REVISION TIME ; CLEANING THE BOTTOM DRAWER

Some of you will perhaps be old enough to remember Burma Shave roadside signs.

                 

   Roadside Requiem

   Here lies the body

   of Harry Chaplin.

   The tree has fallen

   that once, as a sapling,

   went on a hay ride

   with Rudy Arness.

   Didn't he notice

   when she lifted her dress?

   Sign follows sign

   each marking a year.

   Each telling how Harry

   didn't make out here.

   Don't worry, Harry,

   limp in your grave.

   They all forgive you —

   BURMA SHAVE!

(and, generated by a news story about accidents on a French highway..)

Flicker Fusion Frequency

Sun  through  leaves  if the leaves  if  the  breeze

would   blow   there  might  be  meaning Sun  on   water sandy  bottom  flickering Heart  

beats  under the body's  weight  eight  standard   leads  octopus  out

There  is  a  pattern on the screen.

The  cerebrum  intervenes

Someone is saying it softly over and over 

the heart beating beneath the bodies weight

sunlight stammering through the leaves

eight standard leads octopus out

spider tight

center line in the highway flashingπ headlights    

Light reflected from poplar trees planted

with such care precisely apart

my flicker fusion frequency  crashing me

the prisoner after torture saying  yes  yes  yes

sunlight endlessly

stammering through the leaves stammering

I didn't mean  mean   mean    mean

Forget  forget  forget  the train wheels say

climbing

forgive  forgive  forgive they say

descending

Planted so precisely the poplar tree trunks flashing

flashing  binding   blinding     bound

by eight wires why

don't I think of you

as I'm dying? Please

be a tree   a tree    your leaves   shimmering

again already!

I realize this is not usual for me but time moves fast these says in the 87th year. I realize also that the material about publications, activities needs editing. Will do, perhaps even soon. To alert you, my next book, Excuse For Bring Here (my life with Thoreau) is proceeding and should materialize this fall. In the mean time, another poem.

       The Cooper's Art

A well-made barrel — she was

well made — every curved tapered

stave fitting seeming seamless. 

Promised — No — remembered 

liquor mellow as her belly 

swelled.  But now. drinking's done.

Sun, age, time, build strains 

the cooper's art still restrains. 

One hoop at either end

kept the spirit young until I

took one tight rusted ring away.

Staves tumbled every which way. 

The head fell in on a criss-cross 

pile of odd shaped sticks. For

the loss of that one hoop, shape

design, meaning, all undone. 

VISITING MYSELF, ar last!

Well, I can be brief, then get back to work.

NEWS: My wife departed, Virginia (vicki) Chute's second novel should be available in August. Look for The Daughter of Francis Martin.

And as for Me:  I burrowing through stacks of old poems, doing many revision sufficent to make them new. Here are a couple bits that I had forgotten

A haiku in a strict quote from Thoreau.          
                "Dandelions
          how surprising their
          bright yellow discs. Why study
          other hieroglyphics?"       [The journal: 5/24/1853]



And from Wittgenstein:         

           "That singular sun
              setting behind the hill does
              not hypothesize."

Saying Goodby

The poem below was written more than two years ago. The copy of The Aurorean in which it was published arrive in my mail Thursday, May 2nd. Vicki drew her last breath about 9 AM Monday, April 29th as I sat by her bed,  holding her hand.

In Lieu of Flowers

I didn't read Sunday obituaries

beyond a glance for names,

avoiding the ages of demise

but the eyes stray. 

The phrase "In lieu of flowers" 

being frequent, pleases: 

positivity facing the 

ultimate negativity.

Suddenly the question intrudes: 

what would I say at 

the loss of my partner 

of sixty-six years?

In lieu of flowers — let them grow.

If you find a bug 

carry it carefully outside 

and let it go — 

as she often did:

that's what I'd say.

MARCHING INTO APRIL

Hydrogeological Cycle: Easter, 2013

Luck of a north wind brings

rain from formless clouds higher

than our common air, un-prophaned

by breath of machine or man,

or so it seems, unless you

analyze rain drops for unseen 

nitrites, sulfates etc and so on  

as my curiosity has done. Is 

it force of falling that forms

them or their mutual fear calling

them inward to communal spheres?

Until, through no fault of their

own, they strike stick slide down

the window panes. Misshapen

tear drops until they slip drip

run in trickles, becoming water

here on earth again to later rise

in their certain resurrection,

achieve by chance and being what

they are what faith dreams of.

Visiting For Possible Revision

Leafing through stacks of old poems, most not published, I find some so well forgotten and, now not understood, I wonder...

Just A Cigar

Hairy Haw-Mouth swallowed Freud's cigar hoping

there would be fire where there'd been only smoke

at least something more than pink bubble gum

but waking found the dream unraveling to bare

a breast then another leaving tangled wool from

too many sheep to count and rose quickly to

write the dream's meaning on his slate the screech

of cheap school room chalk stopped him so he wound

the tangled yarn into two neat pink balls

tied them together and went back to bed

AN ALOMST NEW YEAR

(almsot on time this time)

JANUARY THAW

The pond, earth's eye, does not open

in this early January thaw, the pond's eye

that closed more than a month ago. Which,

for months before, appraised the sky

effortlessly, reflectively, in calm or storm, 

by night or day. It may stir now, as an 

uneasy sleeper, but we can't see and what

we hear may be it's bowels rumbling —

do not even know: Does it deeply sleep 

or only (how much greater could an only

be) meditate so profoundly it shames 

distracted human kinds in their most

intent imitation.  I know silver salmon 

sleekly swim silently, invisibly below

as my thoughts swim unseen by you.

Are they the neurons in the pond's Oh

so liquid mind? Or thoughts, memories 

the pond may not remember when it wakes

in April?  Are those rumbles peans, for 

the pond's own reasons, this new-moon night, 

as the pond is stirred from meditation

by winter's warmth, warmth the silent 

salmon of my mind anticipate as well  ?

Jan. 13, '13

The Sun Slept Late

Unreasonably

unseasonably

the feathery

coverlet of fog

the sky descending

to the ground

seems to warm me

although the sheets

of snow and ice

in Nature's bed

remind me

it's winter still

but the fog's confusing

invisibility

does warm me

even as ice-fishermen

suddenly return

with ghostly reality