The Right Column

Weather

Broke

Summer has tamed itself.

Should I remove this column or just turn it into pictures? I usually do all might commenting in the other columns here. But I like the way that it all looks on the screen.

Seasons of life come and go. I know that I have strong cycles of productivity. Sometimes are better for doing one thing than other. I can swing myself into the mood of some project, like painting or insulating. But if I run myself raggid I know what that does to me so . . . well I try to maintain an equilibrium of some kind of meditative activity everyday. And if I feel worthless I use it in my pleading way, in the form of what is correct when the ancients said to "Fear the Lord." It never really meant anything to me when I was a kid, not really getting it. Now I think that I understand it a little bit better.

And I think that I understand poetry a little bit better too. So many people are looking for a meaning, a direction that they should take. In a poem it is more like you are reading the various signs at the crossroad at the grand intersections of life. In a poem you are describing the people in the various automobiles that are stopped at the service station near there. In a poem you have two unlikely people suddenly fall in love across a field with butterflies and dragonflies filling the air. In a poem the plane dives into a freefall and the Postmaster has a revelation on the Glories of God Almighty.

Most people might not know to just listen and feel when they are reading a poem. Maybe they have their story voice going and are unwilling to listen to the story that is going on in the poem? They might think that a horn is a vazuza, a one note thing that gets annoying pretty quickly. Mybe their idea of music is that it has to be scored, written down, fussed over. It can't just be the spontanious sounds from a train while it makes the bend and scrapes the rail. And the rap song that comes to mind in the head of the kid whose going for his big interview in the city. Or the beat of the keychain of the conductor that is hanging on a hook on the wall above the desk in the caboose.

And what year is it in a poem? Does it matter? Can anyone even know? And what lake is that down the valley that you can see from the truck stop? In a poem? The ridges. The aspen glow of the dusk on the cliffs of the great mountain. The sight of a dirigible in the far away sky out accoss the valley, down above the factory. The sound of American made motorcycles. Fifty different bandanas on fifty different people. Chanting at a wake for the soul of a dead commrade. The dusk falls harder, sudden sound of bag pipes. A procession of military officers. The guys all lined along the side of the highway with their hands on their hearts. A church officient with a incense burner swinging on a chain and spreding the smell of Arabia through the crowded mourners.

A single cantor sings out a mournful psalm in Hebrew. The crowd is hushed, even the babies hush and listen. A little girl runs towards the legs of her mothers skirt and halts suddenly. A little boy with a bouquette of yellow roses graps her hand. The camera shutters snap silently and capture the perfect light of a perfect moment.

Next it is the trot of the carriage horses pulling that big and ornate antique coffin cart. When it reaches the doors of the church the soldier's mother is escorted inside by her two other sons. One of them is in uniform. A contingent of Marines and Navy Seals serve as honor guard.

But it's just a poem. I can't know what it is really like to be involved in that scene. I just know how solumne it ought to be, that fallen guys need to be honored. Honoring the fallen: that is also poetry.

 Geesh, I've flown far and away today,
       haven't I?

overlay the overlay.

I got nothing more

October 2, 2012

 



 Could it be multiplied
     and left outside the heart of it?
 And then, taken over to the side
    and written about with soft verbs
  that make the wind a color
     and make the moon a phrase 
      that evokes a mood of love.

  When there were people cheering
    he felt that the marathon was a wonderous run
   and he was the king of some realm 
                of mind
    that meant
       that he'd
           never get left behind.

  When it was cold in the hotel room
    the cramps, the stomach ache,
      no clean clothes
    he called out with lamantatious intent
       of how "a winner? a looser?
            I am nothing without You."