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The Winds of Calhoun Street

Suddenly a breeze is born
and almost as quickly moves
through a plain unmolested.
All at once and everywhere,
in spaces as far and near
as one’s imagination,
the conspiracy once again twists into motion.

Centuries tick away
and still this wind
maneuvers itself
about obstacles,
some new, some old,
some no longer present
others yet to exist.

All of the wind that has once
existed pushes onward
with purpose searching for its
final resting place, one where
it needn’t push much longer,
a spot to recollect all
prior experience with
relish, reflect on regret
and choices that put it here
or there, to discover the
path less taken.

Sooner or later all the wind travels to Calhoun Street,
Sometimes all at once,
Where it will knock your hat from your head
When you are not paying attention.

These Old Telephones, They Used to Ring

Inside an empty room, an old style
telephone, complete with rotary
dialer and tones unheard today,
idly sits on a small stand often
reserved for personal belongings:
Sunglasses, keys, mailed advertisements.
Idle until the ringing sound begins.
One long sound after another, that same
sound again and again, staining the
absurd white of the surrounding walls.

Ah, tonight! It could have been the night,
if only...Somehow there is always an
"If only," a "Could have been." Tonight,
if only someone was here, inside,
to put a stop to the monotony
of the tireless mailings and the
uncompromising ringing noises.
These old telephones they used to ring
but the junk mail still collects, all on
idle stands surrounded by walls of
different whites, none the same as any other.

There is a Way the Summer Ends

The sounds of sunshine
and baseball on the radio
give way to soft winds
luring leaves toward the
ground; forcing trees
to undress too swiftly
as though the largest
longest party had
ended maybe an hour
before, and they just
arrived home, exhausted.
If you stare at a
sunset for too long
you go blind. I think
that is how that
saying goes. Either way
eventually they all
look the same,
the sunsets do, so
what is the point?
Too much of a good thing
makes that thing
not so good anymore.
The colors of leaves
in late October
Never seem boring
even if the colors
are always the same
(even if the timing is not).
Change permeates the air.
It becomes necessary
for everything to
ultimately stay the same.

After the fall,
winter arrives,
followed by all the others.
The days are numbered
One, Two, Three….
followed by all the others.
Sometimes, there
is one extra.
I cannot fathom
where the sun
finds the time.

The Presumption of an Open Field

I can bring you to the field where I died
that first time. Even, I remember the day.
Harsh light, more unkind than any complete darkness
or bitter cold, reminds me that
re-birthing requires
time and patience; practice and luck,
often with no end,
thus remaining incomplete
despite an ongoing struggle versus minutes and hours,
miles and miles…
 
We travel to this field, you and I,
pushing through wind
as it lashes our cheeks and forehead
doling out punishment unforeseen.
Diluted now, the sun dips low in the sky,
teases with long forgotten potential.
Its warmth uselessly consumed by the past.
 
“Nothing is forever,” you tell me.
“So what of Death, then?”
I know I should not speak.
Throughout the silence I seek forever.
“This field is like any other field,” you say,
too casually ignoring Death.
Silent dissension fills the air
enveloping us in a fog composed
of all imaginable doubt and regret.
I see differences when no one else can
Therefore this field becomes unique
(to me at least).
I know now to keep silent,
as a child should in the company of adults.
“Poetry will never exist in your soul.”
I know this as absolute truth.
This is the field where I died and was reborn.
Nothing is forever.
 
When the end result is met,
what matters the route taken?
Truth matters in the end. It is all that is.
The horizon, unforgiving and relentless,
swallows whole what remains
of the feckless sun.
 
This field and horizon are innocent,
playing only their parts in a larger charade.
Satellite reflections are all we have now,
leading us to truth, something real (or perceived as much).
Pale light takes my hand and I take yours
to follow this mirage toward the selfish center
tucked away
into a corner of the vast
Unknown.
Waiting to be discovered yet again.
“And what of Death?”
“Nothing is forever.”

Nearing Morning

Hard heeled boots strike
the late spring snow;
create a crunching echo
heard throughout the 
valley.
Early birds thus
move onward, a 
quest for quieter trees
after time spent in 
dawn's darkness.
Arriving at 
the apex I 
inhale intensely 
(intently)
taking nature into my
lungs and soul.
The sun, 
appearing now, 
anticipating my prompt 
approach, greets me 
with all
the fanfare fit for 
       a King.

City Birds Watch with Wonder

Are they crows or are they ravens?
Blackbirds, nevertheless, parade
the sky; listless and lazy they
awkwardly hop from limb to limb. 

Their shouts echo irritably
While their watchful and wary eyes
Follow the passers-by and the
Travelers along sun-lit streets.

These birds remember faces from
the past, clearly, as easily as
Elementary arithmetic,
or names, if birds even use names.

Like parallel lines at different
Times in space, pasts and futures shall
not meet. Why should they? These city
Birds who watch with wonder perceive

Real and unknown random spaces
Differently, remembering pasts,
Knowing they are unimportant.
They do not speak in absolutes,

Only brief shouts echoing through
our make-believe day-time to
Placate some specific duty
known only among the murder

or the unkindness. I do not know
these idiosyncrasies so I
leave the whole mess for the blackbirds
to watch and wonder instead.

Booth Scene, on a Thursday

Laughter, sustained,
hangs stale in the
air about the
cushioned corner
booth like curtains
of left behind
cigarette smoke
from way back, when
time was different;
like some forgotten
acquaintance, seen
in the wrong place
at the wrong time.

A casual
wind carries leaves,
trash, newspapers,
and voices from
the past, brushing
aside this haze
while bringing specks
of an old earth,
time forgotten.

Time more likely
unknown to those
staring, swiping
litter and leaves
with casual shoes.

Desultory
movement, slowly
searching empty
skies, streets, Thursday
scenes and other
conversations
for anything
to happen next.

Arbitrary Summer Minutes

On that summer day
we experienced
all the four seasons,
but never at once.
This tends to happen
in Northeast Ohio.
In a different summer,
our porch was painted
a sort of light blue;
A shade of blue the
sky can assume
upon the perfect
alignment of all
universal force
imaginable.
Yet, in some places
that paint began to
fade; it peeled in others.

Four of us sat: One
on the swing attached
by chains to the ceiling,
Another on the
Adirondack chair
back in the corner.
Two more on marble
slabs, forming corners
of the rectangle.
Wrought iron railings,
painted black, so smooth
they coulda been God
himself, The Devil,
maybe even Death,
that most rogue agent.
The approaching storm
gathered quickly from
afar. Electric
space, all around us,
closed in upon our
tranquility. Then
a flash, contact too
close for our comfort…

Simultaneously
we became surprised,
inched ourselves backward
away from the storm
greeting us at our
literal doorstep,
each of us doing
so without knowing
the others would too.

So it rains, there's wind,
thunder and lightning;
we sit and watch,
hopeful for total
obliteration.
Of course, it never
happens. Silently
fallen twigs down the
(gratefully) we race
newly formed rapids
that collected in
our street's storm alley.

When the Spring Becomes Itself

I straighten raindrops with my eyes,
swallow wind whole with my mouth;

feel the sunshine in my mind,
forage atmospheres and find

solace in a Sunday noon.
Minute flowers, all abloom,

Sleepy clouds drifting through time
(while colors of space rewind)

each remind, relentlessly,
me through their soliloquy

yes, I begin to grow old;
Despite the truth I’m unsold.

Red, yellow, and blue denies
indirect warmth from replies

of misguided uneven light,
Savage mistresses affright

a random crowd of living things
with raucously flapping wings

Toward the unknown known beyond
mirrored reflections; abscond

to the peaceful state wherein
the slanted sun erases sin.

Brushing Cobwebs from a Kitchen Window

Four a.m. is too early to vacuum.
Or is it too late in the day?
EIther way,
now is not the time.

Throughout the summer
I have no concept
of night,
of darkness.

I cannot recall,
In, say, July,
the look of the night sky,
star-spotted and cloudless.

Maybe some of those
wispy cirrus clouds
attempt to form and
gather for unknown purposes.                    

Now, an early sun
creates hues of pinks and blues
beyond the timeline of my backyard,          
noticed through a solitary
kitchen window.

Dingy curtains part  
to afford this view.
Stringy cobwebs,
forgotten by time,
exist in the periphery.

Breakfast time
at a kitchen table
haphazardly covered
with a cloth meant
for anything else is
The most lonely
time of any day.