4/16/22 Time and the Tide

after "Hellboy"

not a great film,
but lots of fun, and the question now
is what to do with the rest 
of this Sunday afternoon,
a nap,
one possibility,
is tempting, but I know
if I go to sleep this afternoon, 
it's not going to be
one of those fifteen-minute power naps
that can refresh on a hot summer afternoon,
but a real 3- or 4-hour snoozathon
that will leave me groggy
and pissed off at the world
and it'll screw up my sleep tonight besides,
so, it being too damn hot
to go to the lake
or work in the yard
or go to the zoo
or picnic in the park
or take a hike down Government Canyon
to see the dinosaur footprints
or anything else that requires
leaving my air-conditioned cocoon,
so, here I am,
at the same old stand,
down at the coffeehouse
looking for interesting faces,
looking for a story,
looking for a poem to take the heat
off the afternoon
(and here the poet puts his glasses
back on and studies the coffeehouse crowd,
all the while typing,
his fingers on a straight loop to his brain,
until his brain stops, and thinks,
what the hell is this,
where did I go off track, 
what does this have to do with the poem
I was trying to write?)

I see the redhead
who is always here in the afternoon,
thin, sharp face displaying no evidence at all
of internal life, and I see the couple at the table
next to mine, a young man and woman,
he Hispanic, she, gringa, reminding me 
of us 45 years ago, except reversed,
except they're both medical students,
while we were both on our way up
through the jungle of the state's bureaucracies

and now the poet is really in a jam,
rummaging through all this old news,
hoping to hook something - anything -
to start a roll in the jumbled field
of Sundy poetics...)

the poet's eye jumps to the new couple
just coming in,
might there be something in this? he thinks,
this very large man and this very small woman,
but, no, add them together and divide by two
and what you have is two very normal, very everyday
boring people without an ounce of poetry
in their very large and very small bodies...

meanwhile,
the poet's brain keeps slipping back
to the great scene when
Hellboy and Abe, the fish guy, 
get drunk on Tecate
and sing the syrupy song
about lost love
and...

the poet notices two young women,
very pretty, dressed for summer,
and the poet, pencil poised,
realized that some things can't be said,
even in a poem, without encouraging
community dislogisticity, if not
lengthy imprisonment, and...

I look around one last time
and decide there's just nothing here
this afternoon to bring my creative juices
to boil...

(the poet decides it might be best
to dare the dangers of sleep intoxication
and go home for a nap - perhaps
a good idea will come to me in my sleep,
​he thinks
​

a cowboy should be tough enough

did it again,
dressed for yesterday’s weather,
Hawaiian shirt, black with big red flowers
of probably Hawaiian origin,
looking,
it seemed to me as I studied it in the mirror this morning,
very much like a cowboy shirt
(except for the missing
fringe)

close enough to a cowboy shirt
to remind me that rodeo is just around the corner,
the first signs of it, the cowboy breakfast this morning (for the 45th year)
soft tacos and coffee for about 75,000 people, very few of whom
are actually cowboys, except this once a year when they get up at 4 a.m.
and put on their cowboy hat and cowboy boots and fight heavy cowboy traffic
to the big parking lot over by Freeman Coliseum, while, at the same time, approaching now
from all over South Texas and other cowboy lands to the west and north and even east
a few Cajun bayou cowboys, trail riders, bank clerks, schoolteachers, and insurance salesmen
and the grizzled fella from down the street and occasional actual cowboys and cowgirls,
all bundled up against the cold, moseying in on their horses from days and nights on the trail,
pots and kettles clattering on the sides of their chuckwagons, and sometime soon,
the cattle drive down Commerce Street through the middle of downtown,
which seems to have some kind of secret launching date because
I always want to take pictures of it but somehow never know about it until it’s over
and I’m thinking maybe this year I can find out where to go and get there ahead of time
and I’m thinking I ought to be doing that right now, right after I cross the last “t” and dot the last “i”
on this little ramble, all, like this ramble, another dodge my dog would say, to avoid
going for a walk in 50 degree weather in my Hawaiian, and I’m thinking, cause cowboys are supposed to
be tough and not deterred when I comes time to herd their herd, that maybe I should reorient
my thinking and based on the similarity of appearance, I should come to understand
that a cowboy shirt is just an Hawaiian shirt with fringe benefits
and conversely maybe I should think of this Hawaiian shirt as just a cowboy shirt de-fringed
and that should make me a cowboy tough enough, as befits my kind,
to go walk the dog
​

abuelita de los todos

the rotund little crossing guard, silver curls
trickling under the back of
her white crossing-guard cap,
commands the intersection
with the authority of her orange vest,
parades sternly across the rush-hour street,
little feet paddling fast against the cold asphalt,
like a mother duck
she pulls in her wake a gaggle of
tiny ducklings, all bundled, head to toe,
against the cold

whatever else might befall them
as the day progresses, her little charges are safe for now
under her fierce shield

abuelita de los todos -
la guarda bajo el sol naciente
​




​

hell no! I won’t go!

it’s warm in here
and very cold outside and
looking through the wide restaurant windows
it even looks cold
and I need to go out there and walk the dog
but I don’t want to
because it’s cold enough out there to freeze my macchiatos
right plumb off
and I would feel right distressed
if my macchiatos were to freeze and fall right off
and go bouncing down the street
so I’m going to sit right here and pretend I’m writing a poem
cause it’s just too damn cold out there for a south Texas fella
with tender macchiatos

so
hell no! I won’t go!
​
​

Cock-a-doodle

poets are creatures
of the word, 
and are often stymied
by social convention that sets
certain word off-limits,
you know, the words
that made us snicker in fifth grade,
usually having to do with bodily functions
and/or body parts best not shown in public,
for example,
there is what Walt Whitman
called the "man-root"

instead of Whitman,
the polite word to use in mixed company today,
assuming, of course, you have need
to refer to the body part in mixed company,
is penis...

but, I tell you, that is such a limp dangly
little word no man really wants to claim it
​for his, you know, whatchamacallit,

(see the problem right there it is,
trying to talk around the whole thing
when some simple little word
could make it clear we're not talking about
a fella's ear, or his nose, or his left elbow

*****

some might call it prick -
though I personally don't like that,
sounds too aggressive 
for a passive kind of guy like me,
and besides it's developed all sorts
of negative connotations, like for example,
no one wants to be or hang around with
a prick, and neither does one 
want to get pricked, no matter
how tiny the prick is that
does the pricking

*****

if we were Irish,
I suppose we could
all have our individual names for it,
like Lady Chatterley's gardener -
his preference was, I believe, John Thomas,
but it does seem to me
it wouldn't solve the problem
since we couldn't be sure 
what anyone was talking about,
assuming, perhaps,
the conversation was about another person
of whom we had not had the pleasure
of acquaintance and possibly more destructive
to social tranquility, there could be, for example,
endless argument between man and spouse
(or other interested party) whether it would be
more appropriately be named
"Big Willy" or "Wee Willy Wilkins" -
​a discussion which would do no good
for anyone...

*****

many nowadays seem to prefer
cock, that, at least, is what I see
and hear most often,
and I have to say,  I kinda like cock,
myself, such a proud manly word,
cock-of-the-walk, cock-sure, cock-
a-doodle-do, wake up and smell the roses,
or something else

and, of course, no man ever wants
to go off half-cocked...

*****

so, setting aside such obviously unacceptable proposals
as trouser lizard, or one-eyed-snake-that-ate-Milwaukee

and, while always being available to other suggestions,
for the time being, perhaps we can just put  cork
in the conversation and leave it at
cock.

in the meantime, possibly tomorrow,
someone will address the similar conundrum
regarding those attributes most usually 
attributed to the ladies

​but it sure as hell won't be me
​

surely the gods must weep

the soft slow opening passages,
like the whisper of angels' wings,
the most noble, moving, profound beauty
in all music, leading inexorably
to the same passages as it ends, this time
the full-throated god-roar of Odin
and all his sons and daughters,
the power of deepest beauty,
the beauty of immense
power,
all in a single piece of human creation,
surely the gods must weep
at this presentation of their own eternal story…

the Overture to Tannhauser, played in high school band,
engulfed in the music from the low brass section
at the back of the band, only three bars in,
the music like the quiet rising waters
of an on-coming flood, that very minute I learned
such depth of soul and sound was possible,
the very minute I learned I loved classical music

sitting at a stoplight on San Pedro Ave. thinking of dead people
 
sitting at a stop light on San Pedro Ave.
on my way to my coffeehouse
this morning, thinking about all the dead people
in my life, thinking of an aunt and uncle
who lived in McAllen at the time and how when I was a kid,
six or seven or so, I would spend a week with them
in the summer…

childless at the time and happy to have me around,
I remember how on Saturday I went with my uncle to his office
in a tall building downtown, riding an elevator, my first, and playing
with my toys on his carpet while he worked and I remember how
during the week I played on a large undeveloped tract of land
across from their house, open land, no brush, unbroken
and not farmed and I would spend the day playing in the dry caliche dust,
and I remember the land littered with shells of snails, thousands of them, generations
of snail bones, white, like bleached bones in the desert, snail bones white in the dust
and the bright Rio Grande Valley sun…

and I think of how little I remember of that week, not a meal, not a night
in bed, just the elevator ride and snail bones, white and dusty, and I think
how my aunt and uncle and most of the people I’ve ever known
are like snail bones now, white bones under layers of dust, and how sad
it seems that so much of my life is about dry, white bones baking
in a desert sun…

and then before the light turns from red to green,
a young Latina crosses the intersection in front of me,
pedaling hard on her bicycle, heading, no doubt, to the college
two blocks down the street, a backpack strapped to the back of her bike,
full of books, I imagine, as the young woman, long black hair streaming,
strong, brown legs pumping as she rises and falls on her bicycle seat, the future
racing past on a bicycle, life racing past, black hair streaming and brown legs pumping,
and for a while at least I forget about the white bones buried in the
dust of my life and for a moment the hour glass is turned back and the dust
that is my life no longer trickles down from the small cloud remaining, instead
the glass is full and vibrant streaming, life not a memory of fading bones but
a vision of black hair streaming and brown legs pumping, life,
alive, black hair streaming and brown legs
pumping…
​

more confident suns
 
a sepia-lit day
under an uncertain sun

storm blowing in from the coast,
but staying east of us, the threat
increasingly hollow as west winds blow
the rain away…

but still
the hesitant sun knows how prevailing winds can change,
a lesson learned by many of us in life…

rarely the easy
way -
at least for me

everything I’ve ever learned
the product of mistakes,
under-estimating myself, over-
estimating people I counted on, giving up
when I should have hung on, or holding on when
good sense would have told me to let go

but, and here’s the important lesson

always losing more by giving up
than by holding on has made me
tough, or, as others say,
stubborn…

the virtue of a hard head,
serving me now as
never before

meanwhile
a sepia-lit day
under an uncertain sun

but I hold on
to remembered light
and more confident
suns…

​

pretty young women with large bosoms want to be my friend

​
pretty young women
with large bosoms
say
they want to be
my friend
on Facebook

this is a bizarre
development for me
at my age, pretty
young women
with large bosoms
wanting to be my
friend,
and,
come to think of it,
pretty young
women
with large
bosoms wanting
to be my friend
is not something
I recall
happening
to me at any age…

it seems to have
started
shortly after I shaved
my head, perhaps
it’s a Daddy Warbucks
thing or maybe
exposing my
scalp
has
somehow
exposed the boiling
core
of sexuality
blazing within
my loins…

or maybe
not…

at any rate
I’ve been hesitant
to become
friends
with pretty young
women with large
bosoms on Facebook
because who knows
what they might
be after since
I’m not
rich
so
i think
maybe it’s my
bod,
or my scintillating
intellect
(though the bod
would be my
choice,
happy to save
my scintillating
intellect for tea
with the older
ladies)…

but in the end
I think these pretty
young women with
large bosoms
are just nurses,
charity workers, out
to sooth the shriveled
soul and other parts
of dried up old
men,
or maybe they are
just
confused
about the riches
I don’t have…

best I decline
their offer of friend-
ship for the sake
of both of us,
me too old
and they too young,
for the rending
heartbreak
that will surely
follow
our mutual
disillusionment...

plus
if my wife found out
I was being friendly
with pretty young women
with large bosoms
I would be in immediate
danger of losing
bathroom privileges
and sleeping in my car
with my dog which
is really
small
(the car
not the dog)
and already smells deeply
of dog…

it’s for the best
my dears
I say to all the
pretty
young women
with large bosoms…

move on, try to forget me,
possibly
you might check with
the old sailors'
home,
teeming with old men
fully as bald as me
and actually
you don’t really have
to be that young
or have such large
bosoms for them, so
you can let yourself
go a bit -
just
wear a skirt
and hosiery
for they, after a life
at sea, are experts in the
lessons of any port
in a storm…

~~~

and if it doesn’t work out
with the old
sailors
you might
call me again,
who
knows
what evil might lurk
in the hearts of bald old men
given a chance for
second
thoughts…

In the old "Here and Now" it was my practice to include poets from my library in every issue.  I have done little of that in this new "Here and Now," mostly because it's a lot of work transcribing the work from the original book.

So, returning to that practice, at last a little, here is a poem by Suzette Marie Bishop from her book Horse-Minded, published by CW Books in 2012.

Bishop reaches writing at Texas A&M International University. She won the May Swenson Prize for her previous book, Took Off Her Wings and Shoes. As a poet and teacher, she gives many readings and workshops for gifted children, seniors, at-risk youth, and for an after-school program serving a rural Hispanic community.


None of It Was Overlooked by Us

In his truck
between him and another classmate
leaving a party for the workshop,
he had asked me 
to go dancing after the party
and after we dropped the other poet
off at her apartment.

As we drove down the mountain
we all joked about The Overlook Motel,
wondering what was overlooked,
laughing down that steep slope.

Things turned quickly
as they can with poets
when she refused to get out of the truck
once we got to her place,
pleading with him to come in.

She seduced through me
as if I'd disappeared
or would just wait patiently in the truck.
He gripped the wheel
and kept shaking his head,
"No."
She finally got out.

We drove the rest of the way down
the mountain in silence,
and he turned into my apartment complex,
the desire for dancing,
making out with me in his truck
killed for him,
maybe reminded of his guilt
about his estranged wife
he hadn't mentioned yet,
unable to talk about her.

I was left
stunned
as he drove away

Three poets in the cab of a truck,
all the dark night
falling away from us out
the opened windows,
the extremes of the hour
stay with me:
unspeakable ecstasy,
unspeakable pain
swirling around us
like the wind through the windows,
sweeping our laughter and silence out
to echo off the ridges.
​

This is first in a 13-part series of personal and world history, told in text and photos. I will include a new part with ever following post.

Time and the Tide

1934

Alcatraz becomes a federal prison
Nazi Germany passes the “Law for the Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring
Over 10,000 die in Indian earthquake
First Jewish immigrant ship breaks the English blockage of Palestine
418 Lutheran ministers arrested in Germany
First high school auto driving course offered in Pennsylvania
Great dustbowl storms cross U.S. prairies
Okaloosa, Iowa becomes first U.S. city to fingerprint its citizens
Bela Bartok’s “Enchanted Deer” premiers
-----------
almost unnoticed
the Aryan Councils
meet,
drummers
prepare to beat
their savage
drums
------------
Fifteen years old, she leaves school, marries a Canadian sailor. Together they live happily by the sea.

Two years older, he plays high school baseball. An all-round athlete, he stutters when anxious, but, tall, dark and handsome, the girls in the small town where he lives don’t care.
​
The world has not yet come to their doorstep.