Monthly Archives: February 2019

The planting

I had to support his brain as he disembarked, leaving the ship’s queer gravity. He was their monarch, born one in a billion. Emblazoned on the pale pink of his forehead was a galaxy with named suns. I have never become used to his elongated cranium, its soft translucent skin revealing a venous pattern of blue, purple, red. I felt his people’s deference to him, and was honored to have such a place amongst them. As rehearsed, the retinue bore his chair to an area of scorched earth. In vestigial hands, he held a vial. One of our number, using a cylindrical instrument of contained heat, neatly extracted a deep core of earth. Then, the Lord let fall his treasure. With ceremony, the core was replaced and tamped down. An attendant brought an urn of liquid and poured it out upon the site. In my third ear, I hear There will be plenty. And, at the last, You too will be of plenty.

You see, I also carry a seed.

In the waiting room

With the exception of an elderly couple, and a young couple with a toddler, I think everyone in the X-Ray waiting room, other than me, was staring at their phone.
It was the “please take a number” system, and I lucked out by having mine called about two minutes after I sat down.  It was, however, just a preliminary registration, and you still had to wait for your attendant to call you in.

To pass the time, I normally just people watch, hopefully without being too obtrusive.  If someone makes eye contact (increasingly unlikely these days), I smile and say a couple of pleasantries, perhaps remarking on their cute baby.  Today, there was silence, except for the old man and woman speaking in low tones, and the woman behind the desk, who would call out every few minutes “number eighteen?  Is there a number eighteen?”  After the third or fourth repetition of this, I suggested she could take a coffee break.

A man and woman walked in with a seven or eight year old boy.  They sat down without taking a number. The boy amused himself by picking up books, dropping them on the floor, running around the room , trying on another kid’s hat, and…..you get the picture.  His parents sat looking at their phones, and finally, after some glances of displeasure from across the room, the dad grabbed him by the arm, shook him, yelled at him, and plunked him down in a chair, whereupon he started to wail.  “Number eighteen, number eighteen?” sounded again, and they realized they needed to get up and grab the ticket.

The young couple with the toddler, who was remarkably well behaved, had him sit on his Mom’s knee, and she began to read quietly to him, from a Dr. Seuss book.  She made each character come alive, and her child was in rapt attention, his glance going from the book, to his mother’s eyes, and back.  It struck me that this scene made a little tableau that was like something out of a Christmas card, or a child’s storybook.  I was so taken, that the woman looked up and caught me staring.  I reddened a little, and smiled.  She smiled back, and continued with the reading.

I am nothing if not a sentimentalist, and this seemingly blissful family brought me back to the days when I used to read or sing my own children to sleep, and I thought “if they remember nothing else, I hope at least that they remember that.”

There’s no coming back

might it be
that you hear me only
as a poorly played horn
a bothersome oboe

as you rest in the wheeled chair
with your gown of faded flowers
and a tray of uneaten food before you
I think you have left little of yourself
to control this bird’s body
its care no longer a concern

its eyes they watch something
but not this room
not this person who is me

are you privy to the divine
forsaking all else

a week ago
inches from you
I cried.
you knew
at least that.
you knew,
for there was a wistful smile
a swimming back

and now
I make my peace
because I know that you take with you
something of me

Dream twenty four: in the funnel

I lean in from a cloud,
spying this lake of slate,
in the never evergreen bush.
The sunny side has big boats three,
yachting this shiny blue day.
Merrymakers loll on the decks.
Shapely girls lean out on the prow rails,
icons of the Titanic.
I hear their cries and laughter
over the gulls.
In my monstrous vertebrae I feel,
from southern climes,
the approach of electric grey,
with green barely seen.
No weather master am I,
and so I take a lungful of fluffy steam,
stadium-sized,
to blow a Southwind warning.
On deaf ears it falls.
They jeer at the momentary gale,
for I cannot blot the sun.
And then, the sounding storm.
The waters riddled with rain.
They scurry like aimless ants,
furling sails.
The stormfront’s infantry:
three vacuum funnels,
all of contrast sharp,
all of bright chrome.
Slowly they revolve at the outset.
Then, of a sudden, they part ranks at speed,
like silver balls released in a trice
by pinball plunger.
I fear for the fate of the four score on deck.
The spouts harass the boats,
like bothering bees,
and there is much terror and clinging.
They do a devil dance,
then congregate, as if by design,
at the North’s sandy shore.
Stay, they do.
The mile long lake they suck and spew,
into the clouds, as fine as dew.
And the sailors of the weekend?
Their upright ships do gently rest
at lower elevations.
Stuck in the mucky silt of centuries.

This thing

He waits for me, each night,
of late,
in the cottony caves ‘twixt longer dreams.
The script:
I’ll be born once more from ectoplasm,
and flutter down on nightwings,
like settling leaves in the cease of the breeze.
He knows I come.
That I can’t stay away.
But I always wish to startle him,
so I slide,
a form of translucent grey,
across his stalactite ceiling.
But he smells me
and smiles a slow smile.
Bovine, feline, canine by turns.
In the voice of The Rock Biter, he says
PULL UP A CHAIR.
Of what form will he be tonight?
Sometimes, we play the name game.
Threenight ago, he was ratlike, but stood erect.
In his black top hat, he spoke sneering syllables,
saying he had eaten five pies and I was to guess his name.
His scaly tail twitched and whipped,
and his sharp yellow teeth champed at the bit
until I said
nimmy nimmy nit not, your name is Tom Tit-Tot.
His eyes grew wide and bloodshot,
and he reached forth with chickenfoot hands.
Screeching in the rat language, he ran about,
like a balloon let go and blubbering out its air.
And impaled himself upon a stalagmite.
I went home.
Just last night, he was all in white feathers,
and was duck-billed.
He wore a blue vest with brass buttons,
and had a sailor’s cap.
I said Where are your pants, Donald?
Whereupon he let out a loud quaaaack,
and pounded on the table.
Whereupon all things bright and beautiful winked out.
And tonight?
Ah yes, tonight.
I must tell you this, writing as it is, from the Seventh Circle.
Tonight, I parachuted as usual, down from his spiny ceiling.
All is damp dripping darkness,
but, in a far corner, there is a golden light.
I hear a rhythmic squeaking, and someone hums along with it.
There sits a small creature, sitting on a stool beside a spinning wheel.
Piles of gold surround him.
PULL UP A CHAIR!  it says.
We’ve much to discuss!
Topics of import, like
is tea better than coffee?
is an apple better than an orange?
what happens to a bubble if it is left to float undisturbed?
if you collect the powder from a moth’s wings,
can you be made to fly?
We mull it over.
Prevaricate.
Debate.
But, it is tiring, discussing such worldly things.
There are no clear answers.
We begin to yawn widely, ready for the second sleep.
I say By the way, you look a little rumpled tonight, Stiltskin.
Whereupon he takes off his pointy hat, throws it at me,
and stamps with one foot on the stony floor.
Our world bursts asunder, and our feet go from under.
Into abyss we tumble, grabbing and grappling,
but all is gossamer.

What meets the eye

There was a little girl who brought her little girl to piano lessons, thrice a week, or was it twice? They lived in a wintry white town, weighted down with more and more snow each day, in the past week. This girl drove a red pickup, and, each appointed night at 7:00, she would pull up to the curb, bring her child to the door of the house, then sit and smoke in her truck while waiting. At first, she did not notice the old man across the street, being concerned with her phone and cigarettes. When she did look up, to flick a butt out her window, she saw that he was doggedly trying to start his snow blower in the dimly lit garage. She grinned a little, to herself, and went back to Candy Crush. Ten more minutes went by before she knew it, and she saw that he had ceased his labors. He stood, shoulders slumped, with one foot up on a stack of old tires. She thought he was crying, but he was only catching his breath. When her little girl came out the front door, she took her and strapped her into the car seat. By the time they made ready to go, she stole one more glance at the old man. He hadn’t given up yet, and was starting to shovel a pathway by hand through the foot deep drifts. Shaking her head, she thought “crazy old fool, he’s gonna kill himself. You hear about it all the time.”

The old man was confounded. Why wouldn’t it start? There was fresh gasoline (super), antifreeze, and a new spark plug. Try as he might, no use. He knew it wasn’t flooded, ’cause he’d only primed it a couple of times. He’s used to seeing cars pull up across the street, but he doesn’t take too kindly to being stared at, and especially to being laughed at. He takes her grin to be a mocking one, and, coupled with her greenish hair, nose ring, and neck tattoo, she fits his idea of a young punk. hmph, or something like that, he thinks. After catching his breath from pulling at that blasted starter (he counted 49 times), he got out his shovel and looked doubtfully down his drifted driveway. Well, there was nothing for it. He would clear at a least a small pathway before his daughter got home.

Two nights later, and there was the girl again. And there he was again, with his red plastic shovel. She watched him take scoops out of the white drifts, then pause for a few moments, leaning on the shovel. As he attacked the snow for a third time, she got out of her truck.

Oh no.  Is she actually gonna talk to me?  he thought.  And she came, still puffing her smoke.  “Still can’t start your blower, huh?  What else you got in your garage there?”  “I’ve just got me this shovel, is all.”  “Okay, but what’s that I see back there?  Isn’t that one of those big scoops you push along?”  “Yeah, I can’t push it”.  “Let me try”.
And in the time it took to light up two more smokes, she had it done.  “Hey, can’t you get someone to fix that blower?” says she. “My cheque don’t come ’til the end of the month.” says he.  “Well, mister, my boyfriend’s a mechanic and he runs a snow plow too.  He’ll come and fix it, never mind.  And on the real bad days, I’m tellin’ him to come do your drive.”

And so, in the dark sparkles, Erica puts her two hands on his shoulders, turns him around, gives him a pat on the behind, and says “Now you can go have a cuppa tea.”
He turns back to her, wipes his tears, and says “You come too.  And bring the little girl.”

 

If I should die before I wake

Shocked out of brooding dream
and evil education.
A match is struck, a flare of bright sound.
It brings semiconsciousness,
but illuminates naught but contrived shadows.
They make weasel movements,
peeking obscenely through the blinds of the high up window.
What are they, eh? What are they?
In sudden fear, the tongue cleaves to the palate.
A scrabbling is heard within the false ceiling,
as of excited crabs in legion, far from the sand.
Transmuted, by faithless imagination, into spiders’ horde.
They spill through crevices and knit
a shawl, a caul, a shroud.
A sack of suffocation.
Adrenalin’s injected into a mortified heart.
Too much, it seems. It runs apace,
pursued by a murder of crows
and the blackest of harpies, whipping them on,
but fading. Faded by the day.