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Still Singing

 

 

Varied carol that lifts over trees and clouds

rays of sun to my American soil.  Discordant

voices struggling to find harmony. Snuggling

to find harmony. Sounds

of the fife, following the King's harp. Full-bodied,

an alphorn holds the bass while the mandolin reaches

 

to the sky.  The accordion is passed around.

Celtic violins fiddle the melody

to its breaking point while great jazz pianos

dance with Les Paul’s guitar,

and Rock’s great drummers breathe life-giving rhythm.

 

Mariachi horns provide the tie that binds.

Discordant voices robust. Giving

America what is her best, as her best

young men and best young women gather

under the watchful eye of a benevolent God

and with mouths open wide render their melodious song.

 

A song of praise for all men created

Equal.  Of the people, a song of joy.

For the people, a song of hope.

By the people a song for our sisters’

and our brothers driven home by Seeger’s hammer.

 

A song of thanks for the mariachi, and the mandolin.

For the bagpipe.  The fife.  And for a cappella voices

of the other third.  Their welcome long overdue.

 

A song of honor for the last full measure of devotion.

His truth is marching on.

A song of David finding the secret chord

striking psalmic gold.  Pleasing.

God.  Allah. The Great Spirit.

 

The melting pot is best united

by hymns to a nation. One under God

One believing in God.

One in discordant harmony.

Still singing.

One Last Look

 

Some days the clouds, thick as mom’s split pea soup

 hovering over a white-capped lake set the tone.

The old cottage looks abandoned as I step from my car

a chilled misty breeze stops me in my tracks as I pursue

 the joy of the old days.

 

 As I search to bring back the memories

 I search for you

 

I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places

 

The overgrown bushes and flaking paint

add to the melancholy that envelopes my soul.

From the road, I can hear the waves crashing on the beach

 and the gulls crying for their supper.

 

when sorrow, like sea billows roll

 

Lake-scented air fills my lungs

 as I find the green wicker rocker with one arm missing

 on the uneven porch.  I watch

the evening clouds part and blades of sun shower the waves

 and stretch cottonwood shadows over our childhood home.

 

The setting sun paints the western horizon

 with pastel splendor as the golden lake settles in for the night. 

As the day closes and the full moon begins

 its journey toward the new day,

 the stars recite their silent poetry.

 

I listen, and in the silence, I try to go back

As if I could

The car chirps as the lake fills my lungs

with one last look.

There you are

​

On The Way Home from the Metro Center

                        The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in                                               shock-proof shit-detector.  -Ernest Hemingway
 

           

The winter snow melts

maples into midnight

The slippered muse stirs…

 

Aw—who am I kidding?

 

Maybe I should just

Leave the Brown Dirt Diary

with old blind Charlie,

and move

 

to Ocala where I could get a job

teaching high school English

to the heirs of the Confederacy.

I could expose the glory

of the comma,

 

and of Tim O’Brien, and maybe

that there English sonnet feller. 

 

On weekends I could tend

bar at the Seaside Lounge

located in the new Days Inn

on the edge of route 75,

only 6 miles from the airport

 (free shuttle service)

and nowhere

 

near the sea.

I would wear a red vest

and serve piña coladas

in fake coconuts  to  Judy Jean

in the really short green dress,

who told her husband

 

she was going to the movies

with Millie Farquhar, but is seated

next to his brother who drove

down from Tallahassee.  All the while

 

slipping rum and cokes to the redheaded

girl that sits in the front row

of my senior honors class with the smile

that makes me understand Nabokov

a whole lot better.

 

I would spend Christmas break

on a drive to Key West.

Walk down Whitehead

 

Street pausing to pet

the cats before   settling

at Joe’s to drink rum

 

and talk fishing

with the rest

of the high school

 

English teachers including the gray

haired lady in the floppy

black hat from Ketchum

 

sticking to the claim that she heard

the shot but thought it was a book

dropping, or a bottle rocket.

 

I would spend New Year’s Eve

on the ‘walk’ with the one-man

band in the pork-pie hat

 

across from the Naval Park

blowing Bob Dylan

out of the harnessed harmonica,

 

picking Lennon’s chords out

of his guitar, while beating

the snare with a new pair

 

of redwing wing tips

on blackened plywood.

On the way home I would stop:

 

Fort Lauderdale Reunion

at the Seaside Lounge,

under the bridge that carries

Andrews Avenue over Cypress Creek

 

and nowhere near the sea.

I would reminisce with little Art Ashton

Who taught me

the first rule of the working world

is that the boss is

a son of a bitch.  T.J. Spline

who taught me redneck.

And  ol’ Bob Hoffrogge

Who taught me that craftsmanship

is

patience.

 

I would spend the evening with my brother

at the Southport Raw Bar

on the edge of the Intercoastal,

stone’s throw from the sea.

Surrounded by nautical wheelers,

and forty-year-old pirates

drowning plates of raw

littlenecks in German beer.

Cold green bottles sweating

rings into the scarred table.

 

And as the morning sun rose

From the Atlantic waves

I would guide my white Buick

with the broken

air-conditioner up the Sunrise

Boulevard ramp onto I-95 pointing it north.

 

Setting the cruise   not stopping until

I reached the New Smyrna Beach rest stop

where I would bake in the late-morning sun

attempting to Starbuck the plaintive cries

of my hung-over mind.  Sitting,

back to the sea, on the concrete and plastic,

I would remember

 

that night, on my way home from class,

when the snow combined with the lights

of the street and the tops of the trees dissolved

into the night sky, and I sat waiting

for the light to change wondering

if another poem would ever come.

​

Taken From the collection Brown Dirt Dairy

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