Wednesday, July 31, 2019

20190731.0430

Upon the precipice of a grander time
Even if the dog days linger
And soon the limestone hills that wore their glories before
Will trade those weeds for brown
I stand
As many others do and have done
And will
And I think I will stay in the cool for a while
And read.

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

20190730.0430

With this I have counted
Eleven at night
In irregular ticking
That has become more measured
And held there for a while
The day will be done soon
A new one beginning
But I have a little time left
Yet

Monday, July 29, 2019

20190729.0430

The 1956 World Series
Super Bowl I
The opening of the 1939 World's Fair
Einstein's last words
The Classic of Music
Agrippina the Younger's memoirs
The Aethiopis
The second book of Poetics
Love's Labors Won
Sappho's corpus
The burned pages of Cotton Vitellius A VX
And so many
Many
Many others
Whose names are not even known
Some lugubrious lucubration is warranted

Sunday, July 28, 2019

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Maybe the weirdest thing
Or the thing that ought to give me the most pause
Because it is not all that uncommon
Or strange
Though maybe it is fated
Is that I am more and more okay
With others doing the work
While I do not

Saturday, July 27, 2019

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Never did I think I would be a person
Weighing options for insurance
Betting against myself to die
Wondering if I ought to rig the game
And how
I mean
I had never thought myself exciting
I do not think I've ever been so
But staid and stolid
But even with this I have to ask
How did it come to this?

Friday, July 26, 2019

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We were promised rain
But the ground is drier now
Than ere the words were spoken
And I wonder if the wind that blows
Hot and dry
Is the same as given by the speaker

Thursday, July 25, 2019

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Does it really matter
That a mere five months remain
And that the time has come again
To sing the old refrain
Called by goblins in a market
In verse from days gone by
Even if not for orchard fruits--
"Come buy," they say. "Come buy"--
When the wrong-dated holiday
We have to call by name
Extends yet ever further back
And will yet more days claim?
Little Laura lingers not,
Nor does Lizzie remain,
But fairer faced and fouler souled
Are those who sing refrains
And falser are the fruits they sell
On gilded, not gold, plates
Than figs to fill the mouth
Than bullaces or dates,
And no less eager for their wares
Are those out shopping now
Hoping to assuage their cares
Though they've no notion how.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

20190724.0430

The sun will rise again and set
Inexorably, and yet
I run before them both to get
My words onto the page
There are some times I have a lead
But other times fare worse, indeed,
And I can barely meet the need
For marking on the page
Today is far less like a jog
More like a dreary, heavy slog
Through no clear day, but through a fog
To scribe another page
I hope to find a path run clear
Come out from shadows that draw near
And write that others read and hear
What I put on the page
But now, I halting stumble on
And snatch at something too soon gone
That I would make to me belong
And put it on the page.

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

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The deer are gathering again
In the fall
To dance and sing
To sound the horns and drums
And I have to wonder
Who is the hunter now?

Monday, July 22, 2019

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How many think they
Understand the roots
When they have never planted
Never turned the soil over
Dug down and seen what is there
What nourishes the things that have been put into the ground
When they have never worked with shovels
To clear out what is in and around the shallow spreads
The long, deep taps
To move things to better places
Even though that work
Always
Leaves some things behind
And recovering from that work is hard
For the one worked upon
And the blossoms may never be the same
The fruit changed from growing in new soil
Drinking waters of different flavors
From those it had called home
They are fools
Of course
But there are many of them
Enough that they begin to call their folly
Wisdom
And hear others cheer the misnaming

Sunday, July 21, 2019

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The white page takes up all colors of ink
Presents them in relief against itself and each other
But most commonly brown and black
And it does poorly to forget
That it is of little interest without them
While the ink is of value on other pages
Or on none

Saturday, July 20, 2019

20190720.0430

One took a small step
A giant leap
And the world watched as one
Though some still do not believe what they saw then
And others believe those who don't
No amount of forward motion
Carries all with it
Some remain behind
Some choose to do so
Others carried him
Bore him forward
To bear the rest of us along
And their names are no less worthy of song
Though they are not so often sung
Even that of a boy of ten
Can carry notes in a chord that yet echoes
And was sounded again
But not for long, now
And likely not again
Why would we expect them to be?
We're not like we were
In the "good old days"
Remember
We don't have the gumption to do it
Just as we don't have the gumption
To fight the fights of the generation before
That were supposed to be done and over with
Forever
No amount of forward motion
Carries all with it
Some remain behind
Some choose to do so
And some revel in looking back at the defeated
Those who actually deserved defeat
Those who reject the right conclusion
Because they claim it is ad baculum
And they are not wrong
Even though
They
Are
Wrong
Today
Though
Is not about them
It is instead about a thing done well
For once

Friday, July 19, 2019

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What the sun sends is supposed to reveal,
To nurture in nature when night flees away,
Growing the green things to greater extents,
Whence feast we upon them at will.
Putting the plants in pots by the windows
Should let them leaf out, luscious and full,
But brilliant light beats upon all things here,
Burns at the boughs and bleaches their colors,
And the plants I would put to some purpose or other
Wither and die in their pots.

Thursday, July 18, 2019

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Time was
I could yoke together diverse beasts
Oxen and donkeys
Teams of horses
Dogs in traces
Or billy goats
Or cats
And use them to draw along willing passengers
And inert cargo
And even the unwilling
But I fear
I have lost the touch for such work
My fingers slip on the harness straps
I falter as I work the buckles
And I cannot even get the animals
Together

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

20190717.0430

I need a metaphor
I need something to try to
Bring the remote near
Make the strange more normal
Or the normal more strange
Bringing them together
Bringing all things together
So that I can understand more
And so that I can be understood
But there is only one thing in the end that does this
One metaphor to stand for all
And it is not taxes
Because some people get away without them
I have no such certainty yet
Though I will
And maybe that will be the comparison I need

Tuesday, July 16, 2019

20190716.0430

I have no problem with prestissimo
Or with abbreviato
Even if I prefer adagio or andante
And the development of themes across movements
Symphonic parts fitting together
Moving subtly
But snippets and sound-bites
Mouth-sized morsels for mice
Rather than the gaping caves slung under many people's noses
Seem anymore to be the composition
And a trust of others' curation
Rather than rambling through and finding
Things unlooked-for and rewarding
It is not bad
I will not say it is
But it is not for me
I will play in four or five
Instead of one or two

Monday, July 15, 2019

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Today's again the day for pay
But I'll not go away to play
Many gather round to say
That I have debts I must defray
Concerns of money to allay
And if I creditors betray
I'll soon lose a place to lay
My head and my family may
Suffer worse things yet
So I return to working pen
And sending out my funds again
To try to my family defend
Against the debts that have no end
While we struggle to pretend
That this is the unflagging trend
Toward which we all are going to bend
And while it is where I still tend
My path's not fully set

Sunday, July 14, 2019

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Worms eat the pages
Moths assail the cloth bindings
Roaches root in the paper
Fire and flood can consume the lot
And so we turn to pixels to preserve
What writing there is
And what writing there will be
But they are delicate things
And it may well be that the papers endure longer in the end
Until the end
And an end is certain to come

Saturday, July 13, 2019

20190713.0430

I have meant to mow for many a day,
To groom the grass that grows up in my yard
Standing now shaggy as my scalp when uncombed,
Steal from the snake the shelter it uses
And bare to the birds a bounty concealed.
I made up my mind to master that task,
Was by weeping greeted when I set out with purpose,
Husband of earth hurt to the heart
That a precious patch of sky-wife be pruned.
Wedded to wife, I well know such pain,
Stayed from my struggle 'til the sun emerged,
Glaring too gladly on green-lingered hills
That more often moan brown and dry in this month
Than stand in a splendor of emeralds' sheen.

Friday, July 12, 2019

20190712.0430

The old writer writes
Of a leek or a loaf of bread
In terms that titillate
Pulled upon by dirty hands for people's mouths
A boneless thing that rises when hands work on it
And always are readers on first reading
Surprised or scandalized
That old pen scrawlings would leave such traces
As some might call stains
However fair the hand
That readers read as they do is a failure of recognition
Why would not those who came before
Have minds as dirty as those who followed them?
We would not have been here else
And those who will follow us
Will not marvel that we act so
That what we write reads as so much smut
Cloaked in fairer words
Or cloaking fairer ideas
But will rather marvel
That we do so little with it
Letting it flop out idly
And not dressing it up
We do not tease as much
And the pleasure is reduced
If more rapidly reached
But not all partners prefer such speed

Thursday, July 11, 2019

20190711.0430

I cast seeds out
Spreading them abundantly
Many
Most
I leave lying on the ground
And some of them have taken root
Yes
But most bake in the sun
And die
Not even beasts and birds take them in
A few
I take the time to plant
And I cultivate them
And still
Sometimes
They die
But when they do not
Some bear fruit again and again
Plucked in turn by many hands
Greedily consumed
What results
When they are shat out again
I do not know
But I cultivate the hope
That they fertilize fields
And yield good harvests in turn

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

20190710.0430

The screen cut out again as I sat to type this
Going from illuminated to black without warning
Without transition that I could see
Leaving me staring at myself for a moment
Reflected darkly on a black background
And it would seem to be ever thus
That when the effort is not expended
The power not taken
To make things lighter
Paler
It is against a background of blackness
That all ought to be seen
Strange as it may be for someone like me to say it

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

20190709.0430

The mouthpiece is too far down the cork
It needs to be pushed in
But the cork is too compressed
Worn out from too long use
Without being refurbished
And while a wrap of paper can keep the mouthpiece where it needs to be
The paper soaks through and falls apart
With what is carried by the wind that goes through
Pushing in does little at present
Needs to be done again and again
Almost with each breath
Taking a hand away that is needed to make the notes sound right
But without that hand
The notes won't sound right
Anyway

Monday, July 8, 2019

20190708.0430

I put my mouth again to
Fruit plucked by ink-stained hands from
Branches grown of Hill Country soil
Thin overlay on limestone
The plant put in it by hands browned
Not by sun
But by history stretching back
Through six flags
And further
The fuzz tickles my cheeks
My nose
My tongue
As I part its flesh
Sucking at the juices that flow from within
Nearly wallowing in them
As the heady scent surrounds me
And I cannot help but smile
It is no new metaphor
But that it is an old one
Does not mean it is not to be enjoyed
Fruits ripened taste better

Sunday, July 7, 2019

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The nights are short in summer
Sticky and hot
And not in fun ways
But I would rather it be the fun reasons
That I am not getting any sleep

Saturday, July 6, 2019

20190706.0430

There have been times that a black flood
Flowed out from a narrow source
Spreading out across fertile fields
That seemed to languish under snow
Marking them and making them strangely fertile
Now
The flow ebbs
The reservoirs are emptying
What was a flood is now a trickle
And there does not seem to be rain coming
The fields yield but few crops
And those that grow are sickly
Fruit withering on the vine
Kernels of grain shriveled and mean
Good for animal feed perhaps
But nothing more
And likely not even so much

Friday, July 5, 2019

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This is the odd day
Wrung out by celebration though many are
Still must they labor
The systems in place in the country they celebrate
Demanding it of them
Some are off
Of course
Fortunate that they need not work
Today
And others are off
Because they have to be
Not because they want to be
Elsewhere
It is just another day

Thursday, July 4, 2019

20190704.0430

There is supposed to be merriment here
Singing of songs and playing of them
People gathered together in amity
Cooking and eating together
Outside as the weather permits
Inside where it does not
Instead
A demagogue demands tribute
Lucre and love
And receives both in plenty
More of the first from those who already offer the second
And none of it seems to matter
But elsewhere
It's just another day

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

20190703.0430

I am displaced
Even as I am where I ought to be
Whither I always seem to return
Gratefully
But I know that what I feel
Is nothing
For I am in comfort
And safety
As much as anyone is anymore
And none of us really are
If we ever were
And I know many others
Are
Not
And none of us are
When any of us are not
Not even those who cheer for
Them
Not being safe
Or comfortable
Hoping perhaps that by making such noises
They will distract what's coming from them
And themselves from the fears
Mediocrity uses arrogance to cover

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

20190702.0430

The moon pulls the tides
Helping to churn the oceans
Bringing from the deep to the surface
And to land where it can be found
With ease
What has lain beneath
The motion causes that on the surface to drift
Aimlessly
Unless it catches winds
Or finds its own power
Somehow
I am flotsam on the waves
As the moon moves through its cycle
Fullness dying away and growing whole
And brilliant
Again
Baring how it has been marred
For all to see who can look upon it

Monday, July 1, 2019

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There is only one thing I need to note today and to expand upon. It is this: today is my wife's birthday. It is far from the first I have spent with her, to be sure, but I am glad to get to have another one with her. I love her dearly; I am made better by having her in my life, and I hope to be worthy of the honor she does me by continuing to have me in hers.
I love you, my sweet Sopapilla!