Metaphors Mixed and the Bases Loaded

The Giants won the sixth game up north
under cover of cloud some rain
surprise elements and we knew
next day we'd have to keep our thoughts
like our mouths shut politics is in the air
things are tense in the outfield later
they will say he shoulda woulda coulda
but still we hold our tongues like fat
one-footed molluscs on the edge of the cave
salt water running in our veins
against all advice we're done with their
dictums and datums we're just walking
watching we're full up with calculus
and fed up sitting on the knife edge
this time we'll watch what happens
do no talking just taking it in through
our eyes and ears maybe the hair
stands up for a scent on the breeze
at the bottom of the third and The Freak
in each and every one of us leads
the way to action without fanfare
this is the time and we know it
for the silent warrior to wrap himself
in compassion and fill the kettle
with rainwater this is the time
to remember the forgotten to see
what the tide brings in and then
in our phosphorescent evenings
set to work in incremental
barely perceptible ways
now all the electricity's down
there's a steady drumbeat in the air
out in Porcupine South Dakota
we can hear it in the traffic here
in this corner of the empire
the tide comes in and we say nothing
while the crowd leaps and cheers
faraway surrounding the diamond
the dugouts the bases and home

This Cobweb of Rain

This cobweb of rain heavy laden
with unexpected fall low slung
belonging to someone else now
a hundred others a hundred
droplets caught in your fine filaments
spanning the evergreen shrub tips
everything holding everything
so nested have we become
even a glance fills up our work
and our interest in wings
fills us with what not despair
hope released perhaps we know
we were always headed somewhere
somewhere more than a scratch
marked on the wall the primtive
calendar a collander standing
in the kitchen holding some things
while others fall through
all our lives following what we thought
was substance taking it up to our mouths
taking it inside while all along
we might have seen
what keeps moving

Dirty Nails

They say in so many words he doesn't care
maybe a look conveys the judgment of the suburbs
unzipped by the eyes what can a guy do
but carry on with a chance of shame
low in the sky over the left shoulder
this is the forecast whenever you think
there smells evil the glance of death
that separates the living from those
eternally damned to their twisted dogma
and hastily made opinion wow they say
you been gardening or what maybe
a grease monkey maybe stayed up late
making chocolate figurines maybe dark
where you live and cannot find the brush
normally reserved for washing potatoes
those little ugly fruit our ancestors
winkled out of the earth between
blood sacrifices clusters of gold
washed in the mountain stream
saving some to plant for later
touching with some love the dark
green leaves rising out of the ground
marveling with some regard for beauty
the blossoms that say in so many words
the time the tight pastel clusters
that say it's time

Thirst

You are the rainwater

inside the jaws of the giant blue agave

I am the thirsty black cat

Tired of Rejection

Tired of rejection Martha turned to the wall. "Hi. It's been awhile."

"Wasn't that a Johnny Cash song," said George.

Martha placed both palms flat against the wall and arched her back.

George had seen that done in a television special on yoga one time. A thought flickered across his collegiate brow. Jesus. Maybe it's too, what's the word? dispassionate. He shook his head and said, "You okay?"

She spoke from behind the curtain of hair that screened her suspended face. "I think it was the Beatles."

Now George was really lost. He knew it really couldn't have been the Beatles. It had a country vibe he couldn't put his fingers on. The ice maker in the refrigerator went off, whirring and clunking. Maybe the machines of the world were sent to save us, thought George.

"It's big," said Martha.

"What?" said George. Then he caught himself. Rejection. It came folded up in the morning mail, a little bent from the way the cute postmistress had crammed it into that pigeonhole they called a PO Box, but when you unfolded it, George realized, it was a pretty big rejection.

"Don't..." he cleared his throat.

Martha hadn't moved and her body language, half asana and half comical—My God. She looks like she's going to push the wall down, he thought. No wait. She's holding it up! The wall of rejection. He shook himself again. "Don't some people, uh, writers," he said, "don't they say you can wallpaper your walls with rejection notices?"

"Go to hell," Martha mumbled.