3rd House Journal

Fine Lines

Between

past and future

not knowing and known

An opened window

a burst of bracing air

astonishing the staleness

A balance beam

the dance upon it

delicate and muscular

Skin

skin over muscle

and thin blue veins

First encounters

and phone lines

initial threads of affinity

Sheet music

for two intricate melodies

intertwining like vines.

---

Dangerous spring

I just went out for a walk. Scary out there.

---

In new green grass
tulips rise piercing red -
a quiver of arrows.

As spring trees bud,
a cardinal’s streak
slices through.

On a suburban lawn
with abandoned toys
dandelions explode.

---

Autumnal Striptease

Slipping free of their leafy cover

the trees show so much limb

the embarrassed birds fly south

abandoning imprudently exposed

summer nests for the modesty

of the Bible Belt.

Gleefully the impudent shrubs

flaunt their berry-studded undergarments

while the deciduous luxuriate

solely in strands of ruby holly

and strategically placed bittersweet.

Sporting mistletoe crowns

strung with poisonous pearls

they invite the kisses of jack o'lanterns

that watch leering from the stoops

wizening into themselves

dying happy.

Breathless wonders

It began at the vernacular body, one-sentence stories: The time my father got sick of the number of agama lizards that had invaded the compound...

My contribution appears there with three others, at this count, but I will reproduce mine here:

When I was five and visiting a neighbor we were upstairs in someone's bedroom where there was a gray cat whose long fur I pushed my face right into rolling it back and forth to feel the soft warm fuzziness against my cheeks and forehead and then my nose watered and my eyes puffed up and the whole world got fuzzy only in a bad way and that's how we learned of my cat allergies.

See also:
* Nomen est Numen: When we first met we sat half-facing each other...

* Laughing Knees: Damn developers are at it again this time flipping sides...* Numenius: The four of us pursued the fly as it zoomed from...

* Via Negativa: Shall we play Twenty Questions the way we used to...

* Frizzy Logic: Back in the dark depths of winter and despair...

* Pica: So I'm on the phone with my good buddy...

My First Job

I remember walking into

its yeasty sugary warmth

an embrace

like an affectionate

overweight aunt

smothering in

honey-dip perfume

confections powdering

our poly pink smocks

sturdy white nurse's shoes

sticky behind the cases

of donuts, danish, jelly rolls

raspberry, fig and lemon squares

loaves of French and Vienna

rows of toll house and oatmeal.

Out back where Saturday's

beans and brown bread

emerged from enormous ovens

and dough mixers churned

the white-hatted baker

expertly piped Happy Birthday

Karen or Nancy

with a pastry bag spout

before handing back the cake

with a wink.

Because it was cold here this morning

[Firewood, Keith Hill Rd., Grafton MA, Oct.1]

Firewood Makes Me Think of He-Men

Firewood makes me think of he-men

bearded, flannelled, shit-kicker booted

white breaths signaling up into brisk air

with every downward chop

with every weight brought down

then weight brought in

audible corporeal footfalls

as if a limber mobile oak itself

walked in tracking bits of bark

and pulp across my floor

displacing the delicate indoor air

replacing ascetic scent with smoky

decoctions of mushrooms

venison stew long-simmering

plus a perdurable thermal furnace

long-handled copper bed warmer

burrowing down burying me in

helping endure the long winter's wait.

Endless summer

After the beach's summer-long bash has ended, stragglers and dogs
pick at the leftovers on the fading tan of the sand. A man in shorts
and a sweater stands coffee-in-hand staring out to sea, a goose-pimpled

skin of tide washing up to his moccasins. Over by the jetty rocks

a mother huddles watching two tireless children play in waves

still warm like a bed just left or a body just dead, behind her

the seawall's graffiti, fresh as a young lover's tattoo, declares forever.



(Tweaked, 10/11 9:40pm)

Antonina

This was inspired by the vernacular body's "archaeology of childhood: food" series. I actually submitted it and Elck returned it to me with thanks, kind words, and the suggestion that I resubmit it longer - it seems I misread the rules: it requires a length of 550 words, which I read as 150 words! Whoops. Well, since I'm temperamentally given to brevity and since I'm happy with this length for this poem, I'll leave it as is and perhaps consider something different for the series or for another of his intriguing projects.

Go read the pieces in the series so far!

* Susan's "Egg"

* Elck's own "Wolfish"

* Suzanne's "Out beyond kenship" (which particularly inspired me with her tale of mushroom hunting with her Lithuanian grandmother; mine was Polish)

* The introduction and rules are here.

And my own brief poem inspired by the series:

Antonina

Once, when I was a child, I ate soup
from the steaming bowl she set before me
on the dinette tabletop I could only see
from a chair piled high with cushions.

Sets it before me between her fists,
then wipes them on the flowered apron
around her waist, the back of one fist
pushing a pale curl off her face,

she shoos the cat from the bowl beneath
the pantry bench exuding smells of potato
and carrot peelings, the onionskins for dying
Easter eggs the color of my soup bowl.

Soon she will lose the neurons needed
to maneuver the pot she stirs on the stove
in her kitchen's center, its licks of flame
stifled under the black iron disks.

But now she lets me lift the bust-half
off her porcelain cookie jar, a tough but breakable
maid-servant that splits herself in two
to offer sweets to grandchildren.

Note: In an attempt to be less obscure than I usually am, I should mention that my grandmother died of ALS when I was five years old. Perhaps I should revise to be more clear?

Keeping Faith

Based on an exercise in In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop on taking a figure of speech and turning it into a fantasy:

Keeping Faith

Cached in a glass flask

she is fed

sweet cake crumbs

silver dragees

shredded coconut

confetti hearts.

They even gave her

a tiny sailing ship

full-masted as if

a fine wind would

whisk her forward

as if not stoppered-in

propped on a counter

beside that crystal clock

with its cursed ticking

and oh that little plastic captain

his feet affixed to the deck.

This morning

Drape darkened dawn

color inhibited,

HEPA-filtered white noise

still spinning all-night prayers

up to the cathedral ceiling.

Curled on one side of my bed

as between the Atlantic
and the  Mississippi, one arm extended
to the desolate continent to my west,
discovered and lost successively,
a place of nomads.

Yet something stirs me -

no cries of children,
insistent consort
nor office obligations -
just the sun moving west
revealing increments
assigning names one by one
uncurling in me
an unexpected joy.