Day 30: Lesson Learned (The End)

Denominator

"First, you must simplify your radicals.”
(Mr. K., teacher of math, overheard while
walking the morning halls of a high school)

The square root of forever is not now
and cannot be simplified. Loss is a
common denominator, but so is joy.

If love is to be cubed it must settle
for a fraction of its worth until the
time comes that it approaches infinity:

There, even parallel lines come so close
as to touch, or the already close are made
to somehow split apart or even cross.

The part that remains below the line
is not crushed but divided by. Roots
are made to be found not obliterated.

Let us not free our radicals too soon,
or over-simplify them. After all, every
atom belonging to you once belonged to me.

Let balance be our standard.
Let what is common stand as foundation.
Let a bird on the wing be our radical sign.


Source

Day 29: Steps

Presence/Absence

1

At the curve in the road,
geese flew low & in every direction.

2.

The roads where coyotes cross
was empty of all signs but stop.

3.

The place that the morning moon hangs,
this evening there is no sun to descend.

Day 28

 What Really Happened

He didn't come out of nowhere.
We were a few clicks south of Oskie
when our paths met: I south toward work,
he east toward sun & morning heat.

It is true that our eyes met, eyes black with fear,
mine--projected there, which was not panic.
No slow, no swerve, just we two & the slowing
of time (caused by the noticing of smaller incriments).

A last gasp before impact & the emptying of contents,
crumpling of metal, smashing of plastic & strength of glass.
It was not a decision to turn back instead of leaping into my lap,
it was momentum, inertia, and reciprocal luck.

It's also true that the day's lessons started too early to go well.
Returning home, there was nothing that could stop the deep sleep of the guilty.

Days 26 & 27

Day 26: On the Run

Push

There is nothing to run
from, but time, too fast.
Nothing to settle against,
but the push of age.
This balance between
youth & years:  
                        at fifteen:
there was only selfishness,
at nineteen: drunkenness,
misery & loss, at twenty-
two: a change of plans,
at twenty-seven: married
life, at thirty: fatherhood,
at thirty-five: the push,
the push, the push of
time,
time,
time.

______________________

Day 27: Blame No One

Drive

Dozens of red-tails & sparrow hawks can't be wrong:
This is a beautiful day.

There is no one to blame for this;
there is only the past sliding further & further away

like the massacre site, five miles off the highway,
or the old road that led through town & our family's favorite drive-in.

But these are only memories to be temporarily collected,
memorialized, photographed & moved beyond.

These are nothing to the hawk on the wing.
These are the thoughts from some tree perch between dives.

There is nothing wrong with this drive I've done so many times.
There is nothing wrong with multiples homes.

There is nothing between future & past but now.
I have no plans to speed up this drive & no need to stop moving.

Day 25: Thanksgiving

Break Something Beautiful

I had no intention of killing
that Thursday morning
pulling my way along a familiar track
toward the day.
It wasn't that I wasn't watching,
but there he was: too much urge
pushing into the middle of my way.
The look in his big black eyes
as time paused said:
It's everyones's fault.
No acrobatics could save us this time.

A month of unpredictable days later,
we belly up to celebrate errant gunfire
that brought an unlikely crew together,
the best of which brought venison, whitefish
& hope to a colony's future sprawl.
When all this wealth of food & family arrived today,
after much labor & love,
I could only hope that some Jefferson County table
boasted the windfall of that something beautiful
that my need for speed broke.


(In order to get this in today, it is unedited & typed on the tiny iPhone keyboard, I will revisit when I return home.)

Day 24

The Space Between Years

Birth order continues to matter,
as the time stacks up people change
without changing: five & a half years
is always five & a half years,
but the distance between family
expands & contracts by the minute
like bits of energy sharing a nebulous space always about to crash in or blow out.

There is no filling these voids,
neither love nor piety can overtake the force of familial gravity.

Day 23: Ghazal for Gobblers

Thanksgivings


My father, too, knew dooms of love.
When I squint my eyes, I can nearly see him shining here.

The snow will show its ghostly roots.
Winter birds assault the cold with griefs of joy.

It’s the coming home that twilight would rejoice.
But it’s never safe to live only for my father’s dream.

The table’s spreading seems to suggest the world’s as right as rain.
It’s community is more than enough to fill the spirit against the dark.

As children we hope to wake into a world of snow.
As adults at best concede to be as sure of spring.

I am not one born or raised to doubt a mind.
Or scoff myself the subtleties of old, dumb death.

There are things, my friend, we’ll never know, least as truth.
And, William, that uncertainty’s the whole, and more than all.



Source 1
Source 2
Source 3

Day 22: I thought I posted this yesterday.

Culture War


Let’s face it: it is all your fault.
No matter who you are, you did it.
Listened to the wrong ideas,
soaked in the loudest lies,
sipped or gulped them down
at breakfast or on the morning commute.

The space between our arguments is not
demilitarized, but booby-trapped & bloody.
Your choice of network defines you;
don’t you dare switch the channel.
It’s worse than you thought, Declan,
we’ve anesthetized the way that we hear.

If have no choice but to bar the door, man the fall-out shelter.
I'm selling my books for food.

Days 20 & 21

Permission

You don’t need me to tell you:

you can go your own way.

Stop here, go there, pause, rest, or run.

The things I’ve said, stories told:

they mean less to me than you.

As gifts, I won’t look for you wearing them,

but if I see some stranger in the street

holding them against the sun to check

the strength of the threads,

I will save my smile until I see you again.

___________________

All Wrong

Forgive me this small truth:

this old world won’t end

even at ten dollar bread.

But last Wednesday,

birds & leaves fell from the sky

on Nineteenth Street.

I could not tell

the one from the other:

black spots on a blue morning.

It was hard to be angry then.

I’m trying to remember that now.

Days: 17, 18, 19

17: Tell me why…

Don’t

tell me why it matters

that you read this or
write that when min-
utes or years later it
won’t exist as Emily
Dickinson anymore
but a person you find
yourself living with
or sitting across from
at a table asking you
something that is a po-
em or a riddle or a met-
aphor that really means
that when I say this I
want you to know that
I meant that, but your
understanding will be
the difference between
infinity & evermore.

___________________

18: Palindrome / Lost & Found Poem

O’Keefe

bones bleached
of desert
reminding
that
nothing ever living
is ever
                   dead
ever is living
nothing that
reminding desert
of bleached bones

__________________

19: Poem with a hole in it


This poem

This poem has a             in it.
Actually it has several          .
It will not matter that they are there,
because you can        them in. Or if
you don’t that doesn’t matter either,
because you don’t really         about
what’s missing, or else you would be





                         instead of reading this.

Day 16 (11.16.2010)

StackTumbleStack

            (for Liam)

one

beginnings:

tears, fears, hope

personified in

tiny fingers,

tiny toes.

     two

laughter out

of smiles, develop

into phrases full

of promise too

important not

to keep.

          three

we went

from three to

four before

a third Fall

counted another

number for you

& sharing with

a baby seemed

so easy for a

boy like you

     four

the conversion

to hero complete,

all the options remain:

über or noir,

the choice too close

to impossible, so

you settle for

being both

            five

school in,

you’re never

out of ideas:

words bloom

as letters form

easier & easier

on your tongue

& your mind

a trap that

catches all

the prey my

prayers could

ask

____

Five years of moments fall

like exploding stars, dusting

a world that keeps expanding.

There is no tumble down a

growing boy & his sidekick

brother won’t soon rebuild.

____

                 soon enough

yearonyear

                  need will slack

inchbyinch

                  infallibility fades

lifegoeson

  

____

thanks, 

son,

for 

your 

first

five 

years

I’ve 

grown

as 

much 

as

you 

have

Day 15

Workplace Hazard

Each time, stepping out in the hallway,
at high tide or ebb tide, there is
the chance that the breaking point
with finally be breached.

It might be a disdaining look,
or another indecorous shout
interpellating from behind,
to remind the cost of prejudice.

To fill a generic category,
to stand in loco parentis,
hour by hour, without the
pull of blood or home:

This must have made sense some
gone day, when the social contract
meant something other than:
just let me look the other way.

Day 14

Crossroads: Between Here & There


There was never a chance of turning away,
starting over, from scratch or in the middle of things.
This is not the same as stay the course; nothing stays
the same for long. Every day requires new courage,
new resolve. At the call each morning is a choice:
 
How will I reinvent myself today?
 
Like an accordian folding in on itself:
time's tuning requires touch to make sense.
It is a familiar sound, the morning music,
a slow, steady drumbeat that signals:
another day, another day, another day.

Days 12 & 13

Tradition No. 1

Forget what they say about poetry:
It really is that difficult sometimes.
It would be better to stop at that,
But a quatrain would be more poetic.

-------------
Tradition No. 2

What was it they said about poetry?
Spontaneous overflow of powerless bullshit, avoided in tranquility & willingly suspended when belief is difficult to come by. Tonight I'd rather play tennis without a net. At least at the beginning of the game it's love serving love.

Day 11/11

No One Wants to Know

It hit me today that they don’t really know who I am.

I certainly don’t know them, don’t need to beyond

the here & there hour, the rushed or well-thought paper,

the after school briefing, quick question, occasional cry.

When the needy one, full of storm-fear never grown out of

& compulsion—making it all seem like destruction—asked,

again, for the hug that was certainly a stand in for other arms:

I quaked and yielded. She did not want to know me,

but to know that someone would care enough to say:

I accept your fear with the same unreason that brings it.

No one wants to know what the other one is thinking,

just that for a minute’s time a faithful space is shared,

or hope is defined by a bit of community that will be

allowed to disappear, without a need for shedding tears.

Day 10: A Love Poem

Walking

Days ago, one of our boys asked:

how many steps to heaven?

while we were walking on a Sunday

through a park designed to let

the grieving have at least the horizon

to ease their sense of continued loss

with the evidence of perpetual growth.

There, in the autumnal distance,

change is as natural as the death

this space was laid out to memorialize.

Nothing is out of place from that far,

nothing is unquestionable, not even

the distance between innocence & loss,

between wanting to know everything

& doubting that answers exist.

Holding your hand & theirs, 

nothing was absent of truth. 

Any answer would suffice, 

but neither of us bothered 

to decide on one, 

but gathering strength beyond tears, 

we held each other tighter 

& went on down the path 

that led to the rest of the day, 

the rest their lives,

the rest of the time we have left,

whatever it may be, 

to hold on as tightly as we can, 

to know that it is the moments like these 

that bridge the distance between growth & collapse,

that solidify the pleasure that invents heaven 

and gives the idea of God temporary proof against doubt.

The Head and the Heart--"Down in the Valley"(Lawrence High School Classr...

God bless my friend Jeff Kuhr and LHS's Room 125 Productions!

Day 8 & 9: Agreement & Speed

Unsocial Contract

You choose language

uncarefully, shouting

this or that expletive

 across the bodies

circulating around,

oblivious, you:  

no sun but a burning

sphere of invective &

meaningless phrase.

Forgive my complicity

in your ignorance.

It’s just that the

language we share

allows me no bridge

to cross the distance

between your bold

star  & my humble

orbit through your

hurled words.

Circa 1905

Stacking minute upon minute,

the day works its way into

the week’s end then:

slow, now, slow.

Week by week, the years add

a number of epiphanies

& weaknesses, but at the

midpoint there’s a need

to  slow, now, slow.

Time may wrinkle face,

hands, & resolve, but

the day’s quick pace

pulses & pride thickens

into humility allowing

that begging voice at

the heart’s deep core

to urge more & more:

slow, now, slow.

Give us just a little

more, Time.

Days 6 & 7: Weekend Poetry is Difficult

Day 6:

Looking for Obscurity

Everyone wants clarity, some

pray for it, even. Give me a

cloud-filled sky, it’s November 

after all: let the ribbon of birds

lose itself in a temple of cumulus.

Let truth slip away unnoticed,

waiting for some rambler to

pick it up & call it something new.

Let all of us lose our senses

trusting that behind the darkness

is that same blue sky waiting

for the lightning to strike or a

new sun to rise up like a first fire

burning every preconception to ash.

------------- 

Day 7:

Pro-Memory

without it, we would

never exist but in the

tiniest segments

four shiny sea shells

a broken bicycle chain

a can of old coins

nothing is all gone

everything leaves its dust

choose your objects well

seven unplayed cards

one fractured black rosary 

a pile of lost leaves

Day 5: Friday Found Poem (mostly)

Before&After

Nothing is constant, but change
comes quickly or not at all.
Someday we'll be happy here
comes the sun, tomorrow?

Or is it rain or wind or storm:
Let storm! Life is ... born too
young into a world already so
gone too long to keep so dear.

What can you do for change,
on a lark, on the lamb, in a bus,
on the way to wherever you are:
you are, all the things you are.

There is no mistaking here:
Everybody know this is ...
nowhere to go but...up to no
good to know you too, pal.

Day 4: Stuck or Unstuck [in time]

Containment Unit # 231

We watch the movie frontwards, stopping
not often for questions & noticing, they would
rather plug in to their own headlessness.
I insist that they remain well postured.
This doesn't please the prisoners, who
don't buy that they are free to come & go:

stuck, unstuck

they renounce my influence: traitor,
liar, thief, hypocrite, warden, bum.
My ticks don't bother them anymore,
they react, only to keep themselves awake.
Even when they smile, their teeth shine
with disdain, or is it just the clock, shine:

stuck, unstuck

big hand catching up with little hand
seconds committing suicide with
a leap less of faith than absolutism,
to keep all the watchers hoping
& guessing that soon even this will pass,
at the top of every hour a pause:

stuck, unstuck

but what of these friends unshackled,
choosers, minds broken open to see
that what matters here matters every
where, that what is true is as uncom
fortable as a poorly engineered desk,
a false ergonomics of education:

stuck, unstuck

We are held here, we two, we many,
an invisible thread, a visible cell white
walled & dingy, speckled with useless
memorabilia, a story soaked wasteland,
unkempt wordhoard, ill used, piling up,
forever unread, only to contain us.

Are we really stuck? Unstuck.

Day 3: Woeful Wednesday

Here, KS

A colleague of mine's brother-in-law lives there,
all wrapped up in soft-spoken age & false teeth
letting slide the subtlest lies through a radio fourthwall.

Believable lies, willingly suspended, make his brand
of honesty so compelling. I believe in Irma,& Ted,
& even Jillian as much as any Chuck, Dave or Maryette.

But the state I live in is not all dotted with resolve, or
picked ripe as September's last acorn squash. Whatever
do they do with all those leftover pumpkins, anyhow?

See, here in our corner of a mislead & unheard populace,
we don't worry much about American exceptionality,
& sure as shit don't talk about settling our entitlements.

We just want to bring our children up to know the difference
between right & wrong is not often debated about on television.

Day 2: Two For Tuesday (on a Wednesday)

Cut the Noise

November comes in like a megaphone
& dies out under a blanket of regret.
With hope, we survive the season's
sadness & light our candles one by one
hoping that the coming cold will bury
all the fearful chatter: the throaty violence
of  peaceful overthrow. Let there be
birds collecting seed beneath the frost.
Let their red coats bristle in the freeze
& their pecking beaks strike harder
than the oil man's spike. May we all
find the silence our broken spirits
need to purge the liar's spectacle.
Let freedom's ring muffle under
the gleam of falling snow.


_______
The Truth about Disappointment

It rarely accomplishes what it starts,
but slides away to a delicate sense of loss
that suggests a permanence that is always a lie.
Nothing is worth sleeplessness except love.
So says the sleepy election day Kansan with his bitter pill.

Day 1

15/35

At fifteen, restraint meant not
sticking up for a bullied friend
or joining in when insults were
handed out by the dozens like
some kind of locker-room party favor.
When the situation beckoned, fists flew:
willy-nilly, a few even landing on a face
that years before was a boon friend
& minutes after was the face of regret
& twenty years later shame.

At thirty-five there is little fight left
& restraint is easier to understand,
nuanced by years of practicing patience.
A man comes to realize that who we are
has as much to do with what we didn't do
as what we did--assuming the dents
we made are equally as important
as the ones we received.
                      But at the midway point:
perceived weakness & pretend strength
are equally unimportant. An aging face
shows all the signs of childhood fear
without the need for mask or lies.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/CategoryView,category,NovemberPADChapbookChallenge2010.aspx