Golden State: Unreliable Narrator

The seasons are more than they seem.

Who would have thought the dogwood tree in

such wild flower would sliver

away into such a sickly state?



It’s something to anticipate. The direction, once begun, is

always down. The soundtrack contains

a note or two,

a melody there, then loses time.

The end is severe. Weren’t there

a few golden moments near the summer river?

Those dissolve.



The same song plays over in your mind.

An innate understanding of what

rewind means. Back where we started,

as a bridge is built from both sides at

once.



Every story needs one. Some are reliable

and hold up in high winds, swaying with the weather,

at the same instance others collapse in the water,

sheared metal, different bodies falling, waves across and up the shore.



The narrator lets the characters go.

Knowing the Golden Gate is named for a passage

and not the color of the span.

This is important to know for

it was painted to blend in with the

hills around. It takes a certain

kind of grace to be less sight than sound.

The Anatomy of Love

Tonight the artificial light

is clearly driven by the beginning—

the furnace blast, carbon

caught fire, metals, molten

and poured into iron ore—

conflagration at the essential core.



It was easy before.

The simple divide between day and

night, coupling in heat on top of

the wild earth, under the dome of sky

while seeds fell from the new trees:

we lay across the green world

in the fragrant grass.

And it was good.



And when did love begin?

On that first day, delivered from the dust, inhaled

at one with the breath of life?

No matter.

At any rate, it spread.



Until the moment of exposure at the high altar

with the plunge into the chest

and the heart pulled, held skyward, beating:

the locus of love for all to see.



And now, songs of loss

leak across the face of each and every one,

the sheets of music all the same

save the nightly notations of empty bars

filled with the sound of leaving—

the endless echo in the inner ear

of a dead-bolt thrown behind a door.



Were the gods pleased, appeased

by the offerings? No telling.

How I must seem, seen from the heavens:

love-struck, dumb-founded.

Still, perhaps for a moment

they have seen me—

freshly-fractured, luminous in the light,

and they cannot turn away—

agog for once in their never-ending lives,

startled at my luster.

Winter: Blind Squirrel

Winter comes.
And stays.  It’s always enough.
The wind that wreaks
Small havoc in the leaves
That are already dead.

If I had a grandfather he
Would tell a story that would help
Us get through all this.
But he died, you see, so far back
And never had much of anything
To say to anybody, anyway.
He used  to listen to a transistor radio for company.

So very few things help,
Rarely people.  I knew a blind squirrel once
In Central Park when I wanted to die,
And he did something in the nimble way he took
The peanuts from my invisible hand with his strange fingers.

One day I will walk into the park to find him
But he will be gone.  Squirrels don’t live very long.
People do—and something about that will keep things raw.
I’d rather have a blind squirrel as a lifelong friend
Who knows that winter is immanent, and we
are inured from none of it,
And will always take so gracefully what you have
And disappear into the trees,
Knowing, in his belly, you’ll come back.

Red state #5: The School That Was Blown Away

The school stood in the middle of a meadow at the edge of town. No

one knew how long it had been there or who had built it. It was made

of brick and had a copper roof gone green in the weather. Somehow

it had come to life and nobody questioned why.

There was also a teacher. He was not old, but could not have been

very young, for the straw-color of his hair had grey flecks in the light.

He spoke rarely though it seemed clear what he asked

for. And the children loved him. They came to school on foot, for very few people had any other way of moving. They walked together, holding hands,

their parents behind. In the morning the sun released

a gold shimmer across the grass that melted the nightly frost. In

the afternoon when the day had ended, the children spilled out

into the meadow and ran after one another, their laughter ringing.



Then one evening a wind came. Slight at first, then stronger. It became

something that blew the shutters off their hinges, slammed windows

left ajar with great violence. All the parents gathered their children together, bolted

the doors. Lay down on the floor beneath the kitchen table to stay

clear of the shattering glass. It suddenly seemed like an angry

world where it hadn’t before.  An old man’s stutter returned for the first time in years.

A little girl was forever turned by what she thought was the

end of her life, though she continued to live. A woman closed

her eyes and was terrified of her own vision.



They worried about the schoolteacher in the meadow who lived there alone.

The wind raged that long night. And as suddenly as it

came, it departed, and when it did, it made a sound like a person

gasping for a last breath of air. They shuddered. They walked out
into the light to see what the wind had wrought.



The sky was a scoured blue. The people stood as though rooted

to the spot. A boy began walking toward the meadow. It was some distance

down the only road and most of the fences were down.

A few cows and goats wandered in the dirt, somehow no worse for

wear. The boy continued walking and could feel his heart

beating beneath his shirt. Other children peeked out of

their houses, fell in line. They walked together;

they did not hold hands. They moved toward the school

though they already knew. And when they got to the meadow it

was clear. Not a thing remained; not a brick or a desk, a sliver

of glass or piece of chalk. No sign of a footprint in the grass,

the blades unbent and unbroken.

The teacher nowhere

to be found.



The children stood where the school had been and began to weep.

Tears fell in the meadow, and no one tried to stop them.

They stood and cried, never moving,

not coming home for dinner, never coming in. And the parents

let them stay where they were,

to ache and grieve, knowing

it might keep them alive.

They must have shed a sea

of tears and the earth, thirsting, drank them all.



None of them remains. Though

there is still a meadow where nothing stands.

Strange things have happened there—a man

found a flower that smelled the same as his dead

grandmother’s blanket he wrapped himself in when

he was very young and had run away from home, and a woman, years later,

found a note hastily scrawled with the exact departure

time and destination of a train she had taken

to see her sister dying in a hospital in a big city

in the north. It looked written in her own

hand. Though she couldn’t say

for sure and there was no one

left to tell.

Mudville, Revisioned.

The Short Shrift of History: A Movement in 15 Parts of Mudville


1

The city records show Mudville

endured torrential rains for some

time. Hence the name. Though

there is no documentation that any

other came

before. In the library,

searching for whatever it

had been. Spanning the years. Only that,

only now, up to your

neck in it.



2

How could there have

been happiness in a town with a name

like that. Casey tried to

change but could not. Everyone

has a day of absolute failure.

His was something for the entire

town that ended.



3

After all, what was he left with,

what to do. Swinging in the air at

something that had already gone by.

It would be easy to see what came next.

Dissolution, ruin. Increasing rain. The stadium emptied.

Exactly as it was.



4

What’s the worst that

could happen, he thought,

before the pitch. Merely a swing

and a miss. Oh, it ended up

so much more than this. Once,

when he was small, his father

told him there was a history

to tell. But he fell ill

and never got around to it. Needing him

on that day, Casey looked

into the stands. Only to find the

sodden faces of other men. Their desperate need

for him. His father missed the game.

Said he forgot .

Was thinking of something else he had to do

before he died.



5

The citizens, as you can understand,

were left with nowhere else to go.

The opposite of the

dust bowl. Water where you never

wanted it. Levees overflown, busted

and filled the baseball field.

Once lost, they wandered without

a sense of the reconfigured

diamond. Bases not where they should

be. Home and the backstop

gone.



6

The peanut vendor

lost his vocation.

Decided to ride the

rails. A tin of beans

and a bottle got him

through the worst days. He had

a little saved. He carried along

what was left of the red and white

striped bags. Sold them for

a pittance— to others for

nothing. He wondered aloud

at times if there had ever been

joy in Mudville. Woke the

others in the railway car with his

musings. Who ambled back

into something softer their minds

had created. Please, not that

kind of question.



7

Casey hit .367 that year.

So it was not errant to

hope at that moment.

Still, after it all

everyone in the stands

said they knew it was

coming. They spoke

in hindsight. Casey had

an idea about a curve ball

or slider, but it went by all

so fast. He couldn’t

read the signs. Out on the center field

wall was an advertisement for

Miller High Life. Now, outside

the thud in the catcher’s mitt,

that’s all he recalls.

8

After such a thing, who wouldn’t have wandered to

an arid town. Casey found himself

somewhere southwest. There were red

mountains off in the distance.

He thought of heading out there

and scaling one or two. Then re-thought

there was only so much failure

one man could endure.

He was sure

he needed to stay on.

But couldn’t. Caught a ride

going further north. Squandered

what he had left on something

to keep him in the dark.



9

The paper was full of speculation. What

it meant for the future of the town. But by

the time it went to press, everyone had

gone. On the street corner,

a newsboy called out the headline. Mighty Casey

at the bat.

No one in particular was there

to hear again anything about that.



The boy brought his full bundle

back. The city editor was at a loss. How

one toss of a baseball could kill

a town. He looked around for

anyone to interview. One man

had stuck around. He had recently moved, he

said, and saw no reason to take off

because of someone striking out

and a little rain.

It was just a game, he said.

What’s the big deal. You tell me.

The city editor ducked inside

the closest bar and drank

until he couldn’t see.



10

The townsfolk headed out en masse.

The land was flat and muddy but

no high mountain pass. In this they were

lucky. Though not a soul felt that way.



How had it come to this.

Yet there was no recollection

and besides no one was talking.

All they knew was a swing and

a miss.

Casey, that fucker, good

riddance.

They left him in the distance.



11

At some point, the

land rose up

and beyond one couldn’t

see. There was no town

yet, so no one

to blame for whatever

might happen there.



They pulled the wagons up and over.

The wheels in a rut.

A good start, they felt.

There would be no need

to leave.

Until then, like that fateful game.

It began to rain.

It would be different, someone said out loud.

They drew up a plan for the town.

Down to the finest detail

Made it precisely

the same.

Save the field.



12

Casey somehow found his way

back. Though

it was in essence no longer there.

The base paths became tall grass. Stadium walls

buckled, washed away in the ever-falling

rain. In a short dry spell, gophers

took over the pitcher’s mound.

Couldn’t tell the coming clouds

would open up that way.

Filling every gopher corridor.

Floating face-up underground.



13

Casey has given up the

bat. Taken up

other things. But this

was just conjecture. Someone said

they saw him once, still in

uniform, rowing away.

That he had adapted

to change.



14

With each stroke

in the oarlock

his arms wear away.

He wasn’t made for this and

the river never ends.



At some point

opens into the mouth of the sea.

Amidst the roar

that for an instant brings him

back. But fades as the waves

break.

He senses a leak.

By this time, he’s

in water up to his knees.

15

Oh Casey, you know there’s

no erasing such a hardened memory.

Remains immersed in it.

Rain fell far out across the ocean.

Only that, as far as his eyes

went.

Slight Epic for Autumn

Damon The Mower Renews His Lament Fifteen Times

From Marvell

1

With love of Juliana stung.

There was an influx of bees that year

so it wasn’t initially clear

that it was only her.

Though what they did was slight

when weighed against.

Now it seems all

the bees are dying.

Empty hives.

Guess it’s not just the bees

that go missing.

Something

that can’t be named takes

everything away.



2

There were so many mowers to choose from.

A Lawnboy didn’t seem like the right one. After all,

Damon had already been done in and made to feel small.

Juliana had done that. Why not something with more weight.

Toro. At least the name intimates

a battle before the inevitable

running

through.



3

Damon wonders about

the glowworms and where they might be.

Did they die off. Perhaps they never lived

here. There are fireflies

that last for awhile. Which is breathing, a moment

in time.

Damon needed someone to talk to,

even if they couldn’t respond to that kind of wound. It was said their light

lasted long enough for him to finish the grounds.

But that was so long ago

diminished.







4

Damon was upset to read

a poem where Larkin ran over the

hedgehog with his mower. All of it jammed

against the blades. Might

not have been looking where he

was headed. Stalled twice. Lost in thought, perhaps—

an old lover who had come back in that instant. The one

with glasses and the ten-guinea ring that he could never love.

For Damon

that would seem a stroke of luck.



5

Damon himself wanders off,

loses track. Clipped the heads

off the daffodils in

their flower beds.

Mrs. ___ will

have a fit when she sees

the damage. He’ll have

to create some kind of story.

It hurts to look more then you

might imagine. That beheading.

More dread to manage.



6

There were spiders—the brown recluse—

hidden in the grass. He wondered how many

he mowed under with each pass. Damon

knew, after all, there was no hiding—even the snake

inside his second skin would someday

have to show that glitter

kept within.



7

Damon had heard some time ago

they used a scythe

to cut the grass. He had seen one in a thrift store.

How hard that must have

been to work with on any heated day. Which

was all there seemed to be,

these extremes. The temperature

creeping higher.

No water to ease, nowhere to pass the daily fires.

Scorched the earth and mower both.







8

Damon knew the world was no mirror.

Though every scene did fit

for his complaint. The door come unhinged

on the tool shed. Patches of washed-out

grass. Cement in the driveway

risen up and cracked. And of course one long

day when he was nearly done.

The engine coughed. Ran out of gas.



9

Damon hears Train in Vain

inside his head as he

rides across the grass.

He greased the chain

that morning so something

would go smoothly.

After months of this

he knows how ineffective

whatever he does is. The grass

grows back. Weeds, desires,

crop up, refuse to be cut. Merely bend

in the wind.

Tears are no remedy.

Fall to be distilled again.



10

She didn’t stand by me,

he sings. No not at all. Out in the grass

with the engine on there was

no one to hear. Even his

own voice above the din.

The lot rang in his ears.

Hark the words were his

how Damon sung

with love of Juliana stung.



11

What can be kept.

The smell of cut grass once

filled him. Now it

was something

he recalled. Of course

the scent was there.

But blunted. Before, the leaves fell

from the trees with otherworldly elegance.

Now hamstringed, Damon

sees everything askew.

The romance bleached out.





12

One morning under

cloud cover Damon

had a thought. If only

what he mowed

was grief. He felt the

blades beneath

go dull. The grass

behind uncut. He’d have

to take the mower in.

Sharpen his woe.



13

Passing a picture

window Damon saw

himself go by.

He turned

around and made another

pass. It threw back

a deformed sight.

It got at something.

not unlike the fun house

glass, even though you laughed.

Seen turned

inside out.



14

The season shifted

into cold. The grass

slowed down.

There wasn’t much

time left for mowing.

He’d have to put

the mower in the shed.

Then what.

At least that insistent gnawing

sometimes stilled when

he kept moving.







15

This time last year

he and Juliana

made it through

the winter warmly.

Now what.

The blood staunched;

the wound sealed.

Yet still it stays profound.

You see, death takes the grass

but allows it to come

back. Damon

feels no chance of such

rebirth from underground.

Perhaps death alone will have to do:

For Damon knows that Death

thou art a Mower too.