Jonathan Butler, December 17, 2012
Cemetery in Salvage
The long hard climb in the rain
Almost didn’t seem worth it
Till we reached the top, a plot bestowed as a gift,
A resting place, for those who could no longer see.
Our mood turned sour when we found the frail outhouse,
Leaning, lopsided, a strange sentry box indeed,
Guarding the gates of the deceased.
“Even the dead defecate,” you joked,
And we all laughed. But you went further:
“Their shit-stained souls,” and we all laughed again,
For a moment, till we realized you had gone too far,
As you like to do, making light of a grave occasion,
An uncouth breach of the barren’s code.
The silence that followed us down the hill
Could be heard throughout the village for days.
The Bard of The Republic
(For Boyd Chubbs)
A man on a stool against the back wall
Plays guitar for anyone listening.
Sometimes I think he plays for himself
When the chatter and bar-brawl bravado
Reach a crescendo just as he finds his groove,
Lips a-quiver, head swiveling side to side
In a kind of ecstasy no one else feels—
Though we could, I realize, as I look around
And see that he’s there for us all
If we’d only pay attention, stop up our mouths,
Witness the holy moment of his fingers
Bleeding religion into the night.
Strange Utterance
They came out not quite right, his first words that morning,
Like a line break in a poem in the wrong
Place, a gap between gesture…………………..and sound.
What we couldn’t figure out was what had triggered it:
Dream, disturbance, or visitation in the night.
But hell, something had happened to him, not a doubt;
No one was quibbling over that.
He poured himself a coffee and sat down,
Fidgeting with bearing and posture, how to fit in again.
No one knew how to help him or what to say,
Until at last he gave up and sat there, silent,
Staring into his mug as if some answer to his problem
Might be found there, deep
In the pool of black staring back at him.
Half
For David Gravender on his birthday: December 16, 2011.
…………. ………….Halfway,
with chances looking………….good of making it
to the dream goal of………….a hundred. What now?
A look back, perhaps,………….at the fifty passed:
the years of youth,………….then irrefutable middle age—
the wife, the we’an,………….the winner’s share of house,
home, and the head………….aches of work, the consolations
of the brave. Half………….way to some dream you had forgotten
but wake from………….some mornings, foggy headed,
halfway to some ………….remembrance, some recollection you’d
put off for a moment,………….half thinking you’d come back to it,
half unsure you could………….translate it, even passably, the way
an archaeologist in………….Crete or Cairo might doubt his rusty Greek
or Sanskrit, a language………….long forgotten, but half remembered
sometimes, halfway to………….another foreign place far from home.
Halfway. Halfway to………….what? Look ahead: everything you’ll do
remains to be written…………..Half afraid, half encouraged,
half mistrusting of………………everything you know,
you’ll scan the lines………….of your life to come
like a poem awaiting………….creation, lifting your eyes
at the end of each………….imagined line
and returning them to the margin,
……………………..and all the while in………….the gap of that movement
……………………..the half thoughts will………….happen. Let them.