what i saw today

obit series no. 1

2008-09-13T14:37:00.004-04:00

chris' latest; she says it's not me, but i don't know... the title is a little unsettling; should i be worried?

what have we done?... what we have yet to do

2008-07-18T06:51:00.003-04:00

chris' illustration for wednesday's poem, untitled.

untitled

2008-07-16T06:51:00.005-04:00

I stepped out of the way,
inflated my gut
and receded my hairline.
I screwed the bottle cap tight, stubbed out the Camels,
and licked clean the credit card edges.
I pulled down a second chin,
and grew the hair on my ears.
The song would be throated by others.
But ten years on, still I hear nothing.
Just white noise on bleached corporate frequencies,
and some hot and hollow static behind the ivy,
pointless circles around some summer tree,
a sun dial that tells no time.
It was always meant to be us, she said,
pulling on her knee high leather boots,
didn’t you realize?
You were fooled by the tides.
You stitched up your eyelids like the glossies suggested,
your fingers groping
for nine-dollar cigars, sky dives over Tahoe,
and deep sea fishing off the coast of Florida.
OK, OK, back we go.
Into the fray, near middle-aged monsters,
dry and hoarse and shod in orthopedic comfort.
Armed with a rusty lighter and broken pen.
If only I could find them
beneath the dish towels and take-out menus.
How could we have let this happen?

city bound

2008-05-05T20:47:00.003-04:00

click here for my latest essay, in runner's world, on making the switch from country roads to city pavement.

water

2008-02-18T05:33:00.001-05:00

the waters have grown so shallow,
that all may walk across them,
all of us now worthy of worship.

far enough

2008-02-17T07:53:00.012-05:00

a sound in the sun,
my footprints on the wing.
across the river
i watch the night city button up,
eyeholes of light snuffed out
by blind thumbs and fingers.
all that's left is morning
dashed upon the rocks.
i've run from the crime,
but not far enough.

low grade

2008-01-26T15:34:00.000-05:00

low grade fever,
fists with the pinkies extended,
the smell of urine,
my mother's frown.

the death of outrage was followed
by the demise of celebrity
which was followed by the end of social ruin.
experience never had a chance.

when anger and sorrow go,
there won't be but six of us left
to prop up the remains,
and i'll be bouncing from the back bumper.

rain

2008-01-16T17:59:00.000-05:00

in a foreign rain,
another boss in a green duster,
hiding from him my perfect accent.

charles river run #3

2008-01-10T08:24:00.000-05:00

over the bridge, wounds deep in the water,
i chase my shadow toward a box of stars,
feeling for the switch before the sun comes up.

you

2008-01-08T20:55:00.001-05:00

all them pretty words and nothing for sale --
you thought you was a hammer, but you was only a nail.

grim sunshine

2008-01-05T09:53:00.001-05:00

clouds and veins beneath a grim sunshine,
waiting on the wind to part the scabs.
the only thing missing is you.

benzol

2007-12-30T09:57:00.000-05:00

kolya, kot and i used to sneak
over the concrete wall to the local dry cleaners
and puncture with a nail or screwdriver
one of the steel benzol barrels in the corner
releasing a translucent arc of
chemical solvent
into our empty fanta bottles.

then we gathered between floors
in a slushy, wool-stinking stairwell,
soaked our rags
and put them to our cracked lips
and chapped noses
til one by one we slipped beneath a pin-pricked haze.
nothing but snow dripping into pools of light
and cigarette spit.
kot and kolya were running from moscow's government-issued air,
me from my blood and ears and crooked toes.
but we were in it together.
it was that simple.

this is how we spent our loose hours
before i left the country for good.
by the end, i got pretty good at figuring where the nail should go in.
meanwhile, the benzol ate away at different parts of my brain –
the part that computes complex mathematical equations,
that remembers people’s names,
that distinguishes love from degradation,
that sees what's so great about ginsberg and kerouac,
that separates truth from defiance.

all that the benzol left alone was a vague desire
to see letters appear on a page,
and the need
to please bad people.
but the bad people,
they've pretty much disappeared, too.

things air

2007-07-17T18:20:00.000-04:00

ok, i'm back; click here to find my last regular vermont public radio commentary; now, i'm gone, i mean it this time...

gone

2007-07-10T07:37:00.000-04:00

coda

2007-07-02T15:44:00.000-04:00

I had a growth cut from my lower eyelid, a bump I've had since I was a teen. A freckle had appeared and testing urged. So my eyeball was numbed, the lids clamped open and the bottom rim pierced twice with Novocaine. A real Clockwork Orange scene. The opthamologist went to work. Slicing through the growth, scissoring down a flap and cauterizing the wound. I watched a thin ribbon of smoke curl toward the ceiling and disappear. Then he undid the clamp, dripped antibiotic in my eye and rubbed ointment on the lid. He held up a mirror. Puffy and red as if I'd been sucker-punched. But the bump was gone. Riding my lower left eyelid for more than twenty years, changing the shape of my horizon -- gone, off to the pathologist's lab. You’re good to go, the doctor said.

A few minutes later, I stepped into the sunlit parking lot, one eyeball without feeling, vision smeared like Vaseline on a windshield. But I looked forward to being temporarily half-affected by the world around me – the homeless woman I drove past at the interchange would perhaps only strike me half as sad, the father berating his kid in the next car half as harsh, television reports on government abuses half as depressing. Passing disturbances. Instead, my good eye wept twice as hard. A flow of tears I tissued while steering through mid-morning traffic on Shelburne Road. And I couldn't have been more glad for it.

lost dog air

2007-06-28T16:31:00.000-04:00

click here to find this morning's vpr commentary -- on losing our 8-pound chihuahua in middlebury's battell woods.

trent pic no. 12

2007-06-28T04:59:00.000-04:00

the latest from trent campbell, a silo in weybridge

numb

2007-06-23T05:50:00.000-04:00

His suicide vest was armed with golf-ball-sized hail.
In the woods, I watched them load their rifles
with the-good-and-the-just.
Outside the post office, she left a parcel
packed with 24-7 beneath a mailbox.
While her husband doused Main Street with patriotism
and tossed a match.
My mouth stuck with shame,
I strapped my poems into car seats and drove us all into the lake.

dirt road run no. 2

2007-06-19T04:56:00.000-04:00

I lifted my head
and breathed in the dust,
the sky was scabbed over with clouds.
I lowered my head
and joined the cremated remains,
burrowing past the ancient stones,
into the silt beneath
the drowned clocks.

votin' time

2007-06-18T05:01:00.000-04:00

Time again for the annual seven days readers poll, which includes a best-vermont-blog category -- this year, wisely broken into "political" and "non-political." Despite my pending departure, this blog is still eligible for "non-political;" (and if i wasn't voting for myself, i'd be casting a hearty ballot for sr wild -- the kid is fun, visual, well-written, and best of all, not boring. Plus, you can send him stuff in the mail and he'll send you stuff back).

As for political blogs, philip baruth's hard-working and immensely readable vermont daily briefing won last year and is again a strong contender. I've also been reading a lot of freyneland and vt.buzz, both informative and heavy comment-generators. For a comprehensive list of vermont blogs of all stripes, visit 802online.

So click here to vote (polls close June 25). And a couple things to remember:

1) seven days requires that at least 23 questions be filled out; so don't just skip to the blogs or it won't count.

2) when you get to the blog category, type in (or copy and paste) the full address (i.e. http://www.blahblahblah.com) not just the blog name.

Thanks for supporting your local bloggers.

trent pic no. 11

2007-06-15T16:48:00.001-04:00

Check out this stunner from Trent Campbell -- a shot of the softball pitcher from Otter Valley Union High School in Brandon (originally published in The Addison Independent). "She pitched well, but the team lost the game to Randolph," Trent said. "From what I could see, most of the (OV) players had tinted the tips of their hair red." Click to enlarge.

secret rooms

2007-06-13T09:13:00.000-04:00

We pull all the books from our hallway shelf,
one by one, like removing bricks,
as if to reveal a secret room,
a hidden way out.

We pull all the books from our living-room shelf,
title by title, like extracting teeth,
until only rows of wooden gums remain,
rectangular mouths gaped in surprise.

All these books
now huddled in beer boxes,
revealing the secret rooms
hidden inside our mouths.

dirt road run

2007-06-09T12:35:00.000-04:00

Wet fingers tap my shoulder.
Above my head a halo of bugs.
The branches bow as I run past,
over potholes filled with rain and black farm cats.

these woods

2007-06-07T09:55:00.000-04:00

The pies cooling on windowsills smell of manure
The trees take turns playing trumpet
The wind blows open the last creaking door
On our final walk through these woods.

modern life

2007-06-06T05:43:00.000-04:00

I look for garbage bags in the fridge
check the cupboard for milk
stride into the living room, no idea why.
Looks like late spring outside.
Could be early fall.
Is this car mine? Or my wife’s?
I’ve driven 37 miles
with no memory of the last four towns.
My mind's always wandering,
staying out later,
straying further
beyond the wooden gate,
down the gravel drive,
across the state highway,
across state lines.
The other day it didn't come back,
left without a word,
left me staring at the gas pump
which I mistook for a juke box.
I had no idea where the quarters went.
Or whether a song could be eaten.
Yesterday, I received a postcard,
with a garden of marble statues
on the front.
On the back was writing
I couldn’t make out,
all strange squiggles and loops and dashes.
But something in my heart
told me I was having a great time in Rome.
I run to the mailbox every afternoon
but I haven’t found any more sandwiches.