COPYRIGHT NOTICE
All the poetry on this page is COPYRIGHT 2002 by Hayes Walker
(Contact: hwalker@poetrycritic.com)
For Pat, always
Long After
Lorre
The Skeleton That Died For Arran at Nineteen Months
The Old Brood Mare in Stable Three Vasectomy
Mom Goes to Church Haiku
Cool Cats Jarring Situation
Lucky Spin Brother Guinn's Trophy
A Prodigal Missed at Work
The Captain Hadn't Loved in a Year A Poem for Pat
First Noon Seeing Through Glass
Snacks
None speak of it--few have minds to remember--
yet in the minds of higher survivors
memories make unwarranted shadows.
Blue are the round lakes that dot all our meadows;
only life's wars are lived in our rivers
(men counted three and killed all their number);
the sun makes day;; the indifferent watchfires
sit out blind tricks in the black pool of nighttime;
but we who remember are nodders tearful.
Deer among ruins are steppers careful,
horses take flight at mushrooming sunflame,
and often the swans see whales in their nightmares.
The little skeleton died last night. Regret,
like a mild headache, will respond to sleep
or coffee. It's not hard to get over it,
in spite of what you've heard, because of what
we are--life-worshipers--and what death is.
Child--dead of war, of hate, of malnutrition,
victim of Vietnam, Biafra, Harlem,
parental anger in landscaped L.A. suburbs,
of shanty-dwelling loafers who buy fine cars
with welfare checks and feed their children junk
from surplus doles: lard, cornstarch, beans--
what can we tell you that will say it true,
will "tell it like it is?" Dead child--our loss--
although you die by millions, you will be
no loss to many minds for very long.
The world won't miss you, and you won't miss the world.
The Old Brood Mare in Stable Three
The Stablemaster said, "It's time I got
out of this business. They're a sorry lot,
those stock of mine. You know I've tried and tried,
but only one or two are broke to ride.
So get yourselves down there," he told us then,
"and make that old corral a slaughter-pen."
Gabe said, "Pardon me, Sir; I know that eight
are worthless nags, and I don't mean to prate
'bout them; but, Sir, you can't make me agree
'bout that old brood mare down in Stable Three.
She might seem feeble, but she's not so sick
that one more service couldn't do the trick."
"She's heavy now," He sighed, "but so infirm
I doubt that she can carry the babe full term.
You're right, though; slaughter's not the proper course.
She ought to die by Nature, not by force.
Don't take her to greener pasture. Withhold the oats.
She'll glut on the rich green cane that aborts her colts."
Mom goes to church and
takes the most money and
plunks it down hardest and
compliments the preacher and
goes to the revivals and
also attends the Music and
Poetry Club festivals and
leaves me home writing and
revising my poems, and
when she comes home and
plunks down her Bible and
goes to the garden and
munches an apple and
naps, I take them and
put them with the Old and
the True great stories and
she never reads them.
The Mother
Pussy Belle was fifteen feet
away, but I could hear
her purring. Hours earlier,
she'd had the nerve to bear
half a dozen kittens to
our generous welfare.
How happy are the ignorant
who think they've done their share.
The Father
Papa Boots was purring, too,
plotting, perhaps, new evils.
He hadn't caught a mouse in months--
("Such filthy little devils!
I must preserve my dignity
and not sink to such levels.")
With such cool pride he seems to live,
but notice how he grovels
to share the mother's food (increased
after the new arrivals).
This fairway, on the left beyond the swamp,
slopes downward toward the fence. On some tee shots
that start out well but hook formidably
and land where the slope would logically spell doom,
the ball will take a sharp hop to the right,
toward the green. I guess a crazy spin
gets to the ball from some quirk in the swing,
wronging the flight but half-apologizing
on landing, like a rudeness turned to jest
by twist of word or expression. At such times
you feel relief that makes the error seem
no threat to future play. The trouble is,
you just can't always count on a lucky spin.
You might hit the swamp, where no spin changes things.
You'd better give some thought to curing that hook.
My son's engaged to a foreign lass--
from the other end of the street!
He says it was a miracle
that they should ever meet.
I cautioned him against this step.
I said, "When the girl next door
can't please you, you're too picky and
should be a bachelor."
He said, "Perhaps you're right; traditions
oftentimes are wise.
But when I touch her foreign hand
and gaze at her foreign eyes,
adore her foreign eyebrows and
admire her foreign nose,
and marvel at the foreign way
she wears her foreign clothes,
it's then that I wax drastic.
So, although I know you're loath
to be iconoclastic,
I beg: approve this troth."
I gave the pair my blessing
(the girl is good and meek),
and I still call the boy my son
in spite of his wayward streak.
The Captain Hadn't Loved in a Year
The Captain hadn't loved in a year--not since
the last time we were in this dying port.
We watched now, as his eye was being caught
by the hungering waist and stained lips of a once-
priceless beauty.
He pocketed his hands;
one of them seemed to test a coin for weight.
We tethered the barge. The Captain walked on the pier
on river-legs. The girl strolled her best way
and primped her smile; breathed deep, but still looked thin.
The Captain hadn't loved in a year--not since
fresh lips and supple wealth were his to hurt
or gladden by the turning of his thought
toward or away.
We watched him, between shunts
of cargo; saw him rub his stubbly chin
with a rough thumb, and shape his mouth to say
something; but if he said it, we didn't hear.
Before he turned to help us with the freight,
he tossed her the coin, which fell where all love ends.
The dew has left the grass as quality
leaves early poems. We know better now
how to dismiss our dreams, how to give up
trying to impress with morning faces.
You, my bright inspiration (all shadows point
away from you--or am I yet deceived?):
the dew has left your eyes. You look at me
as if you cannot bear to look at me
but cannot look away. Well, so am I.
Don't worry! Mornings repeat themselves, with dew
and everything. We will know better then:
to not dismiss those dreams, to not give up,
to be more realistic, more romantic.
Experience can improve experience.
Come to me. Come. Listen. We are too small
to matter to the landscape or the sun
or history. We matter to each other
or else to none on earth. I love you. I love you.
Kristen sat in the kitchenette
beside my room of dream.
She contemplated cantaloupe.
She sipped prophetic cream.
Mulling upon her appetite,
she raised to her parted lips
a sugar-powdered circle cake
with a tryst-place for fingertips.
She craved a pastry filled with fruit--
flaky, and sprinkled with nuts galore.
She glanced at the big-screen TV set
and thought of a show on Channel Four.
But suddenly she tired of sweets
and grasped the neat-laid tablecloth
and slowly tugged until dishes and eats,
the cup, and the cream's decrepit froth
lay fit for the pusses that prowl the floor.
I lay like ham between the bread-white sheets.
The Danish darling stood, delicious, at the door.
Lorre rhymes with story and glory--
a glory-story is she.
Last year there were only two of us;
this year there are clearly three,
for Lorre's a separate person
with feelings and thoughts of her own.
For four months now her bright little mind
has grown as her body has grown.
Pat and I can already tell
how fine her progress will be:
She'll be walking at one, talking by two,
and learning to read when she's three.
We'll give her a good education
in spite of the public schools,
and in spite of prevailing customs,
we'll teach her some moral rules.
Into a world of too many
we have brought one more to share
all our diminished resources,
fuel, food, water and air.
She will be one of two children,
or maybe our only one.
The important thing is, we'll make her aware
of all that needs to be done
to help the earth go on living.
And we will make sure she's aware
of values worth having and giving.
We'll teach her to love and to care.
Of course we wish happiness for her,
but purpose in life is worth more.
The happiness comes from the purpose--
a fact many people ignore.
And she'll make her own contribution,
whether it be great or small,
and join her parents in trying to build
a good world--for Lorre, and all.
Arran, my sunrise daughter, I remember
watching you wriggle from one home to another:
out of the sea you'll learn to call your mother,
into our air, that morning of December.
The sleepy doctor yawned, "Ah… a boy-child!"
(and asked next morning, "Did we circumcise?")
We named you, saw you weighed, and heard your cries
(if such a word describes a sound so mild).
Now you are walking, saying forty words,
conducting to the stereo, and "dancing."
Your life-skills and awareness are advancing.
You pet Dog gently, laugh at squirrels and birds.
What blessings can we wish you? Which will you take?
Books, music, art; good humor and good will;
a critic's insight, a performer's skill,
whether you write, sing, dance, paint, sew, or bake.
A mutual blessing is the time we share
with music on this hot late afternoon.
You've played all day, and you'll be napping soon.
Come, let me hold you in the rocking chair.
Rest in the lumpy cradle of Daddy's arm,
Mahler's Sixth Symphony your lullaby.
A pink fist taps the grim march on your thigh
as if the tune were Old MacDonald's Farm.
Such innocence becomes you now;