51. GARÇONS AUX QUATRES VENTS 7/15
Aujourd'hui mes garçons
sont allés tous ailleurs
jouer avec les copains
et moi et ma femme
nous apprendîmes comment
vont se passer nos jours
quand ils sont tous plus vieux:
nous faisions des courses
nettoyions le jardin.
Les achats, la cuisine
pour des invités demain
passions un après-midi tranquille
sans bagarre, sans hurlements
et sans ce qui nous est
le plus précieux du monde.
52. THE UNASKABLE QUESTION 7/16/17
One thing I've never understood
is how the parents of a
teenaged girl
who was raped and then
murdered
could ever cope with the
world again?
What prevents you from
descending
into the murderous rage of a
mama grizzly
whose cub is too close to
some dubious human?
What would stop you from
wanting to hunt down
the murderer, the sicko who
doesn't deserve to live,
to rip the very skin off of
his body
and hack off the offending
penis, the hands, the eyes?
I'd want to crack his head
open and
pull his brains out with my
bare fists.
And what would make you want
to keep
praying to your impotent
god,
paying your taxes to the
useless
government that didn't
protect her?
Why would anything matter,
any longer?
It's like asking what's the
point of it all
since the universe is doomed
to end anyway,
except this question is more
immediate,
because this happens every
day
and somehow, the parents
keep it together.
Well, some of them do.
53. 18 YEARS 7/17
A half glass of champagne
(domestic) left over from
yesterday's brunch
cheeseburgers and broccoli
for dinner
and, as promised
I come home early. Sort of;
at least I only worked eight
hours.
We went for a walk after
dinner
chatting with your Boot Camp
pal
and with the retired teacher
down the street.
Now you turn in early
and I go to my paternal duty
of watching the boys play
their video games.
It was the only way to spend
time with Sam,
and now Nat wants the same
attention
so I watch his game of
mayhem, too
until, hours later, I crawl
into bed next to you.
We didn't go stay in a romantic
hotel somewhere.
And we don't need to.
54. NEW STORY IDEA 7/18/17
What if my next novel
were about two brothers
one liberal, the other
conservative
neither voted for sir cheeto, but
one
is pleased with the shift
they were born in east san
jose
where no one got rich from
the dot com boom
and one stayed there, became
a cop
married a schoolteacher
the other became an
entrepreneur
married a saleswoman
ran a business that
generated the income
to pay the cop and the
schoolteacher
neither were part of the
east san jose mafia
or the Vietnamese mafia
or the part of the problem.
Until…
55. ANOTHER NEW STORY IDEA 7/19
What if all Americans with
French
in their blood, were to rise
up
against the sea of tea-party
poopers
the tide of Trumpistas
the caval of big-banker
greedheads
and yacht-sailing crooks
the Polish mafia, the
Italian mafia
the Chinese mafia
and lead a revolution of
"la belle vie"
a bagette in every pot
a bistro on every corner
a TGV on every highway
and rolling green
pastureland and vineyard
where once were suburban
sprawl
big-box stores, factory
farms.
What if the European Ideal
were brought
to the hopelessly
materialist US?
It sounds ridiculous
but not as much as Cheeto
Troll-in-Chief.
10 DAY VACATION
56. READING ELLEN CURRIE ON
THE AIRPLANE 7/28/17
The dull roar of the engines as noise,
a second Wild Turkey on your flight,
the wife at your side, 'twixt elation
and pride,
has loaned you Available Light.
She got it from her dear late father--
irascible, learnéd and gay--
who taught in a school where culture
was cool
and handicaps melted away.
Most passengers snoozing around me,
and several the squalling wee babes.
The cabin is peppered with
god-is-my-shepherd
and videos of Sam, Nat and
Gabe's.
O, the Irish wild poetry rouses
And Irish, those dirges that cry
But Wild Turkeys sing with a laughter
that brings
A bit of old Joyce to the sky
57. ZONE REDUITE 7/29/17
le siège du centre n'a plus que 55 centimètres de
largeur, plus possible de m'assoir avec épaules à 57, coincé entre deux mecs de
la même taille, mais au moins ils ne nous donnent plus à manger que quelques
petites pochettes minables de cacahuètes, et un demitasse de café, ce qui nous
empeche de grossir, et comme il n'y a pas de divertissement gratuite, nous ne
risquons pas de garder l'éveil, mais préférons plutôt nous endormir aussi
longtemps que possible dans ce vol d'enfer, affaimés, serrés, ennuyés, et si le
bon dieu permet et on me laisse sortir, je promets de ne plus sentir supérior à
ces chanceux qui ont moins de cent vingt cm de hauteur.
58. CHORES 7/30
A day of selfish poésie
yesterday:
kids and wife neglected
while I did nothing but that
disturbingly onanistic
self-aggrandizement
of
trying to get published.
Submitting the same five
poems
to every zine that's open.
But today I made up for it:
fixed the faucet,
trimmed the bushes,
dead headed the roses,
pulled weeds, hung laundry,
built her the new desk,
listed crap on Craig's list,
swept the patio,
practiced music with the
boys,
washed a lot of dishes
and wiped my dirty slate clean.
59.
CHECK UP 7/31/17
There's something rather louche
About sitting in your underwear
While a young woman
Prods you with her hands.
(OK, not all of that young.
But, on the other hand,
Neither am I.)
Her face right next to mine
And she looks into my eyes
And asks me to look to the left
To shine a light in my pupils.
And I wonder if I tied the back
of my gown properly.
And when I'm supposed to get dressed
again?
Does she leave the room for that?
We're talking about her career at
Kaiser
And I've been her patient for ten years
But I don't think we know each other
well enough
For me to pull my pants on
in front of her.
60. THE
YOUNGEST MAN IN THE ROOM 8/1
It's been many years
since I was the youngest man in the
room.
when I first joined the drum and bugle
corps
for instance, I was14, surrounded by kids
who were sixteen to twenty
smoking pot, getting in fights
even having sex.
I tried to play it cool
but usually failed. Bigly.
But this trombone chorale I
joined
is all men older than I
by a long shot, in some cases
of course they're all much better
musicians
and play circles around me
but they're gracious enough to make
self-deprecating jokes
about their own confusion with the
score
when I screw up.
A level of grace the seventeen year
olds
in drum corps never had.
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