Night Sounds

Silence. And yet a sound slips

softly into the night.  Then there is

another joining in.  A night song now.

One more voice, that high call, a howl

and another in response.  Still more

as I listen closely to the darkness.

It is a struggle to put names to

all those sounds.  Some are simple;

crickets, frogs, coyote lovers making

their mating plans, that wild cat I saw

last week, old Joe’s dog up on the hill.

But some sounds are not so easily

named.  What is that shushing or

the noise that seems like an old

man coughing or the sigh that

doesn’t come from the pines?

In the night I listen for comfort

with fear I listen to the night.

Buying Wood

Old wood cutter Charlie and I

Sat on a couple of tree stumps
Swapping pulls from a bottle
Of homemade brandy
That went down
Easier for him than
It did for me

The late fall evening was

Warm with a macaroon
Moon hanging just
Above the river’s
Ridge and we were
Settling on a price
For cords of wood

But Charlie had bigger

Things on his mind
And the brandy fired
Up his talking
Even more than
It warmed my throat
And empty stomach

I’m all done raging

At reality, he said,
Me and the missus
Are gonna sell off
The wood lots
And that old hillside
Orchard near the river

Cutting firewood is for

Younger folks with
Stronger bodies than
Mine and hers
And that rv is going
And the boat and motor
Even the hunting camp
Up by Canaan hill
With the eighty acres

It will all be gone

By spring time
Before our Carrie’s wedding
She’ll get married but
Me and Jane will be doing
Some honeymooning
Driving across
The country in
Our good pick-up truck
With the camper on
The back seeing all those
Places we missed as we
Raised the family

I told Charlie that he

Had a good plan
I sure hoped it worked
Out for them
But how much for six
Damn cords dumped near
My wood pile

Full dark had come when

He finally said

Fifty bucks a cord

And you know I’ve
Got some fuckin’ lung
Disease that will
Kill me in a
Year or so

I said that I was sorry

About that but I wasn’t
Paying any more than
Forty seven
And we
Shared the last
Of the bottle
And laughed like hell

Final Choice

A poem about writing and that other thing.

Final Choice

As poets ponder
In their midnights dreary
Turning over lines
Comparing theirs to those
Of old timers and new ones too
They are faced with an age
Old decision regarding
A choice of metaphors

Dusk or dawn

Endless dark night
Or bright new day

For that most common

Of commonalities
Which we won’t mention
Until I make my choice

(A choice I shouldn’t delay

Considering my age
And advancing state of decay)

Before I set sail on those

Mythic five rivers
Before I meet the boatman
Who will carry my
Soul to oblivion or glory
A mythology or reality
(A reality requiring a large
Leap of will power)
Must be settled upon

Else how will I write

My final poem
My death poem

Oh no

I mentioned the word
And no choice yet made

Guess I’ll just go on

And live out this day
Ignoring metaphors
Until another drear
Midnight comes along
When ponderous pondering
Begs for a final song

 

Open For Business

Hello Friends and Neighbors and Poetry Lovers Everywhere.

I promised a Poetry Blog site and, by golly, I'm delivering.  Here are three little introductory poems for you to read in a thoughtful way.  Then you can tell me you're heading off to something a whole lot more entertaining.  Or you can offer encouragement and beg for more.  Or you can feign interest while remaining indifferent.  Enough said.  Poetry now.

Making Firewood

When the maul falls

With just the right force
A section of tree trunk
Divides cleanly
Into chunks of fuel

But as the hours pass

And lifting
Stacking
And swinging becomes
More difficult
Cleaving is less precise

Knots in the wood

Turn into deflectors
Of perfect cuts

Power generated by

The physics of motion
And weight
Levers and fulcrums
Slows and weakens
Break time arrives

Cold beer is the reviver

Then back to work

Rosemary

She was brittle and dry

Wouldn’t cry, laughed
Like oil burning
In a hot skillet

As a first love

She was the best
And a broken heart
Was guaranteed

That early pain

Prepared a young boy
For the softer hurt
Coming down the road

Softer hurt because

No ache is stronger
Than love’s first ending

References

Walking through shaded streets

Of a seaport town
I was grabbed by the clutching
Fingers of an intense
Pale skinned young man who babbled
On and on
Something about an albatross
And a ghost ship

Of course he was crazy

Perhaps he spent too much time
In one of the nearby opium parlors
I don’t know, I brushed him off

But I was soon back on the steamer

Headed for the canal passage
When the writer fellow who was chasing
The cook’s helper ran screaming
And bleeding from the galley to crew’s
Quarters where he shoved
His papers into a duffle clambered up
The decks to the open air
Stepped up on the rail and jumped

We didn’t really try to stop him

He wasn’t much of a looker
And spoke only when spoken to
Another loser lost at sea

As the freighter squeezed itself

Out of the canal into the Pacific
I considered the journey
Was it all posturing, was I making
Progress?  Imitation is flattering
And I paid obeisance to many
As my fingers pecked their way
Across the keyboard again
And yet again

Finally my Idaho was reached

And the great man sat in his foyer
With the shotgun pressed to his
Palate and my imitation found
Its limit and with that the journey
Began again, this time going

Solo, that much harder path

Where scrambling for footholds
Is never ending but where failing
Doesn’t have to be fatal

So there you are.  A threesome.  Now go read a good poem by a big time poet.