Snarky Skeleton

The Skeleton at the Randolph Grill (Formerly the Copper Dome), Kitty-Corner from Cretin Durham-Hall Catholic Academy

Catholics eat nothing but pancakes—
no yeast, just 
baking powder.
                                                                   

What Was the Skeleton Doing at the Copper Dome in the First Place?

The skeleton don’t
eat nothin’,
just drink coffee.

No Consummation

So on top of everything that’s going on with can I be my baby’s daddy,
I met Beverley today,
a white-haired woman in silver shades
who approached me from an apartment building.
—I’m feeling a little dizzy, may I take your arm? she said.
I was dressed in jean shorts and my Teva sandals
and a Moosejaw dance weekend t-shirt.

I gave Beverley my arm, and we walked slowly.
—Low blood pressure problem? I asked.
—I don’t know, I have lots of problems.
Lately, I’ve been getting stronger—my dizzy spells, that is!
And I thought she shot me a triumphant glance
from under her silver shades. 
—I’ve been a fainter from childhood, I said,

walking faster as I talked, but she asked me to slow down.
When we got to Black Coffee Shop, her destination,
she offered to buy me a cup,
but I said I had to meet a friend
to practice for our musical performance to open
the poetry reading at Tillie’s Farmhouse tomorrow,
which was sort of true,

we do have a gig tomorrow.
When I told Beverley about Tillie’s Farmhouse,
I thought I saw her eyes light up
behind her silver shades.
—I used to do that all the time, she said,
organize dancing-singing events.
I’m a painter too.

—You could hang your paintings at Tillie’s, I suggested,
but she had already thought of that.
—I create very large canvases, she said.
—You could come to the reading tomorrow and check it out, see
if there’d be room to hang them.
—Oh, they’d hang all right, but I wouldn’t be able to carry them there.
—I’ll do it, I said.

It sounded like she might take me up on the offer.
I gave her my card with my phone number on it.
It was my Hucklenut Press card, and she said,
—My late husband wanted to publish books of poems
by automobile enthusiasts—hesitating as if that wasn’t quite
the phrase she wanted. When I was walking away, I thought,
—I have no way to contact Beverley;

I don’t want to brush her off; such a serendipitous
meeting must be significant somehow.

So I walked back, ordered a 12-oz Americano to go,
said my friend had to be late for the rehearsal,
and asked Beverley for her phone number, but she said,
—I also have a memory problem, I can’t
remember my phone number.

So I said goodbye and left,
and I’m sure she was fine by that time
with me leaving.
Maybe she’ll call me
and I’ll help her hang her paintings at Tillie’s.
Beverley is surely an intriguing person,
but I’m amazed at how strongly I respond to any woman.

Eight Sonnet-Like Poems

I Don't Remember My Dreams

Does everyone have a

canon of dream remembrances—
a kind of testament, if not scriptural?

Mine starts with the usual
giant in the basement; maze
of flooded department store rooms.

Frightening the poverty of what I'd rather not
remember! My scarecrow parents
(who else?) living in their ash heap—

worse than Hamm and Clove.
But never without a measure of love,
no matter how bitter the dream.

When I wake up and do not remember,
I am glad of the light of day.

Early Crossroads

My mother’s rage was my name for fear
when I would come in from the back yard
with a caterpillar in my hair.
But it was my father not me she
hated. I won the Oedipal war
without a fight, and possessed my stern
Jocasta without guilt, without cause
to stab my eyes dark with her brooch pins. 

What could be so terrifying as
a victory so clear? Boney in
the Kremlin, pacing. No one arriving
to sign his treaties. Only villains
and whores still at large in the city.
And now the great houses are burning.

Duende

There’s a word from Lorca—duende—
pretty trendy now in the poetry community—
taken to mean somehow
deep, dark, hyper-passionate, black,
reeking of death and dire fate.
Somehow, it’s that core of quivering
emotional reality
we try to plumb as poets. When I

look at the source text, though,
I find that Lorca associated duende
with great flamenco dancers and guitar players.
He meant that deep intention in performance
that makes it impossible
not to listen.

Obituary for Blok’s Ear

There’s a Photoshop trick—you can cut people out of photos,
leaving white blanks with human shapes.
My brother-in-law posted a couple this morning.
Someone thought of Stalin. In the beautiful Hemschemeyer

Akhmatova book, there’s a photo of Alexander Blok
and Korney Chukovsky. Their right hands
are clasped. Blok is looking at Korney’s face. Korney’s eyes
are glancing furtively at a spot to the left of the camera. If

Blok’s silhouette were whited out, we might still
recognize him from his nose and brow. The photo was taken
in 1921, Blok’s death year, the year he famously said:

There are no sounds any more. Can’t you hear
that there are no sounds? Korney had a wonderful career
through the Stalin years—the Soviet Dr. Seuss.

January Thaw

Waiting for lunch in a hamburger joint—
I notice a woman walking outside,
dragging three bags through the tar-black slush,
then pausing a while at the door.

Now she heaves herself in and sits
down at a table in back—light streaming
through the unshaded windows
onto her upturned face.

All in a heap, head at a tilt,
lids shut tight like the valves of two clams—a black
bruise on her chin, as from falling in the street.

No one minds or approaches her—set apart in a

shaft of light—a marble ecstasy of tiredness,
in the late sunshine.

Immanuel

Having my espresso, looking out
a big front window onto Washington Avenue.
Saw a gaunt woman approaching from the
light-rail tracks—cardboard sign reading, Anything

will help.  Leaving my coffee on the table, walked
up the street to where the woman
was fleeing after being rebuffed
by a frowning white-haired man. I got

her attention and handed her the three dollars I had left
after paying for my cup.
I appreciate it, God bless you, she said.

God bless you too, I said, feeling like a hypocrite. 

But it was OK. God
was with us in that moment.

Baby Poet (Store-Bought Garnets)

Having torn 'em from the card and rubbed off the glue,

I put 'em with some other rocks
in a little sectioned, labeled box
and brought 'em to school for Show-and-Tell.
The box had a transparent cellophane
cover designed to discourage fingers,
but the next day I had to complain to the teacher—
Mrs. Eggering—that my little green

garnets were missing—the cellophane
breached. Mrs. Eggering
must have been fed up with my rock collections,
because, instead of showing concern,
she bluntly asked me to please stop bringing
my boxes of rocks to school.

The Sheet of Tin (for Dáithí Sproule)

When I gave up alcohol,
my world flattened
to a hammered sheet of tin
shining in the sun.

Luckily, the man holding the tin
was none other than Johnny Doherty himself—
Traveler, tinsmith,
great Donegal fiddler—

welcome everywhere, always presentably dressed,
always at his best.
Sitting on a concrete stoop,

legs stretched out in front him,

he holds the sheet of tin in his hands,
measuring and cutting.

What's John Writing?

     Who's that writing? 
     John the Revelator. He wrote the 
     Book of the Seven Seals.

My mother laughed at herself:
after all the thought she’d devoted,
simply naming her children Mary and John.

Yochanan. Johnny. YAHWEH is gracious.
During the middle ages,
a fifth of all English boys were named John.

So many John’s!
I can hardly stand being addressed as John,
or infuriatingly asked,
is John short for Jonathan?

John Th' Baptist in the desert with his locust feast
can’t eye the dance like a salty beast.
He’s nothing now but a hairy head
lying on a salver, stony dead.

John finally owning their name.

Who art worthy? Crucified and holy,
bound up for sin, Son of our God.
Daughter of Zion! Judea’s lion! 
He redeemed us, Jesus bought us
with his blood.

Moses, Moses, watching the flock,
saw the bush where they had to stop.
God says, Moses, better take off your shoes,
‘cause out of the flock, a-well-a
you I choose.

Jack-o’-lantern. Jack knife.
Pretty, snoring John O’Dreams.

When in the known is only what is known,
then John is not by that.
When John is not by that, they're not therein.

When in the seen is only what is seen,
then John is neither by that nor therein—
nor here, nor there, nor in between. 


Probably written in late 2015 or early 2016.

8/21/2017 Solar Eclipse

The eclipse really put a shutter on things
today, though only 83%
from our location on Ashland Ave.
Didn’t get out of bed til nine o’clock,
a rarity for me,
so when Dave came over at ten o’clock for tunes,
I felt a little out of it—remembered
only parts of some of the songs I started—
including Wall of Death,
John Barleycorn,
and Keep My Skillet Greasy.
But, turned out, Dave knew them already—sweet!
Then we had lunch at Mirror of Korea,
returning just in time to see the crescent sun
though the certified dark glasses Robin gave me—
lucky—a thinning of the clouds
in that very second—
the sun hooking, flashing like an eel
under the gray cloud surface.
Why do people like to see the eclipse?—
To take part in an event that’s free
of their perceptions and consciousness—
already in Babylonian astronomical tables

thousands of years

Dewey's New Sandals

Dewey has two rules in life:
1) Walk at least seven or eight miles a day.
2) Don’t wear shoes—only sandals.

Dewey strikes the ground with their heels,
so they had to replace
their expensive Eccos.

Pair of brown Dockers
surprised them—
only forty-five dollars.

Waded Snake River tributaries in em
to keep up
with Shannon fishing.

Feet pretty in em too—
toes fully exposed
in front of the strap.

Slid-y soles.
Even square danced
in em.

But replaced em with a pair
of Tevas—the shoe
in which the feet are most naked.

Walked right away three miles
from Ford and Cleveland, then two days
at the Irish Fair.

Blistery spot on the right big toe knuckle,
uncovered yesterday,
still weeping a bit.

Took pictures of their foot just now—
already a nice
smooth callous.

Might rub off and cry one
more time a little,
but Dewey ain’t puttin’ no bandaid on it.

Dewey's Conceit

What’s the idea of Dewey
pretending to be a woman? Can I even use
the non-gendered pronouns for them anymore?

Dewey and I go way back,
but I never let myself realize fully
their desires and proclivities.

Dewey’s really just a poser—
some kind of fake hipster tranny,
who’s too old to pull it off.

But Dewey is actually nothing
but a fictional character,
a rostrum—a talking mask.

Dewey lets me convey
a lively image
of myself.

The reason why Dewey
wants to be a woman?—
The girl in junior high school

who hurt their heart the worst—

the one thing she could not stand the most?—
Conceited boys!

My Wry Rowans

We brought in no prey to Fionn
but the berries of the tree and two swine.
                                                                   “The Wry Rowan,” The Lays of Fionn

Rowan tree,
like the willow tree,
tardy in array.

Rowan tree,
I didn’t know you were a rowan tree
until just today.

Rowan tree—
two, actually—
rising beside my garage entry.

Two rowan trees,
sprung from seeds
dropped in a load of bird poop.

Two rowan trees
with orange berries—
now more than thirty feet tall.

Portal trees,
greeting me
when I trigger the electric garage door opener.

Protector trees,
phylacteries,
keeping witches away from my car.

Traveler trees,
locating me
when I’m lost in Minneapolis without a clue.

Rowan tree,
I brought home no groceries
but your bitter berries and two pork chops.

How's It Do It?

Bird feeder
on a crook’d metal pole punched into the grass—
away from branches to evade squirrels.

Little red squirrel hanging on it as I write—
clamped on upside-down
like a bat.

Well, maybe too close
to the wispy rowan tree
(clusters of orange berries).

Walk over and scare the little red squirrel off—
it almost flies to the ground
as a cardinal would.

There’s the cardinal now
perched properly on the claw rest.
Nope, there’s the little red squirrel again—

it’s 

shimmied
the pole.

Where You Been Last Night?

barefoot in the
basement singing
revival meeting songs

I'll Fly Away

sitting on
my cedar back porch
not being able to do a damn thing

I can ogle my feet
but there’s only so much
satisfaction in that

I wonder
have I come to the end
of my run?

looking at the patches
of light and shadow on the grass
can’t have one without the other

the colorful metal chickens
are right there beyond the bars
of the cedar railing

plus an orange

button-nosed pig
with purple wings