Brine on the Mind–A Poem

NSP Meditations, Oregon Beaches, Poetry , , , , , ,

Brine hung in the air

like drapes in the musty mansion

of a Dickens’ novel.

(I’ve been on a Dickens kick.)

I built a fort to empty my mind

and at first succeeded,

but only for a few minutes.

Off shore, pelicans dive bombed the ocean.

I broke a sweat and pulled off the tattered V-neck.

I used to teach in this sweater,

now I build forts in it for survival.

Not many sweaters ride that arc.

A man who looked like Jesus from the movies,

walked along the trail above me.

I swear he gave me a blessing

and then disappeared into the mist.

Jesus in the mist.

None of that in the New Testament.

Torpor gripped me,

draining everything.

I fight the torpor imposed upon me,

by a formidable enemy

of factotums,

gorged on cannibalism.

I fight with friends, forts, words, eagles,

rivers, trees, birds, beaches and dogs

as my allies.

We fight in the open and we fight in secret.

We always fight on the high road.

The Hummingbird and Lint–A Poem

NSP Meditations, Poetry ,

I sat on the lawn and looked up from a novel

and saw a green hummingbird flit into the

hole in the house where the dryer discharges heat and lint.

The hummingbird emerged seconds later,

carrying lint, and then,

took a drink from a dripping spigot,

sucked some nectar from the rosemary,

executed all these disparate intricate maneuvers,

like the expert maneuvering

the flitting tavern people make

when they smoke, talk, drink and gamble at the same time.

Artifacts Upon Artifacts–A Poem (March 2010)

NSP Correspondents, Poetry

I mowed the lawn today,

a March afternoon,

the Oregon Coast.

A few spring beads still clung to the blades.

Grass never seems dry here.

It’s all pointless, this mowing of lawns.

But we do it anyway.

Can’t let the lawn become a field.

Can’t go with what we really want.

The noise and smoke scattered the robins,

and then I saw it—her white barrette—near the bleached dog bone,

leaning against the foundation,

tinted with mold.

I stopped, idled the mower, picked it up, inspected.

An artifact now.

I put it back where I’d put it before.

It was a summer night.

Fire in the burn barrel.

Fog thick. Fog sprinting past.

Ocean rolling forever behind us.

Good honest whiskey talk.

But there is no such thing.

Even from me to you.

Somehow the barrette fell from your blonde hair,

perhaps my hand the culprit,

and hid itself.

Until two weeks later,

after you left me for the drunk in your band,

when I nearly mowed over it.

I wanted to. I had the power—this time.

One must not destroy artifacts.

Artifacts upon artifacts reveal a story,

if an archaeologist wants to dig.

The historian can make sense of it later.

A Crow’s Wink–A Poem

NSP Meditations, Poetry , ,

I hurled tater tots off the jetty.

Damn it felt good! (Try it.)

The gulls took to the tots

like a jet on a strafing run.

(I always was shit for similes.)

I placed coleslaw atop a black boulder.

A crow landed, gobbled up the slaw,

and flew away with the toothpick.

He had it between his teeth.

He was Groucho Marx.

Yes, I saw that!

It wasn’t a poem.

It was a crow flying with a toothpick in its mouth.

He winked at me as he flew past.

The wink is the poem.

No one who hurls tater tots off a jetty

makes it as a poet in the New Yorker.

Until now.

Youngs Bay Coffee Shop on a Summer Morning

NSP Meditations , , ,

An overcast morning. Youngs Bay appears flat in the distance. I am drinking fine coffee from a fancy mug. I wonder if I write better under the influence of fine coffee instead of Yuban. I need to conduct a study.

A gull flies overhead. I hear traffic coming into town. The weekend has begun. There is no such thing as a weekend for me anymore.

The smell of the impending school year hangs in the air. I used to both relish and dread that smell. It’s no longer part of my life, but still, occasionally, I waft back into the classrooms and recall some of the memorable moments and memorable personalities. There were many.

Lots of chores today. One of them is moving the stock of my Nestucca Spit Press books to a new location. How many tons of these books have I moved over the years? It’s got to be an Oregon record of some kind.

I read the front page story of the NY Times and it was about a rich tech entrepreneur who apparently has gone insane. I think many people into tech or working in tech have gone insane or gravitated to sociopath status. I wonder how historians will compare the tech giants of today with the Robber Barons from yesteryear. To me, the current crop is ten times richer, more powerful, more insidious, infinitely cooler, and in league with The State to monitor and monetize everything about us. They also don’t build libraries in rural cities across the country. One wonders if there will ever be a huge cultural backlash against their power and ideology. It probably is too late to resist because how can you exist in the modern world without using even the most basic form of tech? We are intertwined and enslaved. I have to use the tech giants to post this blog and conduct communication with a potential employer. There just seems no getting around it unless you live off the grid, and I can’t, although I want to.

Maybe there is something to this writing on fine coffee!

Sun is threatening. I actually would prefer a good, tourist-disillusioning summer rain. It’s the only weapon left for the Oregon Coast.

After the chores, the beach beckons. Then a lengthy ass-to-chair session on a new editorial endeavor. Or I will bag the new editorial endeavor and begin a new literary endeavor. There is a difference.

Thoughts on Glen and Other Subjects

NSP Meditations ,

Drizzle falls at the beach. It is early in the morning. I wait in the car for Glen to arrive and then we’ll take our customary long walk and discuss everything under the sun.

Glen is a special new friend who has steeled me against corrosion of my body, mind and spirit. I will be forever grateful for him for the rest of my life and I know we will remain friends for life.

We met when I was standing near a precipice and over that precipice was a void, a sideways abyss. He didn’t so much as pull me back from it, but taught me how to step away. He is one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had.

I am the only one in the parking lot. No gulls or crows to feed the stale vanilla wafers and tortillas I brought for them.

I get out of the car and throw the wafers and tortillas around the parking lot. It’s kind of fun. I get back in the car and wait for them to appear. They always do.

Whenever we meet, Glen always brings me a meal, a book, or an item that might save my life in a natural catastrophe. I brought him a tomato from my parents’ garden.

I decided it was time to dispose of Clyde’s ashes. They are resting in an envelope on the passenger seat. I thought I might spread them on the river at the sanctuary, where I came to love this dog and where we had so many adventures with Bonnie together, where I reanimated as a human being, where I found a new direction for my creative mind. But the beach called to me even though I never took Clyde to the beach. This will be our first and last beach walk together.

Here comes a lone gull. Here comes Glen’s car. It will be good to walk and talk with him after a month-long hiatus.

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