You really love those devices.
Your mind and eyes make love to them
A young girl, eager to catch or steal
Any time at all, to get her hands
On her young, and eager stallion;
And when i kiss you,
I feel as if i am interrupting –
Your eyes, glowing with fascination
Pleasure centers, firing,
Your mind all lit up…
Like
the candles
you used to
light
for us.
Colin lived in his garage, there was even a cot there.
He painted little horses, planes, and pickup trucks,
Under the rusty, swinging lamp that hung
Neglectfully from the ceiling.
He died of a series of strokes just before
His seventieth birthday, and after seventy
Of the loneliest orbits ever made ’round the sun;
His sister and a priest were the memorial guest-list.
He was survived by no spouse, child, or friend
And as I combed through his ample, alphabetized
Collection of DIY books and magazines, his neighbours
Said they’d just learned his first name.
Colin had lived in this house for forty-two years;
There were no pictures on the walls, and no holes either,
Though the kitchen table was still set for two so I
Lifted one plate, then another-
Beneath the second place setting I saw the wood
Was many shades different than the rest of the table,
Forty-two years’ worth of the absence of light and air,
Four decades of dinner for one.
In his bedroom I opened the plain dresser’s drawers,
The sign said the clothes were fifty cents an item,
And as I sifted through dozens of the very same sock
A neat stack of receipts fell dull on the carpet.
Colin made monthly contributions to an orphanage
But there was nothing written on the papers to explain it.
Atop the dresser were his framed high school diploma,
And a picture of his grandparents.
It’s possible that they’d already been sold, but unlikely-
I concluded that he hadn’t owned a television, radio, computer,
Though an old style phone hung sullenly in the hallway
Holding up loose threads of foreclosed cobwebs.
The air was starting to feel heavy so I pushed the old screen-door
And staggered into the backyard, sitting down
On the rickety rocking bench under the awning,
Staring at the solitary maple.
A few blackberry bushes lined his fence, and it was there
And then that I saw the only witnesses of Colin’s years;
When I’d seen two in the bush I saw the rest as if
I had been asleep this entire time-
They were everywhere: cats in the bushes, either side of the fence
On the roof, on the awning, behind the garbage bin.
One by one they became or made themselves apparent,
Staring at me as I remembered to breathe.
More than twenty now sat motionless, spread-out and fixed
In stares to the door from which I’d sighed
Out of that wretched womb of a home and into the true
And solemn memorial for Colin Fremont.
Photo by George Hodan.
How lonely sounds the swinging gate,
In a motionless parking lot,
At half-past three in the morning-
Rocking back and forth, wailing
In a wind that will not whistle.
It is waiting for the sun,
The robins, the cars, and for me
To have the heart to come to it
And lock its noisy sorrow.
I am obliged to do so, for both of us.
A man who’s traversed the oceans of space,
Bravely set foot upon worlds unknown,
One moon, three moons, wonder on his face
One sun, two suns, darkness, alone,
Evening high, green sky, red sky, none,
Gravity, uncertainty, the curious overrun-
Wherever he may wander, he will likely find
Familiar sights and circumstances,
That his own world’s not far behind;
And even while discovery advances
What he’s known will always show
For home’s within him, wherever he may go.
An all women house across the street-
Each elderly and riddled with dementia,
From which there issue forth, hourly,
Screams of fear and anger,
as those for rape and murder,
The blaring horns of Death the Horseman
Stepping over the coconut shell welcome mat-
Has brought to my attention the existence
Of much better things to fear
Than spiders, dead end jobs and loneliness.
When over the ranch house roof lined sky
Rises the sun-drum major of the marching band
Of cloud and bird, and hour and passerby –
Then I spot the ageless man, all tanned and spry.
I am there, a curtain – of smoke and coffee scent
I know his face, unchanged in twenty years
His skin is sunned, his socks pulled high, and evident
Is his good health at years past sixty, carefully spent.
His gait is strong, his blond hair thin, and his physique
Puts decades younger men to shame, and true
To his habits, eccentric, disciplined, and unique
His sneakers pound my sidewalk every dawn of every week.
For twenty years, shorts and t-shirt he has strolled
Down our streets, this high school teacher
Practicing faithfully all the lessons he’d doled
To be clean, and lean, and sober, ascetic and controlled.
What sort of sounds are in his headphones I can’t say
Linked to some old organ grinder at his waist
But as I recall, he was humorous and fond of play
Impervious to grief, defeat, or dismay.
This man always bought the same model car,
A Mustang each time the old one quit,
And never was he spotted at a local bar,
Nor with a wife or children; lonesome, bizarre.
It’s so surreal On a night when you feel truly, immensely alone, How objects can seem the same The hooked streetlight looks so Weary in waiting, just hoping For someone to walk beneath it To feel useful again, and wanted If only for a few steps. It is a pity that we Bring each other no comfort.
prince nothing 