The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Month: October 2021

  • Moon of the Normal

    Along line where words follow
    one by one each distanced and obscure
    like items of trash along highway
    stuck in weeds between ditch
    and fence lift shifting cars passing
    sailing into wind of logic

    or like grocery carts out of line
    and place scattered about full
    of claptrap and flapdoodle
    unexpected foundation
    for absurding suburban
    where shopping rigs

    get garaged for night
    like pigs asleep in makeshift
    huts with conquistadors
    while in city in loose
    deduce gathered around
    poles trees once lived

    covered in plastic people
    under new moon of normal
    dining al fresco in fresh
    air of improvised jail
    things will never be same
    way things have always been.

  • Sentimental Me

    Listen, she sent me
    a note, you will hear
    on my rosy cheek
    a crescendo tear

    drop & in this tear
    will you see
    an ultramarine
    ocean sloping

    & you will sense
    nothing meant
    to be without
    you with me.

  • What We Do When We Talk About What To Do

    One gives notice. Another grins and abides. The one no longer interested in content, the other insisting on diary entries reaffirming his firm grip on reality. One is motionless, the other still moves about. One accepts but withdraws, the other complains, and even though there’s little to complain about, finds a way to complain about that too. One prays in an empty space, the other watches the news in a room full of knickknacks and memorabilia no one remembers. One drifts, the other plans outings.

    One falls silent, another gets up and talks. One is more interested in conversations without words. One deactivates, the other continues to like and comment and, in short, feels engaged.

    One stops the vertical fall and the horizontal push, and edges fall away. Another scrolls up and down and takes cuts.

    The one never did make sense, the other insists on making sense.

  • Notes on Hearing Loss

    A house down around the block is getting a new roof, hammers echoing like giant flickers. Since the big virus outbreak the neighborhood seems quieter, fewer cars speeding up the bumpless street, the park above closed to the outdoor concerts, though a few bicycle races and random music groups have come and gone. We frequently hear music though, through the trees, over the roofs, through the backyard fences, but can’t always be sure of where the sound is coming from. No fireworks this year. Not a single yard sale. But some noise seems louder, the trash trucks on their weekly binge, the mailman at the mailbox, the yapping yellow dog behind and a yard over, skateboards, our tinnitus.

    A loss of sound seems paradoxically to quicken our sense of hearing. That is dynamics, change in pressure and temperature, frequency and consistency. Some sounds we don’t hear until they go silent. Sound can baffle, bounce around dancingly. If you’re uncertain where a sound, particularly a voice, is coming from, the disorienting distraction bewilders. Just because you don’t hear a sound doesn’t mean you can’t feel it, its pressure in your ears, resounding around your head. Likewise, you might hear voices, but the words lack clarity, and you can’t make out what’s being said.

    Some sounds are tight, other loose fitting. A flash flood of sound leaves a wake of mud. The beginning of rain drips into the ears, like its relative petrichor, that newly wet earthy scent in the nose, a slow awakening to something that’s been asleep for a long time and is now looking for a new bed to spend the night, one of your ears unfolding asymmetrically.