Pressure, Pleasure, Pain

* * *


SACRED VEHICLE

“Thou shalt not tempt
the Lord, thy God.”

I used to think that meant
don’t beg for Aladdin’s cave,
don't ask that a dead stick
erupt in rose blossoms.

Now I think it means
take care of your body;
you don’t get a replacement
(at least not the same
make and model).


CELESTIAL SODA POP

(was there ever a tune so aptly named?)

(it’s worth a lifetime to hear it)

(wordless ... and also beyond words

(yet the title says it all)

(wrong, the music does)

(hush, everyone… encore!)


ASIDE: When the subject of personal theme songs
came up this week, I was sure mine was Bob Seeger's
about "I'm older now but still runinn' against the wind."
Then I remembered Celestial Soda Pop.


PREMATURELY
INDUCED

Delivery
can go easy
some say—
some, with experience.
(Breathe. Just breathe.)

I am due
to deliver…
or be delivered.
(I’d gladly gestate
on those phrases awhile.)

Pressure
is coming to bear.
(More gestation.)
I have no epidural.


MANAGEMENTAL

I have modes of attention:

One: utter focus.
Two: blocked.
Three: flit-flit-flit.
Four: forget-forget-forget.

When left to my own agenda,
I manage well.
When deferring to another’s,
I manage. Well…


I DARE NOT LAUGH

I have a cold sore rimming my right nostril.
This is August, so call it a heat sore.
Every time I smile, it cracks and weeps and enlarges.
I really think it’s impetigo,
which pleases me by association with babies.
It looks gross, like a squash-bug sized booger,
which pleases me by association with young boys
who know how to revel in grossness.
It is spreading to my upper lip
and I envision wearing a mustache to disguise it,
which pleases me by association with Groucho Marx
and Charlie Chaplin and all my hero comedians.
Now, if it were only funny.


GOOBER

I forgot.
Natural peanut butter
doesn’t stick just to
the roof of my mouth;
it sticks to my throat.


GOBBLEDY SPOOKED

The more
I say things
(especially, the more I exhort),
the more it all sounds like
gobbledygook,
or whatever gobbledygook word
they’re using these days.


INTERNALIZING

I didn’t notice
that the strawberry
in my left hand
was the size
of the heart
of a red-tailed hawk
until I made
a first slice
into its ventrical.
I should have
swallowed it whole.


100811

SHOWER

Ahhhh.
Water on,
balanced cold to hot.
How must it seem
for one,
used most of his life
to be clean,
to not?


INCLUDE HIM IN

Any man
who can take it in stride
when a coworker
incorrectly asks to take a shortcut
by riding his skirttails
is definitely welcome
at our impromptu
gal’s potluck.

Salad, Bill?
A few strawberries?


TOLL

I can’t decide
if this is funny—

When people say,
“I would pay
to do this,”
I think they
just mean money.


CRAZY FOR YOU (for Ethan)

We met, we talked,
we made a pact—
I and you—and you
became my school.

For you, for you,
I would act the fool—
and not even have to act.


MISSION FROM GOD

My daily duty and obsession
is like that “Blues Brothers” thing.
Everything else is
optional or expendable.


100810

HOME, HOME,
HOME, HOME, HOME

refuge
comfort
sanctified zone

launchpad
anchor
heart-and-hearth stone

floors
walls
roof or dome

grace
delight
us
our own


EMPLOYMENT
AGENCY

Exterminator wanted?
I’m here to apply
for the poisition.

Etiquette coach wanted?
I’m here to apply
for the poisition.

[ASIDE: From a typo in a job ad.]


100809

THE CORE

More
seek to seek it
(to explore)
than know it.
Wander more.
Quest
is at the core:
the province
of the poet.
Ponder.


COME AS YOU COME

Would I stuff you in a box
and tie you up with string?
Would I cram you in a mold
or pin your dainty wings?

Would I force you to behave
like a robot or a slave,
or cast you as a victim
while I played the roguish knave?

Would I shove you on the stage
and force you to compete?
Would I make you toe the line?
Would I bind your precious feet?


ASIDE: As I thought of the effrontery of trying to force
a poetic inspiration into a predetermined line-and-meter form,
this one came to me easily and just about complete. It does
not strictly toe the line.


SPECULATION

My body will go on
as long as it does
and I really don’t think
it will mind when it dies.
As for my mind,
it doesn’t mind now.


ABOUT THAT REQUEST…

Saying now,
“Can’t you give me
a few more hours
in this day?”

. . .will that be
much different than
saying, later,
“Can’t you give me
a few more hours
in this life?”


100808

DEAR DIVINE POET,

Given the late hour
and long day,
which of these
would you do:
go to bed and sleep
or edit poems
from earlier scribbles?

Oh, You are so wise!
But that is why
You are You
and I am …not.


FOLLOWING THE CALL

With the dark
that leaves at dawn,
swiftly, corporeally,
he is gone.

All too soon
will come the day
when corporeally only,
he will stay.


WOMAN OF A CERTAIN AGE

People died today.
I wasn’t one of them.
Am not. Yet.
Not quite yet.
But there are intimations:
mortality tables,
losses, lapses.

People died today.
Most, I think, tried not to.
But I can’t be certain.
I wasn’t one of them.


WHAT I’M ABOUT

One: oneness.
Two: diversity.
Three: gratitude.
Oh, forgot poetry!


ENTERPRISE

Thank you kindly,
Captain Kirk,
but my reward
is my work.


100807

OMNIA FUGIT

“Sic transit gloria mundi.”
Need translation? I’m equipped—
“Certain grasps must be ungripped.”

Un exemplum:
My fresh manicure is chipped.


LIFE LONG

Time for play
is playing for time:
being ex-tension
creates extension.


RIGHT LIVELIHOOD

I ask, am told,
seem shy, am bold.
And what I have
outvalues gold.


DOUBLING UP

My life’s lopsided.
I like it that way.
I overlap
my work and play.


SMALL COMFORT

When I was little,
I didn’t know what to say
to old ladies either.


FASCINATING

Poems come easier now,
I guess because…
everything
is an opening
into something
fascinating.


CACTUS FLOWER

You asked.
I tell.

To dance my dance
and sing my song
means...
love that well
which must be left
ere long.


100806

WAGON MAKER

I knew a man,
challenged
in fundamental ways,
who stumbled through
his crazy maze
of hazy days
in strangely able ways.


DIVERSITY
IDENTITY

Dearest Sir,
Dearest Ma’am,

Bonnet, helmet,
cap or tam—
how can I
pick a hat style
if I don’t know
who I am?

[ASIDE: Did a diversity exercise that involved
expressing individuality through hat choices.]


MAKES NO SENSE

When things don’t flow
or do your bidding,
you gotta know:
“Life is what happens while
you’re making other plans.”

Oh, is that so:
what you “just know”?
You gotta be kidding!
Who has time for making plans?


WIN! WIN! WIN! —
NOTHING ELSE LIKE IT

Cheerleaders by the dozens,
swirling and twirling about
Then the mascot Razorback;
bristles and tusks and snout.

Roaring crowds
scream and shout
calling for a win, a rout.

Powers that be, have empathy.
Please be Soooie generous.

[ASIDE: I overheard someone enthuse today
about the thrill of attending her first Razorback games.]


BARE, RUINED, MIRED

That time of mind
thou mayst in me behold
when mellow thoughts
are none, or few, or old.


POME RITING

let them come
let them come
let them come
just
let them come


APPARITION

gracefulest mama
delicatest fawn

stilty legs,
swishy tails

lithely, quickly
gone


TOP OF MOUNTAIN?
BOTTOM OF WELL?

We all may ask
where ideas come from,
but none of us can tell.


100805

SHORT
POME

Most times
my thoughts
are short.

This time
I’m short
of thoughts.


CANTABILE

Lifelong, I pondered,
“For what music am I meant?”
then learned, with wonder,
“I am my own instrument.”


100804

THREE HOURS SLEEP

The first half of the night,
I scanned the house
for a lost document, but my
searching turned up nothing.

The second half of the night,
I scanned my mind
for that same lost document,
but memory turned up nothing.

Oh, the document turned up
eventually:
when I turned up the lid
of the scanner.


* * *