On Coffeepots and Paranoia.

       Looking up, our cat presses himself low, 

       belly to pavement as the 

       shadow of a hawk passes beside him 

       on the driveway.

       I watch him from the kitchen window

       while the coffeepot hisses behind me.

       I was at Cascade Park the other day,

       just past the ford, while two hawks screamed,

       tipped their wings to turn in order to make

       better use of the currents.

       In the living room, 

       my son's face is illuminated, 

       technologically angelic,

       his thumbs making quick work 

       of an animated task

       whose purpose eludes me.

       Social media has enabled me 

       to maintain a sense of connection, and yet 

       spend days interacting with no one.

       The coffee pot makes a clicking sound 

       that causes me to become unsettled, 

       like water leaking, or machinery

       gone wrong.

       I can no longer watch a plane 

       tip its wings without 

       at least a small feeling of unease, and 

       realized the other day that even watching 

       hawks do the same

       increases my anxiety.

  

Haiku Freight Train #10: Exhaust

 

Haiku Freight Train #9: Never Any Silence.

 

Haiku Freight Train #8: In Pools of Sunlight

 

Haiku Freight Train #7: On the Accuracy of Standardized Test Scores.

 

Haiku Freight Train #6: My Mind Like Leaves.

 

Haiku Freight Train #5: In Which the Writer Considers His Mortality.

 

Haiku Freight Train #4: Wind

 

Haiku Freight Train #3: Early Blooms

 

Haiku Freight Train #2: Maintenance

 

Haiku Freight Train #1: Humility

 

Fourth Annual Haiku Freight Train.

 

Tomorrow I'll begin posting Haiku like a freight train, a new one every few days, boxcar boxcar boxcar, or perhaps the poems are like those spaces between the boxcars, moments that flash before your eyes, works of art, then gone. I don't really know. What I do know is that this is the fourth March that I have photographed a train and decided to pair the images with Haiku. I fear that this is related to some kind of seasonal psychosis, or worse, but I like the trains, and the process forces me to focus on the poems. I hope you find something there too, in the Haiku, the boxcars, or the spaces between.

Sandstone and Cinder Block

 

Somehow the Russians

have become worrisome

again,

as if it is 1982

and I am 10 years old

wearing a haircut

circa 1978.

They've taken up

a mildly threatening position

somewhere off the coast

of Delaware, headed north.

"The first thing

you would see

is a great flash."

I remember, 

as a fifth grader

I stood in our basement 

fearing the worst, 

knowing damn well

Ohio sandstone 

couldn't withstand

a nuclear blast.

Now I am older.

My cinder block basement

appears no safer.

Will I never learn?

Improbable Hope

 

In late fall of every year, when frost threatens,

I place a few plants in a basement window for winter,

in an act of suburban optimism, as if to illustrate

that hope still exists.

Then, in the middle of January, I'll find myself

in an old armchair down there, 

my ornery cat, T-bone, on my lap listening

to Talking Heads records.

As he sleeps on my knees, I look

at those plants struggle to survive

on a day or 2 of partial sunlight per week

and think to myself,

What chance have any of us got?, and maybe 

sing a bit as the cat's ears twitch slightly,

"I wouldn't live there if you paid me."

The last two years,

in these most inhospitable of conditions,

on a cold shelf next to the electrical box,

a primrose inherited from my grandmother

blooms improbable flowers.

Cooper's Hawk Unrelated.

From the corner of my eye,

a cooper's hawk 

flew between the 2nd and 3rd

houses on Eastern Heights

sideways, I mean 

with wings pointed

up and down.

I hesitated for a moment

at the stop sign,

no one there to notice,

but my wife

who was smiling

at something

unrelated.

Five Photographs of Five Notebooks 2014-2016.

 

Photograph One: The aforementioned Notebooks, contents varied.

 

Photograph Two: Unbullshitable. Alex references, "poop everywhere." No context provided. A quote by Jack from the novel Office Girl that reads, "I just can't be around people all the time because it makes me sad to be around them sometimes."

 

Photograph Three: Boston excerpts. The Verb Hotel as olfactory experience. A record of seeing Warhol's Red Disaster at the Museum of Fine Art. A melancholy morning on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

 

Photograph Four: an unfinished poem, The Velocity of Loneliness. "I heard the wood floor/creak at your step/and smiled thinking/you were walking/my way. Then I heard the door/and realized/I was alone.

 

Photograph Five: The page on which the teacher wonders about the security protocol for tear soaked standardized tests, and later has a panic attack brought on, in part, by Willie [sic] Loman.

Like Christmas

 

We suspected he had guns,

which made things all the more

unsettling 

when he shouted at his wife

until the cruisers arrived.

Red and white lights 

flashed in our window

onto a living room wall

like Christmas

as he talked to the cops

in his driveway, arms crossed,

calm, measured as a diplomat.

A Moment When Everything Seems Alright.

 

My neighbors and I

have collectively strung 

thousands of lights 

to porches, posts,

and windowsills

in order to beat 

back the darkness 

in our hearts.

If I stare down

my street as dusk 

passes,

breathing deep 

unseasonably warm

November,

allow my mind

to become 

uncharacteristically

uncluttered,

everything seems alright,

which is a cool

feeling 

now and then,

all any of us wants,

really,

even when my

waking mind,

cluttered as it is,

knows better.

4th Street Bridge

4th Street traveling west curves through 

oak trees and houses, up and over Black River.

I have crossed this bridge

hundreds of times since childhood.

It's my empty pre-dawn 

route to work these days,

A few days ago, in still dark morning,

I thought I'd come back around

to see the full moon, corner of my eye, but 

it was bullshit, an illuminated window, 

top floor, in the riverside high rise.

The moon further west,

like being fooled by an old friend.

I reached for my coffee, and

approached the stoplight

certain only of uncertainty,

a wisdom born of bridges.

My Memory the Liar.

The evening sun shines through

backyard oaks at angles

difficult to understand.

A breeze creates strange shadows

on our lawn as blades blow

every direction at once.

I thought of geometry.

I think I got a "B" in that class

30 years ago, but

my memory is often a liar.

A fly circles my ankle.

I remember my teacher, Mr. Farmer,

and something about Pythagoras.

My white cat watches me

with lidded eyes from a shady spot

near the Buddha statue.

Pythagoras, Mr. Farmer, and I

create a kind of historic triangle

here on my lawn.

That grade must've been a "C".