A Small Diversion

Three minutes before the alarm, 

which you set some nights before bed, 

but not others, you attempt to fool the clock 

into thinking you are still asleep. 

[LSS, 9/30/20]

Vaccination Blues

Arms ache at the injection sites 

and heavy keys refuse to unlock 

the book.  Domesticity is a phantasm

here on the frontier.  There is more 

to do than wait for morning.

There is more.  

[LSS, 9/29/20]

Star Gazing in Deer Season

The first commuter bus of the day 

wends the valley below, loaded 

with regulars and off-island strays 

and a drowsy driver imagining 

an erotic ending to the dream 

his alarm wouldn’t allow him 

to complete. I can hear him 

not seeing the buck in the road, 

and I can see Orion 

dropping his useless bow.

[LSS, 9/29/20]

Sunday Evening Retrospective in the Dead Battery Museum (Early Winter 1977)

 

cigarette and pipe smoke

bottles of locally produced beer

fifty-two playing cards

unintended gender role separation

 

remembering how different it felt

knowing how common it was

wishing it were meaningful

to you and you and you

[RK, 9/29/2020]

 

 

 

 

Arachnoid Mater

 

greeting hands slip among protective web filaments

what about that wine, was it domestic or fantastic?

napkins covered with scrawled

sonnets, mathematical equations, caricatures

 

the maître d’ bangs doors, curses the sous chef

fires the clumsy waiter, flirts with the bus boy

you nod, falsify sleepiness for the faithful

 

you fall forward into the next week

Monday is wash day

you separate whites and darks

tunics streaked with mud, coal dust, grease,

handbills, torn train tickets, lumpy hotels

the detritus of your travel dialog

 

this firm composure

fled to falter

fleshed out until Friday

[RK, 9/29/2020]

 

 

 

World’s Largest Ball of String

 

taxidermist’s two headed calf

faded sideshow advertisements

 

playing cards eternally spread beneath

the insect mottled automaton magician

 

5¢ coin slot sealed with electrical tape

amazed that anything was ever five cents

 

place of pride in a Baraboo warehouse

euphemistically called a circus museum

 

that ball of string big as an asteroid

trails a tiny trickle of cotton

 

Ariadne and Theseus

puppeteer and marionette

 

this daily labyrinth shift between

journal entries and bedsheets on the line

[RK, 9/29/2020]

 

Dura Mater

 

dural reflections all the same as

at the same time as, conflated with
measured or treasured

 

flimsy bus transfers from 1982 vs a collection of scissors

arranged oddments vs free flow stitching

broken organic structures vs purposefully rough circles

oyster vs moon snail

hands slipping in fog vs non-poisonous moon jellyfish

consideration vs a 4H pencil

 

calcium carbonate structures

best illustrate these reflections

sinistral and dextral chirality

 

twin Antipholus of Syracuse

for example, belated muse

“I’ll say as they say, and persever so,

and in this mist at all adventures go.”

[RK, 9/29/2020]

A Counting-Out Rhyme

Tender zipper, tenderloin, 

tender resignation.

Prayer wheel, slot machine, 

unknown destination.

[LSS, 9/28/20]

Arachnoid Mater

The maître d’opens a hidden door

between the apartments 

and now your own two hands 

come together again and exchange 

a friendly greeting before settling  

in for the meal, during which they 

trade stories about their recent travels, 

draw flattering portraits of one another 

on their napkins, share a bottle of wine. 

But when they get up to leave,

they lose their composure and trip 

on Sunday evening lingering 

in its usual spot on the threshold.

[LSS, 9/27/20]

Pia Mater

 

a thin membrane separates

mammals and plants

ego and the social contract

anima and animus

my broken toe and yesterday’s

pterodactyl

 

tyrannosaurus, pachycephalosaur, triceratops

erectus, habilis, Australopithecus

sapiens, sapient

sapped of strength

 

sliver of thin membrane

pierced, notated, calipered, clamped

mind held in a liquid embrace

slip

slip

slipstream

it will suffice

[RK, 9/27/2020]

Infinite Mirror

Consider the oyster, 

its reflection emerging 

from the pencil 

turning in your hand.

Consider the moon snail, 

its rasping tongue carving

a door into the oyster’s 

guarded interior.

[LSS, 9/25/20]

World’s Largest Ball of String

Both the puppeteer

and the marionette

are the dreamers

of this poem. 

[LSS, 9/24/20]

Room Lit by a Bottle of Miracle-Gro

Your hands slip 

for a brief moment

out of the fog, 

but I can’t tell 

if you’re holding out 

or waiting to receive

some invisible platter.

[LSS, 9/23/20]

 Mirror Image

The burned-out coil 

in the compact fluorescent,

the spiral of slug scat 

on the bathroom window.

[LSS, 9/20/20]

Attempting to Fit In, I Split in Two

 

“I hate you.”

“Really?”

“I’m joking.

You beat me at the last two games.

I don’t actually hate you.”

 

I seek, strive, in the middle ground of social interactions

what is appropriate

what is acceptable

when, how much, toward whom

 

The fine tuning of a boring ‘lifestyle’

where

placid ennui, lack of extremes,

discarded emotions take root

thrive, overburden my riotous garden

with leafy tangled vines that all look the same

 

odd, quirky, spur-of-the-moment

comments and actions

tamped down or rejected

 

bottle rockets and roads less taken

versus

pablum scooped from endless bowls

[RK, 9/20/2020]

Scheduled Maintenance

The wall slides open,

rolling on bearings greased 

by something much larger 

than the force of your

agenda, your paper cudgel, 

now drifting away in a dream.

[LSS, 9/17/20]

Rusty Tool

The wrench falls.

CLANG.

No surprise.

But what if

the wrench unleashed 

took a detour

before it hit 

the floor, looking 

through windows, floating 

out an open door, surveying 

the island, the ocean, even 

visiting the mainland 

to tour a museum or two, 

before boarding the last 

ferry home and landing 

at your feet?

What sound 

would it make then?

Would it even bother

to come back home?

[LSS, 9/15/20]

The Language of Trees

During conference calls

I often excuse myself:

There is something I need to do.

Then I slip into the hallway

trying to listen to the conversation

going on without me,

but all I hear is the sound 

of the pruned trees licking 

their wounds, the maples 

coordinating their fall 

convention, the soliloquy 

of the burl forming 

at the base of skull.

[LSS, 9/15/20]

I Ching, Hexagram 19 (Approaching)

 

for the first place I am rooted in place

face your air finger tracings

how you delineate

boundaries, walls, limits

even while clanging about

spontaneity and impulsiveness

 

the narrow, conservative way of

acceptable social behavior limits

truly spontaneous or impulsive

words and actions, ways of seeing

 

these shallow points of view sculpted

with thread-width non-vision

sparkless, passionless

the glacial creep of conversations, conversions

corrections, commitments to momentary decision-making

inevitable faux pas and Freudian slip

abounding

 

I twist my social self into the appropriate poses

self-adjust, remember to exhale

agreeable bland phrases

I create equilibrium smoothies

with spirit level, pendulum

weedwhacker, heavy scythe

 

for the last place I am adrift

in a contained space, nodding

by turns complacent, sleepy

in time with cosmic wheels

even as acceptable definitions

form, daily, and vanish, daily

leaving no traces

[RK, 9/14/2020]

 Bird Note

Your words and mine flow 

through different pipelines 

coming from the same well. 

[LSS, 9/14/20]

Test Results

My blood and personality types 

are a perfect match, with one 

having the added distinction 

of being positive.

[LSS, 9/14/20]

Types of Poems

The list poem,

the lost poem.

The lust poem,

the last poem.

The least poem,

the love poem.

[LSS, 9/13/20]

Return

tropical storm winds

evening’s rain showers

intermittent but constant

 

the silent simplicity of

hands, touching

[RK, 9/13/2020]

 Windowsill

Dead birds, buttons and zippers removed

from worn-out clothes, coyote vertebrae

strung like beads on a wire, the progress

of an overripe pear, a strong draft saying

the West is on fire, it’s coming your way,

the blank space I left by returning 

the dried weeds and driftwood to the sea.

[LSS, 9/12/20]

 Aphid Ranch

While the ants herd aphids 

to the tender growth at the tip 

of the lemon verbena, preparing

to milk them for sugar, 

I flag the book I'm reading 

with sticky notes, each small slip 

a drop of honeydew for later.

[LSS, 9/10/20]

Book of Days

We have farmed the land

of this marriage more than

forty years, turning back

into its soil every unbearable 

darkness, every hellish day,

craving this work, this endless

labor that is the very thing

keeping us alive.

[LSS, 9/10/20]

 Dance Contest

Where is the choreographer clapping 

that incessant beat just when I am trying 

to fall sleep?  The trees have been dancing 

all day without rest, and now, finally,

one tired alder shows signs of giving up 

and collapsing here in bed beside me. 

[LSS, 9/8/20]

I Ching, Hexagram 58

 

inked notations in ruled notebooks

slung from one bag to another

toted to the next destination

random pens and pencils

pages succinctly numbered

one through fourteen in

tightly woven script

tightly woven nerves

 

labeled notebooks that will be

thrown away by unbiased and thorough

future estate sale coordinators

 

how I caught you unaware

your open heart and willingness

your wonky hip and metal cane

your red flags painted green

your guard let down

 

now miles past corrective surgery

your regret fills weeks piled up

in untidy heaps of dirty laundry

 

autonomous and independent

you attempt to shake off and hold onto

what you did not choose

the one-time caregiver you simultaneously

accept and reject

[RK, 9-8-2020]

I Ching, Hexagram 12

 

logs across rural roads

a Y-turn in a rented car

not meant for rural roads

 

anger flares on damp, narrow trails

securely above the clouds

on a mountain not meant for clouds

 

a rotary telephone rings exactly ten times

in an underground ego-id complex

not meant for communication

 

forgiving is a push-you-pull-me effect

with noticeable stress flare-ups

not meant for deep concentration

 

grinding labor helps one forget

self-imposed commitments

in a season not meant for completeness

[RK, 9/8/2020]

 Corner Grocery

The woman standing between the waterfall

and the mountain wall remembers 

her first disappearing act, the one she performed 

soon after she was allowed to run errands alone. 

The butcher in the bloody apron 

maybe asked a simple question, maybe

What does the little girl want?

or maybe he said nothing at all, just held her 

gaze for a moment too long, then a moment 

longer. Maybe she backed away without giving 

him her mother’s list, knowing full well

the meaning of the word carnivore and that 

it would be a long time before she would ever 

eat meat for dinner again. Or maybe she just remembers

running home and hiding under her mother’s skirt, 

between the waterfall and the mountain wall.

[LSS, 9/6/20]

Yet Another Autumn

 

Gulf of Mexico literally the color of

watered down split pea soup

where sky meets horizon

blue or gray, a million gull feathers

suspended until sunset, scintillating/ed

 

feathers coat evening’s dark water

octopus rise up from below

hammerheads pluck the narcissus

imagine a sky lit with nostalgia

 

tumbled conchs burrow against

the undertow of September

elusive fragmentary promises

left on the line to dry

instead, together, they bleach in the sun

fake bedsheets become white lies stained

with Prussic acid, red and yellow songbirds,

discarded fish bones, and soggy seagull songs

 

[RK, 9/3/2020]

Household Deities

The restless gods in the attic, 

the basement, the bedroom closet,

anoint their limbs with sweat 

from my twisted sheets. 

The spider on the windowsill 

suggests I remove the screen 

and allow her children to come inside 

for breakfast. The flies in the kitchen sink 

become alarmed and scatter 

at the sound of our approach. 

[LSS, 9/5/20]

Trapeze

A new world climbs the ladder

of the morning to-do list,

the safety net mended overnight

to catch even the smallest curl

falling from my pencil sharpener.

[LSS, 9/3/20]