I swore, once, that the poem
I was struggling with would be my last.
Actually I swore that more than once,
several, maybe mamy times in fact.
In my defense, that poem
and the others that followed were
each the last I wrote
under their respective oaths,
so there was a fulfillment,
however partial, of my vow.
I am not making such a vow
with this one, however, and before
you say it, yes it is a poem
despite what you may think of it.
I never imagined any of this,
couldn’t have you correctly note,
but I imagined many things
that did not, could not exist,
that after all is one purpose
of dreams and nightmares.
I did imagine writing, words
shaped to fit odd places, never
round pegs or square holes,
but fluid, shifting shapes
like lava seeking escape
from the earth, a lamp.
I never imagined any of you,
couldn’t have, save the one
or two who were there
and you could not have
changed that much, as I
haven’t. It is unimaginable.
Each morning, before
I finish my morning cappuccino,
I scan my email, hoping to find
a perfect poem that has
gone forever unclaimed.
I have enough skill
to alter it sufficiently
that I can safely claim it
as my own, if the owner
ever were to appear,
by adding, After XXXXX.
All I have ever found
is the odd limerick and
frankly I can to better
on my own, not to mention
I have been to Nantucket.
Step into a hotel elevator
and you will see the sign
“Elevator certificate is located
In the General Manager’s Office.”
If Einstein were to come back
to life and see this, would he
inquire as to where he could find
the Special Manager’s Office?
And George S. Patton would
no doubt bellow out a demand
that the Corporal Manager
stand front and center.
But as a lawyer, now retired
I am far more interested
in learning the precise office
location of the Specific Manager.
Arising into night
the departing sun
tangoes away with its cloud,
memories soon forgotten.
Other dancers take the stage,
now a romance, now
a war dance, feathers raised
in prayer to unseen gods.
Night will soon bring
its curtain across this stage,
the avian cast’s final bows taken
the theatre will darken, awaiting
another performance,
a new script tomorrow,
but for this solitary moment
of frozen grace, it is we
who write the conversation,
our lines sung by actors who
know only nature’s
unrelenting song.
He had long since decided that language was impossible, the English language in particular. He had acquired all manner of dictionaries, and had searched the web, using it as a reverse dictionary. But all too often the language came up short. Words at best approximated what he meant, what he saw, but to get even close, he needed to string adverbs and adjectives to his nouns and verbs until he had an ungodly mess. He knew the solution and set out to implement it. As time went on, he filled notebook after notebook, flash drive after flashdrive (redudency was a virtue in this case, he knew) with the new words. And he was finally satisfied, like Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty. For now when he used a word, it meant exactly what he wished it to because he created the word.
Why do I write, you ask.
I’m a writer, so I should have
a good answer, or at least a glib one.
I could say I write for others
but you would ask who
those others are, and smile knowingly
when I have no answer.
I could say I write for myself,
and that would be true enough,
but rather sad and egotistical,
for the thoughts alone should suffice.
I will probably choose
not to answer you, and I will
suffer that sneer you will adopt,
but I am a writer, you know,
so being sneered at
is hardly anything new.
We only see the present as history,
by day history is a matter of minutes,
by night of seconds, years or centuries.
There is no future to be seen, only
imagined, the mind writing a story
that can never be read, never told.
It is only when we close the eyes
that the present truly exists,
independent of the past, free
and the past is merely waves
washing over and around us,
and the mind can find freedom.
Each year
in Pamplona
the bulls begin
their slow descent
down the narrow streets
gaining speed
nostrils flaring
muscle and sinews taut
they forge ahead
a white wave
preceding them
in their mad dash
and each year
there is one,
some years two
who, by slip of foot
or lapse of judgment
meet the horns
of the lead bull
who in disgust
snorts
“this one
is no
Hemingway.”
First published in Defenestration ,Vol XVI Issue 2 August 2019
Now take up the pen
and write economically
lest you run out of
First published in Defenestration, Vol. XVI issue 2 August 2019
an old writer and his words 