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!
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