Poetry & Writing
I’ve always been into succinct, precise, purified writing. This precision lends itself to poetry. I found that out in high school when I started reading Basho and Robert Frost. There was an immediate connection with everything Frost except iambic pentameter. I still haven’t managed that leap. So be it. Going to law school assisted my evolution into poetry, taught me to use absolute precision in the use of language. The right word, always the right word. Haiku is about the right words. Basho misses Kyoto. You get it, even if you haven’t been there, you get it. Up against the summer weeds, wheels of a steam engine come, and stop. I get it. Read me, you’ll get it. Start with Flak Jacket. It’s where I started. A life under siege, in an inherently unsafe place. Hilo. Tsunami central. Earthquake epicenter. You pay attention, especially when the windows start to rattle. When the playground starts to ripple like the sea. You pay attention. Hope it stops and doesn’t get worse. It can go either way. One learns volcanology. The Richter Scale. How to estimate the severity of a quake…4.5, or 3.1, minor. But is this possibly a precursor to something really nasty coming right about…now? 7.5?
Featured Poems
-
Flak Jacket
before going home
in the afternoon
after kindergarden
I would stop
in the gulch
behind our house
and pick white ginger
so that when
I finally tiptoed
in the door
I would not be
completely defenseless... -
Inductees
That morning at the induction center
in San Francisco, all of us freezing,
a reluctant throng of naked draft- age boys,
none of us wanting to be there,
but it was 1968,
John Wayne just out of the box
with the Green Berets,
his Ode to the Viet Nam War,
and the Army medic who
stopped to look at my forearm
with its fresh surgical incisions
heard me say Monteggia’s fracture…
Wings
Trea Turner scores
from second
on Bryce Harper:
Smith singles
to right field,
Turner rounds third
on green light,
approaching home,
launches
the most exquisite slide,
impossibly smooth,
as if on air,
on ice,
crosses the plate
just ahead of
the striving
arriving ball,
thrown on an almost
perfect line.
Then the popup ballet,
effortless effort,
like the Nichols brothers
tap dancing
to Kalamazoo;
and for a finale:
dust off, depart,
a backward glance
in lieu of bow,
leaving Bryce
to wonder how
Trea could have scored
those wings.
Trea Turner scores
from second
on Bryce Harper:
Smith singles
to right field,
Turner rounds third
on green light,
approaching home,
launches
the most exquisite slide,
impossibly smooth,
as if on air,
on ice,
crosses the plate
just ahead of
the striving
arriving ball,
thrown on an almost
perfect line.
Then the popup ballet,
effortless effort,
like the Nichols brothers
tap dancing
to Kalamazoo;
and for a finale:
dust off, depart,
a backward glance
in lieu of bow,
leaving Bryce
to wonder how
Trea could have scored
those wings.
Winthrop Avenue
recalling the gorgeous Spring mornings
before the hordes of May
when eager grandson
and his always faithful bear
would climb aboard the stroller
and off we would go
racing down Circuit Avenue
till we eventually reached
the trail to Farmers’ Pond,
then out to water’s edge
to greet the garrulous ducks
and confer regarding subjects
of mutual interest and import
to boys and mallards and bears,
(dare I say it...oh my...),
after which we retraced
our route in the slowing stroller
back to Winthrop Avenue
where both riders would,
on quiet arrival, shh,(sotto voce)
be dreaming of ducks diving
in sky blue lagoons...
recalling the gorgeous Spring mornings
before the hordes of May
when eager grandson
and his always faithful bear
would climb aboard the stroller
and off we would go
racing down Circuit Avenue
till we eventually reached
the trail to Farmers’ Pond,
then out to water’s edge
to greet the garrulous ducks
and confer regarding subjects
of mutual interest and import
to boys and mallards and bears,
(dare I say it...oh my...),
after which we retraced
our route in the slowing stroller
back to Winthrop Avenue
where both riders would,
on quiet arrival, shh,(sotto voce)
be dreaming of ducks diving
in sky blue lagoons...