Poem for Display in an Inaccessible Location

This entry is part 9 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

Second-hand poetry has
been linked to
the cancer
of unanswerable
questions. Even
if it’s safely
out of mind,
like a dessicated seed
or a leaf in darkness,
mouths with
no memory
can still turn
the blanks where
letters were
into seditious
little Os. So
thank you for
not reading.

Lines for a June heat wave

half-grown groundhog
Click to see larger

A half-grown groundhog —
“Wait while I get the camera,” I say,
& it does.

*

Recognized by its glide,
the first monarch butterfly
back from the south.

*

In the air-conditioned mall,
the plastic flowers are safe
from the blistering heat.

*

Drinking from a tap
in the base of an old elm,
a Penn State squirrel.

*

I run into someone
I first met 17 years ago,
in cicada time.

*

So good, I don’t want to finish it:
fresh strawberries sliced
into stewed rhubarb.

*

Inside the package
stamped “Royal Mail,”
a book of small stones.

*

Driving the tractor into the woods,
mountain laurel blooming
above the roar.

*

Back from mowing,
I find a ground beetle trapped
in the kitchen sink.

*

A game in a dream:
no one knows the rules, or how to win.
I wake to heat lightning.

*
For another view of the half-grown groundhog, see here.

Poem for Display in an Abandoned Factory

This entry is part 8 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

Why is there no battlefield memorial
here, where generations of workers
ground down their lives?
Why no place for the veterans to return,
pride mingling with grief,
clutching made-in-China flags
& mumbling about sacrifice?
Why doesn’t the county historical society
raise money to preserve this site just as it was,
before the pink slips came—
a mass unmanning—
& the great steel taskmasters were unbolted
from the shop floor & sold for scrap?
Why doesn’t anyone except us trespassers,
sneaking in like the weeds & sparrows,
want to remember which parts
were assembled here
& where they fit?

Ode to a Chalk Line Reel

The day after Bo Diddley died, I watched a carpenter stretch a line the length of a board & give it a pluck: a diddley bow with no resonator, dry chalk instead of a bottleneck slider’s glissando note. I’d been expecting blue, but this line was red. The saw followed shortly with its howling eraser.

I had an argument with the carpenter about new tools versus old. Why does something that works ever have to be replaced? Why red? Why plastic for the housing? Why the constant upgrading to new drills & saws? The carpenter showed me his hands: they were cruelly crippled. I can only use what fits my grip, he said.

That sudden, electric blue from my father’s chalk line was one of my favorite things. Inside the chrome-plated reel I pictured a Galilee of chalk where the string went to renew its glowing shadow, like a blueprint line translated from the plane of the ideal: fuzzy, but straight as a fault.
__________

Links for the culturally deprived: Bo Diddley; diddley bow.

Ode to Tin Snips

This entry is part 19 of 31 in the series Odes to Tools

 

Scissors with an overbite,
blades like quotation marks
devouring the text —
some lost codex from
the Aluminum Age —
& leaving in its place
a jagged rent: massively
buck-toothed myself,
I know how elusive
a clean break can be.
Despite what orthodontists
would have us think,
a naturally straight bite
is a rare thing.
Most of us learn early
how to compensate,
squaring the circle,
holding our heads over
whatever plate, baring
our lips in the inevitable
tin grin.

Poem for Display in a Municipal Building

This entry is part 7 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

Abandon hype, ye who enter
these sound-proofed rooms:
you can fight City Hall all you want, really,
provided that your words
are bland as water & promise
jobs—drip—development—drip—growth—drip.
Open bribes will not be tolerated.
The voters expect transparency
& paper trails, sometimes even
the anodyne of a Town Hall meeting
where one by one they can stand
& state their names for
the record, that stagnant pool
that reflects everything
but their weariness, their anger,
the way their hands rise
like saprophytic flowers toward the sun,
their touching gratitude at finally
being recognized to speak.

Poem for Display in a Hospital Waiting Room

This entry is part 6 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

The doors swing
both ways; be careful.
From either side,
the other looks like out.
This mystery your body
is like a Klein bottle,
all surface, no way in.
From the inevitably
flawed models, it appears
to intersect itself:
it dwells within the without.
That’s why the wind —
or is it breath? — can’t
be held, & you need
a fourth dimension
to lose those edges
called sickness,
to become whole.

Poem for Display in a Public Library

This entry is part 5 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

To enter fully into another’s words
is to leave your own fixed residence,
part coffin, part cocoon.
The walls fall away.
Letters the color of night
swell with sirens & the call
of the whip-poor-will.
Out in the open book,
anything can happen except sleep.
Dreams may be redeemed
for a small deposit.
This is why, in the public library,
everyone is homeless.

Poem for Display in a Veterans’ Memorial Park

This entry is part 4 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

Veterans beware: remembering is a form of lying
at which politicians and war-mongers are especially adept.

Flag-burners beware: the U.S. Flag Code identifies fire
as the only proper & respectful way to dispose of a flag.

War memorial builders beware: pigeons are a kind of dove.
Whatever you do, they will have the last say, & it won’t be pretty.

Readers beware: all poets are traitors.
This poem was written from the prison of a bad conscience.

Poem for Display at a City Reservoir

This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series Public Poems

 

Attention suicides: please have the consideration
to drown elsewhere. It is not that your body
would be especially toxic — that’s a myth.
But what we crave in water is an absence of taste,
not the taste of absence.

Also, kindly make sure your water bill is paid up.
It’s the least you can do for your neighbors,
who will soon probably be needing to recharge
their own reservoirs, those brown or blue pools
in which on occasion you may have glimpsed yourself,
smaller than life.