A Notebook – Since 2007
Retired from structured work
where one comes in time
to a sense of worthiness
awake but dewy-eyed
we often rode together but
arrived to chalk and cheese
shifts you taught me
to go easy to go around
and the rain fell down
petrichor filled the hooptie
and I long now for those days
when we used to commute.
Loveliest of evenings long passed
close kissed in dark dwelling alley
irate tenants hissing us go away
and we felt the marine layer coming.
Felt with our youthful tongues day
and night passing slowly into the mix
of salt and hair and wet sandpaper
rubbing away our persistent presents.
And while yesterday we had sun
today we have none though they say
the globe is warming you wear your
flannel nightgown winter and summer.
Won’t you please tell me your rules,
style flaws that send you over the edge,
your conjugations, constructions, con-
junctions, your clauses and marks
memorized, when to be and not to be,
double negatives and things dangling
in white space and other wedded dark
matter; for I will find immense
pleasure in breaking & trashing
the etiquette of your ways & days.
Thanks,
Nomere Ana R. Chist
with spring’s sprang nearly sprung
green cheer spread here and there
winter’s rust vanquished vanished
birds appeared and cats chirped
bees abuzz and poets well coffeed
at sidewalk bistro tables smiling
flowered girls no more sobbing,
words like dandelion seeds fill
vacant lots of napkins and notebooks
from self sown gardens of the mind –
happens every year most this clime
a great force in and out the ages goes.
On the radio
in the car
road noise
mix of blur
a shout
in the street
turn it up
turn it down
turn it off.
Try to wait
what’s up?
what’s down?
what’s goin’ round?
in the groove
groovy.
Caught inside
rough ride
in the tube
let it play
on the radio.
Live at 5
Small Wave Riders
on the radio
in the curl
watch that fin
at the drive-in
on the inside
looking out
of the radio.
Cherry blossom suds fizzle
across the street in the past
tense as the maple samaras
loosen their grab and let go
tiny purple red flowers –
Susan sweeps & I hold the shovel.
The scents immense
a pentatonic hair gel sneeze
like a rim shot on a snare
then the squiggly rinse
of liquorice bush fills
the air as at the summer fair.
But what is still future tense
figgily (like a fig fallen ripe)
on a fawn lawn afternoon
for now needs no articles
not a the or a a stammer
waves of breezy sizzle.
This train leaving the state
carries no saints.
No matter which way you face
all headed the same way.
The porter walks backwards
to the caboose, and as the train
slows to round a curve,
jumps.
She’ll take her chances improvising
in a real river.
It might have been said,
were there one to say it,
she was the last human,
but then she would not
have been the last one.
She’d been told to keep
by the river, the fresh fish
would grow and multiply.
The weather returned,
the goats and chickens.
She talked to the animals,
but she found life easier
if she kept silent, forgot
words, let go lingo and,
in the end, was no word.
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“A poem should be wordless
Ars Poetica
As the flight of birds.”
BY ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
having cut it out [it, all its]
pleasure now without article
embellishment whole
some questions
consider blue hydrangea
yesterday transplanted
from pot to ground
root, stem, leaf, bud
in which will we find
whole plantness
cup without coffee
gives us to mark time
a day without hours
hours without minutes
minutes without seconds
where will we find time
for whole things
words opening
seeds, bulbs
into whole language
grown in pots
root-bound can
but describe
like mathematics
can not be
He jumped in to join the pool
to savor his father’s tastes
simple mints and salty beer
nuts, pickled pig knuckles.
After the pool emptied
he reflected sentimentally
on hairs caught in the trap
they pulled up with the snake.
The Coming of the Toads 