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I once was a poet, rhyming lines,
Tying stanzas, hinting signs,
Finding words for all my dreams
Fitting into metered schemes.
But now the work’s become too hard,
And I’m no longer quite the bard;
My wrestled words that stop or stall,
Sometimes they won’t come out at all.
I wander through iambic feet
And hope my heart won’t lose the beat,
But when my length of line is done,
Arrhythmia has just begun.
I struggle now for every rhyme,
My poetry takes too much time;
Or is it I that wants to quit,
Who cannot find the time for it?
In an older part of town,
Covered far and green and thick,
An ancient house, an antique home,
With moss upon the brick.
A window’s broken, boards are split,
The clocks inside have stopped,
The pictures hung upon the walls
Have bent their nails and dropped.
A fence outside surrounds the house,
The gate squeaks with the breeze,
The yard is filled from left to right
With dying grass and trees.
The road untravelled past the house
Is muddy, brown and slick,
And the sidewalk from the house
Has moss upon the brick.
Hiding from the worldly cares,
A hermit living with his wares,
The alchemist will have grown old
Before transmuting junk to gold.
In his younger days, a gallant gent,
With money had and money spent,
A striking woman from the West
And little children in the nest.
A happy life without a care,
His cattle grazing everywhere,
He never knew that he’d been kissed
By Fate to be an alchemist.
Then robbers down the road did roam,
Killed his children, burnt his home,
Barely left him with his life,
Two cows, a pig, and lovely wife.
But Black Death took his wife away
And debts became too great to pay;
The creditors, becoming bold,
Demanded currency in gold.
So now he sits and stirs his pot,
Bubbling brews and boiling hot,
Making potions, paints and pills,
With the metals from the hills.
Light the fires, heave the bellows,
Searching for the gleaming yellows;
Another guess within his brain,
Another try, but all in vain.
Hiding from the worldly cares,
A hermit living with his wares,
The alchemist will have grown old
Before transmuting junk to gold.
They say my bed is full of mites,
Who eat my skinflakes every night,
And even when I wash with soap,
The little buggers crawl and grope.
I’m covered with a microbe fauna,
My underarms their salty sauna,
They’re munching on my surface flora,
Despite my shock, surprise and horror.
There’s e coli bacteria
In my stomach cafeteria,
And even little mite-like moles
Living in my eyelash holes!
These insects, algae, and the mites,
All my body’s parasites,
Protect me from worse bugs, it’s said,
And will consume me when I’m dead.
We’ve stopped again, I’ll catch my breath,
I hope I do not freeze to death;
The evening brought out ice and snow,
On this December twentieth.
The air turns icy as I blow,
The temperature is six below;
I wonder how long will this take?
I’m catching chill, it’s time to go.
I give my harness bells a shake,
To ask if Robert’s still awake,
His gaze is distant, bittersweet,
‘Cross snowy woods and frozen lake.
We start again into the sleet,
But I’ve got horseshoes on my feet,
And miles to trot before I eat,
And miles to trot before I eat.
The children discover the ancient house
That townsfolk pass by quick,
A haunted place with summer weeds,
And moss upon the brick.
They sneak inside through an open door
That leads into a hall,
An empty spiderweb above
Is stretched from wall to wall.
They wander past the dining room,
That’s lit through broken panes,
The rug on the floor below the chairs
Is soiled by coffee stains.
The kitchen with its well-worn tiles
Is empty, dark and cold;
A hardened breadcrumb on the floor
Is covered with blue mold.
The children wander past the stairs,
They’re walking hand in hand;
They’re frightened by an old umbrella,
Discarded in a corner stand.
All at once the wind blows hard
And slams a door upstairs;
The children race back through the rooms,
Disturbing rugs and chairs.
Back home they run with screaming cries,
For Nature’s played a trick;
They’ll never come to play in the house
With moss upon the brick.
A foreigner from fielded lands
With prairie thoughts of desert sands
Who’d never seen a wood of oak,
He came to visit forest folk.
And in surprise he only sees
The mighty oaks and cypress knees,
Begged, “Someone will you help me please?
I cannot see the forest for the trees.”
So I, a common forest folk,
Rustled in the leaves and spoke,
“Don’t look into the wooden faces
Searching for the forest places;
Wander with the scented breeze,
Past mighty oaks and cypress knees,
Forget the timber your eye sees;
Our forest is the space between the trees.”
O, Sadness, come to me and purge
The last of my creative urge,
Prick my finger, draw my blood,
Drown me in the inky flood;
Take my hand and help me write
Before I fall asleep tonight.
No one came caroling this Christmas,
T’was such a silent night,
Yet I saw no one in the darkness
Silhouetted by the snowy white.
No one knocked on my front door,
And came in from the cold,
To be greeted by my first noel,
Laughing and cajoled.
I spoke to no one for a while,
He’d nothing much to say,
Then sang with no one of his ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
No one put his coat back on,
My coffee left unsipped
In no one’s hands to keep them warm,
The cup so tightly gripped.
Then off trekked no one in the snow
To greet some other friends,
And sit before their warming fires,
Which no one stirs and tends.
Daddy Longlegs go away!
I toss you from my page again;
Determined you’ll be in my light,
You think this is some game we play?
I toss you further out of sight!
Pick another place to play!
My gentleness is all in vain,
You climb back up with all your might;
I sigh, I guess you can remain,
Sit quiet and I’ll let you stay.
Don’t bother me so I can write.
My ontology does not exist.
I know nothing of epistemology.
Is history of philosophy just a passing fad?
Would ethics be good for me?
Plato’s broad form casts a shadow.
The Cartesians only think they exist.
Emotivists, they just don’t excite me,
And I can’t see being an empiricist.
Determinism coerces my dissent.
I learned physics prior to metaphysics.
Existentialism, being what it is, alienated me,
And the worst-written works are in aesthetics.
Actually, modality is unnecessary or impossible.
Logic is at best a non-contradictory oxymoron.
Either semantics or “semantics” is meaningless,
And some philosophers despise wisdom.
A November walk down an old rutted road
Through a fog, though misty and thick,
I’ve ventured to see that old rustic house,
With moss upon the brick.
The sun has been swallowed behind the dark clouds,
The air is bitter and chilled,
The winds change from North to East to South-
South-West, but never are stilled.
The weeds growing thick by the edge of the house,
Live now, while others cannot,
They thrive in the cold with the wind and the snow,
Instead of the summertime hot.
The apple trees dropped their fruits in the yard
When nobody came to call,
The red and the yellow lie mixed with the brown
Of the leaves that were dropped in the Fall.
A November day in the life of the house,
Like others of future or past,
Does little to change the brick and the wood,
Or the darkened shadows cast.
An early Fall snow still clings to the roof,
And ice makes the sidewalk slick,
But the wind and the cold can never remove
The moss upon the brick.
From the deer mice, not mosquitoes,
Hantavirus’ victims fall,
When the rodents’ small excreta
Fills the air as aerosol;
Coughing, wheezing, chills and fever,
HPS has cast its pall,
I can’t breathe in, my lungs, edema,
Ol’ Sin Nombre’s come to call.
I ventured one day to a building off Main,
With rats in the lobby and bugs in the drain,
A stench strong enough to make brave rhinos stop;
This place was known as the Alchemist’s Shop.
A cynical man who’d gone crazy with passion
For bright yellow gold he was trying to fashion
From metals and gases and potions and pills,
In boxes, on shelves, and on window sills.
Rich long ago but now deep in debt,
He swore that he’d pay those creditors yet,
Not with money or jewelry or his house or his lot,
But with gold that he’d made in his old blackened pot.
Green tarnished jewelry and die-casted brass,
Iron and copper and red neon gas,
Chemicals, pewter and greenish brown mold;
Mix them in portions and try to make gold.
Bat’s wings in bottles and rattlesnake’s rattles,
Blackened gunpowder from King Louis’ battles,
Elephant skins and the tusks of a boar;
These are ingredients in the Alchemist’s Store.
He’d made medicines for gout, consumption and pain,
Could cure the afflicted and criminally insane,
He even had potions for lovers, I’m told,
But never was he able to mix up the gold.
I gained his attention, looked for something to buy,
He said not a word as he looked in my eye;
I purchased some herb, which cost quite a lot
Of my coins, which he quickly threw in his pot.
I left him alone as he stirred up his kettle,
Trying to transmute gold out of metal,
Knowing that someday I’d return through that door,
To learn of more secrets from the Alchemist’s Store.
My ol’ gran’daddy,
He was snakebit and blue.
Yeah, my ol’ gran’daddy,
He was snakebit and blue.
Married to my ol’ gran’mama,
Well, you’d be snakebitten, too.
My ol’ gran’mama,
She’d give the devil his due.
Yeah, my ol’ gran’mama,
She’d give that devil his due.
Ol’ Lucifer’d be bedeviled,
Bitin’ off more ‘n he could chew.
My own daddy n’ me,
We’d been sippin’ d’ brew.
An’ my ol’ gran’daddy ‘n me,
We’d been sippin’ brew, too.
Ol’ gran’mama come strollin’ in,
Knowin’ we’d been havin’ a few.
Well, ol’ gran’mama’s eyes,
They rolled back in her head,
An’ ol’ gran’mama’s voice,
Coulda raised Jesus from the dead.
Takin’ her Bible from her belt,
Gave us somethin’ t’ dread.
My own daddy n’ me,
An’ my ol’ gran’daddy, too,
We ran from that house,
To d’ church an’ d’ pew,
Prayed to God to deliver us,
From ol’ gran’mama’s stew!
My ol’ gran’daddy,
He was snakebit and blue.
An’ my own daddy n’ me,
We was snakebit and blue.
Livin’ with my ol’ gran’mama,
Well, you’d be snakebitten, too.
Monday’s students have no brains,
Tuesday’s sections went insane,
Wednesday’s chargers do not read,
And Thursday’s are not up to speed;
On Fridays, they’re all at the beach,
While Saturdays I do not teach…
Yet students on the Sabbath day
Make up for their week-long play,
Getting tanned out in the clover,
Detoxifying a hangover,
So that by Monday they appear
The simple minds I hold so dear!
1.
When the fog creeps in on its little cat’s feet,
And the wolves’ howls echo up and down the street,
You’ve gotton lost, but you don’t know where;
You see ghostly specters without any skin
And skeletons alive just to pay for their sins,
Look for the signs of the Hunchback’s Inn
And the entrance to his underground lair,
It’s just off Transylvania Square.
Chorus
You’ll have to stick around and have some wine
With Dracula and Frankenstein,
Watchin’ the Wolfman grow his hair;
Wrestlin’ arms with ol’ King Kong
While the Vampire sings all his bloody ol’ songs,
Here’s a place where you’ll belong
‘Cause we’ve got room to spare,
Over on Transylvania Square.
2.
Now if your eyes glow green in the pale moonlight
And your wretched smile gives the folks a fright,
Come on in, pull up a chair;
We won’t take notice of your tattered clothes
Or your wicked scars or your broken nose,
No one cares if your deformity shows
‘Cause you’ll always be treated fair,
When you’re in Transylvania Square.
Chorus
And we’ll all hang out and drink some wine
With Dracula and Frankenstein,
Watchin’ the Wolfman grow his hair;
You can wrestle arms with ol’ King Kong
While the Vampire sings all his bloody ol’ songs,
It’s a place where you’ll belong
‘Cause you’ll always be welcome there,
Over on Transylvania Square.
coda
Step into my parlor, if you dare,
It’s just off Transylvania Square.
Startled from sleep as the room shakes,
California has earthquakes,
Whenever it happens everyone wakes,
As something breaks.
Sucked to the screen as the wind blows,
Curtains stuck to the windows,
Where the wind comes from nobody knows,
Nor where it goes.
A ray of white light as the curtains part,
Is spilling out of the moon’s heart,
Falls on the stars of my zodiac chart;
When will it start?
Predicting disaster a Mayan rune
Etched by the wind on the sand dune
Says that the end of the world will be soon;
When earth shades the moon.
The Chumash believed that the earth’s mighty roar
One day could shatter the seashore;
California the island of Hispanic lore;
A myth no more.
By age thirteen I’d realized
That St. Nick broke all natural laws,
And so I was the most surprised
When Opa spoke to Santa Claus!
And to my shock and deep chagrin,
Santa Claus spoke back to him!
I tried my hardest to recall
My calculations to debunk it all;
Add up chimneys by the millions,
Exponential gifts for billions,
Far too many visits theorized,
A salesman’s puzzle blown up giant sized;
So Santa must be myth, idealized…
Or so I had myself deceived,
And for several years beyond that moment I believed:
Math or science had a flaw, because
Opa spoke to Santa Claus.
What’s this I see
From the top of the hill?
Chickahominy River
And Mechanicsville.
Trucks parked by the bridges,
Their owners out for a hike,
Do they fish in the swamp
For old Mechanicsville pike?
Across Chickahominy Swamp
On the small grassy hill,
Past Bruce’s Auto Parts
Grew the windmill.
Where Atlee Road met Shady Grove
And Cold Harbor ran off to the right,
They wrecked Rebel Inn for a convenience store;
There once wasn’t even a light.
A Civil War battle
Before we were alive;
Now Beaver Dam Creek
Is 295.
Out 360 East
We took a bum rap,
When things like Spring Meadows
Weren’t shown on the map.
The Seven-Eleven
Was our lone country store,
Now way beyond here
They’ve built a bunch more.
Lee, Davis and Stonewall
Lent their names to the schools
Which stood all alone
‘Til the new zoning rules.
With new shopping centers
The farmer’s field molts,
Once “way in the country”
Was Westhaven and Holts.
Mechanicsville you snored along
But change has come so fast,
I wonder if your rural air
Will stand a chance to last?
I long for your fields and occasional cows;
What will happen to your charms
When bowling alleys stand beside
The creeks that watered farms?
Mechanicsville, I’ve been away,
While growing business buys you;
When time returns me to your arms,
How will I recognize you?
Now I have grown old, my hair has turned gray,
The passage of time was so quick;
I wonder if years have weathered the house
With moss upon the brick?
I remember the house as it was in my youth,
I’m drawn down the muddy lane;
The trees, the walk, the peeling paint,
The broken window pane.
Why, even in my day, the boards on the porch,
From lying so long were sore,
They’d bent their necks and arched their backs,
Pulling their nails from the floor.
I wonder if years have caved in the roof?
If the weeds are growing thick?
If wind and rain have even left
A brick upon a brick?
I’m nearing the house, I’m afraid to look,
I laugh, my fearing is odd;
I’d always supposed the house would stand strong,
Like mountains, or faith in a god.
But mountains with time have melted away,
And I’ve had my faith in God shaken,
And someday the earth will not turn ‘round the sun,
Oh what is this risk that I’ve taken?
If I shatter a memory by returning to see
Whether my childhood world is the same,
And finding that things are not as I left them,
I’ve only myself to blame.
My hand on the gate, I look up the walk,
My heart turns the clock back a tick;
My faith, my life saved! – for there stands the house,
With moss upon the brick.
No one came caroling this Christmas,
T’was such a silent night,
Yet I saw no one in the darkness
Silhouetted by the snowy white.
No one knocked on my front door,
And came in from the cold,
To be greeted by my first noel,
Laughing and cajoled.
I spoke to no one for a while,
He’d nothing much to say,
Then sang with no one of his ride
In a one-horse open sleigh.
No one put his coat back on,
My coffee left unsipped
In no one’s hands to keep them warm,
The cup so tightly gripped.
Then off trekked no one in the snow
To greet some other friends,
And sit before their warming fires,
Which no one stirs and tends.