D's Bones » 2008 poems

Cure

David Stallings — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 21:54:06 +0000

I click the latest international news
documenting my daughter’s public recovery
from Internet obsession—
il Repubblica, NYT, Today Show:
“52 Nights Unplugged!”
“A Secular Sabbath!”
Blogs aflame, the Zeitgeist twitters, senses
an addictive flaw—
and need for new web sites
to explore the malady.

Outside my window
a varied thrush, dressed
for upland migration,
beckons. I step onto the porch,
hear a spotted towhee as it shuffles the ground;
note movement in the red stem dogwood—
someone with white eye streak, but not
a nuthatch. Now a strange
warbling from those cedars—
a traveler, not yet
revealed.

I have learned many things in varied realms from my daughter. Of course, she serves as my tech advisor and is the webmistress of this blog. She is, by some reckonings, a “cultural creative/early adapter.” If the Zeitgeist has waves, Ariel somehow manages to surf the big forward curl. I’d long noticed and forgiven her tendency to plug into Internet ethers several times each hour. After all, it could be very useful (see Reality Check under 2007 archives). But I wasn’t surprised when she decided the time had come to sign off a night a week. Instantly the press picked up on this (she’s well connected to media), and once again she landed precisely in the cultural pocket.

I was, myself, clicking away, mind off in virtual gabfests, when the above mentioned thrush said Hey!

Reunion

David Stallings — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:01:09 +0000

We haven’t seen each other for years.
At tonight’s gathering, it’s take-out
lasagna and tired salad.
My step-nephew chats
amiably, sunglasses atop
his constant baseball cap. His mother
says Steve’s been traveling—
launching nephew into storied visits
to the Vegas adult entertainment expo.
He fetches photos to illustrate reported
marvels—pendulous latex breasts,
perfect be-thonged bottoms,
astonishingly realistic
woman dolls.
Pictures pass over cheesecake
and decaf in murmured appreciation.
When they are laid aside
conversation returns
to the Colorado Rockies’ playoff hopes,
then shifts to Hannah Montana, now singing
on the Disney channel.

Visits to seldom seen family can be enlightening. On this early Denver evening former boundaries between the banal and exotic interwove, making both seem oddly detached and disembodied. Whatever it is that is happening in our culture is breathtaking, anything but mundane. However, at least one thing remains clear–in one way or another, mom will always be screwing with a man’s libido.

Cocoon

David Stallings — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 01:01:21 +0000

I lie alone on the wood floor,
eyes closed, stilled
by a day of dance
for the new year.

Fingers brush my left hand—
a question I lightly
answer. We forage a silent path
within deep woods,
curl around each other,
nurture ourselves
with minute movements.
Forever.

When we must rise
I kiss her ear, Thanks—
and let go.

(A response to Zen Master Ikkyu’s 15th century Poem Presented to My Friend Ako at the Hot Spring)

It was the penultimate day of 2007–no better time to unlimber Gabrielle Roth’s “5 Rhythms” to dance out the old year and welcome the new one. On that dance floor dojo and in the delicacy of that hand I experienced a reawakening.

Here’s that old rascal, Ikkyu:

Poem Presented to My Friend Ako at the Hot Spring

It is nice to get a glimpse of a lady bathing–
you scrubbed your flower face and cleansed your lovely body
while this old monk sat in the hot water,
feeling more blessed than even the emperor of China!

(trans. John Stevens)