Yum the Lotus

Even the ghosts are conspiratorial.

They too suspect the massive old gods, thin now, and lurking in the attic
Or in the facets of a contemplated and exotic bit of junkyard jade.

Just as sneeze and the air fills with monsters.

If only we could see ‘em, they’re there.

Fuck it. I make for the bread mixer.

Relax into a serene considering
While the wasps probe the screens for an in.

*

I would rather not pull and
I would rather not jog.

I’ll take mine with lemon
But hold the sugar.

A touch of bitter enlivens the appetite.

A butterfly with broad yellow wings
Is heedless of the dropped birdhouse eggs,
Thieved from a thieving magpie by a
Sociopathic little squirrel
Who pokes his yellow teeth out and
Chitters, cute for the kiddies.

His eyes scan quickly,
But are void of intent.

*

Some find themselves here, and cannot leave.

They consider leaving.

They mull it over.

They have a sense that leaving might be right.

But it’s the might that ensnares them
When the crows lift chains and the dogs pull levers
And the sun is hoisted yet again,
Massive little stage prop.

I’m told it was a mystery once,
That sun. The theater of the sun.

They consider leaving,
And a host of wasps build a nest in the rafters
While the wind presses the keys of the leaves
As musical as the purely lost visual, the true visual,
Might ever sound upon the drum of summer window screens.

The idle, unforced consideration of the narrow nut of consciousness.
A sneeze and a crust of yammering viral bits
Makes quick for the warmest parts.
The sun was a mystery once.

They consider leaving.

The sun was a mystery once.
The theater of the sun.

Four Lake Winnepesaukee Poems

1.
We call the boy at poolside.
He is curled up,
His knees to his chest and is
Plucking ants from the concrete.
He plunges his hands into
The water and mutely, slack-jawed, watches them drown.
The raw state of humanity, inviolable?
The rough childhood of our species?
An anomaly?
Nature itself?

My husband mutters:
Stupid kid doesn’t know when
To come in from the dead god rain.
Dead god? She questions.
Doggone, I meant. Doggone.

And the rain showers mercy on the ants
For whom the flood is closer than myth.
We rescue what we can.
Inside, the gas fire and pecan pie.
It will be a good weekend,
Despite the rain.

2.
With shaking pink mitts
A big fat stone baby
Takes chips and jams
Them into his maw,

The sound is
That of crunching bones
And it wends off, skittering down the hollow.

Orah!
Oray!
Granny sits at the pump organ
And turns, mid-chord
To smile at her plum.
Orah! My boy, my baby!

3.
Her husband gone,
The summer home now serves year round.

When the snow falls, she
Doesn’t worry about groceries –
She, surrendered her appetites
In marked stages, and
Now the ceiling fan is
Turned, just slightly, by
Slight wind alone.

The vacuum cleaner – someone will come along some day to fix it
And it’s best to leave it there.
The plastic owl has, somehow,
Been taken from the lawn
And placed just here, on
The frosted glass.

In the distance, the ocean sounds.
A fat raccoon comes to the
Window and stares,
Perplexed.
He doesn’t get it, either.

She takes the clock from the wall.
The lilacs now grow wild and
Feral, hungry little mouths.
She listens close for ocean sounds.
Distant, but present.

That raccoon comes again.
“I’m not dead yet,” she says to him.
He turns to face the
Stones and clamshells of
Otter’s Hill.

He disappears with the moon.
Each rainstorm – the
Fan spinning –
“we’re not dead yet,”
She says,
Mouthing the words to
Him, the dear departed man who smoked
A pipe on the back porch
And posed formally, but with a hint of a cunning smile,
In tin photographs, painted with blue and white.

4.
We see in the faces of the youth
The all encompassing mind of God—
Blind, idiot, all-judging.

All our fears were writ out before.

Fear the old. Fear the young.

Frozen between, a brood of concern.
Not anxiety, hardly terror
But the lakewoven constancy of
Plain fear.
The gremlins have gone from the night.

We were promised wisdom and
Insight and sore bones!
Our teeth
Would be punched from the roots of our gums wabang
But we would
Face the ever gentle,
Ever wrathful God
With equanimity.
Did we self-deceive?
Or were we lied to?
I’ve caught myself in a contradiction.
I know I’ve made it this far
With awareness undimmed. I say this with
Humility. A stone for a bed. An adored skiff
For a bed.
Gremlins, be damned.

Not Krakow, North Hampton

We travel, but this isn’t Krrraaakkkkkkkkow.
We’re outside of North Hampton.

Caught in a snow storm. We have no money,
Meaning, very little

So we rent a room for the night
And the only one available comes with a whirlpool tub.

Through the storm, I drive to the convenience store.
Shit. The condoms are behind the counter

And I have to ask for them by name.
The kid at the register

Has a cigarette in his ear.
There is a teenage girl standing in line behind me.

“I had four guys come in earlier,”
He tells me.

“Prom night. And not one of them
Not one

Bought rubbers.”
I pushed a can of Red Bull to him.

“Shame on the new generation.
Now here’s a man. Red Bull and rubbers,”

I didn’t look at the girl but she leaned around to look.
Back at the hotel,

I held her up in the bubbles
While we turned the jets on.

“I’ve never done this before,”
She said.

“It feels good. I mean,
It really feels good.”

She came, once again expressing surprise,
and I went to the bed. The sheets were paper stiff.

We made love and then,
darkened the swirl with half-accidental drops of malbec.

We stood up, inside, shadow pink and shadow blue,
neon and suds with lights moving and water moving.

You asked if I’d take it personally if you went
Back to the whirlpool tub.

No. I took it as a sign of respect.
My heart was beating too quickly.

From the distance, in the deep shadows,
You looked reptilian in the bare light.

*

We stood naked by the window
And looked across the road.

A sign read: Special.
Beef with oven baked noodles 9.95.

Urgh, you said.
That’s expensive, I said.

Nothing special about it.
“Disgusting,” you said.

And the snow fell thick as fingerbones
And we took to the bed.

You were cold, but indulged me
And stayed naked under the sheets.

We were stuck outside of North Hampton.
We couldn't tell the cars, one from another, hills and drifting hills.

There was a painting on the wall, a flower,
And I must say, it wasn’t bad.

“So . . . I came three times tonight,” you said.
“that’s some kind of record for us.”

“You love the whirlpool,” I said, teasing.
And what shadows crept in moved from the wall to the rug

And the water burped and made for the drain
the water, circling shadows large to small,

Among shadows like wings,
a starlet at the window, a buzzard on the northern wall.