[I sometimes wonder if this experiment is worthwhile, especially when the notebook is so scanty, as it was this week…]
The grief of the past months
has settled in one ear. Intermittent
needles, and in between—a hiss
like water when a small leak’s
developed in a hidden pipe joint.
Wherever it’s bleeding out, water
seeks depth, yields to gravity
and hums a song about it
as it wanders and descends. Soon
the whole house will be made of thirst.*
He’s my age, sixty, but in much
better shape. Still not enough to go
back, though, to his younger days
in construction. But his house
is on the line, so he hauls two 80
pound sacks of concrete in each
wheelbarrow load, stagger-pushing
it across the rocky worksite. Can’t
keep it up—just a matter of time:
a snap in the low back, a wide plank
of sheetrock cracking down on his
foot, a slip on the scaffold. The point
being not that the work’s too hard
(it is) or beneath him, but his dream
life’s on hold, maybe finally dead—
the “do what you love” mantra
emptied out like a magician’s fist,
and no coin hidden in thin air. Now,
I’m a poet: I could have told him
money doesn’t come from love. But
he’s my friend, and still has plans,
so I keep my bitter mouth shut.
And Joe, see what response you get.<br /><br />Exercise is exercise, and always worth the effort. Poets are no handymen. It took me three days (the last three) and 10 hours to fix a sprinkler head on my front lawn. <br /><br />So don't give up. Why not bring in a few more posters when the gruel runs thin. Guest posts. That's the way to broaden the conversation.
Vassilis, the self-critical craftsman. I read somewhere that if you were potty-trained too early … but then I'm no shrink. Enough to note that your dovetail joints feel seamless…<br /><br />And Tom, I don't plan to give the exercise up. It's the only exercise I get!
Joseph–please do not give up this exercise. It's a "notebook." Sometimes the pages will be blank, but staying at it permits the possibility that there will be much more.
hmm….seems I'm only handy when it comes to repairing my shoddy poems and even then I'm all thumbs!
If I repaired my own roof it would drip like a colander full of freshly washed lettuce….
went up onto my roof last week<br />had to wait until someone got home to<br />help me down<br /><br />I located the nail through which the drip dripped<br /><br />roof leaks only when it rains<br />so <br />I've delayed going up to spread the goop…<br /><br />now,<br />I am of a mind that if I seal it<br />we will be dry for the next 20 years<br /><br />as<br />I am now 70 20 years hence