Being Up to Date

December 19th

Two days before solecist the south-east sun

first appears above the crest of Poland Spring

Hill, the image of the tall water storage tank a

clearly shows as if a mystic monument set

by some shaman of the industrial age to mark

the south-most annual migration go the sun in

its roughly one-hundred thirty degree seasonal

arc — the clock-time seven thirty-five as I

stand naked about to dress in the new light

I'm barely feeling — in ten minutes I am

dressed ("decent" some call it) and the sun's

full disk is clear above the ridge of the hill,

a ridge fringed by dark pine and leafless oaks.

Already I'm impatient waiting for the sun

to rise from directly east of where I'll stand,

as I do now, across the still unfrozen pond.

My christmas tree is stand-in for a sun-dial.

MOVING IN

      Graffiti Slouches Toward Salem

Commuter Rail rattles toward Chelsea, Lynn,

Swampscott. It was in Ipswitch, north of Salem, 

Lionel Chute and son James switched nations, 

emigrating from Dedham, County Essex, in 1634. 

Along the tracks houses turn their backs. We 

pass junk-packed yards and storage sheds. On 

the right, in a ragged marsh, beds of cat-tails 

stand stiff in their washed-out winter shades. 

The train ducks beneath an overpass, rises, 

passing boarded second story glass windows.

Taggers with their spray cans, like busy dogs, 

have had their say on blank walls with cryptic

abstract designs — on walls above shore wrack 

left by social tides for art abhors a vacuum. 

(Lionel's great grandson, Thomas  moved to Maine in 1735.)

What Can Poems Be About?

           Universal-Rundle Aqua-Flush (3.8 Lpf *)

Many have said "Anything may be the subject

of a poem" — well — In the curved chrome polish 

of the urinal's universal valve my

reflected face is twisted to a fun-house grin. 

In the deepening pool a candy wrapper spins

reminding me of rats tested for memory 

in water made opaque with milk swimming,

seeking the small rest platform the rising flood 

concealed. The forgetful circle, scrabbling the slick 

stainless steel tub 'till a gloved hand comes down

to save them before they drown while the rats

that remember where the rest platform was

rest and wait until God, in his write lab coat,

shuts off the flow, drains the flood. Wet rats shake. 

The discarded candy wrapper relives it's fate. 

* 3.8 liters per flush

Most Recent Poem

                 Milkweed Dreams

On a hill beside the lake milkweed pods 

split silently, taking days to create an improbable

cotton field caught in light of a low slung Maine 

late October sun. Growing to white gold before 

sunset, before a cold clear night when hunter's 

moon, a magic naked diver, hangs bewitched and bare

above the water. The bashful moon waits for 

a cloud to cover her. The night waits for the 

slightest breeze when milkweed seeds may drift off

unseen, as faces in a dream you know you

had but can't remember. Seedpods open as 

two small hands in supplication. Signal: Please,

let this breeze carry us to fertile ground, not lakes

or this dream is one from which we never wake.

        I did better in posting this time.With reference to the previous post: the sun was bright and warm before the picture window this morning at 6:13 AM. I carefully avoid adding any porn.

Compensation: On The Ides Of August

Compensation On The Ides Of August Six thirty AM: naked in the picture window, pleased by the rising sun — but soon I must drew the shades for you pay for the light with heat and by noon the room would be too hot. Nature, Emerson says, is not given free and like any pleasure payed for by protecting it or restraint or other compensation. Afternoon, reading on a bench by the pond an old oak substitutes for the shades. a tree which isn't mine in the sense of being me but I protect, care for, as I guard and care for my home. As for my pleasure in rising early to stand naked and dress in the morning sun, where is the payment, the compensation Emerson claims must be due to even this if it gives pleasure? It must be that I am here alone — I mean I should have been a sufficiently different me. to have brought thee,whoever you are, to be here with me in Nature's blessed light.

ADVANTAGES IN LIVING ALONE ?

Compensation On The Ides Of August Six thirty AM: naked in the picture window, pleased by the rising sun — but soon I must drew the shades for you pay for the light with heat and by noon the room would be too hot. Nature, Emerson says, is not given free and like any pleasure payed for by protecting it or restraint or other compensation. Afternoon, reading on a bench by the pond an old oak substitutes for the shades. a tree which isn't mine in the sense of being me but I protect, care for, as I guard and care for my home. As for my pleasure in rising early to stand naked and dress in the morning sun, where is the payment, the compensation Emerson claims must be due to even this if it gives pleasure? It must be that I am here alone — I mean I should have been a sufficiently different me. to have brought thee,whoever you are, to be here with me in Nature's blessed light.

A Poem From Yesterday, April 22

White Fences I took the country road today so I could see what April brought of early spring. Also to pass the farm where the caring lady I've never met, only seen, who always had clothes on her lines unless it rained, who kept board fences a quarter mile along both sides of the road behind which cattle grazed. White painted, parallel boards never damaged or discolored. Several times I'd seen her out, retouching the white paint. But when I passed twice last fall, its neat signs cautioning "Animals Crossing -Take Care" (most often wild turkeys or squirrels not cows), there were no clothes drying nor any cows so I wondered if the lady I never knew had moved or passed away. Today, this early spring day, not only were no clothes drying, board fences were sagging, boards broken, paint peeling. This made it clear why she'd cared for them every year. Now I'll never meet this caring lady I don't know. I hope she doesn't know how badly those sad, sad boards need care — there's hope however, for on one end, a few new unpainted boards, already nailed in place..

Denial of Native American Relationship

With, I admit, much regret,the following. I feel it only fair and honest to refute any notice appearing on line of Native American relationship. Recent DNA analysis refutes the long held Chute family oral history which indicates my maternal grandfather was a Native American from the southern Maine area. DNA analysis of myself to determine ancestry yields the following results: MY relating the family story which found its way into a review of one of my books -- thus to Goggle etc. Britian 69 % Northern Eurpoe 20 % Scandavian 5% This fits very well with the existing written history of the family. Originaly migrants from Norway/Sweden to northan France, then colonization of Britin with the invasion in 1066. My feeling and interest in the Native Americans my family helped to displace is not reduced. I hope this survives without critical correction. March 3, 2015 June 21 The pre-dawn light of this longest day's a slivering suggestion of what's to come as we stand silent, shadowless, beneath a vast cotton candy overcast. We might as well be deep within some clear tropic bay as we stand by the doorway, eight steps leading down to our un-mown weedy lawn where daisies, tied by unseen stems, to the sodden grass, hold their blossoms, radiant and motionless as coral creatures, waiting for winds to enliven them, bring this sunless world to life. When the first bird wakes may it be your song he sings.