Dog Days On Lake Hamilton

The lake here stinks in August.
Parasites cling to clumps of weed
and dream of inner thighs.
Porch lights are left on for snakes,
and the lake fills up with Texans.
Docks rock from the great wall wakes
of ocean going vessels with
manikins in bikinis supine on the prow

(all those little debutantes still curtsy to a bow).

Oh, there's watermelon and chocolate pie, but it's
a chicken bone decoration, and from Aunt Helen's
sun tea jar, a much too sweet libation.

Yes, the lemon swirls, and the ice cubes click,
and the sun goes down with a tick...tick...tick,
then a floor fan stirs up the thick night air
(there's a firefly on the screen),
and the children here are sweating,
trying hard to dream.


(Arkansas Magazine, August 30, 1987; Sou'wester, Southern Illinois Univ, Fall 1988)

Retrogression

And that's the way it ended,
hanging upside down, feet
tied to a beam, he died in a
pirouette propelled by cabbages.

His last words were inaudible;
although, someone swore he said,
"My sins in life were many,"
but that pish-poshed
by one who claimed,
"Of sons, I have not any."
Most just said he groaned.

Of course, it was inadvertency.
He made a few mistakes;
world leaders can't afford to.

Still, he was a brilliant politician,
led his class at the university.
He was one of those precocious kids
who seem to look right through you.

And, oh, what a perfect baby!
The doctor said so himself
as he held the newborn by its feet
and soundly slapped its butt.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, January 12, 1986)

Dream

I

think these

raindrops dream

of being snowflakes

falling in Vermont somewhere

balanced on the edge of a footprint

near maple trees where dented buckets hang

and old horses breathe musky clouds and wait...

no.

They dream

a world inside

before they splash

into the lake.  Shhhhhhh.

(Poems by Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, 1984)

Human Circuits

With parallel circuits, the total resistance
is less than the least resistor...imagine that.
There is no positive without negative.
Switches make and break the circuit;
diodes and transistors control it.
When things get too jazzed up
fuses and breakers destroy themselves
to save it, and when things cool down,
you simply change the fuse or
press the breaker and continue.
But if it breaks again,
you've got problems, pal.
That's when you need a schematic
and the awful trouble shooting guide
with suggestions that fade into your future.
If you're skilled enough to isolate the problem,
you still must be wise enough to decide
whether the repair is worth the labor
when there are so many new units to be had.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, August 18, 1985)

Dissecting Sheep Brains, 1974

Disappointed by its size--I
had expected it to be twice as large as the room
behind me and just as liquid, but it was no more
colossal than a cantaloupe and stiff from formaldehyde--I
held a human brain in my hands: shell or skin, I
thought, of something gone, and passed it
to the student on my right.
Hand to hands it circled the room,
matter no longer knowing itself,
over the text and to the teacher, neither
of which or whom, according to Allan Bloom,
could account for consciousness.  So
she splashed it back into its vat,
right side up,
of course.
Then
we dissected sheep brains
because brains are basically the same,
though the human is holy and hard to come by,
but even if we had disserved Man, I
knew, following my first cut, dead center,
block cheese, there was nothing for the eye to see,
no shards of glass to pluck out, no fleeing demons,
no networks of infinite electrical connection
made of multicolored neon light escaping
through incision's seam, no thoughts, no dreams;
just another slice...and cheese.  And, too, I
knew the best of microscopes saw not much more,
synapse, atom, quark, perhaps,
and it would evanesce again,
and that surgeons pricked for where thoughts
but why thought not at all, so I
sliced again and again, then I
cross sliced and diced it for
the pleasure of those on either side.  I
was first to learn the lesson when it came
to brains and galaxies of night, and I
remain disgusted by my ignorance.


(Poet's Corner,Arkansas Democrat, 1990)

Pumpkin and the Praxis 48

Cat sits behind typewriter,
her eyes jumping with keys.
She's leaning over the carriage
now; if she tries to catch one,
she's in trouble:
she'll have half a paragraph
on her paw
before she pulls it out.

"Yeah, well, that's not the half of it.  He went right back up, but as soon as he got to the top step, "POW!" the guy let him have it right on the kisser, and when he hit the sidewalk that time, he was bleeding.  I don't know if I was scared or what, but I went running up the steps and tried to tackle the guy.  Then Frankie came out from behind the door and started kicking me in the ribs..."

Pumpkin jerks back
when the bell rings,
then forward again,
her cat brows knitted,
her paw raised.

"Then grandfather came back up, and we all went rolling down to the sidewalk.  All I remember seeing is legs, fists and concrete.  When we hit the bottom, Frankie's father was right on top of me; I could hardly breathe, but I was still holding on.  I guess we did pretty good for a little while, but when grandfather got knocked out, that ended it.  I was still crying and swinging, but Frankie's father pulled him up the steps by his hair, and they went back inside..."

I stop to hear
exactly what I've said.
Pumpkin curls
around the typewriter,
purring for me
to turn it off,
purring for me
to turn it off.


(Forum, Ball State University, Autumn 1989)