Paying and Non-Paying

Speaking of debts to society, I owe you all some sonnets, yes.  And you'll get them, soon.  I've been ill, and "busy." 
I hate to break silence with this particular thing, especially given my reluctance to turn this into a political poster pole...but it's like one of those unscratchable itches, or one of those laughs you try to keep in your puffed out cheeks until they hurt from stretching...
I wondered last week--when a certain candidate "speculated" (I love that word) on certain terrible events in Libya--how long it would be before his campaign appearances became just him, standing up there at podiums, making explosion sounds and using his hands to 'fly' around like jets.  A week?  I wondered.  Two?
I think that I am close to getting my answer.
Can we just vote now and get this over with?
Please?

Sonnet in Honor of B.M., Who Must Be Watching, Too

Ok, I'm trying something different
Tonight, because it is the DNC
And the Orioles are now in first place (!)
On nights like this I miss your company

And cigarettes and flipping back and forth
'Tween CNN and Animal Planet
While eating Arby's 5 for 5 with beer
And coffee and a break for some Swinburne.

So tonight I have the radio on
Bee-ay-ell to hear the postgame report
Of the game, and C-SPAN on the 'net to
Hear my people talk some sense sore lacking.

I know that this one doesn't rhyme but still.
It's mainly that I'm jazzed--'sup with you, Bill?


9/4/2012

Julian Castro

Yup.
I am looking for that "like thumb" thing here, but...where is it?

Labor Day

There is a strain of scolding that looks down
On spending Labor Day drinking beer in
Cans on lawns at lakes and in parks in town
And for the local team--go Os!--cheering.

The Pullman Strike, the Mingo Wars, they cite
Labor fights a century old or more.
To begrudge a man his brew on a bright
Late summer Monday seems a little poor.

Thing is, it's true, that what they did to earn
A decent wage and not get ground away
Built society--balance.  Don't let's burn
It up for small theories that all's OK.

Metaphorical Pinkertons: new, bold.
Your beer, not history, that should be cold.


9/3/12

Duckpin Bowling Birthday

These kids are wild! The cupcakes really shot
Them to the moon. The old attendant grunts
Because he's spoken to us twice to not
Let them throw four balls down-lane all at once.

We grownups stand, arms folded, at the back
Beside each other; look ahead into
The cloud of young--like wasps--such sweet attack
Upon the lanes, the floor, the chairs, and through

The spaces of machinery of fun.
We brought them here, and watch them speed around
In sugar-driven brownian motion.
Each turn they feel some power to astound

Our laughs and scolds. They are spinning wholly.
The spheres roll, roll, toward the pins so slowly.


9/2/12

Et in Arcadia Ego

My six year-old teaches me many things.  His lesson today is that, if there be some frightening thing, some unfathomable and terrifying mystery of life that overwhelms me with a sense of loneliness or futility or fear, just put a sock monkey hat on it. 
Pain goes away!

Sonnet for D.J.

You came into my class the second day
Of school. We cut short Charlotte's Web and turned
And stared.  You handed me the hall pass, gray,
But I looked in your eyes and froze, they burned.

I keep my arms inside my shirt because
I'm cold.  My eyes don't mean nothing so don't
Look.  Yeah, I flunked fourth grade last year, because
My teacher hated me.  Don't say you won't.

You sat outside our circle cross legged.
You listened, feigning boredom, figety.
Wilbur got loose--your eyes then!--when you said,
"I think that in his pen he felt more free."

What does it mean to have a broken heart?
Aren't they all?  How do you tell them apart?


9/1/12