Twenty thousand souls

swell beneath these waves

each whitecap is a headstone,

each billow is a grave.

With shoulders drenched by cannonballs

men fought to give you their name-

their names now lay beside sturgeon,

and spars that were charred by flame

their beards are tangled in milfoil

their eyes stare into green, and we

now praise your luster, your glimmer, your hills

without asking for your name.

We did not dream above your petrified whales,

while sawing trees and nailing ash to cross... Read more

A few years ago, a slim volume at Borders jumped out at me. I don’t know which caught my eye first: the jacket photograph — depicting a man’s sand-dappled shins from the POV of their owner, who’s reposing in a beach hammock — or the title, The Importance of Being Lazy. I’d been giving the subject some thought even before spotting the book. That is, wondering if I’d ever have enough free time to put on my lazy pants. The subtitle extolled what I was lacking: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations.... Read more

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When you arrive, Ramon is busy by your father’s bed. He wheels aside the table, pulls the walker into place. It’s the second time he’s drawn your dad, and you’re relieved to see him. He is calm and gently competent. He doesn’t get upset like Biljana, yesterday’s aide who couldn’t understand why your dad insisted on speaking to her in a language (Hungarian) that she (being Bosnian) could not comprehend. On Ramon he’s trying Portuguese.

“Como é você?” he says. “Como é o tempo?”... Read more

I stepped outside
to pick tomatoes after the rain
barefoot, shirtless, end of summer

Filling my hands with basil
twisting plump tomatoes
from their wiry green vines,
I juggled them carefully
on the way back to the house,
feet soaked from the wet grass

I came back inside
And New Orleans was underwater
Mississippi, I guess, floated
about a mile in the other direction
from what I could tell
from the TV

I set the tomatoes down on the counter
turned them over in my hands
wiped off the dirt and wet leaves
from the ripe skins... Read more

This
is a political
poem
where moose — bull and cow —
frolic
like downwardly mobile
young adults who have
abandoned
their cultural inhibitions,
acting like everyday
is Xmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan,
not considering the consequences
of spring thaw,
mud up to their bulbous knees
or
where maples shed
leaves like rapturous nudists
only to huddle
hidden all winter
under surplus blankets of snow
waiting meekly
for the sap to finally run,
sluicing toward pancakes
and Town Meeting.

after Lawrence Ferlinghetti

New Year’s Eve, waiting for the ball to drop
     again. Waiting for the dancing
to begin, the band to wail like it has no choice.
     It has no choice.

I’m waiting for the woman in red shoes to move
     her sinuous self my way
and smile. I’m waiting for the stores to close.
     I’m waiting for America
to grow weary of money and move on. I’m waiting
     for one of the football guys... Read more

Click here to see the whole story.

"Homesick" appears in the center spread of the 12.19.07 issue of Seven Days. It looks fantastic in print, so pick up a copy.

"Homesick" was written and drawn by Joseph Lambert, a student at the amazingly cool Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction.

Once there was a houseful of noisy girls,
their squabbling and hair-washing,
stumbling cockeyed up the stairs at night.
They’d catch him standing at the top,
one hand holding up his pajamas,
the other waving the alarm clock,
incontrovertible evidence of their crime.
Do you have any idea what time it is,
he’d ask rhetorically. And they’d stifle giggles
behind each other’s backs.

Now they’re scattered to other countries
busy with their jobs and children,
their unhappiness. If time was money
he’d be on the pig’s back these days... Read more

Wild tom yesterday at the far
edge of woods
cautiously measuring potential

snatching bugs from leaves
of cinnamon and interrupted ferns.

Today under the bird feeder
still alone among the dross
of sunflower seeds.

I imagine him
the Judas of turkeys,
outcast and made brave
by his hunger

or the Magdalene of turkeys
shunned
for being most
what the others need.