DENVER OMELET, SAUSAGE, HASH BROWNS
Damn, but I hate when she works late.
I could get carryout, or cook up
a burger and frozen fries, sip a solitary beer.
Wait - Andy's Diner is the answer:
Breakfast served all day - just the ticket.
Outside it's full dark - so early, these days.
Maybe I'll finish the book I've been reading forever.
But no, too much, too powerful, too glum
Soul-meandering: a total funk's
closing in: bills, job, the same old
same old, reality strangling delusions.
Time for desperate remedies.
Think, think hard about her: imagine
hair, voice, sweet gentle hands. Heaven be praised.
THE LIMITS OF KNOWLEDGE
To bring to heel fractious worlds; to rein
even words, those slippery beasts; to fashion all
with line and angle -- such delight!
|Geometry and I had long since made our peace -- Mrs. Perrine,
day in, day out, smiled approving satisfaction.
To marry talents would be ideal. Subject, verb, object,
ruled by straightedge, on elegant adjectival wings.
Simple sentences, then compound, complex,
compound-complex, tenses all to one side as irrelevant!
Purest triumph! Mrs. P. handed out real books,
not potted texts -- novels, plays, even poems,
even Shakespeare. To which I made no objection.
To awe my peers was no challenge. Brag?
It's not bragging to declare the facts, true?
No sentence evaded my diagrammatic skill. Until
the dark day: infinitives. To be put in some harness
of dotted line and slant, some linear voodoo.
Mrs. P. kept her still smile intact,
but I could read her eyes --to see
her beau ideal brought low.
Split infinitives?
Not a chance. I prefer
to spit on them. To do less would be
far too kind, to my way of thinking.
<for Jay and Ted>
"Ignorance is your chief asset," the poet
said.
This time, for certain. I know full well that
home is only steps away, and just beyond
the arcaded fence is a commuter rail line.
We're within earshot of the firehouse,
on a nondescript New England city side street.
But anyone as obtuse as me
about climate, terrain, and vegetation,
could dream this was tucked away
in a corner of Tuscany or near the Pyrenees --
just an easy stroll from fine local wine,
fresh-baked bread, a hearty hunter's stew;
not in the corner of a yard
on a New England city side street.
Sometimes, as now,
delusion is its own best reward.
John Hildebidle
August 2004
PROGRESS
<for Susannah>
Before, whenever you'd
"sleep over" at a friend's house,
I couldn't sleep. Car alarms,
thunder, fire trucks, commuter trains --
no interference. But the awful
echoing absence streaming from your room:
total snooze-stopper.
But the other night, no problem!
Out to a movie, a few minutes
with a good book, then eight hours
of slumberland. If that's not
a good sign that I'm ready for you
to set off, I don't know what it is.
ACCUMULATION
May-
be it's
what we're best
at:buying a
nother book for the
awkward stack we plan to
read some summer, or a junk
shop table exactly right for
the cottage we'll never own, or one
more carved frog to catch dust on the plant shelf.
Snug in a midden of bargain life
fill, safe from frost, fire, or slip up,
we catalog, imagine
whatever's from now on
junked or stolen, it's
certain to be
not love, not
soon, not
us.
JUST AFTER THE FINAL OUT
I watch you watch the
world collapse
while we sit at its edge
trying to puzzle misery
upon a square of rage.
Since there's no word
for comfort,
here's silence written out,
insisting how one autumn hour
devours a summer's heat
and leaves the work of
winter:
to measure how to live
between the twin impossibles,
what might be and what is.
We'll have a season
cold as hope
and long as disappointment
to make the vivid mind unsee
the work of laggard hands.
THE DEARS
<for Rosalie and Bill>
Dotty? Not a bit of
it, no matter their age:
Vibrant, heartily indigenous, full of lore
(from family legends to Shakespeare's lineage).
Lives well lived. She, scrupulous mother-in-law,
well-schooled granny, deft in gardening.
He spins tales of thirty years selling cloth,
of reading and teaching history, of Christchurch,
the RAF, the Welsh Office: such knowing -
the arcana of pubs, eateries, plants.
They move easily in unison, from long habit,
without denying the rough patches
(widowings, rebuffs by children).
He sagely wears a straw sun hat, but
plausibly predicts rain, in the end.
May blessings fall on
them
like the mists of a Surrey spring.
THE RENOWNED POET GIVES A READING
"It's clever and all, but what's the point?"
He jabbers on about dogs,
death, lanyards, mothers, poetry,
windows: almost a landfill.
Slightly at a stoop, his voice genial
and soft (but it fills the ample hall:
practice? a good audio system?).
Self-effacement in action,
nerves showing only in the frequent
gulps from a tumbler. He welcomes laughter, applause,
even awkwardness -- "You're supposed to feel
a little confused, there." He takes questions.
"Ever thought of a career in standup comedy?"
It's appealing, to tell the truth." "Are you married?"
Sort of. Is it pure veneer? Then again,
those customary matters --
love, death, time, forgetfulness, faith --
get their airing. He demonstrates the one
wisdom Lord Byron ever managed:
"If I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep."
HER DRESSING TABLE, LIKE AN OLD-STLYE ALTAR
A thing of such glass and perfume.
Three mirrors make so many of her,
while she brushes out, even in summer heat,
that hair&emdash;floor-length! A smile toys
with her mouth. Does she know I'm a spy at the door?
She always lets me do what I want
while we make our yearly visit.
My mother grumbles. Poppop, worn
but genial, slips me quarters
to take to the corner for snow-cones
and chats with George, who rocks
and tells stories of when Babe Ruth
was a schoolboy wonder. Two years ago
George gave me a mitt the shape of none other
I've seen, the smell of leather long-used
and accommodating. Even in the morning
dead still and already hot, I was second up
&emdash;just after her&emdash;to creep down
the carpeted hall and watch
in devotion and puzzlement. So many bottles,
each stoppered with glass. Once I snuck in
at midday and opened every last one
and let dizziness roll over me like a fine cooling wind.
"Such work, such work, Little One. To stay beautiful"
as the brush slid electrically down and again down.
THE LAST DAYS OF THE FUCHSIA
Spoiled by a trip to a more native climate,
where it's hedgerow wild on each roadside,
red, purple, pink, even white. No tending,
just the usual. I've gotten accustomed
to splurging on a hanging basket,
luxuriating in the blossoms all summer.
Never have found a way to make it winter over.
First frost three days ago. The leaves
aren't entirely withered, but that's what's in store.
Is there a special rite for the occasion?
A patron saint, at least?
It's as though I've let it down, somehow.
Botany, of a Kind from Salmon
Poetry
DEFINING ABSENCE
A Collection of Poetry by JOHN HILDEBIDLE
BOTANY, OF A KIIND
Late in the day
the line of sight
through the arched bedroom window
goes as if through a tunnel
up to the very tree canopy.
The leaves range from near-white
where the breeze turns them
to golden in the declining sun
to green-black in silhouette
against a silk-blue sky.
It could be
always summer
in these maples.
But yesterday, with eyes blurred
and a steady northeast rain,
all there was to be seen
were boughs and branches
interlocked in black,
moving, reaching,
against a sky scuffed and grey
like a porch floor poorly kept,
promising hard weather to come,
while the leaves twitch and nod,
spin and rattle.
THE GENIUSES AMONG US
They take us by surprise, these tall perennials
that jut like hollyhocks above the canopy
of all the rest of us -- bright testimonials
to the scale of human possibility.
They infiltrate every generation
wth the most extraordinary notions --
singular, unprecedented visions
from the taproots of imagination --
and soon, the things we never thought would happen
start to happen: the stiff, solid fences
of reality begin to soften,
to crumble into fables and romances,
and we turn away from where we've been
to a new place, where light is pouring in.
SUBJECT TO CHANGE
A reflection on my students
They are so beautiful, and so very young
they seem almost to glitter with perfection,
these creatures that I briefly move among.
I never get to stay with them for long,
but even so, I view them with affection;
they are so beautiful, and so very young.
Poised or clumsy, placid or high-strung,
they're expert in the art of introspection,
these creatures that I briefly move among --
And if their words don't quite trip off the tongue
consistently, with just the right inflection,
they remain beautiful. And very young.
Still, I have to tell myself it's wrong
to think of them as anything but fiction,
these creatures that I briefly move among --
Because, like me, they're traveling headlong
in that familiar, vertical direction
that coarsens beautiful, blackmails young --
the two delusions we all move among.
IDENTIFYING MY FATHER
I'd hoped cremation would avoid this.
"But we wouldn't want a mixup
with the ashes," he said. At least no Muzak,
and he wasn't an unctuous hand-rubber
in a too-black suit. The chairs were
just shy of comfortable, magazines (all
about travel) were strewn on low tables:
the look of a Holiday Inn lobby.
A hallway. A room with three caskets. The guy
was polite, serious: "The one on the right."
We walked over, my mother and I, anything
but at ease. The head slowly came into view
over the wooden edge: a head full of white hair,
a narrow, bony face, and . . . a beard?
I'd expected a vast, sad change, but could this
be my brown-haired, portly, smooth-cheeked father?
The guy saw puzzlement in our eyes, looked down
at the false-leather folder he carried. "Oh,
Lord, " he said -- not loud, but you could hear
the shame in his voice. "It's next door."
Even more hesitant now, we followed, looked,
stood, signed papers, while the boss babbled apologies.
Nearly the last thing my dad said to me was,
"That's another story." Tale-lover, always 'working
the crowd' how he'd have milked this tale.
He could have dined out on this one for months,
These days, what I miss most about him, almost,
Is his deft way with a punchline.
WORKING THE CROWD
|
A room too big, too blank for its own good. Chandeliers, but the light is poor -- as though to prevent disappointing, close views of what may turn out to be chicken-fried steak. Podium shoved into a corner, to make room. A crowd, talking politely. At the door, at a narrow, cloth-covered table, somebody with a typed list, checking the stream of arrivals. He must be recent -- he's still near the door. Sport-jacket -- good cloth, professionally-tailored, but it doesn't seem to hang like a familiar garment. He moves his shoulders, trying to get it to settle. But nevertheless he smiles, a handshake for everyone, not just the ones he recognizes --even strangers find themselves telling the whole story, within half an hour. Dante on an expense account, you could say. He limps, he walks a little tentatively -- as if the slightest jostle might tumble him flat, as if that still matters. I have the same way of never quite managing not to have something to say. Father and son. Simple metaphysics. |
ALONG THE PATH
<So quickly, without a moment's warning, does the miraculous swerveand point to us.Mary Oliver>
Why only that one wall, just the one section?
Don't paints fade? Surely that wild lavender
Can't date back to when this was
a sleepy rail right-of-way, and nobody cared
if kids spent half the day wall-painting.
Now, does somebody (armed with ladders and pails)
come by moonlight, silently, to awaken
that auroral blending, those coded hieroglyphs
(nothing so dull as a cheap slogan)?
I'm almost moved to take up jogging, to pass by
more often, dawn or nightfall, to wonder.
That handbill: "This path will close
March 24-31 to allow demolition
of an adjacent building." Pray it's an April Fool's Joke.
ARRIVALS, HOPPER TERMINAL
<for Jessie>
It could be midnight, perhaps after.
One fellow in denim dusts idly. Even
the information monitors are blank. No laughter.
No queued anxieties. A bored woman
waits, with little hope,to sell coffee.
There were mutters about bad weather,
sometime very late, after midnight.
But only dark, and quiet, and an empty
not-waitingness appears, here, now. If it were
midnight, or even after that, it might seem
less surprising. Can all the world not be
traveling at all, even at 9 PM on a weeknight?
My watch assures B it's not in fact, midnight,
nor anywhere near. Then maybe I've taken
a wrong turnand landed infernally, and permanently,
In the one place where neither time nor place matter.
FOUR OR FIVE THINGS I NEVER QUITE GOT AROUND TO, SOMEHOW
You know those easy-on, easy-off trolleys?
As her breath and energy waned, they seemed ideal
for a view -- the sights, not just the malls -- of her last home.
Logistics, price, scheduling, maybe even shame:
could I play tourist, after so many years? Never did.
How bizarre, now, to feel a pang passing a sign for a trolley!
I was going to teach her to bake soda bread. How ideal!
She always took such pride in her "Irish." While we kneaded,
she could spin the yarn of how she and Dad
managed, thank God!, to miss the Great Hartford Circus Fire,
or the time, newlywed, Dad put her miles into debt
at gin rummy, penny-a-point. I'd ask her, for sure,
about what she let slip once: "You knew about
your father's first wife, Evvie, of course."
It was the of course that hit hardest. Was there some
scandal?
The best thing would be one more
of those shout-matches, sure signs of home.
We did have one a week or so
before the last, but we were sadly out of practice.
Still it felt cleared the air.
Trolleys, bread, shouts: little enough
to summon a ghosts. Besides, how damnably
they refuse to argue! Closemouthed, persistent.
CAFFEINE SEQUENCE
LOCAL ENTERPRISE
<homage a W. C. W.>
Bruno, a guy I met
over coffee, bragshe's building a scale model
of the Yosemite
National Forest in the parlorof an up-and-down three-decker
out in Malden,
redwoods knocked togetherfrom scraps of grape crates
he steals from the Italian
down the corner,rocks, cliffs,streams
built of odd parts
of a jukebox, dead batteries,his grandson's alphabet blocks,
some exposed film,
and a dust jacket from On the Road.His cat, Charles Steinmetz,
helps out by scratching
bark patterns. "Pal," Bruno insists,"You put your mind to it,
and you can do anything.
Anything."
CAFE ENIGMA
|
In the teeth of a blizzard, he wears shorts.Smile unwearied, he stands upright,folky cap, funky t-shirt: grinding, measuring."Sorry, We're Open" says the sign on the door. The Square's empty. The dank light of a snowed morning can't stop his grinding, measuring, brewing. Monday, any day, hours and hours short of noon: does he camp here all night, in the deepest quiet, grinding, brewing, waiting? The nearby statues, making sport of mimes and geezers, pull tight mock-parkas of snow. He still brews, smiles. A shiver? A grimace? He'd snort at the thought. Where's his mighty good-humor derive from? Grinding, measuring, brewing, Call it a ministry, of sorts: hurrying a short latte to travel, a dark roast, or cocoa, or welcome. Mad? No, just a glad anomaly, on this cold, knife-winded morning, grinding, measuring, brewing, smiling. |
A MORNING CONUNDRUMA voice with such poise, such conviction --
that woman with the Grateful Dead tee,
or the one with the briefcase and cellphone,
or the one with the kid pawing her knee?No way to tell. The coffee shop's full as ever.
Orders, raileries with the counter-guy.
Conversation is only the murmur
of any humid Monday morning. Whyimagine a break in the heat, hours free
of working? Still, a second cup does postpone.
How sweet that one slice of clear speech. Something
other than a scone-crust to chew on.
Not words to live by, but words to live around:
"Face it, there's always a Romanian."
THE HARD REALITY OF MONDAY MORNING
That woman in the soft red knit hat
has a drawer full of sonnets.
The neruasthenic guy with the beard
writes hard-edged Imagistic verse,
in the dark of night.
The one in pinstripes is in advertising,
but writes formal odes
on the back of dead copy.
The girl with the Polish accent
went to Israel last summer
and is filling that sketchpad
with love poems.And in the corner
I write on old rejection slips
marked with coffee rings. Some days,
we are all of us failed poets.
FOR NICHOLAS, AT TWO
There is a lot to be said
for no as a general principle.
--Flann O'Brien
Not that you make it precisely a rule --
nothing more, I'd guess, than an instinct, just
now taking its turn in the world, grown-up
notions of suasion or bargain locked well
northwest of the Bump of Cajolery.
Nonetheless, it's your certain pole, while we
nose about in the maybe latitudes,
normal humankind's sparse, approximate,
notably stale world. Had we more patience
nobody's yes could ever outweigh your
nonchalant refusal. Please forgive us.
Noise, mess, confusion of time and movement --
none seem halfway as difficult to us;
nor do we properly honor all those
noble contrarious sorts: Stevens' s-
nowman, Ahab, Giles Corey, grizzled
noncommunicative down-Maine farmers,
Noah (holy wet-blanket), the stets ver-
neint crowd, Lucifer, Mephisto -- all
nonpareils of satire or cussedness.
Novice that you are by such standards, your
noon of self-will demands rehearsal. Should
nonsense like listen to Daddy poured on your
noodle have, blessedly, a rather less
noxious effect than it might, you'll keep your
note, triumphant, wary, negative, worth
Nobel's prize for remaking by sheer will
nondescript worlds of adulthood.
Not, child, that you'll listen to this either.
Nothing we suggest can deflect this first
notion of the contrary from blooming
now. Hallelujah! Neither kiss nor scowl
nor raised conformative hand can budge your
NO, hurled to challenge all the bland and old.
IN A HEAT WAVE
To the blank eye
of January
this will all be a strange dream.
###
Now, air hardens like amber.
I am the trapped fly,
feeling the thick gold
solidify over ages.
###
Summer, briefly,
splits in feasts
of heat &endash;lightning energy.
###
I force myself
to lie still
against the damp sheets,
so when I turn
my back to the fan
there will be
a glorious cold instant.
###
Sunlight draws
red goblins on the inside
of my eyelids.
THE EROTICS OF CHOCOLATE
Finesse ( always a useful ploy. Don't overlook
enrobing or Couverture (not that
being overdressed is desirable) B
it's Theobroma we speak of, food of the god.
Try tempering, as needed. The goal: bloom, of course,
|the finest Ganache or gianduja.
[from AA Chocolate Glossary,@ prepared by Burdick Chocolates]
John Hildebidle
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