“Schoolhouse Hill”

Spread the memory blanket out

For a good old days picnic…

No, there was no internet,

Smartphones or silly string, but-

We walked to our own school.

Lunch served on china plates!

Maude and Ruby cooking supreme.

Absolutely the finest kind Hawkeye-

By standards 90210 to Ivy League.

Mmmmmm cornbread and taters.

First grade with Miss Francis,

Learning to cut the tails off little t’s,

Reading “Dick and Jane,” mandatory

Afterlunch nap-spent by me staring at

Sandy Turpin or watching bubbles.

Second grade with Miss Betty,

Spelling Nazi and not shy with a paddle.

Pretty good teacher, just high-strung &

Mistaked having Donnie walk home after

He broke his arm on the chalk holder.

Third grade with Mr. McIntire,

“Friendly Village,” leaf & bug collecting,

Great walking field trips around the

Schoolhouse neighborhood with Red,

A real science teacher and interesting man.

Mr. Rodgers our principle, the speech teacher

Who visited now & then, and the rest all fade.

Larry & Cathy from the Mill Dam, the singing

Mason sisters, Gene & Essie Lands out from

Shoal Creek, Lloyd Hardy-where are you now?

Was the Hardy girl named Loretta? She was

Pretty with her front teeth out and that

Mischievous grin framed by her curly locks.

Where did the whirlpool of time swirl all of

My childhood friends at Mount Vernon school?

I miss ‘em.

“Jaime Alaska”-A Tarantino-inspired ActionPoem

Under the cover of

Frostline clover-she goes.

Eskimo espionagess &

Weekend disco girl.

“The Case of the Grinning

Seal,” gained her boss appeal-

Now Jal has her own secret

Action figure and Idaho home.

“Nothing like a Christmas crime!”

(She is not pleased…no, not at all)

“Why are Japanese Tattoo Artists

Turning up dead in Coke machines?”

Joined by her carry-permit cat-PM,

Bruce Denso-the Ginza Gimp, &

Uncle Rooster from the Happy Gym-

Jal announces her catch-killer plan.

We’ll replace every JTA in the state

With M.I.A. fans armed with socks

Full of quarters, wearing Scarface

Aprons approved by Warner Bros.

MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursday-

“Gotta solve this case, or its gonna be

No Disco for Me!” SUDDEN radio call-

“Trouble at the Starbuck Tattoo Mall!”

Jai & Company pile in her Hummer,

“Is NOT a van on drugs! OK, Dad?”

Hit the scene frosty & deployed full-

Like a Mean Joe Green on Red Bull.

Batter down the door, then see the floored

Bruce Denso, pinned with a boom stick.

“Drop it now or the Ginza Gimp gets it!”-

Dead Bang! Pussy Meow had shot her gun.

(The gun recovered, but not our villain!)

“Who is it Jai?” asked Uncle Rooster…

Jai rolled the body over, frowned,

“That weirdo who hung out at Kroger’s.”

“The Striking Clock”

Measures,

Kept hourly,

Reminders of time,

Signals of elapsed moments,

Harbingers for gain and loss,

Markers of the count and court,

Moments divided into equal parts then combined,

Cauldrons bubbling over with expiring breaths of present,

Stanzas of life uninterrupted by the consciousness of living,

Fiery flickers of inception parading in soldier files of regularity,

Objective insights parsed by regal tones amid both fury and passion-

Oh wonder of memory! Robbed of clock and mantle, my imbedded shrine.

“Stripes and Wading”

Bogue and I went fishing again last night.

Down Conasaugie ways out past Fairview.

We didn’t need no license, anymore than two

Indians catching supper should be expected.

Bogue ran his trot line again.

I used to think that was both funny and lazy.

Now I realize that he enjoyed wading out

Across the yawning stream more than fishing.

Mom and Mrs. Hooper seemed content

To just hear the sounds of the water,

Almost as if a voiceless hymn was being sung.

Glad to be away from telephones and kitchens.

We had Zebra sandwiches,

(What Bogue called PB&J)

The wonders of the universe opened

Like the giant Bible in Eleazar on Sunday!

Maybe a little kid will wade there

Forever, trampling the muddy banks of time.

Listening to the sound of eternity and watching

Bogue smile and give praise to the Stripes.

“The Manipulation of Surfaces”

Ocean sleep waves goodbye,

Fractured by golden shards.

Carpet scrunches like mini shrubs

‘Neath the feet of giant bards.

The daily fete of plastic touches

Blooms anew each yellow invasion.

Formica, glass, stainless steel,

Shifted in line for current occasion.

Sounds never forested pronounce

Excuses to feel justified for living.

Enter the ether neighborhood, aware

Gimp stares, alohas for the giving.

Plug into the labor module,

Predetermined time-lapsed boredom.

Taste the taste tested by the taste test.

Consider living in the mall, like Mom.

Home again, home again,

Jiggity, jig.

Escalator staircase ride eclipses a

Need for strides, in this cemetery dig.

“Corduroy a Go-Go”

Most people like denim-

“It’s a way of life, Tim!”

But discerning cool cat Joes

Wear corduroy a go-go.

Away from the fray,

(Neighboring O Tay)

Indigo crowd’s “Hoo-ray!”

Ne’er corduroy a go-go way.

Feel those corded ridges,

Go-go over the bridges,

So when the time-bell rings,

No reminiscing stings!

While a saxophone fairy

Round the mirror ball tarries-

The corduroy a go-go spins

Velvet planet waves o’er skin.

Don’t fade away-go loudly,

Go-go corduroy life proudly.

First-prize is a happy face,

Second-prize is borrowed Grace.

“The Monsters Are Us!”

The mice run crying across the field,

Among the marigold and lavender,

“The Cat, the Cat, run for your life!

He has left the corn rows and now

Scatters death in meadow square.”

Henry Opossum crossed the road.

One of the loud metal beasts lay

Overturned in the ditch, burning.

“I would feel bad, but I am just a

Soulless opossum,” grinned Henry.

Bambi ducks underneath The Thinker,

Hearing the unnatural mechanical pop

Pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop.

“Here Bambi, hide in the plant room,”

Mrs.Thumper urged from the new warren.

-No Planet X or Mayan Hex, just an

Oily mechanical sound in 4/4 time-

Some future archaeologist will quip-

“They seriously believed a threat from

Without would be their end my friend!”

“Ode to the Rabbits of Watership Down”

…Hazel, dozing in his burrow one "chilly, blustery morning in March" some years later, is visited by El-ahrairah, the rabbit-folk hero who invites Hazel to join his own Owsla. Leaving his friends and no-longer-needed body behind, Hazel departs Watership Down with the spirit-guide, "running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom." From Watership Down by Richard Adams.

When I see rabbits feeding at dusk,

I think back to Hazel, Fiver,

Bigwig, Blackberry,

Dandelion and Pipkin.

I wonder if their

Descendants fair well

Against their 1000 enemies-

If they remember those that went before.

I cry to think some might

Live now in a place like Efrafa…

Marked and destined to serve a place

Whose center cannot hold.

Better to be free,

Fending for themselves-

Than oppressed and protected

By overseers willing to sacrifice for the status quo.

There is stillness in the night

That speaks to those that will listen,

It is the quiet cool of foreboding-

Lessons we may not learn in time.

Ask many times,

Answer but once.

What constitutes a soul?

To live? To reason? To sacrifice?

Or merely to love your friends and enjoy fresh clover?

There is no spoon.