Poem #16-2011 A Promise Kept

A Promise Kept
          for Cindy but not for Bob

I wrote a poem once. and it was a good poem
as I recall
but I don’t know where it went at all
I mean – not where the paper I wrote it on went
(Hell, I’m sure it went the way of my baseball cards – unmercifully bent)
I mean
          where did that passion go?

Is it gone forever?
For. Ever.

One summer
Between schooling
A promise made
A promise kept: a poem each day

Hand-delivered first day back
         must have been 90 or so:June-July-August

My pay a thank you
and seeing her walk down the hall holding hands with my mortal enemy
          poetless soul-less blond hunk of fiery loin-grinding nemesis

didn’t keep a copy (pre-Xerox)
never saw them again

Her?

Once – lame class reunion
didn’t have the balls to ask

I rather think that good poem was in that batch
and now it’s in her
but tomorrow it will be in me again This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #15-2011 The Artist

The Artist

Loneliness would be

lonely

here

a vase sits

empty

but for a

dried-up paintbrush

you once used

to create me

from where

I hadn’t been

I miss your hands

This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #14-2011 Family Truth

Family Truth

Some of the time – not nearly enough -
I bite the tongue of nurture.
Instead,

I disavow mother’s acerbic conditioning,
I reframe father’s dour aphorisms about growing old being “bad business,” and
I pretend brother actually saw me.
Instead,

I rely on surrogate family:
Some are flesh-and-blood,
but most are images conjured from eternal words
by inspirational authors dead and alive.

Embracing the latter,
I unleash the tongue of truth.


This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #13-2011 Anger

Anger

I am an angry, angry man.
But you have no right, she says
(cue Pollyanna list of “blessings”).
What she does not see,
what you do not see,
what I only feel
has no name. It sleeps in
cold gray solemnity
but burns to life with
each bell tolled with
each softness violated with
each mad injustice
reaped in damnable misery for
sake of
the state for
the family for
the business for
the earth

Its perpetuation
is my anger
is my
is . . . .
me.

I am anger.



This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #12-2011: The Rudder and the Rock

The Rudder and the Rock
   for Crystal

       He who will not answer to the rudder
           will answer to the rock.
              -Cornish proverb

I am not completely sure
if you are my rudder
or my rock

Indeed
until I wrote these words
I had not made the connection
between this
        a favorite inscription
        (on the Forum building in Harrisburg)
and your (thankfully)
lasting admiralty over my soul

A sailor might disagree
with my conclusions

But I think you are
sometimes one
sometimes a little of both
               and sometimes neither as fits the weather

I accept your steerage—
what little is possible with a nearly scuppered old craft like me

and I do fear the rock in you
that it might crush me
or keep me lashed tight to pier
        and so be ravaged by some pending gale
or worse:      that I might not keep its steady anchor

Others
have gone on to new commissions
but I’m hoping you’ll
stay on for the whole voyage (even though I am a
     1955 wooden-hulled inboard –
     maintenance required)

Between us we know
both rudder and rock
sufficient to weather
each looming storm
every sun-drenched span


This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Poem #11-2011: Were It Today

Were It Today

I remember your musky sweet smell
and cannot think of any possible
way to make that sound romantic

You colored your hair
very dark against your creamy white skin

Back then, that made you a “slut”
Were it today, no one would notice

My friends did not support my choice in you
Regrettably, I succumbed to their smallness
and not to your sweet passion

I’ve since learned to resist the web of others,
learned to spin my own destiny

Were it today
I might be smelling you on
the pillow beside me
this cold sad morning

Were it today



This poem contributed to dVersePoets Open Link Night.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.

Jack's Ghost: A Kerouac Poem by Rick Dale

JACK’S GHOST

I trippled down Adler –
Adler, you know, Kerouac Alley
San Fran, between Vesuvio’s and
City Lights, mecca for a beat –
Anyway I was trippling, man
Trippling
(if that makes any sense
– that’s two p’s by the way)
and it’s the only
word can describe walking
where my heroes walked
and wrote and drank and yelled
and all the rest

Wow! It made me high just being there
And of course I was fantasizing about seeing Jack
hanging around, maybe leaning up against
the brick wall mural outside the bar
sketching in a notepad
like it was 1947
wearing a flannel shirt, work pants, black railroad shoes
Yair! (That’s beat for an emphatic “Yes”)
I.was.ready.for.anything
ANYTHING!

But the alley was empty
except for some tourists taking pictures
of each other and I ended up sitting on the floor
upstairs in City Lights
cross-legged and
reading Mexico City Blues (again)
and just about the 103rd chorus
I heard a sexy gone voice behind me
whisper a breathy "Who’s your favorite?"

Without looking to see my angel in waiting
I wrote "Kerouac" on a blank page
in my little black notebook,
like the kind I imagine Jack used
but it was a Moleskine and he’d never spend
that much on a notebook, you know
but just the same I
stuck my pen in the fold
and passed it behind me without looking
I felt it taken out of my nervous hand

An eternity fell on my shoulders
until a giggle, a sweet silky titter of a laugh
Too afraid, I didn’t look back
Something touched my shoulder
I reached and felt my notebook
The pen was still in it
I looked inside and there
under Jack’s name was written
"I was here"
I turned around to see
my beat angel –
There was no one in sight . . .
Whoever, whatever was one fast
move beyond gone

You can bet I won’t forget
that trip anytime soon
not even in the jangly
railyard earth of Jack’s
darkest road fantasies



This poem contributed to
dVersePoets Open Link Night #13.
Follow them on Twitter @dVersePoets.