O, Sweet Nothingness!

Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me,
Encase the shadows in a mind that stews
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Pluck up a storm, a bold cacophony;
It really doesn't matter if you do
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me.

Sing songs of imperceptibility;
I'll dream a dream of hollowness for you
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Come, play your silver strings and set us free
To shoot beyond the stars, and, if you choose,
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me.

Beyond the circled form of space you see,
We'll pass black holes hitchhiking to the ruse
Where there is nothing but nihility.

Give just one word, a sign, of constancy
In truth, and I won't call your bluff when you
Sing those sweet songs of emptiness for me
Where there is nothing but nihility.


(The Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs, AR, 1983 or so)

Dogwood

Now is the time of the dogwood.
This wait is finished.
There was no bursting forth,
no overnight glory;
no one can walk away this time
claiming they watched unaware.

Each blossom grew in a shadow,
brittle and green at first, but
larger, lighter, whiter by the day.
The coming was always next week.
Those red bud bled a prophecy
as each flower followed the moon,
and butterflies danced in the morning,
so certain the coming was soon.

And at last the dogwood shimmered
in that very same straight light of noon,
and even the forest shadows
came leaping up out of their tombs.


(Kaleidoscope, Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs, 1983 or so)

These Keys Must Strike Too Hard

Beneath this poem, on this paper,

I can see the imprint

of a letter to my son

(I always use two sheets).

Actually, I sat down thinking

I might transpose the words

of famous philosophers

and come up with something funny:

"I am; therefore, I think."

"Finished, is it?"

And, yes, it wasn't working.

When I got to Augustine's,

"I had my back to the light,

and my face to the things enlightened,"

I saw no transposition,

at least,

none I cared to make.

It was too beautiful, too true

for destruction.

Sometimes that happens.

Then I saw the letter,

periods strewn chaotic like stars,

commas like meteors, colons,

semicolons...I see them now, ellipsis,

all and all there embossed:

These keys must strike too hard.

And, O, those complicated compound sentences

I thought correct though challenging,

I threw them at him,

hoping he would throw them back,

but he hasn't yet;

he seldom writes:

These keys must strike too hard.

(The Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, March 30, 1986; photograph by Steve Ketzer, Jr.)

Vagrant Thoughts

Somewhere in the scratched,
crosshatched network
of lines and intersections
as vacant as Modigliani eyes,
between city days at the pool
and the quiet improbabilities of we,
beyond this instant
and that first snap of memory,
behind those eyes and stars
falling like salts toward a wound,
vagrant thoughts,
ideas without things,
come ragged out of trash can alleyways
with no apparent purpose,
direction or destination,
and quite without means they come
to pass briefly beneath a streetlight.

Yes, if I could only stop one there,
take it in and bathe it,
wash its clothes and feed it
and in the morning greet it...
but, you know,
I'd hate to lose a friend like you.

(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, January 18, 1987;
Photographs by Steve Ketzer, Jr., 1986)

Alone on Mount Mariah

Infinite resignation grew into a faith,
the philosopher might have said,
that Isaac would not be required on that height,
a simple matter of, "I and the lad will go yonder
and worship, and come again to you,"
but he did not say when;
he did not say in what form.

And with the faith of Abraham, we prepared
the sacrifice that God would not allow:
good dry wood for the fire,
strong rope to bind him there,
one body becoming ten souls,
by noon, the soul of man. He
laid Isaac on the altar, upon the wood,
and with Hell screaming,
withdrew the knife from its sheath,

as Earth trembled.
Abraham's eyes turned to heaven,
but no angel called his name;
there was no sacrificial lamb
caught in a thicket to replace.
The knife billowing with flame
became a cloud of smoke.
Abraham closed his eyes and groaned,
his arm unstoppable, the knife point down,
and Isaac rode a fiery chariot
above that holy ground.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, February 9, 1986)

Automobiles

No, it wasn't brainwashing.  Since the first Fords, Americans loved automobiles because they love individual freedom, the ability to go where you want to go, when you want to go, on your schedule, not one dictated by a public transportation authority with some Mussolini beating his chest about how, for a brief moment, it runs on time. And as for trains, our men got their fill riding 40 & 8s, anyway.  But, say it was brainwashing; then I would suggest the washer is currently at work in India and China.


(Photograph by Steve Ketzer, Sr.)

Janece and the Wheat Back Penny

She still searches for that '43 copper
like nothing ever happened.
Heads still look the same,
but turn them over tails
and you get a handful of memorials,
Lincoln like a ghost
floating between the columns,
somewhere above the black shaft;
although he got it, too,
Honest Abe.
Sometimes in her searching
wheat comes up
(food=love=peace),
then she looks for a date
to find the ice of '58:
Nothing could grow on that landscape.
One day she'll hope to turn and see
Lincoln in his stony shroud;
heads will still be heads,
but tails a tiny mushroom cloud.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, 1986)