I lay here making guesses
about this poem until
I fall asleep. Yellow crabs
sideways to the waters edge
murmur into the night air.

Night Blooming

On the side of the road
flowers continue to bloom
at night.
Sharp headlights cruise past
without eyes.

We bought our first car
during the opening salvos of the
gulf war.
TVs flashing through
closed windows.

The car is unchanged.
The road still takes us where it took us before.
Past the same windows flashing
images of the same war.

While on the side of the road
flowers continue to bloom
at night.

Memorial Fountain

Feeling good, the Mississippi boy from Money whistled loudly.
Living, we know only the silt at the edge of the black water.
Living, we are fully showered by the fountain's luminous ascent.

Emmett Till's mutilation;
The photograph of his bloated body
in an open casket;
His mother's torment;

His body exhumed for testing;
His identity proven;
Yet his executioner's
justice still undone;

He grave resold;
His body moved;
Money donated
in his memory gone;

Emmett Till's fountain still showers the shore of our abyss.

Just checking

Every now and again I check to see if there is any life on the farm.


BLUE OXEN

When I called her Babe, I thought
blue oxen. Our assumptions
never meshed. When grandchildren
called her Nana, I thought nut bread,
not goddess of sex and war.
My desires were a secret.
Camelotizing her past
and future, she hoped to marry
a knight who slayed memory.
It Ain’t Me Babe played quietly
in my head. Chivalry was dead
and loneliness more dreadful
than betraying any dream.
We were doomed from the moment
we said, “I do” on Folly Beach.
She needed my name to cash
her paycheck. I needed
a designated driver.
For twenty years I tinkered
with a lie until there was
nothing left to fix.
“I’m sorry” is another lie,
when “I was wrong” is the truth.

Bagman and Butler Live

Bagman and Butler live! See their new blog at http://bagmanslogorrhea.blogspot.com/

Shudder

Don't touch that. The fork's sharp
on his wrist. Dean's guarding his pie,
but his look says he felt the touch
like skin to skin same as Sam.

Oh yeah try and stop me.
Twitched fingers and a mischievous grin.
Pressed, the fork breaks skin.
Sonovabitch!
Wait your turn, Dean retorts.

Side by side in the motel mirror, one arm up,
a hand to graze his cheek. Just a gash, he bluffs,
not that bad. He gets a frown. Yes it is.

They are both stripped. Bare souls.
Pink again? How come nothing
ever comes out clean anymore?
It’s so dark right now, Sam. Can’t see. Sammy…?

in the morning he yawns
presses against protracted time
feels the heat of him
whose heart holds them against
the stretch of eternity
in one moment

alarm blare vibrates along the hair of his arm,
attenuated time from the slap of his palm to the
grip on the halo of warmth around his waist

There’s sweetness curling in my chest.
It spirals when you’re safe, twists inside me.
I will keep you safe (for a kiss)
I will keep your soul


I had to share this. It was entirely unintended to turn into a poem. This was an exercise between 5 friends, to try to write a short story about two characters (named Sam and Dean) using only 140 characters, including spaces and punctuation. Only two of the works were intended to compliment each other (the two about pie, and the two about waking up in the morning.)

But I strung them all together, and look what happened. Cool, hmm?

I've been writing poetry again, so I'll try to post some soon. Also, my website is finally back up, here.

Hope all are well.

Visits

Bagman and I had a nice visit and lunch in Charleston last week. He's okay...no, I mean really! He's driving around in this sweet little red Honda sports car, a convertible no less; and I'm jealous. I thought we would surely draw some babes to our lair, wherever that may be. No such luck, but that's only because none of them actually saw the car. I shall return for another ride across the bridge into James Island, the wind slicing through my, uh, scalp. Thanks Mark. We must do this again... and bring the others along. They would not fit into the car, of course. They'll have to just follow us to some nice seedy dive. I have dibs on the shotgun seat.

New Poem

I PRAYED

I prayed for fire and found enough
strength to burn the lies that bound me
to an unforgiving wife.
I prayed for fire and found enough
healing to believe the dawn
does not destroy my dreams.
I prayed for fire and found enough
inspiration to tell you the truth
and the truth and the truth.
I prayed for fire and found enough
passion to hold you naked,
smouldering in my arms.
I prayed for fire.

Of squirrels, buzzards, and babies

The wheel of life keeps turning, and I love the Tibetans' take on being alive: it is a glorious opportunity, we're very fortunate to have been born human, because we therefore have the ability to end our own suffering.

Today is my birthday. I always thought I would live a long life, so I feel very young (even though I'm nearing retirement age). The Hindus believe that life comes in stages: the first 20 years is for youth and learning to be responsible, the second 20 years is for starting and raising a family, the third 20 is for the career and making the world a better place, and the final 20 is for rest and spiritual practice. I like that notion.

It's delightful to hear from almost all of you, and I hope you're all being poets (in various ways). I'm working on a birthday poem, but my mother is here for the day so I haven't made a lot of progress. Today is really a day to honor her, b/c she's the one who delivered me, and from what she says, it wasn't easy!

Bagman's resting right now

It must be spring. A few of the Rugfarmers are about, sighing about things and missing each other. Bagman and I have been just hanging out doing stuff. Our son, Brian (actually it's not really "our" son...its the son we have with Karen) is engaged, living in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with the love of his life, Melody, and expecting a baby (actually he's not expecting, she is...well, I guess he's "expecting" but won't have to do all the work...yet). And I (the singular pronoun that covers the Bagman and Butler twins) have been corresponding alot and talking on the phone with my long lost daughter...8 when I last saw her and 30 now...So I guess all is well on the dirt road that runs by the Rugfarm fence.

good friday morning

sigh... i miss bagman, and sophie is fresh out of pearls.

Help Tiny Tim or Bill

Just call me Tiny, as in reduced memory, not to imply a areas... I have survived relatively unscathed where it counts! (-:

So, I need everyone's email address again. I've lost them somewhere in the new job transition with addresses changing and names and numbers flying. Will anyone oblige me or allow me to swing slowly in the ethereal void?

TB

Back from Alabama

I've been in Alabama taking care of my mother. She had an ovarian cyst removed. It was benign and she has recovered quite well. I stayed until she was able to drive herself around. I really love sitting on her front porch early in the morning. Here are two cutesy poems that came to me there.


BEAUREGARD

Beauregard, the Labrador,
barks at buzzards. Not ground bound
vultures, but the ones circling

in the sky. I remind him
to get them down he should be
less lively. He’d rather bark.

The idea of carrion
he finds offensive. Who knew
dogs can see so far.



SQUIRRELS

All the dogs I know proclaim:
Squirrels! Most evil and devious
creatures in the universe!
Do not let them in your yard!
In my mother’s neighborhood
evil abounds. It searches
for acorns, chases itself
in circles, and flees up trees.
It chatters from a safe height:
All the dogs are fenced or leashed
and no one owns a kitty.

I'm Tired

It's that point in the year...semester's end, flagging spirits, incredible fatigue. Every year the same struggle, my mood lightened only by the return of the nesting hawks, the flycatchers' early whistle, and the appearance of blooms on our native shrubs. I turned in my spring grades last Friday, had a housefull of guests all weekend, then started teaching Maymester on Monday (Latinos in the U.S.). Mrs. Lytle steps in and takes over at this time of year. Eve is teaching a yoga class at the university, which is among the few bright spots in my May and the only time Zoe appears until I get rested.

well

So, where is everybody? I know. Life doesn't allow for every dalliance. I think it's more about time than inclination. I just heard a most remarkable CD by Peter Rowan with guitar viruoso Tony Rice. It's Rowan's latest effort, and he demonstrates that his voice is pregant with lyricism. There is poetry here in presentation, very much in the tradition of poetry readings/slams. The lyrics of virtually every song on this album are like incantation, a form of magic transporting the listener to places that exist eternally in the human heart.

I'll have more on this later. Consider this a call to arms for the RUG. So?

2 Poems

CAUTION

Newly divorced, I wanted
sexy friends and friendly sex.
I found you who knew her heart
was cold; romance, a failed dream.
A perfect match. We wanted
to get laid. Our bodies fit
too well. You advised caution.
But our spirits fit too well.
We tried to stop at respect
and adoration. Our minds
fit too well. We admitted love
and learned the truth of caution.
We whisper the same promise:
I’m as reckless with my heart
as I am careful with yours.



AFTER

After the wisteria
shatters and honeysuckle
becomes a fragrant tangle
at woods edge, it seems the world
has always been this lush green.
The memory of branches
stripped bare brown is powerless
to prevent the moment
from stretching to forever.
And vice versa. The moment,
whether hopeful or helpless,
grows into a destiny.
If it isn’t yours, just seize
the moment after.

Merlefest 2008

Carolina Chocolate Drops Sweeten the Night

The Man Speaks

Saturday at America's largest roots music festival was messy, to put it kindly. The rains came that morning and turned the parking fields and the festival grounds ashen gray. Still, a muddy day at Merlefest is better than any work day... ever.

Doc Rolls Along

There is so much to recall about this year's four day journey through music paradise, and I will get to that in due time. Much to recount. Much to admire. So many fine threads of memory to spin into a fine cloth to keep the spirit warm in the days and months to come. Stay tuned.

Waiting and Cleaning

Outside your house in the red dusk
With the yellow glow of roses
In the window,
waiting for the invitation,
that never comes.

In my kitchen red sauces and
Squash blossoms on the fire simmer
Into the night.
The scorched caramel is washed away
At day's cleaning.

Glimpses of Divinity

GLIMPSES OF DIVINITY


1. Beginnings

In the gravel of our drive,
I built roads and rivers, woods
and mountains. I was the force
that animated the trucks
and cars, horses and knights,
cowboys and soldiers. I was
God until Mother called me
for lunch.

I wore a clip-on bow tie
to visit God’s house. There were
so many of them. How could
this fieldstone Methodist one
be His? I didn’t feel a presence
except when sun-lit stained glass
colored floating motes with shafts
of tinted light. Where did God
sleep? Maybe the Baptists
built Him a bedroom.

In the woods I was at home.
Sitting in the cool green fronds
or racing down a rabbit path
through the tangle on the tail
of my dog, I became another
force of nature.

Because my skin was so fair,
Daddy took me to the beach
early. The rising sun cast
a glittering path to Africa.
Before I learned to swim,
I’d claw through the shallow surf
pretending to be a boat
or some newly created
life-form, safely tumbled
on the heaving breast of the sea.



2. Bottoms

As a teenager, I ate enough
psilocybin to see God often.
Shiva danced in oaks. Gaia
blessed Buddha as Raven croaked
a re-creation. Addictions
trumped the divine.

I listened to Pathetique
and I reconsidered God.
My closed-eye-visions resolved
into clear patterns flowing
from Greek keys to paisley
to Celtic knots. Focusing
on space or the denim stretched
on my thigh, I imagined
a force that flows away.

A moment before launching
a sixty thousand ton missile
from the center of a submarine,
I muttered a foxhole prayer.
Don’t let us break in two.

At the bottom, all is brown
or grey or black. A hopeless,
helpless place where I lost all
my answers.



3. Births

In the morning I prayed,
Help me.
At bedtime I prayed,
Thank you,
and, Who are You?
One night She replied,
I am the one who answers
your prayers.
I found faith enough to heal.

At the moment of release
our faces shed all our years.
We rejuvenate. We fly
between the bonfires, maiden
and swain, nymph and faun,
Goddess and God. On our lips
we taste immortality.

An unseen crow caws,
pops its head above the clover
like a black thistle, dances
two hops to the side, and flies
into the woods. She shows me
a dozen paths easily missed.

One day in every twenty,
at sunset I light a lamp.
I honor Her flame all night,
waiting for dawn to bring us
face to face, waiting
for the world to catch fire.

Flow

The wine flows freely tonight.
All else is scraps;
They lie there untended and happy.

Nefertiti must have felt this
loosening of restraint.
She drank and prayed to the one.

There is power in the grape,
so why should we worry about
unkempt papyrus?

She died knowing the one
thing we abhor in our waking hours:
the unison of gods,

the Solidarity of drunken men
born to create order when
they come around.

Let's not rouse them.