11-23-21 Taking Stock

Poems and stories in this post will come from my book, Always to the Light, and later poems never collected or published in a book, as well as from other poets I haven't selected yet.

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Listening to Mussorgsky
 
Listening to Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”
From the speaker overhead just as I start to write my poem,
Wondering how my little hiccup of a poem can imagine a place for itself
In the same world as the great gates of Kiev,
Having second thoughts, in fact, about writing anything today,
Deciding in the end, to be true to my philosophy that the value of art is in its doing,
Not its product, that product being merely an artist’s footprint,
Sign to the tracker that the artist was there,
Valuable to collectors of fine footprints but as irrelevant to the artist’s nature
As the remains of a grand banquet laid out on a cluttered table,
Evidence of a feast, but not the feast itself…
 
So, hear me, dear reader,
I am afraid this poem will never mean as much to you
As it did to me in its making
 
It was a great pleasure for me
And I’m sorry I can leave only the bones for you

​

Poesis interruptus
 
I stopped off at my friendly
Gas-grocery-beer-cigarettes convenience for money
After my usual morning coffee and newspaper read
At my usual table
At my usual diner
With the usual Sunday morning dueling church folk
To the behind and either side of me,
Including an extra place or two
Filled by the twice-a-year Christians
Who, it seems, get all the saving they need on Christmas and Easter,
Securing all other Sunday mornings for sleeping late or golf…
 
Discovering
After my third cup that I had no cash but for four pennies, three dimes, two quarters
And a Canadian coin I’ve trying to get rid of since our trip to Vancouver two years ago,
Leaving me to pay my $1.94 tab with my debit card
 
````````````
 
It is at this point in the story that the poet is interrupted
By life outside the poem – poesis interruptus – and the question is four hours later
As to whether he can get it up again to finish what he had most ardently begun…
 
At first you might think that returning to the earlier story half-finished
Is a process of separating the wheat of earlier inspiration
From the chaff of the humdrum interim…
 
But that’s not the case because, with proper poetic recognition,
All could be one and each could be the other with no separation necessary or possible
 
Integration is needed instead, finding the wheat in the essence of all chaff
And the chaff that infiltrates all wheat –
 
Like the small shopping center by the gas-grocery-beer -cigarette store
Where I stopped to use the ATM machine,
Anchored by a large vacant $1 store
Close up to the “X-treme Impact Church”
Next to “Alive MMA – Brazilian Jiu Jitsu”
Adjacent to the “Gathering of Grace Church”
Neighbor to “Fantasy Nails and Tan”
Snuggled up tightly to “Tattoos and Piercings”
Sharing a common wall with “Gin’s Chinese Restaurant”
 
It is all, in this world, like the shopping center,
All the disparate bits and pieces,
All the wheats and chaffs of everyday urban life
Swirled together by the Mix Master of everyday living,
Making the single and complete
Here and now of this particular and unique Easter Sunday morning,
Another party to which I am not invited because I will pay the price of admission –
Separation of sinners from the saved, rather than embracing unity of all mankind,
Some sinner in every saint
And a bit of saint in every sinner
 
Wheat from chaff,
I am one and I am both
And cannot separate my own self from the other
Or either from
You

​

Happy Confederate Heroes Day

the biggest problem
with being a non-believer
is I miss all the best holidays...

Christmas
and everybody tra-la-la-laling all over town
and I'm in a funk because every place I like to go
is overcome with manic Christmas fanatics
driving me crazy with their lousy Christmas spirit
and I know after six months of this the day will finally come
and everything I like to do will be impossible for twenty-four hours
because everything will be closed
so people can go tra-la-la-ling at home with their tra-la-la kids
and if I see that damn scrooge or that yellow brick road
or that stupid angel getting his wings one more time
I might just get medieval with my TV

and right before that there is Thanksgiving which requires me to eat turkey
for three weeks and I don't even like turkey...

and next, 
just as that dumbass angel finally gets his wings
we jump into Easter and the whole cascarones breaking confetti-filled eggs
on my head thing, leaving me with a headache for two days
and a week and a half of pulling paper bits from my hair...

those are the big ones, except for the 4th of July which would be great
if it was the 4th of October or something like that
instead of right in the middle of the hottest part of summer
when I'm supposed to eat bar-b-que in the park, outside
and watch fireworks and listen to the symphony, with help 
from the canons at Fort Sam Houston, play the 1812 overture

outside
outside
outside
outside
everything outside and who the hell wants to be outside
when it's 114 degrees in the shade and there's damn little of that

that doesn't leave me with anything but Confederate Heroes Day
which causes family issues
with one great grandpappy on one side
and the other great grandpappy on the other
and the minute we start talking about it 
we have to fight the whole frigging war all over again

who needs it!

(NOTE: Confederate Heroes Day dropped in Texas as a state employee holiday about 20 years ago in favor of LBJ's birthday.)

The catch of the day
Is not the fish we catch
Or the one that got away

The catch of the day
is the time we stay
and the walking home together

​

Eastern sky
​
the eastern sky
    red
like an angry rose
by any other hue
would it sweet
    so smell

end of days
    of 2012
approaching
a new year’s ending
    beginning
        in two
            days

and I have no reflex
for an old year
a new year
an in-between year
    a sky
        red
as an angry
    rose
        the hue so sweet

no reflex
to measure
the new
    number
    the old
just a day
you know
like any other
    day
no reflex
for seeing new
what I’ve seen
before
    or new days
        or old days
        or roses
            angry red
no matter how sweet
    hue
    the smell
it’s just another damn
    day
in another damn
    year
just another damn
    moment
just another damn
angry
            hue

and I have no reflex
to understand
or to teach it

must another
momentary
    rose
        angry
            then
                gone
                     like
me

hasta la vista
    huesome
    rose

On the South Texas Coast

This poem is by Carol Coffee Reposa. It is taken from her book Underground Musicians, published by Lamar University Press in 2013.

This is Reposa's fourth book of poetry. A professor emeritus of English at San Antonio College, she has received three Fulbright-Hay Fellowships, along with three Pushcart Prize nominations.


Los Amantes de Sumpa

First she died
And then he died
Ten thousand years ago.

She was twenty.
He was twenty-five. 
Both were well off for their time.

Mourners laid him next to her,
Placed his arm around her waist,
His leg across her thigh.

This man and woman
Could have watched 
The sun come up each day

In bursts of red and gold
Or listened for the early morning birdsong
While they thatched their roof.

Perhaps they married
Had a feast
She might have borne a child.

I look at the tangled bones
His skull crushed 
From centuries of earth

Hollows of his eyes
Filled long ago with bright desire
What remains of him still turned tdo her

It doesn't matter
When they died
Or why, or how

All that counts this afternoon
Or any other
Is his arm around her waist,
His leg across her thigh.

​

​

Written today, if written tomorrow perhaps entirely different.
​
Too long, too personal, written in poetry form only because that is the form most natural to me, like breathing

Taking stock

A picture from 50 years past,
Me,
In the tiny trailer I lived in
While returning to university
After military service
 
A pen in my shirt pocket, always,
Even today a pen in my shirt pocket,
A jacket, part of an Afghan soldier’s uniform,
Received in a trade with one of the soldiers
Who guarded our compound, that I wore that day
Even though it was a little too small for me
 
Years passed since then
Long ago, those days when the end of life
Was a dim dot, a spec, far away,
Far enough to easily forget it was there
 
Years passed since then
And today the tiny dot
Is a black pit I stand at the edge of
 
There is no forgetting the dark
At my feet
 
Years passed
And I feel a need to take stock…
 
Born and raised
In a small South Texas town near the border,
High intelligence creating high expectations around me
I lacked the will to meet,
A disappointment, even to myself

Leaving that town at eighteen,
Finding opportunity to grow closer 
To the me others expected me to be,
But, still floating on a dead sea,
I lingered behind
 
Until military service,
I fought the call, but gave in to the inevitable,
And, once in, achieving rank early
Despite being mediocre at my job at best,
The beneficiary of expectations, those who led me
Seeing in me a future leader
 
Then, military service complete,
University degree in hand,
The beginning of a career that fit me
As if made for me,
Ambition discovered, power and influence,
And though temporary as such power always is,
I liked it and took advantage of it
To do things that, on the scale of my life,
Seemed great things
 
But the great things that gave me such pride
Passed, like the power that created them,
The accomplishments that seemed so large,
Eroded to doodlebug dust like the power
That created and sustained them
 
A second life then as a poet,
Twisting stories of my life into
A form of poetry mostly known
To be unknown, a blip, then forgotten
 
And then a third life as an artist,
A talent-free artist, creating art
No more memorable than the poetry
 
And now the pit lies deep and dark
Before me and, leaving all that past
Behind me, my stock, my portfolio,
Is simply this, a wife who loves me
And a son in whom I have as much pride
As anything in my passing powerful past
 
That’s all…
 
And it turns out,
It’s enough

Old  homes left behind

taking
a little trip
in a couple hours

a two-hour drive
to the coast,
to Corpus Christi first,
the city where I lived for fifteen years
before ambition drew me to the hills
twenty years ago

I'll see if any old haunts
remain - it seems
every time I visit, a few more are gone,
the old city slipping away, a whole new city
grown up on the south side where
grain and cotton
were the only cash crops before…

I’ll wander around downtown, called now
in my hotel brochure
“The downtown entertainment district”

(Which it was some years ago, until the folks
at the old folks' home complained about the noise -

we’ll see, I guess,
maybe all the old folks died
or have become accustomed to noise with their oatmeal)

breakfast
tomorrow morning
at the top of the Omni,
the bay and bayfront laid out,
the water rippling
in early morning tide,
shinning orange and red
under the rising sun,
the lights of the shipyards
tiny pin holes through dim early morning
on the other side
of the bay…

---

taking the long way home tomorrow,
across the bay bridge
to North Padre and Mustang Island,
stopping for pictures of the beach
and the fishing boats
in Port Aransas,
then the ferry across the ship channel,
back to the mainland, first Aransas Pass,
then down the coast to the little cities
that lap the water's edge,
Ingleside by the Bay,
Rockport,
Fulton, with lunch
at Charlotte Plummer’s,
pictures along the way if I can find anything
I haven't snapped before

after lunch,
west to the flat highways of the coastal plains,
plowed fields on either side, fields
settled in for winter, awaiting
early grain, and the wind farms, new,
spread along the coast,
facing southeast to catch the constant gulf winds,
winds converted to electricity,
the sustenance that feeds our civilization,
then, pasture and old oaks
spreading wide across low hills
that grow over the miles to the curves
and up and down highways
of hill country
highways,
just past my home in my little divide
between rolling ridges and
the creek
that runs alongside it…

home
at the end of day,
old homes left behind
again

​

Ride the tiger

early clouds
turned to wide-open sky
as the sun rising
burns
away the night cramps
of dead memories and lost dreams

a new day,
old swept away
in the dark processing
of midnight shadows and the sighs of slow-hobo winds

the old day
surrenders its night, back broken
by the crack of an orange
horizon, the bright new tiger
stretches, gathers together the hours
of its dominion, metes them out to us
with the lick of her red tongue,
sharp extension of bright
claws…

~~~

welcome…

ride the tiger as you must,
until the next dark sends her slinking
back to her shadow den

​

Here are three short poems from my library. The poems are by Eric Greinke, taken from his book Wild Strawberries, published in 2008 by Presa Press.

Greinke is the author of several book, including poetry, fiction and non-fiction. He has a Master's degree in Social Work and has twenty-five  years experience working with disturbed and disabled children. He has also taught creative writing in an alternate high school and has worked in the Michigan Poets in The Schools program.


Dust

Obnoxious cosmetics
Drip from the face
Of the Statue of Liberty.

Diamonds gleam
From teh President's teeth.

Old dogs argue
Over the skulls
Of rock stars and senators.

A battalion of metal roaches
Dances around the captured flag.

In the middle
Of a moonless night
Old men remember the Third Reich.

Alarms ring in gladiolas,
​Cueballing yet another Spring.


Northern lights

A roar of jeweled leaves
Titillates the dark northern sky
Celebration above the trees
Aurora flares
Sun spots dance the edge
Owl turns to small sound
Marten clings
To a a red pine branch
Outside my sleepy head


Liquid 

Wild ducks
Scoot a landing
On blue eyes

​

Usual suspects

the old guys are here
and the tattooed fat lady is here
and the always neat and clean homeless guy
with his tightly wrapped foam bedroll,
heavy-looking backpack and professorial look
with little half-lens glasses
as he spends the day reading in the air-conditioned cool,
and the mama
with her little blond girl trailing behind,
baby-doll in one hand and pink little purse in the other,
and little plastic dangly bracelets on both wrists
that she shakes as she passes, and the young mother
with two little girls, heading double-time for the bathroom,
passing a new guy, a long, white-haired Sam Elliot looking guy
in short pants reading "Guns and Ammo" magazine,
and a couple of medical student regulars,
and the short-haired cowboy guy with the bad arm,
and the two gay guys that show up a couple times a week

(and, OK, maybe they're not gay, but they sure are
sharp dressers)

and the middle-aged woman, a mid-life student who always looks like
she's mad at me because I always get here first and take the table by the door
next to an electric plug where she'd like to be,
and the dorky-looking guy and his dorky-looking wife
who come in and stare at each other and never say a word
the whole time they're here, and the old guy with thick glasses
and a magnifying glass who writes tiny numbers in columns
in a spiral notebook, eyes inches from the page, and the table of law students,
arguing with each other like it was a Supreme Court appearance,
and the Asian guy reading Shopenheimer haiku and the girl
with long auburn hair and acne scared cheeks, a cheeky girl
with a constant air of amused observation, and I'm thinking
if she was 50 years older she might share the joke with me, assuming
it's not me that's the joke, of course,
a possibility I do not discount...

all the familiar faces in all the familiar places
​on a mostly typical Thursday...

​

Campfires

around campfires
beings not so unlike us
as we imagine, told stories
of the trials and victories of the day,
shared news of the hunt
with their clan brothers and cousins

many stories reached into the hearts of those who heard them
and were told again on other nights
around other campfires, passed on through generations
and geography…

traditions were born, expressed
in all the many languages of
man…
and we
who call ourselves poets
bear the weight of that tradition
with every word we
write, a burden, but not heavy, light instead
and full of promise
an invitation to join
kindred souls, to retell the old stories
and sometimes our own new story,
so well told
its telling sets a new spark rising in the dark night,
passing from our own campfire to others
brightly burning, we will never
see…

keeping aglow
the ancient embers…

it is our job,
undertaken with the humility
of those who understand their place
in a long and vibrant
history…
​
it is our joy,
however well or poorly
we do it

​

Diorama
​
morning
north wind
blows hard against me,
cold hand
on the nape of my neck,
trickles under my coat
down my back
clear blue sky
sharp as a diamond’s cutting edge
bright sun
like broken glass falling
long night’s sleep,
waking
to a five-year old’s
diorama
world,
construction paper
city
construction paper
world
bright colors
sharp corners

​

Finishing this post with a reading from my book, Always to the Light, available as always wherever eBooks are sold.

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