Lattes for Two

(Just a photo of an old fence, you say? Oh, but I think fences ... old ones in particular ... have things to say to us, if we will just listen)

                                   ***

(Some of you may have read today's poem before, but this is a special occasion: Tonight, Julie L. Moore, Writing Center Director/Associate Professor of English at Cedarville University, will be reading "Lattes for Two" on the radio program, "Conrad's Corner." The reading is scheduled to air on WYSO, 91.3 FM, at 7:59 p.m. I hope you'll have a chance to tune it in. If so ... Thanks for Listening.) 

Meanwhile:

Each of my poems has a past life.

Sometimes that background is quite complicated ... though the poems are usually pretty straightforward ... ordinary subjects presented with few adornments.

This one, I suppose, might be considered as having a "complicated" earlier life. I'll try to present the short version.

When I started painting, I simply started painting. It was later that I decided it wouldn't hurt to have a few lessons ... maybe a lot of lessons ... but that's another story.

When I started writing poetry, it was much the same. Eventually, I signed up for a class.

Needless to say, I was an older student ... THE oldest in the group, even counting the instructor. The class was very accepting of me, though, and I really enjoyed it.

Among those with whom I became acquainted was a young student who worked part-time in a coffee shop.

Possibly because I reminded her of her grandfather, she one day gave me a couple of coupons for free coffees.

Phyllis and I couldn't resist. We were soon sitting under the umbrellas, sipping our coffees ... er, lattes. It was the first latte I had ever had. I found it rather nice ... inspiring, in fact.

The rest is history, as they say.

The poem:

LATTES FOR TWO

We're sipping vanilla lattes while sitting
beneath the umbrellas outside the coffee shop,

enjoying the soothing warmth of the cups
against our hands, the coffee sweet and gentle,

not aggressive, as it can sometimes be.
In my coffee and cigarette days, I slugged down

many a cup, always automatically topping off
after absently stubbing out another butt

and lighting up again, phones ringing, nerves
jangling, my paradigm of perpetual dependence.

But I've grown independent of such things,
an enforced laying to rest of my worst habits

in these years of summing up, a slow falling away
from a tendency to overindulge in so many

things that cheered me up or calmed me down.
Until today. Lured inside by the tempting offer

of a sample, I've wavered, weakened, lifted the cup
again, and after a few tentative sips to make sure

my taste buds weren't playing tricks on me, I think
I might be hooked, feel myself being reeled in.

Oh, if Eve had only suggested a hot, sweet latte
back then, what a different world this might be.

© 2005

(Part of a my third collection, Wood Smoke, issued by Finishing Line Press. To visit the Finishing Line Press site, please click here:

http://www.finishinglinepress.com/

Thank you for taking a look.)

Today's word: hooked

Evening Train

Today's poem is heavy with memories ... from  a summer evening about sixty years ago.

While the evening described was certainly a low point of my young life, it was not to be the end of the line, as I indicate in the poem ... and as events have since confirmed.

I'll never forget that feeling of emptiness, abandonment, of having certainly hit bottom ... all because I had won a college scholarship, with its promise of good things ahead, but I didn't even have bus fare to get to the campus.

There seemed no way to turn, no way to escape, as I sat there alone on that darkened front porch ...

But then I enlisted in the Air Force, saved some money, and eventually began college - not, incidentally, the one where I'd had a scholarship and the offer of help with finding part-time work, "once you arrive on campus."

The rest, as they say, is history ... thanks to some hard work ... and a lot of help along the way.

I also remember the feeling of relief, of a load finally having been lifted from me, all these years later, after I had written this poem.

So, you see, poetry - the writing of it, or the effort put into trying to write it - can be good therapy.

The poem:

EVENING TRAIN

The swing’s creaking
heartbeat held me
captive in the dark

as I sat watching
those lighted cars
swaying up the grade,

green trackside eye
blinking to red,
a clear sign to me,

believer in signs
and good fortune,
that my young dreams

had finally melted
into that S-curve,
vanished in darkness,

and there would be
no college, not even
bus fare to get there.

It seems so long ago,
such a vague memory
now, scar fading like

a distant whistle,
that evening train
somewhere, echoing,

reminding me that
I finally escaped,
became who I am,

but never escaped
who I was then.
© 2000

(originally published in Waterways)

Today's word: escaped

Call of the Mousse

It was one of those day trips that you take with a group of strangers.

You do some walking, some talking and gawking ... then comes the highlight, lunch ... if you're lucky it will be in some fancy place with big windows and a view of the city.

And so it was.

I don't remember many of the details, but I do remember the view of the city ... and the excitement when the dessert arrived. Of course, my doctor had recently put desserts (my favorite food group) on a forbidden list.

I could watch. Period. Oh, but I made some mental notes, jotted a few words on a scrap of paper later, when the bus was rolling toward home. That night it all came together in this little poem.

Then, after the usual polishing and tweaking ... patiently sending it out ... and waiting ... and waiting ... it was published.

Time has passed ... quite a bit of time ... but my mouth still waters a little as the memory is renewed.

And now ... on this morning after I've slept like a log ... awakened as hungry as a bear ... can't wait to get to the breakfast table ... the poem:

CALL OF THE MOUSSE

Fearing that my doctor
might instinctively know,
might be informed
by some skulking spy
in our midst, or that I might
blurt out a full confession
while sitting on his table,
I declined chocolate mousse
when it came crashing
through the underbrush
of after-lunch conversation,
and I sat silently, hungrily
watching while the other five
at my table devoured theirs,
particularly the lady
who, moments before,
had surrendered her fork
with the sad announcement
that she simply couldn't
eat another bite.

© 2001

(originally published in Potpourri)

Today's word: chocolate

Butterfly

I will always remember that butterfly, and that once in a lifetime event, as described in today's poem.

I remember precisely the hillside on which I was sitting when the butterfly found me.

I had been mowing the grounds of a friend's summer home in Southern Ohio. It was a hot, steamy day. The mower had become balky, so I decided we both needed a rest ... a bit of cooling off.

I was just sitting there, hoping for a bit of breeze, when it happened. But let's let the poem tell what occurred:

BUTTERFLY

I remember sitting
so still, feeling
the sweat trickling
down my back, beading
along my forearms,
a touch like
an angel's breath
when a butterfly
fluttered down
onto my sunburned
hand and sat there
for the longest time
before sipping
that moisture born
of hard labor, then
lifted lightly off, wafted
away like a dream.

© 1996

(originally published in Read, America!)

Today's word: wafted

An Iowa Night

Time flies.

It seems such a short time ago that I was there in Iowa, participating in that study ... but it was actually many years ago ...

We had come from all parts of the country that summer, people from various professions, gathering at the University of Iowa for an intensive study of biography.

I was one of the participants in that National Endowment for the Humanities seminar. I had looked forward to it as a means of escaping, if only briefly, a work situation with constantly demanding deadlines.

What could be better than to get far, far away from that, to focus on something entirely different?

Deadlines? Oh, we had those in the seminar ... every day. We had a mountain of reading material to cover, to digest, to discuss. It was definitely not playtime.

But it was valuable ... when I returned to work, and all these years later. It helped to steer me in the direction of more writing and, eventually, into what I'm still doing today, exploring the avenues of poetry and a bit of art.

Today's poem recalls one particular evening when we were invited out to the rural home of our seminar moderator.

I recall our standing on the porch ... but let's let the poem tell it:

AN IOWA NIGHT

Day's work done, we
gathered on a farm porch,
watching the lush, dark
corn trembling toward us
as rain slid
through the dusk.

No towering buildings
muffled the crumpling
thunder, no traffic
softened the sound
of plump drops spattering
thirsting shingles.

It was the velvet edge
of an Iowa night.

I have bridged back
to it many times, seeking
those faces, wondering
what happened next,
what the others became,
where they are now.

© 1997

(originally published in Midwest Poetry Review; also included in my first collection of poems, Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press in 2003)

Today's word: wondering

Someday, Yes!

(Another of my little watercolor sketches, possibly taken from real life ... or maybe just from memory)

I think I grow by pushing, reaching, imagining, achieving ... pushing myself into areas where I may have been reluctant to go ... reaching for new challenges ... imagining what it is like to "clear the crossbar" at a height I have never before reached ... achieving small increments of progress on which I can build.

I use the metaphor of the high-jump in this poem, because it encompasses the approach I used in training. 

It turned out that I was a better sprinter than jumper, but I still think there is something to be learned from the metaphor, of setting the crossbar higher, challenging myself.

As for dancing up out of the pit, I see that coming someday, not because I have become better than someone else ... that's not my aim ... but because I have simply become a better person as a result of setting my own goals and working toward them.

I'll keep trying ... and trying ... and trying. And someday ... YES!

The poem, originally published in Capper's:

SOMEDAY, YES!

I keep setting
the crossbar higher
on personal goals,
practicing harder
on my approach,
take-off, landing,
working toward
that height
my mind's eye
sees as my limit,
that level I will
someday clear,
adrenalin pumping,
glitter of sawdust
showering off me
as I come dancing
up out of the pit
into the circle
of winners. Yes!

© 1998

Today's word: increments

Promises

I've often said that I can't rhyme worth a dime ... but here I go again.

I keep trying. For me it's something like trying to leap over a high picket fence ... uphill ... and on a slippery slope, at that. I have trouble maintaining any kind of a rhyme scheme while trying to tell a story ... if, indeed, I have a story to tell.

I keep promising that I won't, but I do ... keep trying, that is. It's simply the challenge, I guess.

The result? Today's poem ... a double-edged blunt blade, if you will ... a poem about the difficulty ... at least the difficulty I have ... with keeping promises, especially to myself ... a poem in rhyme.

And I can't promise you that it won't happen again.

I keep being drawn back to this difficult task. I keep thinking that this time it will go well and I'll end up with something I can share with others. But it seldom does.

Today's illustration, I suppose, speaks to promises unkept ... I prefer to think of them as promises I will keep ... just as soon as I can get around to them.

Actually, it represents things I should've done yesterday ... must do today ... but probably will still be working on tomorrow.

Ah, tomorrow ...

Meanwhile, today ... and the poem:

PROMISES

I begin my year
With high resolve,
But my plans, I fear,
Start to dissolve
As the new wears off
The leaf I've turned
And the flames flare off
Bridges I've burned.

© 1996

(originally published in Mature Living)

Today's word: rhyme

The Moment

Memories. We can't live in the past, of course, but memories can help to make the going easier in the present.

Today's poem is based on earliest memory.

I find it hard to believe that I'm going all the way back to the cradle in recalling my mother's words ... not the specific words, but the memory of the sounds, enhanced, perhaps, by the distance, the years since I heard them.

Or I may just be imagining it all, the product of my wanting to "hear" them.

When I was about two years old, I went to live with my grandparents, who reared me to adulthood. My contact with my mother, over those years, was, by various circumstances, limited to a certain degree.

It would be natural for me to have more memories of my grandparents than my mother. Still, there is that connection, that need to go back as far as I can to those earliest days.

It's a wistful poem, a semi-dream poem. And I found a certain healing in the writing of it, a certain comfort in reading it again. It was originally published in Capper's:

THE MOMENT

In the moment
between sleeping
and waking,
when morning light
drifts strangely
through the trees
and sounds seem
borne aloft
by distant voices,
my mother’s words
come curling back
like wood smoke
on a rainy night,
and I am comforted
by that memory.

© 2001

Today's word: wistful

The Late Run

I have ridden a lot of buses. The bus was my main mode of transportation when I was in military service ... later when I started college ... still later, during a good portion of my working life.

There's something about a bus.

Absolute strangers will take a seat beside you and start telling their life's story ... at least that's been my experience ... and the drivers ... when you're the first one on the bus in the morning, as I often was ... or the last one off at night ... as I sometimes was ... they'll strike up a conversation ...

There's just something about a bus.

You can't help but pick up information about people and places ... bits and pieces of information ... even if you're not a writer ... things, impressions that stick with you ... things that resurface at the strangest times.

That's what makes this poem what it is ... the bits and pieces.

It comes together as though it's all happening along a certain route ... on a certain Saturday night ... on a rainy Saturday night ... a certain driver ... a particular bus. Not so. It's a combination of those bits and pieces, gathered during hundreds of rides over thousands of miles.

So it didn't really happen? Oh, but it did. Not in the neat little package starting at Point A and ending at Point B. But it did happen.

I imagine it was ... as is often the case ... a rainy night that set the memories into motion ... this gathering of impressions from the recesses of my mind ... the narrative that followed ... the driver ... rain ... the sweeping turn ... rain peppering the dead roadside grass ... all of it coming together to form a poem.

And that, I suppose, is an example of poetic license.

THE LATE RUN

An almost-empty bus,
and I'm dozing as it
splashes down a lane
toward St. Leonard's.

Its headlights sway
as it makes a sweeping
turn, pauses, then goes
grinding off again.

"It's that way most
Saturdays," the driver
says. Then, glancing
at me: "I make that
loop, you know? Just
in case. But there’s
hardly ever anybody
waiting." A pause.
"Now ain't that life?"

We jolt along, listening
to the wipers slapping
the rain aside, tires
smacking puddles, and I
ponder what he has just
said. The rain peppers
the dead roadside grass
and dances its lonely
Saturday night dance,
while I sit thinking,
tired and a little sad.

© 2003

(from my first poetry collection, Chance of Rain, published by Finishing Line Press, 2003)


Today's word: license

Hungry Eyes Feasting

This is one of my dream poems. No, I'm not saying it approaches perfection ... not in any respect. It's a poem about one of my dreams.

It seemed so real to me because it took place in familiar surroundings, much of it in my home neighborhood. The familiar went streaming through my sleep, in one of those dreams which seem to go forever.

I thought it would never end ... especially when it took the mysterious, sinister overtones of my feeling that, although I was on a deserted street, I was being watched.

Usually I wake up, the dream bubble bursts, and that's that.

Not this time.

I reached immediately for that pad and pen which are always nearby, just in case. I'm glad I captured some of those images before they got away from me.

This poem went on to be published in Waterways:

HUNGRY EYES FEASTING

Awash in the buzz and crackle wafting from
The Hillside Tavern’s enchanted neon signs,
I wake to the sound of nothing in my room,

Find the aching cold of yesterday's shoes,
Then, exploring the hall's echoing darkness,

Hear the ticking clock, the click of the lock
Before I go strolling past houses haunted

By the absence of dreams, empty windows
Staring back, thousands of broken promises

That will not be mended - not this night;
Slowly I march to the song of something

I can almost hear, feel its hungry eyes
Feasting on me, sense its crouching, tensing,
Preparing to pounce, and I dare not scream.

© 2005

Today's word: feasting

Green Glass Bottles

As I've said before, I write quite a bit about writing, not because I've become expert on the subject, but because certain aspects of it remain a mystery to me and are, therefore, so intriguing.

Some of that mystery, an uncertainty, surrounds the process of submitting poetry to others, not just to seek their opinion of it, though that can be valuable, but on the outside chance of its being accepted for publication.

The result of that game, of course, is mostly rejection ... at least in my case. Sheer numbers argue against the chances of any particular poem's seeing its way into print.

Still, we continue the game.

I sit on my island ... writers do so much of their work in that kind of isolation ... carefully selecting the poems which will go out to seek their fortunes among strangers.

I compare the process to putting tiny, scribbled notes in green glass bottles, in hope that some of them will be discovered, accepted, published.

Then there's the waiting game, the suspense of wondering how the submissions are being received, and, when the green glass bottles return, the excitement, the anticipation ... still ... about what, precisely, has been their fate with that particular editor.

Meanwhile, there are more poems ... more green glass bottles ... that surging sea upon which so many of our hopes will ride. Oh, what a wonderful game it is!

This one was originally published in Midwest Poetry Review:

GREEN GLASS BOTTLES

If the wind is right
and the sea is surging,

I shall place another poem
in a green glass bottle
and send it bobbing off.
But mainly I shall sit

on the windward side
awaiting those bottles
sent off months ago,
scattered distant dots

nodding now and glinting
in the froth of return,
finally clinking ashore
to my trembling, bony

fingers, fingers fearing
the messages inside.

© 1997

Today's word: mystery

Chance of Rain

"Chance of Rain" is my lucky poem. It began life as a much longer poem, written at the kitchen table after one of my summer walks.

It was so hot that I had paused in the shade to consider whether I really thought I could make it up the next hill and then home. Just then I felt a slight breeze. Thus encouraged, I set off again toward home.

But I had started thinking of how the oppressive heat and humidity were so like the area of Southern Illinois where I grew up. I kept thinking about that, recalling what it had been like, that terrible heat.

When I got home, I started writing. I imagined an older person, about my age, sitting on a porch, scanning the skies for signs of rain. I imagined the rain's coming, sweeping across the fields. I described the old man's reaction to the rain ... all of this in considerable detail.

This narrative became a long poem which I submitted to Capper's.

It was there that an alert editor, Ann Crahan, spotted eight lines that appealed to her in the middle of my poem. How lucky for me!

She suggested that we keep those eight lines and my title. I agreed, and it became my first poem accepted for publication.

Over the years, I wrote many more pieces about rain ... or its absence ... and when those poems suggested themselves to me as a possible collection, it seemed fitting that "Chance of Rain," my first-born, my lucky poem, should be the title piece of that collection, published by Finishing Line Press in 2003.

The poem:

CHANCE OF RAIN

The rain comes

in great galloping

gulps, faster than

the soil can sop it up.

It drums on the roof,

dances in the yard,

celebrates all the way

down the hill.

© 2003

Today's word: lucky

Bubble

(No, those obviously aren't bubbles, but a cluster of lights which caught my eye at one of my favorite walking places, Lincoln Park)

This little poem is laced with memories.

It began, as many of my poems have, when I was observing people.

This time I was riding the bus. Sitting near the front, on one of those side-facing bench seats, was a young mother who was chewing gum and entertaining her infant daughter by blowing bubbles.

Watching them, I was reminded of an incident long ago ... I may have been three, or younger, certainly in my pre-school years ... of being seated outdoors in a tub of warm water ... summertime ... bright sunshine.

I still have a distinct memory of a bubble my mother made from that sudsy water, how the bubble glistened in the sunlight. How fragile it was. How magical.

The poem was written, eventually published, and put away. But the memory lingered.

Then, I was out walking with Phyllis, looked up at the fluffy clouds lazing in the sunshine, and noticed the lights near the pavilion ... how like bubbles they seemed to me, as they glistened in the sunlight.

How like that bubble of so many years ago.

The poem:

BUBBLE

My mother's

hand descended

into sudsy water,

a delicate circle

of forefinger, thumb

slowly emerging,

soft lips breathing

life into a bubble

I still see, quivering,

shimmering, a miracle

unmatched in all

of my three years,

and all of these

searching years

since then.

© 1998

(originally published in PKA's Advocate)

Today's word: shimmering

After the Muffin

"After the Muffin" is a love poem ... that's right, love poem ... which was included in O Taste and See: Food Poems, an anthology co-edited by David Lee Garrison and Terry Hermsen and published by Bottom Dog Press ... and the book was a sellout ... all 5,000 copies! 

"After the Muffin" then was discovered by Paul Carey, composer, who is also music director for Vox Caelestis Women's Chorus, a 16-voice professional women's chorus based in Chicago's western suburbs. 

He liked "After the Muffin" and set it to music, along with several other food-related poems.

For a sampling of their work:

http://www.paulcarey.net/

"After the Muffin" made an appearance in three performances of "The Musical Food Groups" by Chicago a cappella, a vocal ensemble of nine voices, "dedicated to performing innovative concert programs at the highest possible musical standards."

I've heard a recording of their presentation of "After the Muffin," thanks to Matt Greenberg, executive director, who also sings bass with the group ... and it is a superb piece of work ... their rendition of my poem, that is. 

For a sample of Chicago a cappella:

http://www.chicagoacappella.org/

Meanwhile, the poem:

AFTER THE MUFFIN

You've something on
your lip, you say,
your finger, gentle
as a kiss, floating
to show me where.

Blueberry! For
we have just shared
a warm muffin
by candlelight.

And now, all these
hours later, I still
feel that touch
like a kiss, still
hear you saying:
You've something
on your lip.

© 2003

(Published in O Taste and See: Food Poems, Bottom Dog Press, 2003)

Today's word: blueberry

Then One Day, Spring

(I know ... we're a little early with the dogwood blossoms, but give them time; they'll be back)

As are many of my poems, this one is rooted in my childhood.

There are so many memories from that time, still warm and shiny from much handling. Of course, they were not all happy memories ... there were hard times abroad in the land ... but the good memories have prevailed.

This collection of memories goes back before the days of central heating. No fear of the pipes freezing then ... there weren't any. Flush toilets were a part of those distant cities we had heard about.

Oh, but when the world began showing signs of thawing ... then we felt like celebrating. 

We had survived another winter. Spring meant the trees would soon be budding out, Easter flowers would start reaching their slender fingers toward the sun, birds would be singing.

What a great world we lived in!

The poem:

THEN ONE DAY, SPRING

After the long, gray parade
of frozen winter months,
there eventually came a day

unlike others in our valley,
when the sun seemed brighter,
warmer, the breeze softer,

clearer, carrying birdsong
in floating crystal notes,
snow beginning to inch back

from the steaming roof edge
of a nearly-empty coal shed,
sending tear-like trickles

of water drip-drip-dripping
onto earth where daffodils
soon would be punching

slender fingers through,
reaching for the warmth.
Then high along the ridge,

at the bluffs where a stream
would struggle with thirst
in July, there issued

the robust song of water
newly freed from the cold,
tumbling head-over-heels

to reach the rocks below
and come racing toward us
with the great good news.

© 1999

(received an honorable mention in Poets' Study Club competition, subsequently published in Capper's, and now part of my collection, Wood Smoke, published by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: jubilation