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)

                                   

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

Hollyhocks

I hope you'll forgive my repeating a bit of ancient history with this posting ... the memories of those excursions to the bluffs to gather that rich soil ... those furry-jacketed seed, saved year-to-year by Grandma ... the resulting flowers.


They are such sweet memories. I still find great comfort in them ... and in the poem itself. No surprise that I share it at almost all of my poetry readings ... 


Yes, I do readings. You may have gathered that I really believe it when I say: Poetry is meant to be shared.


But relax. I haven't quite resorted to going door-to-door to inflict my poetry on the unsuspecting ... yet.


I do appreciate those, though, who stop by here to take a look ... to pause to listen ... to let the words wash over them ... to let me share ... and I hope they ... and you ... leave with a feeling of having dined on poetry ... or at least have an appetite newly whetted for more ... here, there ... everywhere.


Thanks so much for stopping by.


Oh, and the illustration today is a small watercolor I did some time ago. It also went on to bigger things ... becoming the cover art for my second collection of poems.


Now, the poem:



HOLLYHOCKS


We went to the bluffs,
up the narrow path
along the spine of the ridge,
up where the tall oaks
clustered among the rocks,
where the soil was dark
and crumbly, cool to our
digging fingers, and piled
that loose, rich soil
into a coal bucket,

lugged it back in many
trips to a dedicated circle
of depleted yellow clay
behind the house,
heaping this found food
there for furry-jacketed
seed from a deep pocket
of Grandma's apron,

and they became the most
sun-catching, bee-luring,
beautiful flowers
I had ever seen, almost
as though God had just
said: Let there be
hollyhocks.

And there were.

© 1999

("Hollyhocks" received an honorable mention in the Dayton, Ohio, Metro Library Contest in 1999, and went on to become the title poem of my second collection of poetry, published by Finishing Line Press in 2007)

***

Today's word: bee-luring

Goodbye, Old Hat

Years have passed now, and the mystery of the missing hat is still unsolved ... although I do have "a person of interest" in mind.


The last time I recall seeing it was when I put it in the laundry. It never came back. That would seem to limit the number of suspects ... possibly to just one.


I have the feeling that one particular person, a very dear friend who used to pretend she wasn't with me when I wore that hat, gets the feeling that I think she did it. Not so. 

You're all under suspicion. Nobody leaves the room, understand?


It's possible, of course, that I ... of all people ... might, in a moment of delirium, have thrown the hat away. I'd hate to think I did that to my faithful, trusting, trusted old hat. I really would.


I would sort of like to know what really happened to it though.


I don't even have a picture of it. The original had never, to the best of my knowledge, sat for a portrait, nor even had its photo snapped by someone mistaking its wearer for a celebrity.


So I had to resort to a stunt double to illustrate the poem about its plight ... and (sniffle-sniffle) mine.


The double, of course, is a younger version of the vanished one, but it's gradually becoming ... well, quite comfortable, like an old pair of shoes.


But now, the poem:



GOODBYE, OLD HAT


"My old brown hat is gone!"
I cried.
"When did you have it on?" she sighed.
"This year, or last.
Time goes so fast."

"The one rumpled, crumpled,
and torn?"
"Yes, yes! Tattered, spattered,
forlorn.
Twenty years my best buddy ...
all that.
My oldest, dearest friend,
my hat.

Now it's gone, left no trace.
I'm wild ..."
"I'm sure it's, uh ... someplace," she smiled.
And, looking me straight in
the eye:
"But it was time to say
goodbye."

 © 1997

(originally published in Capper's)


Today's word: vanished

Forecast: Rain

Those who've paid many visits to "Chosen Words" know that I write about rain ... a lot ... maybe too much.

I suppose that can be traced to my roots, which reach all the way back to a rural beginning ... not on a farm, really, but in a country home ... just outside a small town ... a very small town.

It was there that I first learned the importance of rain. Too much, and our garden would suffer disastrous results ... too little, and our garden would suffer. So would we ... since we depended on a cistern for our drinking, bathing, cooking water ... and our chickens and Grandma's flowers depended on water from the well.

Rain was important ... but it had other roles, too.

I still remember the songs it played on our roof ... how soothing the sound of it could be on a spring night ... how it washed away the dust which drifted in from the gravel road ... the cinders from passing freight trains ... how it made puddles for a little boy to go splashing through ...

Little wonder that I've written so much about it.

I thank you for your patience as I've explored the mysteries and wonders of rain.

And here I go again:

FORECAST: RAIN

They said it would
come tumbling off
the slanting roofs,
go dancing down
the street, glancing
off the bare-limbed
trees, peppering
fields with kisses,
would greet us
in the morning and
be with us all day,
like a promise meant
to be kept, would
dampen our spirits,
but would sweep away
the lingering crusts
of winter, would sing
of the coming spring.

But it didn't do any
of that. It just
rained, and rained,
and rained and rained.
© 2006

(originally published in Capper's)
Today's word: tumbling

Expectancy

This is fairly typical of the subject matter of my poems. 

I write about the things at hand ... familiar, everyday things that I understand, or the very commonplace things that I'm seeing as though for the first time. 

I don't pretend to possess any great philosophical depth, any unique knowledge. It's more like I'm inviting the reader to enjoy a particularly beautiful sunrise, or a sunset with me ... or even the winter rain as it begins freckling the sooty skylight. 

While I'm listening to the winter rain, I'm often thinking ahead to the sunrise that eventually will follow, not today, perhaps, but tomorrow. 

Thank you for pausing to savor these images with me:



EXPECTANCY

I pause in my reading
to sit watching the sooty
skylight becoming freckled
with winter rain, little
apostrophes that mark places
of omission, brief absences,
contractions of fuller things
that might otherwise run
together to become trickling
thoughts, not crystalline yet,
but catching this late light,
a tiny universe expectant.

© 2006
(part of a manuscript in search of a publisher)

***

Today's word: sooty

Delia's Dream

Today's little poem is about my grandmother, who took me into her care when I was two years old and guided me until I was 18 ... when I went into military service ... and even beyond. 

I still feel that gentle hand in the small of my back.

Times were not just hard, but really tough, requiring frugality with those few material things which came her way. Still, those circumstances seemed to inspire in her an exceeding generosity.

She knew that others had needs greater than hers. She accepted the fact that her good works might be received without thanks.

And she didn't talk much about "those distant places," but I know she dreamed about them sometimes, especially those where her children were.

She did get to visit them, but she never got to be there, as she would say, never got to "pull up and settle down" there.

It was simply not to be. And she accepted that, too. 

How I love her, for all the things she taught me ... for all the butterflies she pointed out to me ... and paused to watch with me.

And now, the poem:

DELIA'S DREAM

How she'd say

nothing is ever lost,

meaning wasted,

pieces of string,

each carefully coiled,

or a rubber band

snapped around her wrist,

her good works received

without thanks,

and thoughts,

especially thoughts

of those distant places

where she dreamed things

were better, where she

hoped to be someday,

but never was.

© 1997

(originally published in Riverrun)

Today's word: guided

Clouds at Sunset

Today's offering is an ekphrastic poem, that is, one written about a painting ... actually, one of my own creations.

It's one of the poems I shared with the audience in a "Poets Respond to Art" series at the Dayton Art Institute.

Sorry, I don't have a photo of that particular painting. I didn't get a shot of it before it went off to a new home in Illinois.

Still, I hope the poem will convey the images ... since I keep trying to "paint pictures with words" ... that the poem will, at the very least, give the reader the feeling of being there in front of the painting, studying it.

The poem:

CLOUDS AT SUNSET

Mountains tower
on the left, clouds lie
piled like bubbles on the right,
while the sun
lowers itself into the sea,
and a white sail with
a horizontal red stripe
leans across the curving waves
in the foreground.

It's such an old painting,
it might have been the thirties,
awash in Depression, an art
seeking escape while accepting
the realities of that time,
or something as recent
as yesterday, made
to freeze-frame things
in the midst of change,
the clouds, the sun, the sea,
even those sturdy mountains,
eroding while we watch.

It could be just a dream.

© 2003

(From my first collection, Chance of Rain, issued by Finishing Line Press)

Today's word: foreground