Continuation of "My Solitary Rat." (Forgive Me, I'm new to blogging and still learning how to "Bop" around." Simultaneously, I'm trying to learn a new piece of equipment.  I've decided to abandon the latter for the time being and focus on one new task at a time.) So here is "My Solitary Rat" from the beginning.

My Solitary Rat

I envy my solitary rat
She scurries across my yard in a swirl of leaves
Harbors in my garage attic
adjacent my bedroom
We've not met

She harbors three pups
I count their distinct cries
I count when they nurse
over the nights, cries fall to two
Then One
It is a tough life for rat pups
She disciplines nightly the one nurtured squeal
hushing or they'll be discovered
I toss, feigning sleep

In spring, flies rise
Explode from the dead
Circle about like grandchildren
As I shave
My rat is gone away
I call the cleaning service

"Owl Before Dawn" was inspired by one of my favorite poets, Po Chu-I.  He lived from 772-846 and most of his work speaks fresh and clear today, timeless. The poem is intended to be a little playful and not quite realistic.  Trying to capture that confused head when you've just awakened in the pre-dawn hours of the night. Fall, 2011.


Owl Before Dawn

This moon slicing across the heavens
Gravels along like a rolling saucer
Whispered clouds flawlessly illuminated
Temperature registers a California nothing
Shadows scuttle off into the grasses
Like dismembered hands
An owl
Unpredictable in its cadence

"The sigh" is a reminiscent of better days.  This is a snapshot of a memory from years before.  Early morning, sun rays first crossing the bed.  Listening to birds hustling the morning.  Fall 2011.


The Sigh

Quiet now
But for the birds in excited, morning rumor
My persistence upon
This private place
Your childlike interpretation
Mockingbird songs
Morning sun
Warms a solitary breast
You sigh absorbed
Unaware of yourself

"Tomatoes in Late Fall" is a simple, daily genre piece.  Late Fall in California is typically December, so I'm pretty sure this was December 2011.  Just hoping to find that one last tomato among the ruin.

Tomatoes in Late Fall

Eyes upward into the under story
Tomato leaves in yellowed and silvery hue
Head awash in tomato plot
In decline
Silvery powder falls all about me
Silver dandruff upon my shoulders

I kneel, hunched, steadfast
knees wet through jeans
Back wet in blown mist
Chrysanthemums in long, wet legs
Slump across the yard
My breath steams in dampness

I sort methodically through spent foliage
Squinting to better sight one last fruit in color
But my hopes are dashed
Even aphids winter elsewhere now
Crumbling leaves of summer remain

Neighbor's Eucalyptus
Boils in growing wind
Of approaching gale
A child's burst of Unbridled energy
Knees grow sodden on this
Excrement of passion of mine

"Taking My Imagination Out for a Walk" was a turning of a corner for me in early winter 2012.  I took a lot of long walks those days; mostly those nights. I didn't want to talk to neighbors anymore than they wanted to do so with me.  I didn't want to explain that the sale wasn't about the money but about my need to get out of the house where my Father, brother and marriage had died. Although it was true, I know it probably didn't ring true.
Like all of us, I fantasize, role-play and imagine as I walk alone.  This escape was especially true and necessary at the dark time. This is a description of such activity, and the recognition of fantasy slipping back into reality.

Taking My Imagination Out for a Walk

I objectify myself in nighttime walk
Choreographed cadence
Skip and perfect plant
Virtual brass
Operatic touchdown
Maestro in throws
Of symphonic ecstasy
Instilling applause upon my soul
Wilding spectacle
Fades to gentle
Rhythm

A turned corner

Unprovoked vision of my "home"
Light shaft crisp
Sliced across
Damp, black asphalt
Rare winter thunder and flickering light
rumble behind the San Gabriel
Cast the range in opaque silhouette 
I ascend the drive
Hands clasped neatly
Behind myself

"Chicago Streets, January 2012" was an attempt to capture the cold of the city in January, the hustle of the place, and the isolation of the soul on cold streets.  Chicago is one of my very favorite cities. It is beautiful, fun and the people are 'Midwestern genuine." But winter slices everyone apart and leaves us stranded with our dark side a few months out of the year.

Chicago Streets, January 2012

Crossbred recidivist
Winter-sustained cocks your head
Finger faint streak of winter sun
slices you lengthwise
Lake wind torments your lapel
Dead-squint eyes avert you
From between cap and scarf

A cab disorganizes
an ice-skinned puddle
Vanishing in taillight
Vapor steams
From every city orifice
Incessant honking, near and far
A distant siren
Pursues drama

You startle defiantly
Into the street
Against the signal
Thrust into
A blue, arrogant
Pie-shaped
Shadow

"Full Frontal Garden," as a title, is a play on words.  This piece is not about a garden at all, but about a house cat and a Koi pond.  The Koi pond was mine and located outside my study door at the "front" of my house.  The cat was not mine, but a frequent visitor to the pond.

Full Frontal Garden

House cat in sphinx
Drifts in doze, morning sun
Apparent non-discipline
And
Mirror-smooth
Lubricant-thin sheen of
Blue-sky, reflecting
Pond
And Koi

She is a product of pamper
Night wanderings
The street
Tan torso
Black mascara
White paws
Peppermint into gray

Pulsing in purr
Abusive really
Presiding, God-like
Over these prime
Fishing
Waters
Trolling

"Visitation" is a moment remembered years after it occurred.  My brother, Kim David, had died after a nine-month battle with cancer.  He had died at my house, "the house" of many of these poems.  My parents were living in Florida at the time.  My Father had visited until literally two days before my brother's passing.  My Mother, Rita, had remained in Florida all that time, an Alzheimer's patient, she had difficulty traveling.  In those days she had concept of what was going on, but I suspect life was like slipping in and out of a chopped, confused dream.  When she learned of my brother's passing, she insisted on the 3,000 mile flight to see her first-born one more time.  I must note, Kim David was to be cremated. He requested this and no funeral. Zero frills. He was not embalmed and "un-retouched."Rita visited him for the last time in a stark, side-room at the funeral place in May 2008. No flowers.  This was written February, 2012.  It is a brutally honest piece.

Visitation

Rita
Not herself
Nor Kim his
She evaluates her fallen son
Stiff
Darkness in this
White place

Wedge of parlor light
Reminiscent
Of his condition
Seems all that lifts his shoulders
Off the table

Neck rests upon a plastic bracket
Sized
One of three
Maintained, on-hand
For these guests

Rita stares upward
Mesmerized by a parlor light
Hand on my brother's forehead
As if checking
For a fever

"Hint of Spring" is another genre piece.  It is straight-forward, a respite from the lawyering of a divorce about to unfold. February, 2012

Hint of Spring

A good three moves
Along the chess board
Spring is moist all around

Wood now split in toil
Not task
Under a low Winter ceiling
Only a few more weeks of
fires in their place

White buds promise
My orchard
Whispering Spring
In which
Everyone trusts himself
Well enough
To leave it alone

"Cabotage" does not exist as a word in the English language. But I thought it sounds like it could be something "pretty" with the obvious rhyme of something other than pretty.  I went through a phase when I saw young women as beings evolving into that which "takes men down."  Divorce will do that to you.  And the lawyers hadn't even gotten started yet. Read-on for more on that good fun.  This poem is from early Spring, 2012.

Cabotage

Debutante in rain
Structured torment
Beaming collapse
Slipping into herself
Something more comfortable

Lawyer-fine print
Lurid animosity
Glowing
This steaming muddle
All black
Silk and boots


"Field Flatus" is a pretty light poem, intended to be a little fun and mocking of a society missing the basic beauty in the world.  Thus the last line. There's a little double-meaning and even a reference to a kid's sayings and cities. It's busier than it appears.   Spring, 2012

Field Flatus

Convection in Spring
God of bio-degradation
Cloud management
Fanning and denial
Vectors and such
Passing play in flight
Elevation in high-rise
Feller ghost-like
These surprises
In a box
Human condition
Boweled-out servitude
Story at six

"Dwell in Sleep" brushes upon the notion of not wanting to get out of bed in the morning for any number of reasons. Spring, 2012

Dwell in Sleep

Caressing
This ultra-green pear
Its fragrant dawn
In fleeting compliance
In fleeting sleep
I rise and face my sun
Its pearl luster
Velvet mitigation
I sigh
And turn back
To sleep

"Carnegie Hill" is the highest of upscale neighborhoods in New York City's Upper East Side, immediately adjacent to the Park.  It is a neighborhood where you can't swing the proverbial dead cat over your head three times and let it go without hitting a nanny or doorman. Think beautiful, boutique, specialty markets and flower shops that deliver daily. This is a spectacular, beautiful neighborhood....with an undercurrent. Winter, 2012

Carnegie Hill

Burble and flutter of sparrow
Rummage tossed seed for them
Sunken into late winter snow
In shadow
Stiffened, idle doorman
positing
A text

Imported surrogates
Like family
Better than indigenous
Raise single digit-aged
Offspring
Repositories of progeny

Shuttled cold
Into luxury transport
To practice
After school skills:
Felling and falling
Surrogates all
Hands in wave
Cells in hands
Icing

"Bottle Cap Crimp" is another of the brief, bad attitude writings I penned about emerging women in mid-divorce. Don't worry, it passed.  It always does.I've thought about deleting these, but this was a part of me I needed to flush from my system at the time.  This one was also "coined" in New York City in a place that was in vogue. Although "Carnegie Hill" rolled right off my keyboard, this one took a few weeks to hatch. It's still choppy, but after a few weeks, I figured, it is the way it should be; perhaps a little agitated, jagged.

Bottle Cap Crimp

Older tomboy in upholstery
Right and wrong
Dyslexic
This place the standard
The bar the place
Table neighbor sighs
Finest of destination
laser-edge design
Scene to be seen
Cabs honk
Under threat of fine
Through fogged window
Crying in exaggerated streams
Third flight
Stolen thunder
Men researched
Zero lace

"Can't See Tomorrow Tonight" occurred after the first encounters with the divorce lawyers in court. It was an amicable divorce, straight-forward no money nor custody was to trade hands (no biological kids involved; they were grown).  But the lawyers had conspired to vacuum retainers. Imagine that.  Following the court episode, I sought solace at my favorite beach that evening. April, 2012.

Can't See Tomorrow Tonight

Mopping a moonlit splash
Molten cold
I recline in shadow
Elbows dug into the sand
Roaring ocean

My repertoire a memory
Conduit to earthly spine
Sand recedes with each wave
Shifting
Sparkle
Undermined

Frothing starlit
Curl of surf
Knees to chest
Rhythmic sea
And thunder

"Crease in Time (For Pat)" occurred as a result of an unthinkable tragedy in January 2012. My soon-to-be-former Father-in-Law died in a house fire on the Western Slope of the Rockies. He lived there with his ex in a very remote town.
Both had smoked themselves practically to death, she with emphysema and he having lost a lung to cancer. They were buddies again, no sexual threat to one-another, both on oxygen. I don't know exactly what happened, but it is speculated she smoked with oxygen.  She may have died instantly, but certainly died at the scene.  Seems Pat tried to save her, but succumbed to smoke-inhalation and died a couple of days later in a Denver hospital.
Pat was one of the finest human beings/souls I've ever encountered. Limited schooling and poor grammar. But he was a wonderful presence.  Tough Norwegian from North Dakota. I know his daughter misses him immensely, as do I.  This piece was written a couple of months after his passing in memory of him.  You'll note he was project-oriented and liked to be busy fixing things, even things not in need of fixing. Spring, 2012 

Crease in Time (For Pat)

Meteoric streak extinguished
Roiling water
Hiss silent breath
Suspended suffocation
This crease in time

Stellar happened past us
Were we not listening?
Witness rear view mirror
Thick finger-turned screws
Single knee to concrete
Working genuflection

Grammar destitute
Wisdom in boot

Beethoven-crossed
Moonlight
and 5th
Snows in Dakotas

"The Other White Trash" is a reference to big-box discount stores and patrons who inhabit them.  I'll not reference store names, but it suffices to say, this one bowls you over with a foul popcorn smell when you cross its threshold.  Imagine a random Tuesday morning, say, 10:45.

The Other White Trash

Faux-buttered popcorn
Burned, spent scent
Symbiotic stretch pants and
Overt discipline
Goldfish in dried gallons
Squared

Flickering flat screens
In unison
TV judge
In hopeless replication

Hose drains
In cross-aisles
Toddlers in tantrum
More sterile
Than hospital floors
Really

I step onto Wafting
Rain-soaked asphalt
Paw feverishly
Like a bull
To dislodge a spent condom
Under shoe
Briefly flash
Both sides and mechanization
In weak thought

Blue sky far out over ocean
Under hovered land ceiling

Injury law
Technical training
Ahead

The next, two entries represent a resignation from the past.  I'm climbing out of a deep well, still angry about the well, itself, and mourning what might have been a fresh, ongoing drink of water. "Collateral Damage" is a reflection upon myself. "Disingenuous" is more a statement about a situation where things have gone awry but in recognition that it was a team-effort. Spring, 2012

Collateral Damage

My fatal, dysfunctional contraption
Sophisticated repertoire
Incessant in activity and score
Compromised Progress
To goal

Oil alone
Repairs no machine
I tick along these tracks
Whistling

Past a factory of worms
Hustled
By stark sparrow
Humbled
Grounded by the wind

Disingenuous

Seems our paths crossed
An entanglement of limbs
Steadfast imperfection
Each
Fatigue and lubrication

This sun casts
No light
No warmth
Across this house

Sunset shadows
Recedes into themselves
Imagining life
Without us
Each other
Aside

"Divestiture" is a continuation of a self-introspective, "What is life about?" In retrospect, I'm not sure how accurate it is  regarding the situation/mood, I'd hoped to conjure. It does capture the cleaning out of a house and memories you thought you loved.  But I think this and "Tick Tock Clock" are worth capturing since they seemed so at the time. There was no puppy inspiring Tick Tock Clock.  Was not going there at the time.  But I've had a puppy in a cardboard box next to my bed before and think we all have had so. NOTE: My experience has taught me, lose the box. Lose the clock. Let the puppy sleep with you in bed.  Your heartbeat  is superior to a ticking clock, though less accurate in the measurement of time. The puppy won't pee in your bed unless you are negligent before and after its sleep time. Everyone will sleep better and be happy.  Two poems follow from the Spring of 2012.

Divestiture

Gathered belongings
Mockingbird's song
I've never heard before
Nothing values value
Nor articulates its worth
Like speed in need to leave

Retain
Discard
Drag in tow
Bag
Jettison to curb

Each item at task
Caged memory
Dank space
Salvageable
But not
Kissed asses in my day
None more seriously
Than this

Tick Tock Clock

Rudimentary
Tick Tock Clock
Plastic, mall cheap
Tucked into blankets
1 turn-around
Puppy-sized box
Dumpster original

I methodically
Address
His discomfort
Me in sleep haze
My child tonight
Surrogate heartbeat
In a box
Puppy counts no ticks
Like me

Bedtime
My bed
Instead

Puppy yawns
Serious milk-breath
Genuine heartbeat
Misted warm
Common life
Sleep ticking

"Aimlessness" expresses the futility of 'trying' too hard. I fell into a phase where I did so.  We've all fallen into a phase where we've done so. Spring, 2012

Aimlessness

Archers and pitchers acknowledge
The projectile is
Not
Prescribed upon the mark
But drawn to it,
Via will

The will of the mark
Itself
Prepares for
Absorbs
The shock
Intent
Of the hurled object

Long before
Bow is drawn
or arm curls
Impact registers
In smoke
Of catcher's mitt

Long before
The roar of the crowd
Deed accomplished

The projectile soars
Frozen in time
Before a
Mind struck crowd
Who cannot
Fathom
The speed
Of the object
At hand