Good Poems

Good—as in
good food; good fellowship;
good eyesight; good will;

good weather; good walk;
good intentions; good luck;
good sex; and, finally,

good poem -
as in Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems series

(I certainly thank

Garrison for saving me from wasting valuable time
reading bad poems).
At the Moosejaw Sunday morning talent show,

a young dude
whom I’d watched the night before clogging with a tall
brown-haired girl

read a poem he’d written that very morning,
prefacing it by saying
he didn’t know if it was a good poem or not.

It was mostly
about how gross last night’s square dancing had
made his underwear.

The difficulty he had
deciphering his own hasty pencil scrawls
was also amusing.

I guess I’d say his poem was a good one.
At least, I know I enjoyed
it a lot.

Winter-Spring, 2012

Firefly

Here now
(where else?),
with the entire gaze of the universe
focused on me.

But it isn’t really about me
(or is it?).
Whom am I, anyway,
myself to be stared at like this?

And it is precisely me
(again)
wearing my blue terry cloth bathrobe, feet
propped on a chair, as usual—

just a temporary situation

(‘tis said, and I’ll admit)—
for a flashing instant to be one of those
whom God is looking at.

* Polymorphous Perversity Haiku *

Sex is all there is.
So sex can be anything
you want it to be.

Spright

spir’t, sp’rit—
what is it?—
same as the heart glow
we get when we walk
on our beautiful feet?

Dewey Astray

Put blue tape over the white molding running
all the way around our house this morning
that I painted yesterday.
Today I touch up the gray above it and remove the tape.

Do I need to preserve the assumption
that this writing has some kind of interred meaning,
some rind of truth at its core?
What a sloppy job

I’m doing, actually!—not even matching paint correctly—
low-gloss over flat, looking like
jungle camouflage more than not.
The red squirrels seem

to have vanished without a trace. The chipmunk
still shows up, but I have yet to get
a shot of him—could
still happen, maybe, but, God, he’s skittery.

Wow, here comes that evil tuxedo cat, smaller than our Orzo—
gray squirrels raising a ruckus—
Tuxedo sitting on a slab of our garden circle
by the red clay carp.

I put my painting shorts on for this morning’s task
and wore my Teva sandals, but then I took them off—
temperature still below sixty degrees—feet stinging a little
from the cold, and now they’re

soiled from walking around the house among the hosta.
Now here on my back-porch perch,
everything that’s to be seen right there to the eye, as usual—
metal chicken, purple-wingéd pig;

young maple with its sausage branches;

at the South end of the yard, my belovéd compost hole.
In my Merriam Park, St. Paul, neighborhood,
Tuxedo Kitty’s gone, and the squirrels are quiet.

Tom Petty and the Old Black Autoharp

Tom Petty died the other day,
drifted away suddenly, leaving us stranded
in our gun-metal blue world.

Petty never made much of an impression on me,
but my musical friend told a poet in the community
that she and I might sing Wildflowers at Tillie’s.

“OK, then, we’ll do it,” I said.
Coffee payments for an old black autoharp I’d wanted to give her,
but it was too musty—I had to air it out for months

on my upstairs screened back porch.
Worked on tuning it when I first got it,
so it was somewhere not too far from standard.

Run away,             let your heart be your guide.
You deserve           the deepest of cover.      
You belong            in that home by and by.

When I listened to the Youtube clip, what should I hear
but that Wildflowers has autoharp on it? Then, what did I discover
but that Petty plays Wildflowers in F—THE autoharp key. So,

I tuned the old black autoharp as well as I could to the Petty clip.
There’s an elaborate-sounding solo, played
by running through the chords: Bb Dm G7 G C     Bb Dm C  

then again: Bb Dm G7 G C     Bb Dm C    
You belong            among the wild flowers.     
You belong            in a boat out at sea.       

Far away               from your troubles and worries
You belong            somewhere you feel free.
Recorded me singing Wildflowers on the old black autoharp

and emailed the recording to my friend.
“You, that kicks a**!” she replied, making me so happy!
I’m hoping to help her play that autoharp part tomorrow

The Traveling Companion, Paul Celan

Your mother’s soul hovers over the bow.

Your mother’s soul helps you circumnavigate the night, reef after reef.
Your mother’s soul drives the sharks on before her.

This word is your mother’s bond.
Your mother’s bond apportions your store, stone after stone.
Your mother’s bond makes obeisance to the luminary crumb.

Flower, Paul Celan

Stone.
Stone in the air, which I track.
Your eye, blind as a rock.

How were there
hands,
we dipped the darkness empty, we found
the word that summer tended:
Flower.

Flower—word of the blind.
Your eye and my eye:
They take care
to water.

Burgeoning.
Wall upon wall
leafs around the heart.

Another word like that, and
hammers swing away.

From Sprachgitter—Language Mesh or Language Grating or Language Prison

Love Enters Heaven

Is it a sin to love my own company?
Is it a manic compulsion
to want to spend my time enjoying
my own solitary body in the world?
More altruistic to focus
my love on others, right?

My love is focused on others, of course,

but my flirtations are mostly action at a distance.
Still, when I encounter you in the flesh, my dear,
it’s like an epiphany shared—
both object of love’s tender gaze
and the lover gazing.