Category Archives: Poetry

September 4, 2013 · 10:22 pm

We Can Never Know

Tomahawk

Grayish, like an airplane
But with stubs, not wings
Flying straight and low and fast

To watch it in flight
It’s beautiful to me

Like an air show
A demonstration
But no cockpit?

Too narrow to seat a pilot
Long and sleek
Arrow straight

It’s going somewhere

It was sent, launched
By someone
By many people

Who told it to go
Gave the destination
And the load of Nothing

It won’t turn
Won’t slow down
Won’t stop

When it gets close
Wheels won’t fold out
And it won’t land

It won’t knock
Ring the bell
Or use the door

It will be horrible

Slamming, smashing, screeching
Exploding
Bricks, metal, glass

Spraying, dis-integrating, burning
Drywall, pipes, wires, and cameras
Skin, intestines, nerves, and  eyes

Structure falling
Debris scattering
Dust clearing

Silence…

Until sirens fill the air
Red flashing lights
Follow the road

Swerving around boulders
Or pieces of building
Around bundles
Or pieces of people

People

Who we could never know were good or bad
Nor what they would have felt
Some hours later

When they would have been
But some miles away
Opening a door

Stepping in
And sitting down
With their family for dinner

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May 23, 2013 · 9:15 pm

Except the Sun

Sun

I speed north on the UP line
Passing everything

The early evening train is unslowed
By a white fog that rolls ashore
As from a giant block of dry ice

Above the mist
A cover of gray hides the sky
But not the sun

Perfect circle, not yellow, not orange
Gray-white, like a full moon
Which I can’t study, but for a few seconds

I look
Then look away

It’s featureless

I speed north on the UP line
Passing everything

Except the sun

It’s at my left
And, though far away
Moves with me

It’s the only thing I’m bringing home

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May 7, 2013 · 10:08 pm

The Banker and the Artist

Gallery 1

Morning train
The car is full
Just one seat left

And the banker sits next to the artist

Shined shoe next to worn sneaker
Pressed pant leg by blue denim
Shirtsleeve to the arm of a sport coat

Shoulders touching, each man ignoring
Concentrating (or acting so)
On his journal

They don’t know each other
That the bank gave to last night’s event
Featured the artist’s work

That a woman has fallen in love
Runs her finger along the bottom
Of a framed print newly hung
In the banker’s bedroom

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May 3, 2013 · 10:42 pm

All Set

Sunglasses

I sit here worrying what to do next

How do those around me seem all set?

That guy in the sunglasses (It’s not bright in here)

If I’d see his eyes, think I’d see the same fear

Many years on the job, stuck on the same rung

No longer learning, no longer young

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May 1, 2013 · 10:06 pm

Tower

Tower

Gray rails curve left
They guide the slowing commuter train
One more mile before the downtown station

Through the window
I study the west skyscrapers
Against the morning’s light-blue background

The tallest building rises black
Its straight edges sharp
All the way up

And just above
Is the wisp of a cloud
White and round

Wait…that’s not a cloud
It’s the moon!

That tower is nowhere close
To touching it

 

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November 9, 2012 · 7:08 pm

The Jump

Image

I’m taking a balloon up
Not the hot-air kind
No patchwork of red, yellow, green, and blue

This is a weather balloon
Silvery-white, semi-transparent
Filled with so much helium
It’s as big as a high-rise

And the basket?
It’s not wicker
It’s a space capsule

I’m not just going up
I’m going WAY up

It’s the slow way
Will take a few hours

Liftoff
From dust-devil desert
Hanger and airstrip

I rise
Over tan and green plane
Two-lane highway below
Cars smaller, slower

A sideways breeze
Moves me toward
A low mountain ridge
And I can see over it

A mile up now
I switch on the heat
And glance down
Sandhill cranes flying south

Five miles up
My breathing is faster, deeper
I switch on the oxygen
Spot in the distance
The nose of a jumbo jet
Cruising toward me

Ten miles up
It’s cloudless and dry
THIS is the stratosphere
The beginning of it

I’m gunna’ keep going
Up
Near the TOP of the stratosphere
Where the sky gets dark
Dark blue
The edge of space

But I didn’t rise here
To look around
Nor to explore

I came up
To go down

To jump
From a height
No one has jumped from

To fall
A distance
No one has fallen

Hydraulic hiss
And the capsule’s round door rolls to the side
Letting in the sky
And the smaller earth
Twenty-four miles below

Protected by my space suit
Parachute scientifically packed
This is where I get off

Space helmet tilts only so far
So with thick glove fingertips
I feel for the seatbelt
Fumble at the latch
Belt comes free and drops

I shift my chair to the opening
To sky and earth

Gloved fingers fumble again
At last link between suit and capsule
The oxygen line
With a clumsy tug I detach it

I pull myself outside
Onto the step

I stand
Above the world
Tan and green
See its curve

My heart starts pounding
My breathing becomes rapid

And…

I don’t remember
Why I’m here

Standing alone
In space

I’m terrified
Like when I was a boy

What am I gunna’ do?

I’m afraid of falling
Of my stomach lifting
The earth pulling me back
Never wanted me to leave
Pulling me faster and faster
To jet speed
Then breaking the sound barrier
My body
In a space suit
Tumbling
For minutes

I have no control
Can only breathe
And pray

That I make it

I’m standing
Above the world
Tan and green and curved

Heartbeat quiet
Breathing slow

I can’t go back into the capsule

Can’t do anything but…

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October 7, 2012 · 3:39 pm

What Man Has Always Seen

Evening work is interrupted
By the tone of a text message
I’m late again

I stand up from the cubicle chair
And realize the darkness outside

Inside fluorescent reflection
Tries to mask a single white light
The rising full moon

From behind the lake it rose
Yellow, round, magnified
Silhouetting the boats

And I was too busy
To watch it with her

The traffic current pushes me home
An hour lost
At the curb I pull mail from the box

More to do
Tomorrow’s work day speeding toward me

I flip closed the box and look up
The moon is higher, smaller
But still worth attention

Bright and familiar
Light plains and dark seas
A few white spots radiating white streaks

It’s what Man has always seen
Over caves, pyramids, and coliseums
Above teepees, great walls, and castles

It’s the same moon

So I rocket to it
Reflect off
And visit the past

To fool myself that life had been easier
Without cars, highways, and corporations
Without advertising, TV, the Internet

But sometimes I know I’m fooling myself
So instead of reflecting off
I land on the moon

I wonder at the deep craters and sharp mountains
The black shadows of scattered boulders
The absence of air, water, sound

I create my own path
Through the gray, powdery plain
And take time to think
Each of my thoughts to its end

That’s when I find myself
At Tranquility

I look across the dry sea
Into the blackness of space
And wait for the earth to rise
Brilliant blue, white clouds swirling

That’s when I rocket back
Walk into my house
Put everything aside
And be with her

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July 7, 2012 · 5:21 pm

Summer Poem

July, midday, the sky is white
Sunlight straight down
Wind blows hot

Yellow grass doesn’t let go
From gray earth
Broken, into thick polygons

No birds
They’re in the bushes or the trees
Waiting

Wasp’s flight zig-zags
To and from the comb
Paper geometry on wooden deck

Lawn chair empty, cushion bleached
Garden hose coiled and dry
Metal box hums electric, hypnotic

No people
They’re inside
Waiting

A mile away
On the beach
It’s not as hot

The water’s here
Whooshing in
Whooshing out

On thin yellow legs seagull runs
Reaches white wings out
Returns to hovering, looking, asking

I step into the cold Great Lake
Green toward the horizon
Clear straight down

Threshold of stone-sand
Painful under my feet
Gives way like mud, pulls me to my ankles

I escape, stepping further out
Onto the bottom of flat-sand
My knees and thighs submerge

I continue
Cold water rising
Between legs, above waist

Over stomach and chest
Coldness squeezes me
Takes my breath

A wave rolls into me
My feet rise from the bottom
The water’s covered my shoulders

Sweeping my arms
Pedaling my legs
I breath easily

My entire body cooled
Exhilarated
Removed

Lake swells higher
West cloud mass, blue-black
Far away, flashes and rumbles

I swim ashore
Corners of beach towel lift
Uprooted umbrella rolls in colors

There’s still time
To make it home
To be there for it

Gray-black sky bending backyard trees
Green leaves and twigs in air
Sideways mix of dust and rain

Gray-black sky sending groundward Zs
Of branching neon
Thin and jagged

A startling crack!
Then loud rumble rolling
Ground shaking

Air cools suddenly
Wind gives way
To gray downpour

Birdbath overflows
Into mid-yard moving stream
Clear water drowns the grass

Rush of raindrops
Removes the stored heat
From roof, driveway, sidewalk

Electric hum clicks off
Deck door slides open
A ruffled robin begins to sing

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June 14, 2012 · 11:08 pm

Mariner

Evening freighter on the east horizon
Small but very large
White in the setting sunlight

Stays on the horizon
Like the sailboats
Safer when shore’s in sight

To be on it

Small crew, a bunch of freight
Chicago to Milwaukee?

I used to be more imaginative
From halfway around the world
Crew speaking a different language

A mariner sees me sitting
Why is that man alone?
Hiding in such a place?

Soon it will get dark
And I will turn
Turn my back to the sea
Walk up the hill
Into the trees
Return,
To what will bring me back

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February 11, 2012 · 8:52 pm

Even when we’re not lost, she…

Even when we’re not lost,

She’s afraid we will be found,

That our families will know where we are,

Our employers will call,

Our exes will appear.

She tells me to put the GPS away,

To not stop for directions,

To keep driving.

Even when we are not lost,

She wants us to take the wrong turn.

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