Writing!
Two to Tango
A few months after the big breakup, she sends me some of what she calls her poems, but they weren’t really poems. I’ve worked at bookstores for, like, fifteen years so I know what I’m talking about; rhythm and meter and that stuff. These were nothing more than unmailed letters to me formatted into stanzas to look like poems. Each one more or asserting that everything was my fault. Real poets hate it when amateurs write simple stuff they refer to as poetry without knowing the first thing about poetry. These so-called poems seemed like a project a therapist recommended. She’s entitled to her feelings, and she can write them down if she feels like it, but the fact that she sent them to me pissed me off. I was going to send her back a note that said “it takes two to tango, baby” but I never did.
A year later she sent another batch. Where the first one's were kind of cold and matter of fact, these were overtly angry and a little out of control in my opinion. They still weren’t really poems. Then, get this, some little no name, East Coast publishing company puts out a book of these things and it wins a couple of awards. She’s in town tonight doing a reading from her latest at the bookstore where I used to work. One of the new poems predicts I’ll show up drunk and tell everyone that her work is all about me.
Something More
A sky bluer than can be imagined,
as blue as joy.
“A cerulean sky”.
Cerulean.
“That’s what you’re describing.
Cerulean”.
OK, I guess.
As far as it goes, a word worth
keeping in one’s
descriptive quiver to be sure
but I was going for something more.
I had a similar conversation recently
when attempting to describe a
magnificent bird I’d seen:
shockingly black, red and white,
flying from tree to tree, aggressive
imperious, almost hostile.
“That was an Ivory Billed Woodpecker
They were believed to be extinct for years
but there’s been quite a few sightings recently”.
“Good to know” I said,
but I was going for something more.
An Unacceptable GD Mess
My love
my friendships
my faith
my politics
my work
my desk
Today
A drink brown liquor during the day
type of day
An Old Testament day,
God and man staring each other down,
undisguised reciprocal disappointment
Practitioners of the gentle arts
cower behind locked doors
on a day like this
At the table in the back,
philosophers and mystics congratulate themselves
for bringing umbrellas,
old women at high tea
Detachment
acceptance
certainty
none of it stands a chance
I’ll wait it out at the bar
next to the raging young Welshman
even if I do have to pay for his drinks.
Don't Fence Me In
From behind the fence
dreams of crossing the river
finally going home
The Apples
The apples were rubbing me the wrong way
but it was more than that.
Half a dozen red delicious
in a polished silver bowl,
very red, too red, nearly crimson
taller than they were wide,
resembling human hearts.
On a coffee table displayed before me
at a funeral home, a bowl of human hearts.
When the manager returns with my receipt
I’m going to say something.
Epistemological Leanings #1 (lawn chair in a creek bed)
We know
there is a lawn chair
in a creek bed.
Everything else is
speculative.
(Another)Tough Sunday
If I counted myself among the faithful,
I'd join one of those churches still
practicing full immersion baptism
in a real river
under the real sun
on a real Sunday.
The instant you break the water's
surface you are
clean
new
forgiven
your old self banished forever.
Good riddance.
To Go
He's not supposed to drink coffee anymore.
Once a week, he goes to the coffee shop a few blocks away because they know his name and are nice to him when things aren't too busy. He orders his coffee to go so he can throw it out on the way back home.
A Story
…There is this woman. She is a single parent raising a daughter. She is afraid of losing her job, afraid of violence, afraid of illness, afraid of poverty, afraid for her daughter, afraid of growing old, afraid of loneliness, afraid there is no god, afraid of dying. Her life is a miracle.
Another Sunday
Have you played that game
where no one tries to find you?
Will we keep our names
when no one’s left to care?
Where do the solders go
when we weary of their stories?
How will we come to know
when we've lost our way?
Haiku-ish (A Really Bad Mood)
The universe arcs
toward inevitable
heartbreak and despair
Haiku-ish (Lakeside View)
On summer mornings
fathers fishing with daughters
teaching what they know
Watch Out for Poets
Watch out for
poets
and their impositions,
sharing
the smallest of
perceptions
as though our
time
lacks importance or
meaning
how the breeze
felt
how the sun
warmed
how the river
flowed
how the branches
swayed
how the birds
sang
how the loss
arrives
how the grief
overwhelms
how the language
fails
how the rage
eclipses
how the hope
awaits
momentarily you can
see
how all things
abide
Life is Sacred
Unless you are old
unless you are poor
unless you are strange
unless you have
what they wish to take
unless there isn’t enough
there is never enough
So maybe I don't know what a Haiku is?
Girls with their brown eyes
long legs and megawatt smiles
blinding all the boys.
Writing a Poem
If I’m going to write a poem
things need to change around here quickly.
I’m talking about the entire sensibility in this house
I’m thinking about that poem or song where
she brings him tea and oranges that come from China
Like that.
Perhaps fresh flowers
from our garden
every day
With bare feet silently moving across
sun bleached floors, she places a vase of fresh cut
flowers on my desk.
Her hair tied back with a simple red ribbon,
the gauzy white dress ruffles
with the gentle breeze from open windows
Instead she clomps into the room
modeling new cowboy boots
telling me how cute they will look
with her short black dress.
All selections by C. Paul Halford-2024