in the shadows of dim stadium lights,

one kid strode up to another

and pummeled the hell out of him.

The kid’s friend watched

video phone rolling.

space

Out on this proving ground,

this young man let

that pent up primal nature out

besting the mammoth before him,

his beastial cry in our urban society,

his rite of passage

an undisturbing scene.

space

More disturbing his friend,

video phone in hand,

passively watching

it all go by.

(On a Tombstone, Waterloo Village)

space

Embedded in the earth,

a weathered, worn stone

chiseled with these words

“Maggie, How I miss you.”

space

And all is said.

space

Out of the mind’s haze,

a stoop shouldered man

steps to a stop, at the foot

of a fresh mound of shoveled ground.

A young girl follows him.

space

“When is mommy coming home?”

His tears answer, the first rain

to work at weathering those words,

“Maggie, How I miss you.”

space

After the years of our blending,

after our hatchings have been tossed

from the nest to fly however they may,

One of us will be left to say,

space

“How I miss you.”

when on the fourth of July, I bought

California Flowers to celebrate

the freedom of youth.

That night, from the front seat of my friend’s Mustang,

I lit one, and threw it over the roof,

toward a group teens styling different,

leaning against their black cars.

The firework arched through a rolled down window,

landed at some girl’s feet and went off.

space

It seemed like a good idea at the time,

when at thirteen, I raced by my sister

on my mean green machine,

my bike edging hers,

proving my manliness.

A cattle truck pulled out onto the road,

scaring her, causing her to turn,

ending in tears, blood, and meshed metal.

space

It seemed like a good idea at the time,

when I scaled the outside of our stave silo

to prove how fearless I was,

my cousin standing far below.

I climbed head long into a wasp nest, let go,

fell to the concrete blocks below.

space

Now removed from the idiocy of my youth,

I sit with coffee on a Sunday morning

leafing through the paper, reading

how business men and political leaders

just never grow up, and believe

it’s a good idea this time.

Space

When the thunderheads rolled frantic from the North

Armed with gales, sounding like a full-throttled locomotive,

I stared through the window as the rain sheeted down.

The violent wind shivered the trees.

The world on the verge of going off kilter.

Space

After the dark clouds spent themselves and the tormenting rains lifted,

The front yard maple lush with summer sprawled across the road,

garnished with dancing wires.

Chunks of jagged asphalt and black mailboxes accented the front yard.

The barn’s tin hat bathed in the corn stubble mud

Much of the field now painted the white-skinned barn.

The world was off kilter.

The world was off­…

It does not matter that the chirping dusk crickets have not stilled,

though twilight fails, gives way to moonless night,

and the dew seeps into our canvas shoes.

Space

Shhhh…we warn each other and look past the barn

to where the kerosene eyes of the farmhouse shut with sleep.

With this unspoken permission, I lift the tense barbed wire.

You slip under; I follow.

Starry night illuminates our path,

leads the way between the burn hazel, thistles and dung

to the sleeping cows, bovines content

in their idyllic pasture and dreams.

SpaceSpace

We carefully creep to the chosen one. W

e lean, the push,

her black and white frame topples,

startles her awake to see

the world sideways.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Space

Over the crackle grass,

echoes of childhood settle,

creep to the base of the Sugar Maple,

where I shimmy up

where my brother lifts Fred,

our white cat,

into my waiting hands.

We are testing Newton’s law,

the adage of a cat,

the principle of always.

Space

I consider revisiting this

calling up my brother to say

“I have a ladder,

the tree still stands

and I just bought a cat.”

Space

However,

knowing this test would trigger

neighbor alarms alerting the League,

I settle, quiet the urges,

and take solace in recollection.

But perhaps I am not

Who you think I am,

But something other than

What I am.

Perhaps I am not

Who I think I am either,

But built perhaps

Upon foundations constructed

Unbeknownst to me

By forces beyond

The internals of my flesh,

By powers such as

Parents and teachers,

Affected in such a manner

As to be invisible to me.

The what of what makes me tick,

Contributes to the overall ticking

Leading up to the explosive ending.

I am what I am,

But perhaps I am not

Who I, nor you, thought I was

]]> http://potw.podbean.com/2009/01/07/the-isolate/feed/ I am who I am, But perhaps I am not Who you think I am, But something other than What I am. Perhaps I am not Who I think I ... I am who I am, But perhaps I am not Who you think I am, But something other than What I am. Perhaps I am not Who I think I am either, But built perhaps Upon foundations constructed Unbeknownst to me By forces beyond The internals of my flesh, By powers such as Parents and teachers, Affected in such a manner As to be invisible to me. The what of what makes me tick, Contributes to the overall ticking Leading up to the explosive ending. I am what I am, But perhaps I am not Who I, nor you, thought I was poet, poetry, isolate, self-discovery, self, ego, Ken Scott No No 1:48 http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/23/recessionary-gifts-douglas-adams-to-my-father/ http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/23/recessionary-gifts-douglas-adams-to-my-father/#comments Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:04:51 +0000 potw Uncategorized http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/23/recessionary-gifts-douglas-adams-to-my-father/

Recessionary Gifts

(Douglas Adams to My Father)

The way companies show graciousness,

Especially around the holidays,

Maybe a bonus,

But mostly,

The clock at twenty-five years,

The watch at thirty,

The plaque at thirty-five

Seems appropriate especially

When fathers have sacrificed

Families, health, and relationships

On the altar of labor.

How much more appropriate then,

That my father,

After working forty years

With the same company,

A week before Christmas,

And two years till retirement,

is handed the pink slip.

And the boss, like the ghost

Of Douglas Adam’s past, says,

So long and thanks for all the fish.

]]> http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/23/recessionary-gifts-douglas-adams-to-my-father/feed/ Recessionary Gifts (Douglas Adams to My Father) The way companies show graciousness, Especially around the holidays, Maybe a bonus, But mostly, The clock at twenty-five years, The watch at thirty, The plaque ... Recessionary Gifts (Douglas Adams to My Father) The way companies show graciousness, Especially around the holidays, Maybe a bonus, But mostly, The clock at twenty-five years, The watch at thirty, The plaque at thirty-five Seems appropriate especially When fathers have sacrificed Families, health, and relationships On the altar of labor. How much more appropriate then, That my father, After working forty years With the same company, A week before Christmas, And two years till retirement, is handed the pink slip. And the boss, like the ghost Of Douglas Adam’s past, says, So long and thanks for all the fish. recession, gift, poetry, poet, christmas, poem, douglas, adams, father, Ken Scott No No 1:51 http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/17/snow-blessings-the-brevity-of-sanctity/ http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/17/snow-blessings-the-brevity-of-sanctity/#comments Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:19:01 +0000 potw Uncategorized http://potw.podbean.com/2008/12/17/snow-blessings-the-brevity-of-sanctity/

The Brevity of Sanctity

(Snow Blessings)

Someday I will face my sins

That done and undone

But for now the snow has crept in under the cover of night

The next morning the earth lies blanketed white.

My conscience now unpricked by

The lawn’s last cutting undone

The dead flowers I should have trimmed

The fencerow I should have painted

The sidewalk I should have swept

All’s now cloaked in a heavenly glow.

THE GRAND OPENING OF POPPY’S

(A poem addressed to the reader)

It’s the grand opening of Poppy’s

beside Ray’s Cigar and Tobacco Café.

Streamers wrap people in

celebration as I watch from the warmth

of a coffee shop across the street.

Here, “Have yourself a very merry…”

drains from the corner perched speakers

and mixes with chattering conversations.

My coffee cup desperately wants refilled.

The window reflection

doubles the black canisters

and the red coffee bean poster behind me,

echoes possibilities.

An empty Ikea chair

sits cocked next to me,

tells me that in any relationship,

you would be sitting here.

Imaginary you fills the vacancy,

reminds me that it’s cold outside,

why I’m here

and not at the grand opening of Poppy’s

beside Ray’s Cigar and Tobacco Café.

Morning sun filters down the slats of the bedroom blinds.

Outside the autumn leaves drift

a soft spiraling toward the ground

like December snow.

In anticipation my boyhood mind winks

alive from a year suffered long in wait.

For down the weathered street,

around the next bend,

up the narrow alley,

a murmuring carol echoes

“Soon…”

Soon

I shall awaken to find wait’s end.

My siblings and I will rush

down the carpeted stairs,

two, three at a time

and lay siege to the child-scarred table,

now wrapped in white linens

garnished with red and green,

crowned with mother’s glazed cinnamon buns.

Electric excitement dances from us

to my mother’s twinkling eyes.

Soon,

I will sit couched

where the crook of the arm meets the living-room sofa wedge.

The monotony of dad reading Matthew 1:18

invades my reverie, while I play

GI-Joe with sheep stolen from the wood nativity,

resting on the 1969 GE stereo.

Soon,

Hark, the herald angel, will sing

when the wise men and the shepherds have come,

then gone.

Indian-legged on the floor, my mother

will pull treasures from underneath the tree.

Later,

as we gather around the dinner table

in my grandmother’s basement

watching the Yule fire dance,

I will notice that for once

conversation has turned from

drunk uncles,

runaway daughters,

gossip of other family iniquities.

Goodwill between aunts and uncles,

fathers and sons,

husbands and wives

will permeate the room.

Now, a lifetime later,

an unspoken wall separates

me from brother,

sister and other,

division plows the snow-white street

with no crosswalk.

Our leather coats of conceit

we refuse to lay down

over the puddles of warmed winter.

We skate across the thin-pond ice of conversation

artfully figure-eighting potential fissures

that would dump us into chilled reality.

Older I am,

but perhaps not wiser.

For the scene of my early days

persistently replays,

teaches me

that the goodwill between us

is better than no will between us.

As the years devour the future,

a hope wells within

that such a day will come,

that it will come soon.

DOWN THE STAIRS

I tripped,

Flipped sideways down

Crown whacking

Cracking on the stairwell

Fell thunking jarred past two steps

Neck ricocheting from wall to rail;

Pale my skin now accented red

Bled painting the white blue floor patriotic

Tic-Tac teeth scattering across the tile

While I come to rest.

JOSEPHINE

At Christmas Dinner in New Jersey,

Nanny concentrates on her plate of square lasagna.

Sam, her husband, grasps her wrinkled hand,

Helps lift the food to her mouth.

On occasion, she stares past me,

Eyes vacant of all recognition.

Later in the living-room,

A mapless treasure hunt progresses

Through drawers, in closets, under pillows.

Nanny suspiciously eyes her son, his wife.

Her pocketbook has gone missing.

We would soon look for her

And not find her again.

Twisting his arm around hers,

Her son guides Nanny to the car.

She jerks away.

“Who are you?”

Terror edges her voice.

We reassure her.

Beside her in the back seat,

I lean toward her,

Embrace her hands,

And gaze into her empty eyes.

“Jo,” I murmur, “tell me about your paintings.”

Her eyes twinkle and awareness sparks.

It is not the first time oil lights up the world.

THE WOODEN AFFAIR

Seductively, you leaned toward me.

In rigidity, you invited me to dance.

In mere split seconds I regarded it,

Considered what you said,

Held it at length.

Then, in the passionate desire of forgotten consequences,

My sliding frame meshed to yours

In a vehicular pole dance,

Metal roaring, twisting and turning,

Enshrouding and enveloping your beauty.

The embraced taboo caught in the moment of ecstasy,

Evidenced in the tell-tale sign

Of flowing blood,

Salty sweat,

And tears.

LET GO!

Let go!

The axis tilt pulls my Northern hemisphere

Toward a stilled ice age.

Inspiration’s warmth vanished into cold you.

You who have thieved the sun from me

Leaving life vacancy,

Thoughts with no conception.

My Liege,

My Love,

My Leech,

I will not bleed for you again.

No stained words ink from my pen to your vellum.

Soot and oil defy definition on you.

The Arizona canyon between us etched by years

Retells the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

This bar cannot be crossed.

Let go!

BLACK RAIN

Light winked off in the Nation.

Out of dark night

Vacant of all covering,

Black rain began to fall.

From a terrace

Gorilla’s in the Mist music

Seeped through early morning.

A plumber thumbed the on switch,

A quiet whir recording

The first black drops of an early Spring storm.

On the chilled March pavement

A smiling African-American stumbled.

Was it you, Powell,

Who first thought

‘I’m going to be a movie star.

I’ll be famous?’

Was it your baton itching forward,

Hinting at the coming storm fury

Causing the second to follow suit

Unleashing it?

You could not know

The rain of blows

Were only the hurricane’s preamble.

Two metal batons

Rose, then fell.

Rose, then fell.

The syncopated cracking

Of fifty strokes

Drumming a black man’s back.

Boots thudded against bruised sides.

The steady rain fell harder

Diluting the black blood on the pavement.

Was God crying

Or just washing His hands?

Who is the suspect?

The cuffer or the cuffee?

The question drives the Nation’s fury

Into Hurricane Rodney.

Never did a cloudless night

Rain harder.

~ 31 ~

SWAY BABE!

 

Sway babe!

Shift weight from one foot to the next.

Seek the secret, unseen rhythms.

Spin the dial of your FM mind radio.

Sift through static,

The bam da bam of staccato beats,

To thought talk shows.

Discuss the unnaturally serene.

Twist, leap, find the highest point of best reception;

Demand clarity,

Find focus,

Tune ears to hear

The One voice of your heart, your soul.

 

Sway Babe!

Ignore the mass of men

Listen to Thoreau, to Ellison.

Remember the Tick-Tock Man.

Sell not your soul

To society’s

So-called integrity.

Dig up the rails.

Take your steam locomotive

Through woods,

Over mountains,

Ram it through the capital building.

Through phony political promises

Into their diabolical truths.

I will not dance slave to marionette strings.

I will not go gently into Dylan’s night.

I will sway babe,

Out

of

synch

to

you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BY THE WAY

 

When you rode your asses into battle,

The front charging bayonets forward

In fueled hatred,

Where was the cavalry?

The second wave?

The medics tending the fallen?

The chaplain professing last rites?

The war bonds financing this campaign?

Your man in a top hat and goat beard,

Finger pointing, eyes piecing, voice drilling,

“I want you to volunteer?”

 

I remember the sixties,

When America confronted her hatred

On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,

Deciding that maybe, just maybe,

Martin’s truth bore heeding.

Why now do we turn?

 

By the way,

Do you think I can ever trust those,

Who around the lunch table

Dismantle our leaders and

Those who believe differently?

Who perform surgery,

Accusation severing limb after limb,

Paring away at our humanity till

We no longer move?

Behind closed doors,

Away from you,

I wonder,

What do you say about me?

 

 

 

SECURING THE FUTURE

 

From behind the winter hills slung low,

twilight is winking off,

pulling on the starry night,

preparing me passage

through these unredeemable years.

I slip into my black turtleneck

and listen to the sound of you

in the kitchen, twisting down the thermos.

 

While preparing for the evening ahead,

I think of the germination of you, me, and our togetherness,

how we buried our treasures with our King Tuts

in hope that we might live comfortably in age.

But our guaranteed security lay

unguarded by curses and sleek cats long dead,

unwatched beneath the all seeing eye.

 

Now you are here at the door,

handing me my flashlight, my gloves,

my tool bag, my cheek kisses.

I head off to secure the future

government could not promise.

 

And here where Annuit Cœptis,*

I pretend I am an archeologist,

I stoop before the forbidding seal; behind it waits

others’ false hopes of laterlife gold.

Ignoring the threats etched on this bank,

I raise the bar and pry.

 

 

* Annuit Cœptis – providence has favored our undertakings

 

WEDGE

 

The way the iron wedge penetrates the log,

forcing the tenuous hold of the oak’s fibers

to reluctantly give way

under my father’s stroke,

now allows him momentary rest,

now allows him to prop the weathered axe

against his canvas leg,

allows him to fish his stained handkerchief

from his back pocket to wipe the sweat

from his ridged brow now glowing in the tired sun.

 

But knowing tomorrow’s proximity,

the way it cinches the seconds out of today

until they expire, drained of all service,

knowing too the nearness of December’s bite,

the way she eats oranges and reds till all is white,

his shoulders slump and he sighs,

looks again to western sky,

then raises the axe again.

 

WHAT IF…

The Saint Thomas Cathedral arches

Fade into the roof above.

Afternoon sun filters through Saints,

Sinners, the forgiven, the damned.

Cascading from one wall to the next,

Father Duncan’s voice recounts history.

“Remember the Anglos,

The Saxons, the Jutes,

Civilized by God.”

In the carved hardwood pew,

Across the marble stoned walkway

Etched by the feet of choirboys,

Chanters, and Priests,

My Rose falls toward me,

Whispers heresy,

“What if we took the divine out of divinity?”

Shadowed treachery twinkles in her eyes.

What if, what if, what if…

My tortured mind considers this:

Los Angeles

Four white cops beating a black man

Without mercy.

Unfaithful wives,

On daytime soaps and talk shows,

Fascinate us.

Post nine one one,

A rock cracked window fronting an Arab man’s corner store

Breeches equality.

A highway chase ends,

Arrested celebrities exit white suburbans, lay dollar after dollar,

Walk free.

Elected officials

Lie smoke from their mouths under oath,

Go unimpeached.

Individual rights,

Selfishly curse the common good,

Divide the United.

In the dusk darkened sanctuary,

With Rose, the parishioners gone,

I alone watch the candles flicker

Off the pilings and spill onto the marble floor.

I tremble, toe the kneeling bench down,

Look up toward the undiefied divine,

The question no longer What if but

What now?

THE SIGN

Nothing like a sign,

be it in a mall, a park

or some museum,

to state the obvious:

you are here.

As if, at that moment, you could be

anywhere else.

Then again,

perhaps we need this,

a reminder.

How many times

we have read through a poem

to realize at the end,

our minds have taken holiday

in Madrid

and are visiting the Rodriguez fountains,

sparkling under the cloudless sky.

Or we accept an invitation

to drink the wine of a friend’s life,

but finding the bottle tipped, spilling

onto our white linen pants,

a stain we cannot get ride of,

that Clorox cannot remove,

it is then our mind activates its emergency broadcast system;

suddenly the wash in the dryer needs attention,

the grass needs mowing,

and the gift for Aunt Janet’s birthday still needs to be wrapped.

It is here that we realize this truth:

It was an English soldier,

as arrows whizzed by his helmet

during the Battle of Hastings,

that first realized

life is not measured

by minutes and hours,

but by breathing our segment of history.

THE POET FADES

(On Meeting Galway Kinnell

Dodge Poetry Festival 2004)

The poet stands,

his thoughts struggle to gather

enjambed, end-stopped together,

caesuraed with Ahs, Ums, silence.

When worshippers undulate

petitioning their god,

his hand curls around one ear,

desiring petition’s repetition…

Later, when gatherers

line to glimpse this poetry deity up close,

his attendants move from one to the next,

penning the names of his followers

on bright yellow sticky notes

adhering them to the books, pamphlets, and other pendants

brought by his disciples to be touched by the pen,

the pen that coined such poignant poems.

Then, when they ask, the poet pretends he hears,

and signs their name, then his.

His frame waxes frail.

Time hunkers down,

and trims the insight lamp low.

A voice from the shadows beckons

“Listen, Kinnell,

dumped alive

and dying into the old sway bed,

a layer of crushed feathers all that there is

between you

and the long shaft of darkness shaped as you,

let go.”

And the poet fades.

Still,

when he reads,

he reads with passion.

** Excerpt of “The Hen Flower” lines 108 – 155 from The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell **

POINT SEVENTY-THREE

“It’s mistake seventy-three,” he cried,

While pounding the lectern face.

He rounded off with a vocal right,

Then with his left, his ace.

With vigor the congregation nodded,

Bobbling up and down.

Assuring him his points were made,

Though they uttered not a sound.

With seventy-three he said it all,

Now stood all words unbound.

He clasped, then gasped one final breath,

Then fell “whump” to the ground.

The echo stirred the nodding crowd,

They awoke to a deadly scene.

Their beloved pastor on the pulpit floor,

After sharing point seventy-three.

The clock told three hours passed,

Since starting at point one.

In humid summer air they slept,

Till he finished and was done.

They gazed, the somber scene before,

Yet all they knew and heard,

Was him shouting out through their sluggish thoughts,

Point seventy-three his words.

The undertaker had come, then gone,

But the congregation unmoved.

The question of point seventy-three,

Darkened the air and mood.

Deacon Dan rose; queried the crowd,

“What words these seventy-three?

Be it anyone here, who can share their truths,

God’s blessing will receive.”

Sally McChatter leapt to her feet,

Before his words had died.

Be it true or false, she was never at loss,

With news, she conjured inside.

“Pastor Tom, that not his name.

I can never keep it straight.

I’ve rested here for twenty years,

It’s Ned! Without debate!”

“I saw him chat with Sid Druggist’s wife,

On the day before last night.

About Sid’s affair,” and everyone looked,

Sid slid down out of sight.

She spoke another twenty more,

On fidelity point seventy-three.

In the end, though she couldn’t be sure,

She sat with confident glee.

Farmer Fred slowed to his feet,

Considered aged and wise.

Tears edged his sleepy face, they saw,

Tears trimmed his tired eyes.

“He dropped by the farm, a week and a day,

Inquired on sowing and reaping.

I’m certain this was the crux of his thoughts,

On seventy-three his speaking.”

He retired weary to his bench,

Lily Lawyer took her stead.

“I’m sorry Fred, I disagree,

In defense of Pastor Ned.”

“All lawyers know as evidence goes,

You save the best till last.

Then you knock’em down with a crucial blow,

Giving them no chance.”

“‘Lily,’ he warned, ‘be mindful of

The sin of cupidity.’

So I gave half my wealth away.”

She beamed then took her seat.

Then Patty Proctor stood, then leaned

Eyes blazing through the crowd,

Her puritanic spirit blazed

Reflecting Salem’s trials.

“I easily saw the blacken’d veil,

That hid Pastor Ned’s heart.

It’s true he was a holy man,

That only but in part.”

“Alas there was some grievous sin,

That gave him no relief.

The point at hand was a confession,

Confession point seventy-three.”

One after one till all had spoke,

Their thoughts on point seventy-three.

But no one really knew for sure,

Hindered by their sleep.

Yet most important one was left,

Who could unveil the secret.

Ned’s dear wife aged seventy-three,

Closest to him in spirit.

All were still, till the preacher’s wife,

Still wiping sleep from her eyes,

Tottered to her feet and tried,

To recall his words to the wise.

She he-ed and hawed, stuttered and chewed,

Clearing her throat once more,

And finally said “I have no clue”

Then sat and said no more.

Alas the congregation grieved,

They knew no rest or peace.

If she didn’t know, then no one knew,

The words of point seventy-three.

The moral of this tale is clear,

Do not rest or sleep.

For you never know when you may hear,

The words of point seventy-three.