Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Her Close Call With Diptheria

Bombs rearranged their lives
later after hands inside
dust feel for flaws in the smooth
the cool inside the taste imagined fruit.
Full of fruit and blossoms. Both of
this state grey milky. Something left over.
Weren't they there in the photo from '42
all smiling at Onkel Magnus
some joke he was making
clowning around the table New Year's.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Historik All Knees

The letters have little shoes
they walk in a line
in the city the street
there is ease despite cement
despite being concrete
that abstract warble
makes everything strange.

Saturday, April 27, 2013

The Visit

Every time I visit I become a visitor
with a pass to look for the pink glow
orange above the sea
dark changing billowing

that's how it's been for at least four years
surrounded by ferns that start out red and then turn green
curly-Q fronds of the tree fern
trees whose lime black leaves have moving pores
crimson blossoms sipped by creepers
owls with short ears
geese without webbing
blueberries that are reddish
mint-less mint
you here too
each step I walk the crunching
around the rim my fun
then the pond its overflowing shimmer
business that is my business
warm warmer warmest.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Not What They Seem

At face value what it is
wasted hours turning it over
bouncing it around in my head
for the perfect analogy
it will mutate into something else
then go away again not me not me.
Then two days off takes another shape.

Thursday, April 25, 2013

Autocraton

The deputy spoke to a crowd of mostly smaller deputies.
He had a lot to say about numbers nothing exact mainly
policing teachers is a priority with everything in place.
There is no incentive not to get people to be successful
pockets of evidence everywhere
didn't matter to me how many people are here three or any amount
you need good data sets
Danielson certified
it's not a competition
systematic
the race
effective
invest
we're not going to fire
our way to success
good teachers want
to work with good teachers.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Intuition About The New Missoula

A valley so large
one melt made the icy reservoir break
what was left was a shaggy map.

Here a gardenia beside my desk
the moon's outline bumpy
it was light until seven
water was silky with salt
hau leaves.  One guy--
tourist?--said that he takes risks
yes many calculated risks
he takes risks all the time.  You
must be lucky.  Your
brain has not been left as a residue
devoured by the standards.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Stop Oppressive Education Now!

I had an idea that my brain was more left
but when I see the image of what was left
it looks geometric it looks even.  So that's
how it looks prepared for something else
so clean so efficient so planned.  Drained.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Laugh, Weep, or Walk Away

Once visiting near back wash
of Glacial Lake Missoula
I remembered and recalled the pines
at the county park where we camped

what started out as weedy and now this
abundance a miracle enough to feed millions
because it has when you think of it.


Friday, April 19, 2013

Rulz

The test is strict I said to them
it is the ACT test after all
and the whole school
will take this test
next Tuesday
in the imaginary
forward.  No cell phones
no sharing.  Bubble-in
everything completely
so your selection remains
without a doubt.  Now nod
so I know you have not
floated off in the drift or do I need
to call your parole officer.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Duped

It was exciting to scamper over to the student who had raised his hand with a question about Rita Dove's "Adolescence-III."  Maybe the question would be about the bowl of tears or about the fragility of the tomatoes ripening.  I would get to be a teacher.  I would have a student.  Or, did this mean that it was my right to now strip him bare and humiliate him as happened to a famous poet one island over in a famous incident now forever? buried? in culture shock.

What's for lunch was the question.  It had seemed so urgent.  I thought I had been on the cusp of a teachable moment, suddenly, with all my skin.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Clumsy Chump

Me, myself, and this chump.  It sounded
better with the label the imagined role.
That's how it was beneath the fever
if it fit into a can someone could can it.
Chopped, it could be a tater tot.

Monday, April 15, 2013

Saga of the Vinegaroon, Epic of the Fire Ant, Case of the Missing Syllable

How she gets to know him
at his best at his finest.
By now she should know the ropes
the crunch of insects their bug juice.
She remains astonished.  A student.
 
Their beauty is found
in the Case of the Valiant Grindstone
all beauty all rainbows.  That's what she needed.
That's what he gave.  They were both themselves.
Those aren't just small flying things.  They are
immensely interesting.  Endless.  Everywhere.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Case of the Ceaseless Music

By day my hand wrote in Spider
tapping out the tarantella for my other life
on into the mythic night.
They say if it can be described
then it can be danced
weaving place and love
cave or no cave sound or no sound.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Case of the Maroon Ennui

We are still reading and blush
there are possibilities beyond the possible
delicate bee interest of this day the goal
a few months off it is called wander.  

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Case of the Absent Turn

Where was the turnaround, the roundabout, the change then
in the mysterious month all pointed
small villages thawed it looks sweaty
even from here it looks populated and I didn't
take things too far then but now I crave to
that was before my training of knowing
just when to back out of my deal
dead as dust
yet so alive
near the shop
the Lolos the Los
Dolores of the woe.
Frozen fruit.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Case of the Curious Mists

Which is the mountain which clouds
way past road construction
just like Monday sand chill
sqeaky clean breathing no other
without the tilt a question
leans in at Four Mile
enough time wouldn't you know
to get there and back.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Case of the Missing


She came to hate it, but buckled down into her own view, however curving, real, or narrow the canyon--the view quickly melted into all that other water. The matter of Zelda Fitzgerald was a lot to think about.  

She wrote:

Oh cityscape, oh underwater writing, passage complicated, still. Another time-chance, a wave, its colors: clear. Looking required more. I had a chance to look--I took it. Looking gave me something else, it gave me a forward mind, placed right in the now. Didn't this hit me, next to now as then? Past photographs do not tell the story quite so flatly. I wish to see a reflex there.

I had been dismissed from a few cases in the recent past. My mojo had disappeared, and I thought it was altogether strange that what I had presumed to be a staple of my personality--acute perception--had become strange to me and no longer accessible. Instead, I began to notice only surface features without inferring what lurked in the depths.

It might have been a result of swimming in the shallows, the protected coves and tide pools, instead of venturing out into the open sea where no emergency would be a small one. Even my analysis only went this far.

Yesterday:  my swim at a popular site on top of fresh, sweet springs that bubble into the sandy pockets of tide pools/small bays. A juvenile turtle looked at me. She was probably my age.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

View We Have Now

The meat was torn up like small whales
like seals and the creatures did not live.
It is too awful to think about beside the machine.
Where will the house go?  Where will the future run to?
The guns are small, Spaceship Earth unusual
tearing across space so definite so round
never mind the towns the obligations.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Detached, Near Water

To live these surroundings
just like the old country
everything in its place
even an out-of-body experience
wind-swept but newer
familiar yet already taken
by the past that someone
forgot to talk about until now
just before you thought of it
Denise in the church welcoming
turn slightly and she'd be there
Robert behind the scenes
the subject for a whole new blog.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Kingdom of Close

For me to find it to go there finally
I could not let go of the thought
but did it help well yes and no
it lessened my lost education
to the point of living if you didn't
quite live it was it but although younger
unaware that it was something else
aimless singing after all is said and done
happy to have made lots of nonsense
that got to the heart of the matter again.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Substitute

It was something they didn't get back.
It was the music they remembered
but they remembered it otherwise
yet it became a part of themselves
and they recognized it only to lose it
again at unexpected times if one could
call it that call back impossible thought
that was not there in the first place.
Instead it was that word that name
that became the almost magical feeling.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Would Have Been An Octogenarian

Plethora of syllables
favorite animal
pushing it past grabby
world word politics
too funny for the times
slinging it round and round
in the sublime territory
sometimes glimpsed
clipped away at
finished with grief
not really.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Chalk It Up

The call of the wild did exist on that planet. It had its seasons. Mirrors became the color of despair--silver. Animal cries were grayish lemon. Examples done up in pink. There was the robot blue. And, oh, the lime, like love. One person tried to package it and sell it to the schools. Quite a bundle was made before the next busy trend, the next futile orange.

Handwriting changed there. Each word was a little island. It looked green with garnet brilliance. The words described the planet a little fancier than it actually was but also a little duller. How could that be? Go figure! was a popular saying there, one of compassion without the grit.

Monday, April 1, 2013

My Time On Planet Asterisk

Halfway seen to the naked
I spent downtime
noticing small things
this freckle or that.

A planet much like Planet X
but not as sexy.  To go there
is extra watery.  It tries to spin
just like always
despite a large pull.