Because We Could

Gotcha some bullheads, I see.  Hap

pulled us into dock, bullheads carpeted

our boat's floor, fins surrounded our feet.

When they're biting, nothin's

more fun than pulling 'em in.. 

Ready to pull anchor, the first strikes

stunned us.  Our reels spun and rods

tipped as catfish dipped for the deep.

My dad's excitement nearly swallowed

the stump of his partly chewed cigar.

Discarding my Hemingway novel,

I leaned into grace under pressure

to land fish after defenseless fish.

Goose Martin and I hit a strike one night

and filled a garbage can while it lasted.

The wide yellow heads adorned with timeless

barbels rested in the alien world of our sport

while knowing eyes mocked our amusement.

Three pounds of infinitely formed flesh

tempted by minnow disguised hooks.

Underwater boxcars, they lack the stylish

design of the sleek northerns and walleyes,

elusive muskies, the flare of the bluegills.

Scavengers, bottom feeders, controllers

of the night, their defensive fins disabled.

What shall we do with these?  We have

a couple of nice walleye for our supper,

and we're leaving in the morning.

I'll smoke the suckers. Hap eyed the catch

with relish, mixing mental barbecue sauce.

The last fish gasped for air as my departing

sneaker nudged his dream,  visioned minnows

swam just beyond his open mouth.

Herding Socks

I've given up on socks. The washer

eats them for its lunch. The dryer melts

them down for its own mysterious

purposes, welding art behind the lint

trap, strange alchemies that only dryers

understand. What few I am able to rescue

like a bag of puppies tossed to the road

running past a likely home, I struggle

to match. Litter mates, twins from birth,

but beyond the obvious argyles, stripes,

and patterns, I'm at a loss with the blues

and blacks. They wait patiently in baskets

littered about the house for desperation

to pull near matches for a walkabout

under dark pants. On their good days,

the cats upend their lairs and drag

them on trips only socks can appreciate.

(For Tweetspeak Poetry's laundry giveaway)

Red Eyes and All That

The words of my poem
spilled from my very own blood,
captured the fleet feet
of my lamb’s innocence,
yet the judge was only Abel to see
the basket of lentils
sorted in iambics, parsed
in quatrains that grained
the wilder growth. Cain I
care for darkened lessons
of acceptance and rejection?
No, my active voice
sounds deadened
past tense.

Havarti in the Highest

Is it the way the word rolls off the tongue
that delights the senses even before
the cheese is chosen? I'll have Havarti,
I tell this deli sous chef, his knife poised
for a lasting imprint on the block
of buttery goodness about to climax
my roast beef sub. Danish
slices topping 100% purebred
American Angus, garnished with dark
brown English mustard. My taste buds
jealously watch the wheat roll warming,
the cheese bonding and bubbling
while my ears ring with "Havarti!"

Who Planted Those Grapes?

Clipping loaded stems from the bunch, tasting

succulent globes, skins stretched on juiced

flesh, I live only in the moment. Whose hands placed

the cuttings into the moist earth, tended and watered

virgin plants, shepherded creeping tendrils into fruition?

Opening the new jar of olives, I ponder the trees

in a sandy land far removed from the verdant green

of my Louisiana landscape.  The interconnection

between hands that open and hands that plant,

hands that harvest and hands that bottle

provides the link, the connection, establishes

the patterns that reveal our selfhood, our identity

on a plane, plumbed, sheered, consummate,

completely beyond our own finite consciousness,

enigmatic as the patterns of DNA to an ancient seer.

Longing for Cheese

And the women come and go

            speaking of Vermeer.

They wonder why his women

            yearn for cheese. Take

the Girl with a Pearl Earring.

            Her full face shows she's

no stranger to the fat content

            of good Dutch cheese.

Mouth partly open, her eyes

            linger on the plate

just beyond the viewer's eye,

            mouth watering with

the taste remembered over time.

            His full-figured Milkmaid

pours cream and thinks of cheese

            she will add to the crusty

bread in the basket of her table.

            Even the woman, fingers

on the virginal's keyboard,

             in The Music Lesson

can't wait to cut the cheese. 

Ode to Drawers that Fail to Close

The delicate balance between

drawers and dresser contains

the personality of the bedroom

piece. Whether it's called bureau,

commode, highboy or simply

a chest of drawers, its disposition

is destined by the tongue in groove

of the fit of drawers to cabinet.

Drawers ajar, strangely angled,

calls for assistance shouted

from the ill-fitted oak mark

the lack of created skill. Sired

by uncertain hands, the tongue

lolls loosely out of the mouth

of the imbecilic wood. Socks

are destined to peep beneath

the folds of speech. Their obscene

toes lick their cornered chops.

Foot in mouth teeters dangerously

between decorum and decadence

in the corner of the room. It bids

me enter an ill-fitted world where

who I am and what is wanted

never matches. Argyles and stripes

seek a destiny where only silken

solids are allowed. Woolen threads

are coarse and scratch the surface

in ways the feet can never hide.

Caelestis

Is there a shred of decency

behind the marble shroud

that cloaks your comely form?

Within your crystalline breast,

the near warmth of virgin

idealism must beat its adagio

of distant impulse, its forgotten

whisper of modest perfection.

Somewhere deep within

created form a message

must escape your silent lips,

a signal subverting masculine

logic of your portrayal.

If goddess you be, confound

this metamorphic hardening,

licentiousness unleashed.

Sylla

Beware of a crown seen

in another's liver. Emotions

not cleansed from the blood

are deadly to the soul. The liver

knows the liver and speaks the words

of ever-renewing passion. Control

is forfeited as hubris reigns,

and the Promethean scourge

burns in unceasing destruction.

The Layoffs

Words like doppelgängers hang

in the head. Two swinging bodies

on time-burdened ropes. Forced

retirement meant to mask the eyes

that look backward to purpose

and meaning, the swing of routine

woven into productivity damned

by unfettered nihilistic chaos.

Bodies stiffening, no longer

aware of the breeze that disturbs

the hair on distended heads.

Minds floating above the initial

shock of uselessness, crashing

against glass ceilings whose

identity is no more than figments

of deteriorating imagination.

The stench of released fluids

wafts over the cognitive fight

for reason. The phoenix sleeps

on chilled ashes behind the water

cooler. Yesterday's sardonic quip

gurgles in the clogged pipes

about to spew outrage and disbelief

on yet another unsuspecting victim. 

Testing Cicero

Anxious to hone his rhetorical skills,

the ambitious eighteen-year-old

pored over the dialogues of Cicero.

But it wasn't form but function

that shaped the intelligence

of young Augustine. Looking beyond

classical discourse, the student saw

into the mind of the master of rhetoric

and hungered for the wisdom

that reason held. In reason's circle

time is a never ending dimension

that brings the student toe to toe,

mind to mind with the master's

best assumptions. The challenge

is waged, the refutation laid.