Transmissions from the Northern Outpost

Category: Poetry

  • Towards Bethlehem

    Here is another poem written in the 5 o’clock hour of the morning, this morning. As always, this poem is best read in desktop or landscape mode to preserve the line breaks how I intended. Referenced with the title and the last line is William Butler Yeats’ famous poem “The Second Coming.”

    Towards Bethlehem 

    The birds are aggressive this morning.
    Forty buses from Canada aren’t coming
    to our small-town tourist mecca for
    the next four years. They know what is
    impending. What storms may produce
    today. Might as well chirp now, rat-a-tap
    while the chirping, rat-a-tapping is good:
    We won’t be heard over the thunderclap, 
    they say. Or will we? The wind chimes
    from the neighbor’s porch are still heard
    amidst the patter. Our voices not silenced,
    in the background while we try to sleep:
    The stuff dreams are made of. Nightmare 
    scenario of another rough beast slouching.

    —

  • A look back at a month of poetry

    Through the month of April, I celebrated National Poetry Month by sharing one of my own poems each day, all but one written more than 20 years ago. I also shared a poem written by another person each day. I did this through Sunday, and I thought today I’d share links to my favorites, to save you from sifting through 27 days of poems:

    “Hyperacusis” is the outlier, the one that I wrote earlier this month, my first poem in at least a decade. In a post at the end of last month, I also mentioned that I was going to attempt to write a poem or start a poem each day throughout the month. Unfortunately, that one was the only I wrote, but I still would like to try to write more poems, even if not once a day. Of course, if I do, I’ll share them here.

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  • Waiting To Become Bait

    For National Poetry Month, I’ve been sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written, usually followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day. Today, however, I’m just going to leave you with my poem – and also end my sharing of poems for National Poetry Month early, because this seems like a good place to end.

    Today’s poem is another one about one of my grandfathers, my paternal grandfather, Grandpa Robinson. Like others about my grandfathers, it involves fishing.

    I saved this one for last because it is my mother’s – and sister’s – favorite poem of mine. It is one I couldn’t find on the external hard drive that holds most of my old poems. However, my sister texted me a photo of the poem that my parents have in a picture frame, that I gave to my late grandmother. The house they live in also was my grandmother and grandfather’s house. Thank you, Lisa, and also you, Mom, for encouraging me to include this among the poems I shared this past month.

    I mentioned to my mom in a phone conversation that I thought the poem was too sentimental, but after my sister sent it to me, I re-assessed that view and realized why it works, not only for them, but also for me – and hopefully for you.

    Waiting To Become Bait

    We fish until dusk flits its wings like a dragonfly 
    along the surface of the algae. Reel in our lines

    as if any turn could be the last before we are
    swallowed. Stumble up the hill, stars stabbing us

    in the back, cross the porch's portal out of breath. 
    Our sojourn to pond, success usually. A bucketful

    of bullheads or bass, what we drew out of its banks, 
    if providence granted. Now today in the same room

    where bone cancer caught its hook in my grandfather 
    and took his ghost out, I look out its west window

    to see him standing there again among the cattails,
    wearing his yellow windbreaker, aqua fishing cap.

    Head bowed like a monk, contemplating the dragonfly 
    just before it bolts across the horizon, swallows him.

    The poem is best read in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    This post is also part of The Sunday Salon hosted by Deb Nance of the blog Readerbuzz.

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    ,

  • Bajeerah and Gazalla

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    Yesterday’s poem from me was one that used a repeating line in each stanza, a variation on a villanelle, although not really. Today’s poem is another experiment in form, maybe a variation of the ghazal, although again not really.

    Also looking at this now, more than 20 years after I wrote it, I am not sure of the origin of the two names in the title. I also seem to be mixing up Hindu and Muslim mythologies (an “ugly American” poem maybe, but I don’t think that was my intent) and can’t find reference now to either name from the title of the poem online. So while this poem might be a failed experiment, to me, it still speaks to something mysterious, even if overall I don’t think the poem succeeds. It still was an interesting experiment. It is probably best viewed in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    Bajeerah and Gazalla

    weaved the world
    	one day in their loom,
    the tapestry of their lives like a shroud
    	they covered themselves in.
    The names ineffable were spoken,
    	written in the text, the tomes of
    men, women and children. Listen close,
    	their tale is your tale, without
    fail is ancient like the Bhagavad Gita,
    	comes from the pages of the Q'ran:
    if I knew the words of the Prophet better,
    	I would quote to you, my children,
    but like movie lines long forgotten, so
    	have I forgotten what I haven't read,
    you understand, my dilemma. What dilemma
    	enters the world when you enter
    the world with such a name: your names,
    	what do they mean? Mine is
    strength, honor, virtue, I have been told;
    	is yours swiftness like
    the gazelle, something to do with The Haj?
    	What sublime mysteries a name
    contains: when one sees it on the written page,
    	the subtext is lost. Context
    is everything, the form in newspaper lingo
    	is a pyramid in structure, 
    inverted, falling into itself, into
    	the vortices which are your names,
    words that shift in their meanings. Form is
    	the thing: what content is missing,
    the form shapes in its image, two
    	goddess images reflect
    back upon themselves like two foreign-sounding
    	names to these ears, these lips.
    Speak the word, the word is all of us,
    	is none of us today, but tomorrow
    will become a new paradigm we can
    	create out of our own images
    like the images of two women in a pond,
    	both young, exotic, mythical
    in nature, until they all but lose the intent
    	originally intended. Bajeerah,
    Gazalla, forgive me for using your names in vain.

    Note: I’m posting late today because I worked at the library earlier. None of the poems from the other websites “spoke to me” today so I’m not sharing any other poems.

    —

  • Shadows In The Pine Grove

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    Today’s poem from me is another I read during my poetry reading in 2004. Here is the poem with the introduction I read to it:

    Usually I try to write free flowing poems, not too structured, but this was one of those rare poems I tightened up the structure. I think I used a poetry exercise in an edition of Writer’s Digest. It was one of my first attempts at trying something like this. The phrase “Sauve qui piet” means “Let him who save himself can.” The poem is best read in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    Shadows In The Pine Grove

    Shadows in the pine grove are great hulking beasts,
    my best friend Ed told me and I believed him, because
    needles crackled there as if beneath some great weight.
    Bloodhounds would track their scent to this very edge,
    I could go no further. Sauve qui piet, my motto.

    Shadows in the pine grove are great hulking beasts,
    my best friend Ed told me and I never believed him really
    until the day his mother warned us not to play inside it
    lest their horns gore us, hooves trample us to death.
    And even then, I did not believe. But that summer

    shadows in the pine grove were great hulking beasts
    in Laddsburg, Pennsylvania. Larry Epler confirmed this
    when he pulled one dead from Ed's wooded backyard,
    and set it to spin on a spit for the whole community 
    to sample. The red tenderloins of imagination,

    shadows in the pine grove once greet hulking beasts,
    we savored the same way a train whistle first whispered
    across the plains, slowly echoing the frontier's demise.
    It went down hard, arrowhead scraping against my larynx.
    I only could choke out vowels: ay-yeeee.

    Shadows in the pine grove are great hulking beasts,
    a boy named Ed told a boy named Byron, who believes it
    even now. As sure as thunder is Thor, lightning, Zeus,
    they are there, the shape of the wind we can't make out,
    herds still roaming inside our primeval skulls.

    I have no other poem from another website to share today. Nothing “spoke” to me.

    —

  • Bonus Poem: Hyperacusis

    Today I’m sharing a bonus poem that I just wrote this morning.

    As always, this is best read in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    Hyperacusis 

    5:40 a.m., I am wakened by the cat mewling
    for food. Kept awake by the rat-a-tap-
    tapping of the woodpecker in the neighbor’s 
    maple, pushing sidewalk stones upwards
    to trip the unsuspecting walkers. 
    Then at 7:20, the borough workers cutting 
    into asphalt, repairing a stormwater drain
    at another neighbor’s house, third on right. 
    I don’t wait for yet a third neighbor
    with the loud Mustang muffler to ululate,
    signal the beginning of warmer weather, 
    as I put on my noise-canceling
    headphones, drown in the dulcet tones
    of house music, keep the percussive pulse.

    —

  • Pharmacopoeia

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    Today’s poem from me is a poem I wrote in January of 2004 for a friend, who was in South Korea at the time, teaching English as a second language. I also use the idea again of someone looking in the rearview mirror. The title doesn’t really fit, but Joe and I  often talk in non sequiturs so for us it makes sense.

    Pharmacopoeia

    	-- for Joe Middelkoop
     
    Like the flitting glance in the rearview mirror
    you give that person behind you
    as if you know them, but you don’t,
    it was like that, but it wasn’t.

    As we walk past each other on the street,
    I recognize you by the stubble,
    the blue coat you wear in winter,
    and your cellular voice.
    Only moments later,
    I turn around and wonder where you
    came from.
     
    You don’t hear me underwater,
    slowly surfacing,
    registering my words,
    ignoring them, on the other side
    of your telephone:
    "There’s someone trying to talk
    to me, I don’t know who they are."
     
    Pavement hurts.
    I get up.
    I find some of you,
    tattered pieces of the umbrella,
    a half-opened briefcase
    left along the busy street.
    I run and yell your name, bumping
    into passersby as I go,
    faster and faster, 
    until I'm on a freeway
    and you're nowhere to be found
    where the grasses stop 
    and the road begins.
     
    But really, the last time I saw you,
    you were headed off to South Korea,
    and the last thing you said to me was
    you wanted to catch a bus and go
    close enough to wave to the guards
    in the towers along the DMZ. 

    I awake with the horror that
    I haven’t called or e-mailed in months.

    Today’s poem from one of three sites that share a poem each day is “Meteor” by Grace Schulman on Poetry Daily.

    As always, these poems are best viewed in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    —

  • CHK-6645

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    CHK-6645

    	"Who'll stop the rain?"
    		-- CCR

    She couldn't bring herself to climb into the Chinook
    at the air show, she said, because it reminded her
    of her father serving in Vietnam. But I did,

    on her behalf, and as I walked up the ramp,
    heard the boots shuffling across the tarmac:
    the other men as they climbed in behind him.

    There were no individual seats, just two benches
    running down both sides, and bubble-shaped
    windows which looked out on the jungle, 

    straps to hold you in. About every five feet,
    a medical kit was inset in the wall, a red cross
    painted on it to remind you this was not a drill.

    She said he only talked about his experience once,
    and that even then it wasn't much. It was a tale
    he told around the campfire to her and her sister

    when they were children. Like a ghost story,
    the Viet Cong were the boogey-men in the bush,
    but smaller, wielding machine guns, machetes.

    He never spoke of losing any friends there,
    of the woman in Saigon, the photograph
    her mother found in a box of medals

    he'd won for assorted acts of bravery,
    or why he won them. He was also silent
    when he and his daughter walked down the path

    to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington,
    as if he was remembering walking up a ramp,
    the names of those who went with him.

    Today’s poem from one of three sites that share a poem each day is “Downtown Oakland Poem” by Barbara Jane Reyes on Poets.org.

    The above poems are best viewed in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    —

  • Reflecting On This Thing Called Life

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    When I heard about a young cousin going into rehab, I wrote this free write, which turned into a poem. It was directed toward her at the time.

    Reflecting On This Thing Called Life

    Sometimes things get thrown away
    like today when workers for our landlord
    threw away a table that set in the foyer
    of our apartment building for years, where
    we who live here would gather around it,
    sit, talk and b.s. about our landlord:
    how this old eyesore of a house on the hill
    is in the words of one of my housemates
    “the white elephant he sees how many people
    he can shove up its ass.”
    It's like that sometimes and perhaps 
    you know that better than any of us
    now as you have been taken away to 
    rehab for a drug problem no one in the family
    suspected. What are we now supposed to say?

    It is a rough world out there, 
    and getting rougher every millisecond, 
    the molecules are closing in on you 
    before you know it, you'll be dead --
    that is, unless you straighten up, fly right
    into the sun, where everything will be burned
    away. You say you can't see? Good...
    Let's not talk about it, share, have an open
    heart, open your hand and take this
    pill, this panacea for your pain, what pain
    is there in suburban life, but the pain we
    all feel, the pain...

    Listen, even in the silence the secondhand
    keeps moving, the rat-a-tat of a keyboard, 
    one hand clapping 
    in the wind.

    Where do we go from here?
    Upward mobility is a fancy name for 
    the dream we dream.
    I can't promise you 
    the cruelty of the world 
    won't try to crush you.
    To put it in perspective, 
    at least 300 are feared
    dead in a Moroccan earthquake,
    there are larger headlines to be written
    than cousin goes into rehab upstate,
    to be sure,
    but none so personal to me than to know
    what the world needs now
    is to see you in it
    breathing
    in
    out
    in 
    out,
    the clock can be your friend,
    not your enemy.

    Listen, even in the silence 
    the secondhand keeps moving, 
    the rat-a-tat of the keyboard 
    keeps rat-a-tatting along

    like some jazz song from
    years gone by.
    It makes no sense
    what we do
    but we continue:
    to live.

    It is what she continues to do as well. For today’s poem from one of three sites that share a poem each day, I’m actually going to share two:

    The above poems are best viewed in desktop and sometimes lansdcape on your browser of choice.

    —

  • Easter Morn

    For National Poetry Month, I’m sharing poems each day, one that I’ve written followed by whatever one from three sites that share a poem a day that strikes my fancy that day.

    Today’s poem from me is one I obviously had to post today:

    Easter Morn

    My grandfather rises from the grave
    to embody the man in the pew in front of me.
    It's the scent of Camels, Aqua Velva mixed,
    the Confederate-grey blazer that doesn't fit,
    the drop of sweat just beneath the ear
    like when my grandfather played steel guitar,
    or that keyboard my aunt and uncle gave him
    the Christmas before he passed away.
    It's how he reaches down, pats the head
    of the little girl beside him and smiles,
    how my grandfather tousled my sister's hair,
    or how when he presses his hands together
    to pray, his hands appear time-wrinkled
    like my grandfather's. When he closes his eyes,
    he looks so calm and peaceful.

    Today’s poem from someone else is one I felt I had to share today: “Easter, 1916” by William Butler Yeats.

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