The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

  • A Country Western Song, 90 Miles Inland

    I saw you come and fell to my knees,
    waves opened and mermaids sang,
    Oh, Lord, this boy’s in love.

    You opened your mouth,
    and my tongue swam in,
    church bells rang
    about living in sin,
    Oh, Lord, this boy’s in love.

    At the altar somewhat late,
    the flowers turned to wine.
    Suit and tie, to work on time,
    Oh, Lord, this boy’s in love.

    For old anxiety, my love,
    for old anxiety,
    we’ll meet again
    on time’s back porch
    for old anxiety.

    I was reading the latest
    self-help book, “How to Breathe
    in Public.” Chapter Three
    was particularly helpful:
    “Breathing with Others
    at a Garden Party.”

    Anonymous breaths
    if anyone was breathing
    no one seemed to notice
    almost like being homeless
    breathless with others.

    Bar up to the belly and down
    dancing eels in the grass
    when down at the heels
    one flights with one’s heels
    giddy the best betrayal
    their emerald anxiety.

    In an air of gnats the breasts
    pair off, pretending not
    to anticipate any boast
    guests wait & snip & go.

    In the end, but
    it doesn’t end here
    comes another crop,
    one “a retired drunk,”
    the stinger deposited
    with baby’s breath
    to question any
    possibility
    of breathing with others.

    With merit the bobbers go
    to static like a radio
    that won’t tune in clearly
    breaths of static.

    As David Tutor replied
    to John Cage, when
    asked why he didn’t
    join the others:
    “I haven’t left;
    this is the way I keep you
    entertained.”

    Just so, the well wrought
    snub, quick merciless wit bit,
    the sidewalk flight of poems,
    the thick porcelain
    urinals as big as steamboats
    sharing a pissy river,
    the old cigarettes,
    the stale ale,
    the slow morning snores,
    tugboats pulling from shore.

    We begin to envision
    an end to retail
    as we now know it.
    Nothing to buy,
    no place to go,
    we gather in a garden
    and learn to breathe
    together.

  • Body Talk

    Mr. Body awoke feeling poky.
    “It’s your diet,” Mrs. Body sd.
    “I eat the same crap as everybody.”
    “Just as you say.”

    “What are those gold chains
    about their necks all about?”
    “True that. Tiffany’s on steroids.”
    “What are the qualities

    of good plumbing?”
    “You don’t hear the pipes
    growling in the walls.”
    “No leaks, but you can get

    to the pipes if you need to
    repair one without having
    to wreck the dwelling.”
    “The pipes don’t poison

    the water.”
    “Urge.”
    “I beseech thee,
    where’s the coffee?”

  • The Phenomenology of Error

    The Phenomenology of Error[i]

    A solo Mission at the Ranger Station before group poetry night, hoping
    for a good napkin poem. When we read like police we make a criminal[ii]
    shot with red pencil corrections, the poet apprehended, booked.

    Pull over the rotting rhymester! Handcuff this conceptualist clown.
    Arrest that academic asshole. Ticket the doggerel running off-leash.
    Slipknot a sleeping surrealist. Deny the pop songwriter his award.

    We might read like Mother Theresa[iii] anointing the sores of lepers,
    becoming the other for the time saving takes then letting go.
    The poverty of poets paves the way to the cornucopia of poetry.

    Line 14 stops and a pretty woman[iv] hops off in bright orange shorts.
    She’s poetry in motion[v], no idea of me, and could not care less
    what I’ve done to this napkin. For her, a perfect reader, I must error not.

    [i] “The Phenomenology of Error” is a study by Joseph M. Williams showing when we read self-consciously we do so with bias from personally invested conventions that often have nothing to do with the reality of the text at hand (May, 1981). http://www.english.illinois.edu/-people-/faculty/schaffner/Williams%20Error.pdf

    [ii] In “Seeing Through Police” (n+1, Spring 2015), Mark Greif says, “Police spend a large part of their time distributing crime to the sorts of people who seem likely to be criminals.” https://nplusonemag.com/issue-22/police/seeing-through-police/

    [iii] Mother Theresa was canonized by Pope Francis in September, 2016, amid ongoing criticism of the quality and quantity of her work with the poor.

    [iv] Any resemblance to the Roy Orbison song (1964, “Oh, Pretty Woman”), or to the Julia Roberts film (1990), is purely coincidental.

    [v] Line 14 is the Hawthorne bus. Poetry in Motion places poems on buses.

  • Summer Notes: 7 – Shoeless

    Discalced order of children
    running aground barefoot,
    the beach sand so hot we
    flip flopped like fish out of
    the water close at hand.

    When you did not know
    what a thing was,
    you gave it a name,
    then you knew it.

    Flip-flops went everywhere,
    named for their sound,
    rubber sole held to the front
    of the foot with a cross strap
    and thong between hallux
    (big toe, thumb of the foot)
    and pointer toe (the dowsing
    rod used to test the ocean
    water temperature), causing
    the heel (no ankle strap) to stay
    put (flopped)
    then flip up (flip),
    slapping the bottom
    of the heel,
    also went
    by other names.

    My father called those shoes
    “come-alongs,” the body
    perhaps a pulled
    object. Imagine thinking
    of the body as winch
    and ratchet for pulling
    and hoisting, but that
    was his world.
    They were also named
    “go aheads,” polite,
    easy-going, relaxed shoes.

    Thongs, shower shoes,
    simple sandals, flip-flops,
    like so many other things
    we used to use (and do),
    and may still use (and do),
    are not good for you.

    Better, it turns out,
    to go barefoot, risking
    the stubbed toe, the bee
    sting, the rusted nail,
    the beach tar, the hot
    sand, loving the cool
    green grass, the ice
    plant you could pick
    and squeeze the jelly
    juice over your callouses.

     

  • Summer Notes: 6 – Vinyl Eve

    Ray on
    Polly & Ester over
    Shell lack, the beach so far
    It’s a Beautiful Day
    for the Blues.

    His story film earlier
    Text I’ll yarn
    Den I’m hep
    Woe vane
    All dyed felting.

    More hair
    Flee C
    Mad as a more curious
    hatter,
    a chord eon.

  • Summer Notes: 5 – A Blues

    In the morning, when the sun comes up
    In the morning, when the sun comes up
    In the morning, when the sun comes up
    Give thanks for this cup of coffee.

    In the evening, when the sun goes down
    In the evening, when the sun goes down
    In the evening, when the sun goes down
    Ballyhoo this cold glass of beer.

    At midnight, when the moon comes out
    At midnight, when the moon comes out
    At midnight, when the moon comes out
    Laud, laud the light.

  • Summer Notes: 4 – Water

    These awkward weedy notes of summer, they steal
    water from the subtle artful crafty ones, the ones
    crammed with food and hose drenched, and yes,
    fruit-bearing they’ll be, and well spent.

    The mollycoddle promises a bumper crop this year,
    but what will be done with it all?

    They can can the coddle, bottle the molly,
    boil the gruel for ballet to improve posture,
    post this and that here and there without
    regard for the rules of a bygone garden.

    The cooing of pigeons so quiet,
    the stained glass raw golds
    color the little nook with amber light.

    No words in nature to suffer these weeds,
    still birds align in lines that make sense,
    the washerwoman counting syllables
    come morning the clothes inside out.

    And the slug slowing has something to say,
    heading under the clinker cool brick.

    These appellations June dropped,
    in the day squirrels gnaw them,
    at night possums come and grab,
    and raccoons, and very early
    in the morning, just before sunup
    now, the coyotes looking for cats up.

    Give us the weeds our daily words,
    and forgive us our arrears,
    for we are hard on hearing,
    and we don’t really need
    words, anyway.

    We might want words, why,
    I’m not sure, but we need
    water, weeds and all, and you,
    you have all the words,
    more than you need.

  • Summer Notes: 3 – The Morning Nap

    Catnap back to wind-sun rush
    kick in the eye fire-worked over
    street cools quiet hush

    Grace comes with natural light
    patches of prayer breezes
    in the hither and thither
    of dry leaves palms up
    elbows open
    frazzled knees

    and a calico cat in green
    sky white bells crawls
    over out
    door cot jumps
    through square
    of rusted wire fence

    Summer dawns
    mind full of weeds
    with long roots and
    the body takes pleasure
    in walking the mind
    nowhere

     

  • Summer Notes: 2 – Fireworks

    “Raise high” red & orange sun umbrellas
    blow out the blue balloon ballroom
    ceiling for the doff dance

    “Pick up order here!
    …olives, pepperochini!
    pale ale from Hop House!”

    Ten knuckle blues
    cats breaking the rules
    notes bent brittle thin cast iron

    fat slides & tempting trombones Pop
    go the contradictions contraindications
    spinning bombos bouncing in the street.

  • Summer Notes: 1 – Baseball

    Run now down the dreary drowning droning
    cheers of summer under yellow umbrellas
    American baseball under rain
    A last blue light in the little lilac
    and raspberries wandering and falling
    spray of pop flies
    Sun slips between clouds squeeze play
    cat sitting on cedar deck
    gives backward glance
    White stone paper cup empty beer
    jangle of green grass fills
    sun and cat and clouds
    Fans all napping
    sun crosses bird feathers
    field and stands empty nest.

  • Postage at Queen Mob’s Tea House

    A new short “misfit” piece is up today at Queen Mob’s Tea House. Check it out?