I drew this on the bus to NYC today.
Click to enlarge.
Category: My poems
Several things happened today that reminded me how we’re all connected.
First, a poem I wrote ended up on a show I love, The Basketball Jones. The poem was inspired by a line one of the hosts said on the show and I Tweeted him about it. I certainly never expected it would be read on the show. The reading was hilarious, as were the hosts’ comments afterward.
Second, in the comments for that episode of the show, one of the viewers said that in addition to The Basketball Jones, his other favorite show is The Jazz Session. How crazy is that?
Finally, I went to a job counseling meeting yesterday that was part of the requirements for my unemployment benefits. Today I got an email from a guy saying that he was sitting behind me at the session yesterday and that he’s a fan of RocBike.com and follows me on Twitter.
Totally crazy.
3 CommentsAt 11:30 in this clip from The Basketball Jones, you’ll see the strangest thing that has ever happened to me as a poet.
Ep. 629: Trades, Poems, Doodles from The Basketball Jones on Vimeo.
One CommentWhen I was in high school, my friend Cocoa Walsh and I used to draw this snail and the accompanying message on notebooks, blackboards, homework, etc. I can’t remember how we came up with it, and I have no idea where Cocoa is these days. But I’ve never forgotten this image or the message, as evidenced by this version, which I drew this evening.
Oh, and I still think he’s a pretty smart snail.
Click to embiggen.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
The title of this poem comes from a surprising place — 3:03 into this episode of The Basketball Jones. Tas Melas says it, and based on J.E. Skeets’ reaction, I think it may be something originally said by Stan Van Gundy. In any case, as soon as Tas yelled the line, I paused the show and wrote the poem. It just about wrote itself. This is not, of course, a poem about basketball. Like much of what I write, it took a turn into Relationshipland.
On a side note, if you’re a basketball fan, The Basketball Jones is a must-see show.
tell the story when the ball is in the air
not after she’s left and the crowd goes home
tell it when he can still be the last-second hero
a hometown Jesus on the shoulders of adoring men
tell the story before she cried, before he made her
tell it while the boy in the nosebleeds
clutches a program to his chest and yells because
this is what men do
tell the story so we can all cheer and buy the jersey
so we can tell the guys at the bar that we were there
tell the story when the ball is in the air
Today would have been poet Kenneth Patchen’s 99th birthday. I read his brilliant book Hallelujah Anyway today. I found a first edition of it at a bookstore in Albany a while ago but had never read it. It’s a collection of his picture poems, several of which can be seen here.
I’m a terrible visual artist, but I decided to try my hand a two picture poems today in honor of Patchen. You can click either image to see a larger version. Caveat videtor.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
longevity
an expectation of longevity
as if the glaciers don’t melt
given enough time and a tireless sun
on a human scale they’re eternal,
you might say, having no other
scale on which to measure them
everything is eternal, just
not in some magical way
that fits you with harp and sandals
there is still all the matter
there ever was, “every atom
belonging to me as good belongs to you”
where will you be in one million years?
spread out among the stars
or covering the back of a dog?
there are still dinosaurs, they’re just
shaped like toasters and raccoons and
a little girl eating her ice cream before it melts
Listen to this poem using the player above.
I first lived in Japan from 1991-92. During that time I picked up a Penguin edition of Japanese haiku master Matsuo Basho’s book Narrow Road To The Deep North. I’ve loved him ever since. Not just his work, but the very idea of him.
Ah, Basho, who were you really?
My friend the Japanese literature scholar —
by which I mean to say he is a scholar
of Japanese literature and a literature scholar
who is Japanese — thinks you were a ninja.
Or a famous warrior of some sort.
I can’t quite remember. But his point
is that no mere poet could have passed through
all those military checkpoints.
And no old-man poet could have covered
all that ground as fast as you say you did.
Were you lying? Is all poetry fiction?
Perhaps you started out from Tokyo —
they called it Edo then —
with every intention of completing the journey
along that famous narrow road.
Perhaps you packed your paper and brushes
to write those glorious verses.
Perhaps you set out upon the path,
made it as far as the first resting place
before your old bones got the better
of your young heart.
Poets invent whole worlds —
all you needed to do was describe
the world that already existed. Even a mortal
could do that.
Me, I like the ninja idea.
Poets are thought of as many things —
deadly is rarely one of them.
We need more poet ninjas, creeping about
on moonless nights, stealing
into the rooms of young lovers, leaving
a verse or two on the pillow.
Gone as silently as the break
in this line.
Then again, maybe I’d rather
you were just a poet.
Not a liar. Not a ninja.
Not a warrior traveling in disguise.
Just a man who wished to see the mountains
of Japan’s interior with his own eyes.
A man who used his paper and his brushes
to let us see those same mountains,
thousands of miles away,
all these many years later.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
“Romcom” is short for “romantic comedy,” my favorite kind of movie. This ended up being another relationship poem. Just about the only kind I write these days.
romcoms
like a glimpse over the wall
into the neighbor’s much nicer yard
the one with a new grill
and a pool and a picnic table
where there’s plenty of cold lemonade
condensation on a glass pitcher
endless afternoons of happiness
with someone who looks into your eyes
like they were the whole world
there are friends around the table, laughing
telling stories and eating
you laugh with them, delighted
to find that these people are real
sometimes she reaches over
squeezes your hand
or puts her fingers on the back of your neck
as if to say, “I’m real, too”
when you get up to take your plate
into the house, she follows
you kiss in the kitchen, one hand
still holding the plate, the other
brushing her hair back over one ear
later someone lights a fire in the stone circle
and everyone gathers around it, dreaming aloud
she is close beside you
if this is the last night ever
if they never make a sequel
it will have been enough
Listen to this poem using the player above.
pulled pork
we ate Elgie Stover’s unlicensed pulled pork
on the back porch of the Blue Nite Cafe
talked about the future and what we imagined
it might look like
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I never
imagined it would look like this
even though that first conversation
contained the seeds of everything that was to follow
Elgie served his pulled pork on a single piece of white bread
in a styrofoam container
we could always tell when he arrived because smoke
would drift in through the back doors of the club
from that moment on, every song
rushed toward the back porch
we played music like men whose minds
were already eating
if my parents hadn’t had friends on the island
I never would have known about the club
if I hadn’t known about the club, I never would have been
on the porch, eating pulled pork and talking with you
I think a lot of this would have happened anyway
it probably would have been easier
but I wouldn’t trade those conversations
or this pain for all the pulled pork in the world
Listen to this poem using the player above.
I’m not sure whether this is a poem or a credo or a mission statement or a manifesto or all those things at once.
writer’s song
to write is to stand against despair
each stroke of the pen an affirmation
as ink flows into the paper like a transfusion
the arteries of the world are filled once more
to write is to acknowledge dreaming
caressing the soft flesh of possibility
it is a gentle kiss, like an afterthought
or the smell of cookies baking
to write is to assert the self
one human being in a fragmented age
it is a hand-brake on the spinning world
an extra moment to bring life into focus
to write is to say “I love you”
and to let “you” be all the world
six billion diamond-bright minds
flowing over the earth like water
to write is to throw a rope to a drowning man
to be on shore and in the water simultaneously
it is oxygen in the lungs so sorely needed
to power the dreaming blood, to sing this song
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Apple
(for my mom)
They say the apple
doesn’t fall far
from the tree.
Sometimes
it doesn’t fall
at all.
I am suspended
in the sun,
depending on you.
My skin,
in your image,
reddens.
Inside me
are the seeds
you planted.
The worm seeks an entrance
but I am strong,
as you taught me to be.
My sweetest days
are yet to come.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…
There is candle wax on my table
from a flame that should by rights
have been doused long ago.
There is an empty chair
and a couch that pulls out
into a bed, waiting for you.
Waiting. Is there more to life than
looking ahead, peering into the fog-
bound harbor, looking for the lights
of an approaching ship?
At intermission, Martha took a short stroll
around the theater. Voices
hushed as she passed by.
Perhaps this would be the start
of something better, a lifting of the
gloom that had sunk deep into the
walls and floors of the house.
White, indeed. Nothing was darker
than that swampy prison. Maybe
a night out at the theater
was what they needed.
I set a place for you at the table.
Thinking that maybe you’d change
your mind. I know, I know.
Presumptuous. I made all
your favorite dishes. Couscous with
steamed vegetables. Lentil and barley soup.
Flatbread from my own oven.
Of course, all this is theater in its
own way. I have no idea which
foods you like. That’s a fundamental
thing to not know about someone.
The walk back to their private box
seemed longer than usual.
A private box. Who would have thought
Martha Todd would be
in the president’s box at the theater?
Her husband had already taken his seat
for the second act. Such a lovely idea,
the theater, she thought.
A whole world inside these walls, the harsh
reality of war and melancholy shut out
beyond the velvet ropes.
I appear to be eating alone. Again.
I waited until I felt foolish,
checked the door because sometimes
the bell doesn’t work. Thought maybe you’d
be standing there and we’d laugh
at another near miss.
The second act was well under way
when Martha felt a breeze on the back
of her neck from the curtains
of their box parting. She heard
someone step into the box
behind them.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
This is it. The 30th and final poem for the November Poem-A-Day challenge. I’m glad I participated. I think I’ve got a few poems out of it that will stick around for a while. Today’s prompt was to write a “lessons learned” poem.
Hindsight is 20/20, and so is foresight
They should have sealed it with a kiss
and left together. Never looked back.
They should have known there might not be
another chance.
Except, and here’s the lesson:
There’s always another chance.
Listen to this poem using the player above.
Romeo & Juliet
my therapist thinks we’re tragic
so tragic, in fact,
that when I told him our story, he laughed
not standard therapist behavior, perhaps
but it’s hard to fault the man
when you lay out the facts, line them up neatly
anyone would be incredulous, would doubt our veracity
wonder how the hell something like this could happen
I told him I don’t believe in God
but this whole situation makes me think
there may be a Devil
my mom thinks things happen for a reason
what’s the reason for this?
Shakespeare already wrote Romeo and Juliet
who are we to try to one-up the Bard?