100 Days of Lyric Poetry: Days 26-40

26. KAPUT                                                                                        6/20

Nothing went right tonight:

the antiqued lamp—one of the few remaining

mementos of a dear brother who died young—

broke when we tried to get

my father's old fishing rod

off the shelf above it.

Then the mosquitos swarmed.

And now my computer is on the fritz:

one more burden

in a lifetime of mechanical failures…

The forces of entropy, always vigilant,

sometimes seem to have the upper hand.

27. SHIPS IN THE NIGHT                                                              6/21/17

"We are like ships in the night,"

you said as you kissed me good night,

and went to bed at 9:30.

But I am not so sure that is right,

because you're the one getting up

at a quarter to six for boot camp,

and on the weekend,

it's you who hits the ground running,

and all through the night, every night,

it's you plagued by anxieties, menopause,

the heat wave, the plumbing problem,

or how are we going to pay for college:

not so much a single ship in the night,

but an armada of junk, battleships,

ferries, flotsam,

a flotilla of fretting.

And, not to brag,

since this is strictly a function of hormones,

I only think about one thing, in bed.

You're the passing ship. I'm a lighthouse.

28. RECURRING NIGHTMARE 

                                                                                                            6/22/17

I sit in front of a music stand

and my trombone case is lying nearby.

The band starts up a number 

and I only have ten bars before 

I'm supposed to come in. 

But what is the song?

And how many sharps are there? Four?!!

And what are those,

dotted sixteenth notes?

I assemble the horn

quickly, buzz into 

the mouthpiece.

I have to burst in forte--

but what if I counted wrong?

Wait a minute! I quit

playing years ago. 

This is just that stupid nightmare.

CODA

I put myself there last night

for reals.

No one threw rocks at me.

29. KINTSUGI                                                                                   6/23/17

My sister published a story about us

for NYT Modern Love

which compared our divorces

and the ensuing second marriages

to the Japanese art of kintsugi:

repairing broken porcelain art

with precious metal-infused glues.

When I broke the lamp

that came from your late brother,

the only artifact of him we have,

I had only superglue--

no gold-filled elastomers

of miraculous provenance.

And now in the spiderweb cracks

smudged in fingerprints and epoxy,

I do not try to pretend the lamp is better—

it isn't; it is damaged—

and your brother is gone. Not even

the lamp does anything to help.

Colin is gone;

I sit in the light of his lamp,

diffracted by shadows of its cracks.

yet not in darkness.

30. BACH CANTATA                                                                      6/24/17

There is a continuous, flowing beauty to the melodies and harmonies and rhythmic counterpointing in the cantatas of JS and when they are played by the full, pealing tones of the Canadian Brass, who know how to make the horns resonate richly and fully, then the music truly becomes hypnotic, evocative of what you supposed to be a more perfect period of history, before the invention of plastic and the burning of fossil fuels, when people wore natural fibers and leather and houses were made of wood and stone and villages housed craftsmen and farmers and it was not possible to earn a living by managing hedge funds or tweaking spreadsheets, though we usually put aside the dirty little truths about religious persecution, the rum triangle slave trade, or feudalist oppression when we nostalgicate for the days when foods were whole and not processed, when minds were simple and not occluded by opioids, and man was still just one species—and not even ubiquitously the dominant one— among all of the creatures released from Eden and put back down on dry ground at Mount Sinai to bask in the gentle golden rays beaming down peacefully upon us all.

31. GREEN HAIR                                                                            6/25

"Swimmers don't get green hair", you proclaimed,

standing from the table, as if

to better dodge the volley of responses,

refuting friends and family from the security

of your own experience.

"Gabe, they're three times as old as you,"

your best friend murmured, dumbstruck

by your sang-froid under fire, your cheery

indifference to unanimous opposition.

You ducked our counter-points, one by one,

as"fake news", hearsay, or just plain wrong,

and passed around one photo on your phone,

as if that blond teenager were proof.

"He's always been that way," I smiled

to my friends, now speechless

by such indifference to reason,

such blind folly in a kid.

There was nothing more to do

But drink our wine, and change the subject

doomed members of a species,

all marked by your fatal flaw.

32. ELITISM                                                                                      6/26/17

"What are you doing with your empathy

toward those who are less well off?"

You ask, as if a thing has no value

unless it is applied to an end.

But I counter

that a better understanding

of people in the world

is worthwhile in itself.

For it's one thing to be elitist

and say that your music is the best.

But if you don't understand

what other music is doing--

if you cannot empathize

with the downtrodden--

if their music cannot reach you

then you are closing your eyes

to a spectrum of colors

a symphony of emotion.

And really, is that any better

than the refugee who won't

listen to Schubert with you?

33. SIXTY TWO                                                                                06/27/2017

Bent by the years

greyed but not erased

there is a small miracle in their

continued companionship.

we are humbled by your humility

knowing I'd have to live to a hundred

to reach that marker

and I'd have to find a way

to shrug off discord

to forgive the malevolent barb

to rise above the wounded ego

hoping that a kind look

and empathetic touch

can still, after all these decades

provide a little tremor of

that first smitten thrill.

34. FORTY SIX                                                                                 06/28/2017

Serving the public in a town

known for a high population

(years before pot was legal)

of vagrants and homeless…

it's gotta be tough. To be the cop

always ringed by a phalanx

of trust-fund idealists

and you-tube philosophers

second-guessing how tight

you administer the cuffs.

You are the signature on the social contract

and the only force that keeps

food in the stores where they shop-lift

garbage off the streets they occupy.

You keep the murderers and rapists

from having the run of the town;

these healthy young men

on permanent disability

who kibbutz on "brutality!"

wouldn't even make it as their bitches.

But since you were once a parent

of small children, you know,

jacked on sugar after the party

they cried real tears, and with feeble fists

protested, called you "mean,"

tried to stave off nap time.

And so you and your fellows

manage infinite patience for

these surf-bum videographers

who wouldn't last five minutes

against the real brutality

that you protect them from.

35. ODE TO SUMMER (THE SWIMMERS)                                 6/29

This is the season when teenagers

skin still perfect, bellies not yet gone to flab

are driven to those swim meets

by parents still reeling from the change

of their once sweetly innocent toddlers

into these beautiful ensexed beings

who at times still act like kids

but now awkwardly stand, nearly naked,

on the elevated blocks.

An unspoken vigilance

against photography

and volunteers at the timing stations

looking up at the young bodies

can relax into friendly chatter

only after confirming which one is your kid.

The swimmers themselves won't

understand until years later,

reminiscing (without the aid of photos)

how lycra only barely covered

a budding ripeness,

how taut fabric accentuated

a perfection that they will only know again

when their own children

suddenly bloom and mature

to the great surprise

of no one.

36. TEENAGERS.                                                                            6/30

You might've thought you knew them

at three, when you could hear what they thought.

Or maybe at six, when you could see

the interests they had--trains, maybe. Or dolphins.

And then again, maybe at 9,

when you began to understand

their sense of humor.

But none of that can prepare you

for the harsh reality

of who they are becoming,

after they turn 12.

Because suddenly nothing

that you say is ever right,

none of your jokes are funny,

and eyes will roll.

And now is when you finally get to see

what kind of adults they are growing into.

If they refuse to practice piano anymore,

if they lose interest in reading,

if all they want to do is sit in a dark room

and play video games…

Well, no use hiding from reality.

There is a saying:

You can tell a man's character

by how he treats those weaker

when he thinks no one is watching.

The corollary to that is

you can tell a teenager's character

by whether he rolls his eyes

even when his mother isn't watching.

37. THE FICTION OF IDENTITY                                                   7/1

We assume so much:

that we are the same as yesterday,

that we will be the same tomorrow…

Sure we each come from our own

personal ethnicity;

but 10,000 years ago,

weren't we all one family?                                                             

38. THE LIBRARY                                                                           7/2

When my father was a young man

fresh doctorate from NYU,

newly employed at Westinghouse

with babies at his wife's breast,

he did what Pittsburghers do

missing the stimulation of New York:

subscribed to a book-of-the-month club.

They hired famous print designers,

used acid-free paper, archival bindings

and their selection was discriminating and eclectic:

Aristotle, Brontë, Cervantes

Dafoe and Erasmus.

Something like "the 500 Most Important Works".

As Dad grew older,

perhaps not feeling quite so flush,

he added to the collection from flea markets

until he filled a room with all the books-

none collectible, but all

worthy of one's time: Tolstoy, Turgenev,

Trollope, Thackeray, Twain.

Who wouldn't want to read more Whitman,

Wells, Wilde, Washington and Wallace?

And what's the point of writing anything

when everyone's still needs to read more

Milton, Melville, Mann, Maugham, and Malory?

Please pardon me while I go

peruse a page of Pushkin..

39. WHAT WE CALL A PERFECT DAY                                      7/3

Today was something like a perfect day:

it started with some tender intimacy:

two ships in the night at last anchored.

Next, we made a tasty breakfast

for our three boys, bacon and scones.

And I even served them coffee.

After that we went up, the boys and I,

to grandma and grandpa's house

where we helped them organize the library.

That afternoon we went to the pool,

and met the wife, ate lunch,

and played (without fighting!)

On the way home, I shopped

then cooked the family a curry

which they ate with enthusiasm.

After dinner, I did some easy home repairs,

bought a new computer for the youngest,

and learned that a poem was going to be published.

Their mom went to bed,

and we stayed up late, laughing

through a dumb sitcom.

40. DEPENDENCE DAY                                                               7/4

Never mind that we all are members of the same nation or that we all share an aversion to torture and genocide or that we all like Disney movies, if you go back far enough we are all descendants of the same tribe from Ethiopia and further than that were all brothers to the monkey and the shrew and even further to the flat worm and the bacteria and the funny thing is we all were fused atoms in the same star a few billion years ago. 

Brother!

100 days of poetry: Days 16-25

25. AGE                                                                                          

Under the weary leather flesh

an umbrella frame flexes

and reminds the world that it isn't dead yet

No one hears the droning gush of wind

or heeds the warnings let forth

from that half-crusted ancient orb.

Scattered seedlings, carried off by crows

turn their oblivious roots elsewhere

unhindered by connections they can't see.

A shadow ghost of meaning

at the edges of a season yet to come

drop branches in oppressive summer heat.

The crows won't answer your pleading.

Even roots cannot escape the blaze

of blackened yearning.

24. FATHER'S DAY                                                              

For years, we joked about

your "male answer syndrome"

perhaps to make up for

a childhood of fact checking.

But it was remarkably accurate,

your running commentary—

you were the smartest guy I ever knew—

and, somehow, that is all

I seem to have of you, now.

You never wore your heart

anywhere visible—

perhaps that constant flow

of data helped to hide it—

but Mom always intuited

some depth of feeling underneath,

and, stung sometimes

by our native unfeelingness,

she'd prompt us to talk to you.

In those moments

I would see a hesitation,

the guard let down,

a shining eye, an earnest grin,

and be reminded

that a human lurked behind the wall.

23. DOLDRUMS                                  

Saturday afternoon in the middle of June

a hot sunny day with nothing to do

birthday has come and gone

vacation trip has come and gone

the oldest kid is off at work,

the middle kid is holed up in his room

snapped chatting and blasting nirvana

the youngest has drifted off with a buddy

to watch TV in his basement.

The cat is panting in the shade

of a drooping birch tree

that rustles in the hot breeze

and if you look at its leaves,

you will think it was something

momentous, self-important…

but its trunk, camouflaged

in a striking white pattern

that belies mundane functionality

does not move, cannot move,

tied to its place in the earth

by its intransigent root system

which does what it can to sustain.

The birch leaves would like to

fly off with the wind,

swirl around the pigeons,

play with the children walking past,

but any who do that

must separate themselves from the

life-sustaining branches, trunk, roots,

and their swansong of freedom

will be their funeral dirge.

                                        

22. THE BEST LAID PLANS 

When our children were small--

tender unformed souls,

inchoate shadows of their future selves--

we swore we'd never let them

vandalize those blank slates with

the violent graffiti of video games.

They played with toys handmade in Norway:

wooden trains and painted drums,

lawn games and puzzles.

And books! Of course. Lots of books.

Books about wizards who longed for their parents,

books about aardvarks who fight and make up,

books about time-traveling treehouses,

talking animals

and books with pictures to find.

Pre-teens, they played real sports

with teams, and equipment,

and all the trappings.

They practiced real instruments—

trumpet, trombone, and sax,

and they read real books, without pictures.

And still they never plugged in to video.

But something changed at puberty

and after the dam was breached

by that first innocuous Wii

which was supposed to be about

moving around, Just Dance and Wii Golf

it morphed into Pokemon battles

then Mario Kart, and then Smash Bros

and soon it was mindless thumb violence:

Call of Duty, Overwatch,

Assassin's Creed, and now

books are a foregone conclusion.

21. SEVEN ENTROPY HAIKU 

Brushing your teeth

the yellowed enamel, the worn caps,

staving off the decay

Filling up the car—

you ignore globe warming—

the freeway demands a full tank.

                                       

Is the utility bill due?

First, checking account… Second,

where did you file it?

Allocating the IRA

is a first world problem, trying to predict

the economy 20 years out.

                               

Trimming the nails

does it always have to remind you how they

keep going after you die?

Charge your iphone battery:

your only one way to prove it isn't yet

completely superior.

Haircuts— sigh.

Why must we impose fashion

on our naked scalps.

20. THE IRREPRESSIBLE JOY OF A RETURNED FRIEND

I don't know why it is, but I feel like there are certain people who, just being in their presence make life wonderful—somehow there is some pixie dust they sprinkle, there is some magic they bring to banal, quotidien events. As though somehow the forces of the universe change for them, the inexorable pull toward increased entropy is temporarily stilled, and for the few minutes you get to spend with them, the cares of the world melt away and you can truly enjoy yourself, lose yourself in the moment and not notice the tooth rot and sciatica and not think about the impending balloon mortgage payment. Pour a glass of champagne and share it with them, for they are like the bubbles and the yeasty splash of liquid joy that you can taste instead of your usual tap water.

19. SWIMMINGLY

Another day of swimming laps and I float along the clean blue water of the Country Club pool not at all missing the murky green crowded water of the YMCA, out here in the east foothills, the mansions nestled around the golf course, and I think about how after my amazing book of poetry sells for millions and I am not a pathetic detritus of the capitalist machinery like Dustin Hoffman in death of a salesman, but can afford my own palace here, I will help the poor Mexicans by improving their school and I will bring cultural excellence to the neighborhood that only celebrates rap and graffiti and grand theft auto, and while I am skimming along the water, unable to stop or I will surely die, the weighty thoughts call me in over my head as down I am pulled to the bottom. 

18. THE GOLDEN GLOW OF THE FAMILY ROOM 

And what is a lyric poem, anyway?

Is it just a poem with a lot of adjectives? 

Is it one where you break our astringent modern rules,

and inject purple prose?

When you walk into your living room at night,

And the wall sconces are gaily lighting a scene 

Of domestic tranquility, kids on their phones,

Wife reading the Times,

Is it a poem where you talk about the quality of light in the room?

Where you rhapsodize about the sense of harmony among to warring brothers,

Where you eulogize the discriminating reading of the wife?

Where you don't talk about the politics in the headlines,

Don't editorialize about the mindless Netflix shows?

17. COCKTAIL PARTY

Après six semaines des constructions

de bordels dans la cuisine

de dégâts partout, de dîners en carton

une invitation de notre voisine : 

cocktail et apéro chez elle.

Des tas de petits plats d'amuse-gueule:

poivrons grillés doux et tendres, 

un foie gras à patiner, onctueux,

sur des petits morceaux d'un pain

mousseux et herbeux aux citrouilles

et confiture riche de figues aussi

un boisson de rhum, jus d'orange et de grenadine

qui allait très bien avec olives amers et salés, 

des chips et croquant avec dip d'artichauts

des saucisses grillées succulents

et des personnages sympathiques,

qui nous distrairent de nos peines. 

16. FLAG DAY II                                                                               

There is a worse desecration of the flag that even the most ardent defenders of the flag never seem to complain about. A disrespect, not of its physical form, not of that square of cloth, but more perniciously of the ideals of freedom, self-reliance, equality, that the flag is supposed to represent: Men who fly our American flag over the overseas factories where child labor and exploited workers toil, and not even for any purported good to the American people, but for their own selfish and un-American profits while hiding behind our flag. Or corporations who fly our symbol over the environmental disasters they create in other countries? Isn't that a worse degradation of the flag, to drag it in the muck behind their ugly havoc? Or what in my mind is the most disturbing of all, the anti-Democratic mercenaries who wrap themselves in our flag and thereby sully the once-respected name of America as they destabilize the sovereignty of other nations, assassinate intellectuals and democratically elected leaders, and skulk behind thrones propped up with American firepower. I wish everyone in this country would pay less attention to the silly college kids and their little temper tantrums than to this form of desecration--even if their pious sham flags never touch the ground.