male and all,
Stuck doggy-paddling Australian crawl.
Hope dying, strike for distant shore,
But know that I’ll make land no more.
No more round campfire men we sing
The tides of time new triumph bring
And we who conquered are besot;
We trade our robes for what slaves got.
God give us grace when we submit
To serve the people whom we’ve hit.
The clouds are coming in again
To wash away this piece of shit.
April 25 The Tramp
What I would do for love
I will do for money.
I would strip down to my underwear,
And coat myself with honey.
I started with poetic dreams
To be sung by a choir,
But now I slink in alleys
Dangling my modifier.
April 26 The Metaphor Shop
I drove my mind to the Metaphor shop
Where the poetry butcher worked, “Chop! Chop! Chop!”
At the metaphor shop on Magazine Street--
Sausage strings of mixed words, minced words like meat.
The crowd of people: a field of flowers.
The field of poems grew with word showers.
The butterfly Muse whispered in my ear.
“They are all clichés; let’s get out of here.”
The poet butcher behind the glass
Wiped the blood of the words on his apron and ass
And snarled a snarl as I turned to the door, said,
“I thought you were shopping. What’re you leaving here for?”
I said I had just come in to look ‘round
And maybe find something that I could write down.
“Well, I’ve got these fine metaphors and smoked similes,
And if you want to go wild, I’ve got some symbolic cheese.”
That got my attention, but the Muse, spider-eyed,
(whom I forgot to mention, had a sword by her side--
A flaming sword of plastic she held by the grip)
She glared at me and raised it, “Zip! Zip! Zip!”
Twixt the hair-knuckled butcher and the flame-dripping Muse,
I made my decision. Which did I choose?
Neither!
I jumped into my mind; I shifted into high gear,
Stuck my head out the window and gave a Bronx Cheer.
With the clutch to the floor, revved my mind; I was thrilled.
Let the clutch out so slowly, but my brain engine killed.
And the Butcher and Muse came out of the store
And said, “We will slice you a new metaphor!”
And they took out my soul; it was under my skin.
And they took out my brains and what words were within.
And I’m in the glass case at the metaphor shop,
Where the Poetry Butcher muses, “Chop! Chop! Chop!”
April 27
Crow’s Bill Here by Bill Crozier
The crows have been here
longer than we, I suppose.
After five years in their neighborhood,
they kindly let us into their secrets.
Starting with this winter’s blow,
each “Caw!” a curse against the cold.
They formed triangles in tree branches;
I smiled having learnt the code.
Last summer they gathered around the dog bowl
set out by the pavement’s heat.
This spring they dropped me a fish-head
on a Friday we couldn’t have meat.
And now the nests grace our yard’s treetops.
This murder’s murder perhaps
Someday will land within reach and walk around
proudly, disdainfully,
And look me in the eye and caw,
casting this one thought
“You keep behaving well, WIlly,
and you may become one of us.”
April 28 Going Viral
This is true.
I was reading an article on the BBC
About viruses and how they are not all bad.
Then, a photo of a herpes virus,
Or maybe a colony of them.
All the same,
I became sentimental, nostalgic . . . infatuated?
A sense of missing a loved one,
Like my pre-teen crush on Caroline Kennedy.
A thought glowed in my head, “Virus, I want to know you.”
I had the feeling I used to get
Riding in a car in the country,
Looking into the warmly lit picture windows,
And wondering about the people who lived there.
Or making a night flight in Iraq,
The darkened helicopter passing lowly over
The sodium orange courtyards
of the people that lived there.
And for a bit, even lingering now,
I considered the virus a sibling,
A co-sharer in this vast and wonderful creation.
April 29 The Philosophical Lawn
Mowing the lawn this sunny afternoon, listening to Hannah Arendt’s Human Condition, on noble activity not needed for sustenance or security.
The Greeks disdained slaves, for they did not kill themselves, preferring loss of freedom to loss of life. Although, I say, a slave might be freed some day, but death has a more rigid grip.
So, I wondered if I needed to mow the lawn or if it were a noble deed.
My neighbor’s yard is pristine; his neighbor’s yard is better yet. While I don’t mind the work, and I enjoy the clean cut, am I a slave to my neighbor’s expectation, to the stealthy judgement of passers by?
It is not my act of choice, but I simply can’t imagine just sitting in a chair and listening to a book. So perhaps it is an excuse to listen to philosophy.
And/or maybe I should not be concerned at the thought of what the dead might say.
April 30 Boller’s Lake and Beyond
Great Blue Heron stands
centered in Boller’s lake,
water up to its belly, looks like a floating bird.
Egret balances on a branch
where a wood duck usually sits.
Squatter’s rights I guess, finders keepers.
Three turtles swim: a train
a circle, a synchronized swim team
with their smooth leather bathing caps.
Few insects in the air,
last night the bats were busy.
Today, I studied fungi, and looked at blue bells.
We hung up an owl house at Bridgette and Phil’s.
Is this Earth Day?
No, it’s their birthday.