Poetry Challenge, Week 4

NOTE:

I have put 5 days here as week 4, and will post the remaining 4 as week 5, simply for a little balance in numbers.

Day 22

Dream Job in Maine

Simple, you think, to sit

all day and take people’s money,

allow them to drive onward,

to visit the places they’ve only dreamed

of seeing up close. Onward 

to Khatadin, Baxter State Park,

Down East to Eastport with its tides

rising 32 feet, boats on long leashes,

up and down with the moon’s pull.

Simple, you think, to clock 

in and sit. It’s my dream job

I tell people who laugh out loud

until they get that I am serious.

Oh no, not that I want to sit,

or to collect coins, make change

for a twenty, or suck in fumes

from traffic. It’s a way of seeing

that I want, a way to be more.

I want to see people, relaxed 

or stressed, angry or in love, all

driving somewhere, maybe escaping

from lives they’ve sunk to over time.

I want to be able to watch

them eating their sandwiches, slurping

coffee, putting on lipstick, hear music

that keeps them awake as they drive. 

I want to see parents quieting kid uprisings,

or changing diapers leaned over

back seats as they whizz through my gate.

Poet-in-Residence at Exit 7, I’ll write

this microcosm of driving and living.

I’ll make you understand

how all of us are driving somewhere,

all of us have to pay the toll.

Day 23

Flags

Red, white, and blue, waving 

at every ball game or parade.

We stand, hands over hearts, tears 

streaming like the banner itself.

But what of the humble purple flag

flower that grows in the garden, 

raising itself to the sky

without a single hand over a single heart?

How short the life it lives, how much

it depends upon the passion of bees

to carry itself forward another generation, 

how it lives in the shadow of broader blooms

with more impressive leaves. Is the flag

it waves, each petal it presents to the sun,

less important than a patriotic thrill,

a political review? I venture outside today

to drop a tear on it, to water it well

with my admiration, to see it’s brief day

as something blessèd. This is my patriotism. 

Day 24

Night Music, circa 1973

When the quiet hours that wait 

beyond the day...

music plays on the stereo

and in my head, burning from too much 

of too much. The songs try to settle me,

but rain storms my memories, 

making sleep unlikely. I shut off the light, 

try to banish visions

I can’t control, the shade of you 

in the corner that won’t leave me alone tonight. 

I curse you and pray for quiet sleep. 

Love steals my dignity. I watch the fools’ circus 

play on and on. Here’s to the songs 

we used to sing, the times we used to know. 

I hear it. I hear it. 

Your breathing fills the house.

Amazing grace is all I need, 

what I am denied tonight.

There is such a lot of world, so many

lovers, but all I see, all I hear

are ghosts and clowns as the past

floats in through the window, keeps me

awake, falling into nightmare.

NOTE: italicized phrases come from Neil Diamond’s lyrics in If You Know What I Mean

Day 25

Notes on Notes

I am Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, play

past bedtime and into moonrise,

my notes on notes that cleave time

and leave me dangling on twine

above the bed, like a dreamcatcher

with spider weaving mad music

to keep all of us safe in darkness,

to filter carnival dreams from nightmares.

I am strains of melody, running

under stars dead already — beyond

the 186,000 miles it took them

to get their light here for us to admire.

If you make note of my notes, play

them again in daylight, they have flattened

or grown too sharp for your palate,

for the smell of bacon frying

or the splash of juice in the jelly jar

your mother calls “glasses.”

I am fine-honed music, or jazz or rap,

but always playing at night, in shadow.

I am not a brass band on the street

or a booming car stereo. I am steady

bars, glissando or lente. No fortissimo

will do for my score. Eine Kleine Nacht

a little bit of note on notes, a little musik

to make it worth opening your eyes, singing.

Day 26

How To Do It

When you wake up lonely, feel yourself in quicksand

or a bowl of stars a few light years away

from midnight, grab the last thread of the last dream

you remember, hold on and swing down 

into a pond or the edge of a still pool, where trout

can fill in the blanks, hold up a mirror

to show you where you’ve been and the way home.

When you fall asleep lonely, feel a sucking sensation

in your feet, or a sudden lift of your body

onto the lip of the universe, grab the first hot beam

of light that goes shooting by, hold on tight.

Think hard, recall the names of all your lost loves,

say them aloud as you begin to rise and go.

Keep your eyes open as long as the clock chimes.

Losing all senses one at a time, 

finding them again in reverse order —

A dance or a kiss, a wrench or a bullet. 

A rolled out blanket of stars.