The Beard

I found it while culling old photos
that no one need keep — nor even see —
once I’m gone. It shows dark-haired me,
clear-eyed, smiling, hopeful, happy me.
At least I think it might be me,
despite that captured joy and smoothness.
The other reason I’m somewhat unsure of
the subject’s identity is because
the young fellow in these photos has
longish hair and a pretty nice beard.
A full beard, on a face shining with optimism,
even if it is out-of-focus.
I placed the photo in the bottom
of a shoebox in the closet with
the full-length mirror on the door.
The mirror that shows the image of
the silver-haired guy whose mouth sags
on the left side when he attempts to smile,
as if he’s afraid his face might slough off
the front of his head if he gave in
to full expressions of joy.
That’s the mirror where I stare into
the pair of burrows where nest the windows
of my soul. Deep within, it’s like I
can see inside the shoebox behind the door.
I still wonder what happened to that youngster,
but I at least know I can still find him.

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Celebrate, Celebrate

In the service area waiting room,
most of the people waiting
for their cars to be healed
are older men, retirees who sit
and gab about cars they once owned,
or that white Shelby Mustang
they wish they could. Some wear
baseball caps emblazoned with the branch
of the armed forces in which they served
when they were kids.

The 70-something gent in the dark blue
Navy cap caresses the Shelby’s curves
as the bright lights gleam off
the embroidered “CV-34” and “USS Oriskany”
on the front of his cap.
I want to ask him about the fire
on the Big O, killing forty-four
of his shipmates in ’66.
But you probably shouldn’t bring up
such stuff at 10:20 AM in a place
where the only thing to drink
is bad coffee and Three Dog Night
blares a harmonized “Celebrate, celebrate…”

I drain my coffee and recall
my Draft physical and wonder
which of the guys who stood naked
in ranks of eight with me for some
perverse inspection on that
cold tile floor could be sitting
in the blue leatherette chairs
on this tile floor, bouncing
their knees and waiting bareheaded
for their names to be called again.

Been a depressed dry spell for me lately. But being out in the world this morning, seeing guys my age waiting around in somewhat jovial moods for ‘something’ spiked my imagination.

Another Slice of Blood Orange

 

Sometimes I sit here
in the dark and ask myself
why I started this,
this burning of lifetime
spitting words into the air
like orange pits or
like blood from a split lip.
Wasn’t for any notoriety
since no one was supposed
to read them but me
and a very few who wondered
what the hell this was about.
And it wasn’t to write books,
lord knows, since I’d forgotten
how to read them years ago,
let alone write them.
It wasn’t, like you said,
for the approbation, since
I never belong with anyone.
Couldn’t be for what you call
stroking, since I’m unused to,
uncomfortable with touching.
I guess it was for a kind of
recognition, though, because
over these past ten years,
I might finally have recognized
my futile, inky-souled nature,
the guy spitting out orange pits
and blood to myself for myself.

My take on Robert Lee Brewer’s Wednesday poetry prompt in Writer’s Digest last week. He wanted a Recognition poem. I found the prompt and poem in my sleeplessness around 3:00AM this morning. Ahhh…throwback to the dark solitude of my Insomniac Poet days.

Awake in a Flash

It wasn’t lightning nor thunder
that woke me last night.
though I’m certain it was
a flash of something bright.
And I think that’s what
made me sit bolt upright.

So I asked myself
“Could this all be a dream?”
‘Cause at night some things
may not be what they seem,
like seeing the face of an old lover
in the gleam of a high beam.

As I looked ‘round the room
thinking, “Well, now I’m awake,”
that same ache in my chest
started my hands to shake.
Yeah, this latest high beam gleam,
courtesy of that same old heartbreak.

Echoes of Echoes

Today he thought he heard
the voices that once
chilled his spine and
set his chest thumping.
But it was only the soft airs
of old tunes. Perhaps carried
on the cold breeze, he mused.
Alone in bed that night,
he thought he heard them again,
wondering if they who once
haunted his sleep had returned.
A whispered G’night, babe,
a thin Buona notte,
a warm Night night.
It was then he discovered
it was his own breath
on the pillow caressing
his cheek, warming his memory,
sighing a final farewell
to all those dying echoes
of his displaced desire.

Genesis 3:19

The sunlight slanting in
through the window,
lingered on a bowl of fruit,
each waxen piece siphoning dust
from the light to immerse
itself in a world where
an apple or banana wears
as much fuzz as a peach.

No one notices this since
no one dines on the mahogany
table upon which the bowl sits.
No one’s moved more than one
of the chairs from beneath
the table in months,
though handprints muss
their dusty shoulders
on the way to the living room.

The tablecloth has yellowed
around the footprint rings
of teacups which helped read
the morning papers, except
for the five that rest outside
upon the threshold. But in
two days, her name will appear
on page C-8 of a seventh.

After that, sunlight will slant
beneath the green marquee,
to linger on the spray of silk roses
atop the mahogany veneer box.
A twirling wind will whirl motes
of west Texas, gilding the teary
lilies peering over prayer books
that, as one, proclaim,
“dust to dust.”

Frameless

I don’t wonder so much
about yesterday and tomorrow anymore.
The uncertainty of my margins,
of then and then, of here and there,
of that you and this you and
me and another me, have become
unnecessary fussiness in
my frameless life.
What is certainty in a world
built upon imperfection?
I can rhyme time with mine;
mine is what this time is.
I sometimes think of you
from those days and don’t worry
about a future that never could be.
You think you escaped
my gallery of conundrums,
but I’d ripped you free from those
confining frames years ago.

In serious need of writing something after two weeks-plus on the road helping with a new granddaughter, I dashed this off between drowses last night. What’s it mean? That’s your call, kind reader.