A Notebook – Since 2007
Shaped like a church
where to hear is prayer
the pews sawn apart
into separate seats save
the balcony benches.
Quiet like a church
and cold in accordance
with the carpenter’s
measure for harmony
and economical noise.
The sound rolls in waves
through the vast archipelago
of ears tuned to assumptions
and predispositions
of critics of the church.
This cat slinks, creeps
into rooms, the ruins
of many a holiday
in soft golden light.
Mottled, she mews,
back arched clown,
perhaps of self
catalytic origin.
She’s fleecy, wooly
tufted, easily shocked,
as if any thought
is a threat
to one’s peace
full sleeper day,
like a vacuum
or a house rejigged.
Those years after she lost
her memory she said she
mellowed as her hurt went
down through her bones.
Still she knew all the hidings
and when one was out of place
she awoke in the dark under
her worries and prayed
she hated she said when
someone did her like that
her ears keen on the gate
latch and the open and close
of the side door where they
escaped with such little
grasp of their own budding
sorrow like lily bulbs.
Tall steel T’s in concrete
about twenty feet apart
three wires pulled taut
but she needs a forth
with another on the way
wet clothes lines sagging
in the sunny backyard
of the corner lot on Mariposa
where a city truck pulls up
workers dash to the Village Market
and out hop back to work
when she hears a wolf whistle
as she dangles bras and panties
diapers socks and a white sheet
from the lines to dry and she
wonders at such sun in winter.
not spoken words
not hidden words
not hearded words
dug words
fished words
sifted words
surfed words
combed words
well travelled words
free words on
the sidewalk
skipped by
letters spewed
like weed seeds
across a manicured
lawn as solid green
as the village scene
where words score
sales counts
remaindered words
recycled words
composted words
buried words
words love lost
lost and found
words washed
up on a beach
words gargled
words swallowed
words repurposed
words typed
words scratched
words fallen
from the sky
like manna
made into beer
words loaded
words emptied
words cooked
words eaten
words wiped
clean
as tables
freshly set
with white tablecloths
words waiting
aside
words walking
whispered remarks
“Shall I hear no more?”
utterly.
(note: written while reading
noT wriTTen words
by Xi Xi, trans. Jennifer Feeley,
Zephyr Press, 2016.)
On our walk last night, birds,
low in the trees and on the ground,
in the grass and all around,
and it started to rain.
Tomorrow, it may be sunny.
It takes many shapes, this thing.
Sometimes it’s an ear ringing,
a particle of physics.
It is not Paris or San Francisco,
certainly not El Paso or Cairo.
It comes and goes like wind,
ubiquitous and protean.
It’s not me, though
I often have it, or not.
That’s just it with it;
you never know for certain.
It is a professional, white-collared
without capital, contained
out of site.
When it decides to rain,
not a thing you can do about it,
except dance or hustle home,
from which you want
to get away from it all.
Language, the dress of thought,
words its buttons.
What are we trying to cover?
Nothing.
The dress interprets
the body,
its own reveal, skin and hair,
apparently lacking
something necessary
to complete the ensemble,
where sound means
stylelessly.
Dress, the body licensed
for use, the slow decay
its words describe,
its missing buttons.
“Spring is like a
perhaps,”
e. e. cummings said,
“hand…”
For all I know,
as luck would have it,
mayhap e. had been
a weatherman,
instead of a poet.
Poets often talk
about things nothing
know they about,
like Spring,
but as things may turn out,
e. e. wasn’t talking about Spring,
but about a hand.
But Spring’s not here an either
or proposal; Spring’s neither
but here nor and there but per
adventure thru a broken window.
Twilight, the time of evening just before dusk,
brouhaha of shadows passing to their roost,
a calico on her last prowl before turning in,
ethereal blue rectangles lighting living rooms.
Porch lights welcoming neighbors and intruders,
strings of lights celebrating an open cafe or pub,
or a place to sit out on the stoop and talk,
couple browsing by in postprandial comma,
recalling injuries of the day, hair down,
disappointments, missed chances, kiss offs,
walking up or down the darkening alley,
unpaved gravel, ruts, the walk difficult,
but nowhere near impossible, preferred
way, the two birds scuffle, feathers ruffle,
they separate, then come back together
and drop lower into the trees, looking
for a mate that won’t hate to sleep alone,
will get up and fetch the bone without
undo complaint, make some coffee,
filter dreams, shovel another load of mulch.
You say primordial like it was a long time ago,
but look around, see the ooze from the same
old sores seeping through the bandages of time.
Of universe you birthed forth, blind at first,
then you thought you could see, with eyes
no less, your ears and nose full of dark matter,
and through every pore of your skin comes
and goes all the bugs of a family fortune,
a species come true, true to life.
But you are not true to type or form.
You mix and mingle and wander,
one day fins, the next, feathers,
anything to get ahead, until one day,
you fall in love with another just
like you. Well, almost.
Here at The Toads, where we have, since 2007, contributed to the general discussion of literature, we sometimes get questions regarding the uses, benefits, and effects of reading poetry: Is poetry good for you? How long does it take for a poem to kick-in? What are poetry’s side effects? How long does a poem last? Will reading poetry help my anxiety, depression, or pain?
These and similar questions are often accompanied by anecdotal experience offered as evidence or symptom. Someone knows a guy who read a poem and joined a cult; another attended a poetry reading and woke up with a hangover; a mother noticed her daughter slipping a book of poems into her missal at Mass – what to do?
What’s the best time of day to read a poem? Is it ok to read poetry while on steroids? Should you mix poetry with television? Are there any good poems about math? Can you suggest a good gluten free book of poems? What are this poem’s contraindications?
Medical doctors may suggest reading no more than two standard length poems per day. All things in moderation, including poems. As for the opinion of the man on the street, Everyman, vox populi, the wisdom of the crowd seems never closer to madness than on the subject of poetry.
The Coming of the Toads 