Sail Away

I’ve had my ear to the rail forty-six days and counting.
Three yards up the line, my sister huddles,
waiting, same as me.

Hearing something
I jerk my head up,
study the horizon.
But, no, it is nothing,
perhaps the whine of an airplane overhead;
its contrail divides the sky in half.
My sister clears her throat.


In the alfalfa field small birds
like warbler and nuthatch, flit from stalk to stalk.
I lay my ear down once more.
The steel rail warm and soothing against my skin.
Its smoothness is like a sharp, sharp blade,
ready to slice a tomato.


Now I hear rumbling.
Under the palm of my hand, vibration.
With my head on the trestle,
I see a plume of white, smoky steam
unfurling in the sky.
A finger pointing,
but not at me.

The vibrato becomes a shuddering.
The grumble, a deafening roar.
I crouch,
horrified and immobile.

With a scream, the locomotive is upon me,
shaking me senseless like dice in a cup.

Yet it misses me,
as if I were invisible.

I sit up after the last car passes,
watching my sister as she sails away,
her brown hair laughing with the wind.

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I'd published another version of this poem much earlier in this blog's life. It's here now, closer to its final form.

Kleptomatic

Pearl Ocean swung her handbag over
the cart’s handlebar, smacking
the plastic seat protector so soundly
it cracked.

Mrs. Chevalier shook her head
“I heard that, Pearl,” she scolded.
The newlywed smiled sheepishly,
“Jes not used to grocery shopping, I guess.”

“Mrs. Ocean, Mrs. Ocean,” the clerk
waved her slender hand in Pearl’s direction.
Pearl kept walking.
“Ain’t used to her married name, neither,”
muttered Cleomaude Chevalier.

Catching up to the young bride,
the clerk handed Pearl a slip
of paper, a five dollar bill, and 42 cents.
“Your change, Mrs. Ocean.”

“Why, thank you Bettis,” she
smiled, shoving the money into her bra.
Bettis raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.

Finally home, Pearl opened up her purse
and dumped out two dozen plastic forks,
seventeen plastic spoons, and eight single-
serving sized bags of oyster crackers.

“Cheap as chips, but I cain’t stop with one,” she lamented.

A No. 2 Pencil's Fallen Glory

Somehow it has come to this, even after all I’ve done
Without regard, sagacity, for a thousand years they’ve used me,
Like slate and chalk, a paper journal, rejected; I feel your shun.

I was good enough to tuck behind your ear, sub as a mock-up gun
But those days are over and you’ve sailed on to another sea
Somehow it has come to this, even after all I’ve done

Stubby me with Susan, you and your teenaged son
Recording par or eagle, maybe an exultant bogey
Still, like slate and chalk, a paper journal, rejected; I feel your shun.

It’s all electronic now. How posh, exuberant! How fun!
Bah! When batteries wear out, erode, where will you be?
Somehow it has come to this, even after all I’ve done

Pencil sharpeners in every class room, those were the days, now none
Can be found, tossed out with Dick and Jane and baby Sally
Like slate and chalk, a paper journal, rejected; I feel your shun.

Laptops, computers, Jello-green monitors, screens—they’ve won
I’m useless, bent, a discarded possession. Are you happy?
Somehow it has come to this, even after all I’ve done
Like slate and chalk, a paper journal, rejected; I feel your shun.

Les Blues des Routes

One day you picked up a guitar
Ran your thumb along the strings
Imagined yourself a star
With a house, a car, bedecked like kings

Ran your thumb along the strings
Following notes on the page
With a house, a car, bedecked like kings
Slowly coming of age

Following notes on the page
You listened to Hackberry Ramblers
Slowly coming of age
Your dream of music felt like a gambler’s

You listened to Hackberry Ramblers
Learned the six-string, then the twelve
Your dream of music felt like a gambler’s
But a musician’s bounty you could not shelve

Learned the six-string, then the twelve
Looked for jobs in the Times-Picayune
But a musician’s bounty you could not shelve
Ending up singing in a dank saloon

Looked for jobs in the Times-Picayune
By moonlight you read Cajun Music by Savoy
Ending up singing in a dank saloon
Playing until your fingers were raw

By moonlight you read Cajun Music by Savoy
Imagined yourself a star
Playing until your fingers were raw
On the day you picked up your first guitar

Cajun Music as a Rectifier

Nothing could stop carcinoma cells from multiplying as they sought to dominate her healthy cells. She lay in her hospice bed, lungs gurgling, oxygen elusive. Then she was quiet.

He played his fiddle five-hundred miles away. The tune once belonged to his friend, hit by a car, dead. I listened to the song on the radio, fingered my imaginary strings, stroked with my make-believe bow.

Then the segue, the bridge to move from melancholy to exuberance. I rode along, sitting on the E-string, swaying to music neither my sister nor his friend would ever hear again.

His music mended me.

Turning the Calendar's Page

In the august of my life
A curtain of clouds blocks the sun
A jet slices through like a knife
In the august of my life
Why should reverie cause me strife?
The heated dream-plays remain undone
In the august of my life
A curtain of clouds blocks the sun

Bastille Before the Revolution --a prompted tritina

"A glass of water, s'il vous plait, sir?" she asked in a voice quite humble.
He stared as if she were a Wiccan faerie, then tossed in the air his baseball.
"Get the bloody water youse-self, ye bitch," raged he, "Pardon my French."

"You see, sir, I've cut my finger. Water to bathe it, oui? It was the beans sliced french."
He scoffed and slurred out, "Ye a wench and I won't humble
meself to helps the likes of you," he sneered, dropping his baseball.

The leathered toy rolled under her stool; she held out her hand, balancing the baseball.
Snatching it, he glared at the blood streaked across the white, "Damn French."
La petite fille closed her eyes, held her breath to maintain her disposition of humility.

Chastened and humbled, without recourse she sat while the American played baseball, laughing at her snarled coif, spitting out O-Vwah, as if he were French.

How Angels Come To Earth

No one tucked her into bed that night, so long ago
Still, she said her prayers and kissed her own hand,
Waited, then whispered to no one, "If you say so..."

She was an easy child, she made no demand
Perhaps that was the red flag and we chose to ignore
Hasn't everyone once stood like an ostrich with head in sand?

Her prayer to angels unseen began like before
"Angel of God, my guardian dear..."
But mid-way she began to implore

"God, please let me know you're there, that you hear...
...for I have sinned in the worst way and don't know
what the consequence will be. Death, I fear."

Nestled in her trundle, on a patch of a Texan plateau
She tearfully, fearfully cried out to her Lord.
That's when she said, "If you say so...."

What answer did she hear that restored
Her faith and quieted her uncertain grace?
Silent in life as in death, she found her reward.

Dawn shed rays to no avail upon her waxen face.
She lay, for now, in purgatory's space.