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Sea shells washed

Laid on a towel in the kitchen to dry

Have lost their color

My beachy clothes

Set out to wash later today

Memory of hours

At an airport gate

In the bowels of the dreaded dallas airport

More vivid

Than sunsets and tuna au poivre

Pinot grigio Friuli 

Memories

Settling into neurons and synapses 

To be used at some future date

~~~

i missed seminar. but professor eliot is a peach, and we have arranged for a conference on thursday to make up, so all is well. i'll have to focus. my thoughts are flighty. despite what i wrote above, the sunsets looms large. 

the shells are out of place here, as i knew they would be. i wanted terri to see them. next time i will take terri to the shells, rather than vice versa.

she's a sleep. my dirty girl. my beautiful dirty girl. the sleep of the innocent wronged. my catty sisters drizella and anastasia have nothing good to say about anyone. i will disregard their comments as unworthy. i can promise that my brother doesn't think of her that way; or, if he is thinking along those lines, it's a healthy train of thought. 

more than one have tried to turn the tide on terri.

healthy food and exercise is what i need. then i can think about the way ambrose philip used double spondaic substitution to express literary constipation in "epistle to arbuthnot":

Just writes to make his barrenness appear,

And strains from hard-/bóund bráin./éight línes/a year.

poor guy. 

or, how best to use the white space between stanzas to speak, so to speak, volumes. 

this is good stuff, and much on my mind, as the only reading i did on the beach was from a text on poetic meter & form. i get terribly excited about such things, almost sexually aroused by the intricacies and possibilities of word play and structure of classical poetry. such a wonder, such humor! as i begin to untangle those intricacies and possibilities i drift toward ah! ah! ah! the exquisite interplay between couplets, open and closed, tercets and quatrains, rhymed feminine or not, these little assemblages developed over centuries to convey love and heroic thought and battles and voyages.

but what place does such finery have in our world? can you dress the homeless in it? i shall bring this up at seminar. how can four hudabristic lines locked into a hard drive on a random campus in a random state on a random planet compete with

REVOLUTION

slammed against some equally random mortared wall in some equally random shell-blown city in some equally random country on some equally random planet?

but . . . this is supposed to be about poetry, not polemics. but . . . shouldn't they be one and the same . . . sometimes? poetry as

liberté, égalité, fraternité

or 

we shall be free

or

je suis charlie

~~~

yes, i shall bring this up over tea with professor eliot. what place do heroic couplets have in our world? in this particular world, here, today?

yet, a judge in alabama defied federal law and forbade the issuing of licenses . . . there may be a place for heroic couplets after all . . . 

i shudder at my own thoughts . . . alabama . . . while syria . . . nigeria . . . et al . . .

~~~

interesting what thoughts come to mind after lying on a beach for two days.

~~~

unfortunately, it gets me no closer to finding a topic for my assignment. perhaps i should focus on matters at hand. go for a run or wake terri with sweet kisses?

~~~

there's a tough one.

~~~

but this is getting me nowhere, mere verbiage.

~~~

i am thinking much today of frida kahlo. this is not random. in a world of disconnects, there comes a connection, if only minute. If only a suggestion. tiny. mere. an electron away from non-existence.

~~~

As one thought leads to another, I leave Frida and drift. 

And drift. My eyes close involuntarily, I am so tired.

My waking thoughts and dreams become one. Will

Telemachus find news of his father . . . Kayla Mueller . . . 

Monarch butterflies near extinction . . . farmer’s planting 

Fence row to fence row . . . key lime pie . . . waking terri

To sweet kisses . . . a distance memory confirmed . . . finding

In my mother’s journal, my words, age six: mom, is it okay 

If I tell God that I love girls? and why, oh why, cannot I not 

Remember my childhood prayers . . . sweet cherries . . . beach 

Umbrella, volleyball, marco polo, absolute Citron, TSA, 

6 D, 13 A, sweet oblivion, sunny skies. A yawn, a stretch, 

Morning come’s the sunrise and I’m driven to my bed, an

Hour to sleep, perchance to dream, of something to write. 

~~~

random thoughts leading nowhere.

~~~

i wish there was something i could do, or we could do, to help antoinette come out of herself, her apartment, to laugh, or at least smile a little more. she and nathaniel are in a state of self-imposed exile, and it isn’t doing either of them any good, and it isn’t fair to nathaniel. one cannot live on my sweet lord, poetry, and brown rice. perhaps we’ll see that nathaniel’s weekend spent camping will have changed things, at least a little. perhaps antoinette went out, ventured out. 

i don’t know her history. i can imagine, and i imagine heartbreak. whatever i imagine would be wrong. it always is.

~~~

at a restaurant, while waiting for a table at a restaurant, i sit near the guitarist. he is playing the usual jimmy buffett buffet, this is after all florida, though, not the keys. still, it is the usual fare. he is blind, not completely, enough so that he feels for his glass of wine carefully. 

between songs i tell him i admire his guitar, which is a beautiful gibson. we engage in conversation for a few minutes, as does a couple sitting nearby. he plays well, his voice is low. he tells us a few stories, and then, wine refreshed, returns to his songs. no one is listening. the silence, though, at the end of each song, alerts the dinners to applaud, which they do, politely. 

~~~

is there a poem in there?

~~~

Blissfully Unaware

Jimmy plays song after song

At peace

With his words and his chords

Over the chitty-chatty 

And the tinkily-tinkle of forks on plates

And clinkity-clink 

Of glasses raised in toast

He sings, blissfully unaware

That his music

Is no more than atmosphere

That his talent 

Is being sold for a pittance

And everyone is happy

And this is the way all stories should end

~~~

it seems without a specific assignment i struggle. it turns out, after all, i want structure, but i find it difficult to impose it upon myself. which means i should pursue a career in copy editing, rather than writing. or, more sensibly, pursue a practical career. i could be a cop. i would love to serve and protect. 

~~~

i remember a story about a little boy at summer camp. the imagery was scant, but not so scant as to be a void. the little boy was being led, along with the other campers, through the woods, to a clearing. it was a sunday morning, and they were being led to a clearing in the woods where vespers were being read. 

that’s all i remember of the poem, but i envied that little boy. it seemed quiet and peaceful. i remember, now, that the sky was morning clear and blue. i remember, now, that he thought it rare to be led to such a place, on a such a day.

~~~

i believe that was the how the story resolved. 

~~~

i know there’s a poem in there. and it has been written.

~~~

Can I Live Someone Else’s Life?

~~~

Cabin Six

Morning fog sits on Clear Lake, boys tumble out

Of Cabin Six. Some make for the lake to skip stones.

One is carrying a pail to be filled. It is his day

To mop the cabin floor. Two boys play tetherball.

Before the counselor has time to lead the boys

Through the pine, mosquitoed woods to vespers,

A fight breaks out between two of the campers.

The fighters are two unpopular boys, John and Ollie.

They circle one another, John throws taunts, 

Ollie responds in silence, eyes narrowed, fists up.

We gather to cheer them on. Of the two, we hate 

Ollie all the more, and long to see him with

A bloodied nose. John is the clear favorite. He is

Bigger and stronger. Ollie, is strange. He is different.

He wears hearing aids and speaks incoherently.

He cries easily. He hates baseball. His parents

Were cruel to send him here. Did they think

His misery would make a man of him? 

John is smiling, confident in victory. He has,

As most fighters do, underestimated his opponent,

Under estimated what adrenaline, and a lifetime

Of injustice, can do. The boys, us, cheer and taunt.

John can do no wrong, though his laugh is unsure.

This is new to him. It has been, until this moment, 

His lot to be on the receiving ends of taunts.

They circle, John throws poorly aimed punches

Which Ollie dodges gracefully, while a quick jab

Bloodies John’s nose. Blood. Ollie circles, 

Jabbing to the face, to the stomach. John has

No defense but his smile, which has turned sickly.

The boys, us, quiet, unsure. No one expected this

Of Ollie, though there was little love for John.

As so often happens among boys, the sentiment 

Shifts. John, by his display of weakness,

And inability to stand up to the odd Ollie,

Has earned the entire cabin’s disdain and derision.

Taunts are hurled, now at John, and the cheers 

Are for Ollie. Such is life in Cabin Six, on this morning, 

Before vespers. It seems Ollie’s parents were right.

~~~

my brother told me that story. it isn’t one easily forgotten. but is isn’t my story, and, to repeat the repeated, write about what you know. i quoth professor eliot. 

~~~

so many classical poems are written in iambic pentameter because it comes naturally to the english voice, in a sing-song way:

la lá, la lá, la lá, la lá, la lá . . .

The boy and girl went up the hill to fetch . . . 

what makes poetry interesting is when a bit of the la lá become lá la, or lá lá.

lá la, lá la, lá la, lá la, lá la

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a . . . 

most poems, or songs, combine the steady rhythm with the less so:

Old man take a look at my life

I’m a lot like you were

or

                                          . . . I will not yield

To kiss the ground before young Malcom’s feet

And to be baited by the rabble’s curse.

Though Birnam Wood be come to Dusinane,

And thou opposed, being of no women born, 

Yet, I will try the last, Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on McDuff,

And damned be he that first cries Hold! Enough!

~~~

since no one can do it better, it’s tempting not to try. and, my grade has drifted from b+ to a-, and being uncomfortable with lofty heights, i rationalize that i can play the slacker this week.

~~~

baby, oh babycakes . . . come play with me. 

~~~

pause for a word from our sponsor.

~~~

then, lovers smoking contently in sweet afterglow.

~~~

i am getting nowhere, and feel like i’ll never get there. i need inspiration.

~~~

how can i write what i know, when nothing has happened to me?

~~~

On the Beach

Shell collectors walk the tide line

While children build castles made of sand.

Blankets are spread, parents reap the reward

Of hard work, and a vacation well earned.

Well formed men and shapely women, all

Scantily clad, serve and volley, while the 

cabaña boy adjusts umbrellas and offers towels.

Few are in the water, though the Gulf is calm,

Mild waves shush the shore, a lone man

On a paddle board breaks the horizon line.

Books are read, pages turned, life is oh so fine.

A head turns, then another. Before long

All are turned, cameras are brought out,

Dolphins, two, are arcing and arching, mere

Meters out to sea, glistening, breaking 

The surface in ellipses . . . as they glide above

And below, above and below the salty sea,

Gliding, diving, emerging to catch a breath

Only to dive and glide again and again, diving

into the salty depths, and I, alone, so far

From home and bed and love, watch and sigh.

~~~

‘twill have to do. my b+ is assured. at best. i am not sated. i am ravenous. i must away.

~~~

tra la. 

~~~

references to:

Cinderella

“Poetic Meter & Poetic Form,” Paul Fussell

“4 + 20 Years Ago,” Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young

“Hamlet,” Wm. Shakespeare

“Old Man,” Neil Young

“MacBeth,” Wm. Shakespeare

growing up listening to my parents' "albums" was clearly formative.

this one is for my brother. i love you, bro.