Hello! Will you be writing tonight?

Hello! Will you be writing tonight?


Sent from my iPhone

budding contents

Ocean  (No. 1) …………………………   1

Hal  (No. 1) ……………………………    3

Mike  (No. 1)  …………………………    4

Eunyce  (No. 1) ………………………...  5

Ocean  (No. 2) …………………………   6

Hal  (No. 2) ……………………………   7

Genevieve  (No. 1) ……………………    8

Rhad  (No. 1) ………………………….   9

Eunyce  (No. 2) ……………………….. 11

budding manuscript

Ocean  (No. 1)
 
Our love of numbers,
an order beyond
imagining          
which unites us
and holds us in its
going out and coming in and going out
and coming in.
 
Who (or what) sees me dying
will know what I'm thinking
when I've already crossed
--was that what you were thinking
as life ebbed, pulsing against 
the rocks of the Kaweah Basin?
Past the realm of panic,
of responsibility
for the two faces that
have held me, lovingly, in an earthly gyre
for the universal moment.
 
Susa and David,
farewell.  Hal--
 
 Ocean (No. 2)
 
You were always going to open the door.
My door, with the late afternoon sun cascading
In the small wood-paneled sunroom.
You arrive somewhat breathless
In a tan professor's suit, earthy because your eyes
Shards of blue and green, dotted with gray flecks
Reflect light buoyantly.
You smooth your hair, a blend of perspiration and autumn mist, while you wait.
I have answered the knock at the door. 
At the brass knob, my hands mottled in shades of brown, tan, and yellow, and wrinkled
Not possessed of more than their usual disease
Process, perform a song of twists and turns.
My head tilts up.
Your head, sleek and somehow still downy--
Specks of gold flashing in superciliary arches.
We smile.
A widow of not so long
Your friend much longer
Standing before you.
 
 
 
 
 
Susa  (No. 1)
 
No, it didn't happen that way
Mom, Dad
Whom I love more than the world
Older than dirt for as long as I can remember
Was still alive
After Hal died.
Rhad as you called him
Outlived all your silly crushes!
OK, he was more than a crush.
I give you that.
OK, no one knows but you and Hal.
I don't want to know.
I am too busy with my own life to want to know.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Hal  (No. 1)
 
I'm not sure how
you are sure, so sure
that I felt that way.
I mean,
I was careful not to hurt you
or anyone.
Words have power.
They can express what you mean,
And then, more than you intend.
They have a life of their own.
It's not that I will say nothing,
Only the null set is
Allowed the privilege of nothingness.
The words I try to use, as you have noticed, are
"Yes" 
and
"No."
 

 

 

 

 

          Mike  (No. 1)

 

 

Brother!  Here we go again.  Mom weeps

 

Or worse, is stonily mute.  Why do we continue

 

In this part of the mausoleum, the venue

 

Without other routes?  Grief seeps

 

Or crawls upwards, in shining, twisted heaps

 

How now, to counteract death's creep in sinew

 

In mind, in a glass?  Thanks compounded by two

 

I have a labeled disease, over-leaping

 

Confusion.  Mom has called me alcoholic

 

How can I not shrivel, the worlds to bear

 

Why do they wield their license to share

 

My pain, stolen pride to serve my country

 

Hally dead, not the hero's return, bucolic.

 

A hot mess, I'd say, various and sundry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           Eunyce  (No. 1)         

 

 

My son

 

The one who is living still

 

I still worry about.

 

How I miss the first!

 

What would he tell his brother?

 

They could talk.

 

I see Michael's back most of the time

 

The door of his room

 

The one we returned to him, closing.

 

Is he more like his father? 

 

More like Charles' side of the family?

 

No, my Hallvard was the frail one,

 

Like his father.  And behind Charles

 

A dark shadow.

 

I sometimes see that in Michael.

 

Hally had my eyes

 

Michael has my strength,

 

I wish he wouldn't drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          Ocean  (No. 2)

 

 

Hal, where are you?

 

Even when you walked the earth

 

The wondering hasn't changed.

 

Finding breathing difficult  

 

With you en route.

 

Easier without you?

 

I feel I've done something wrong

 

This worshipping.  Do I

 

Deserve this ultimate loss?

 

The comfort of your voice

 

A brother's.

 

But something quite other

 

A voice embodied

 

Ricocheting through a shepherd's flute, a skipping horn

 

A terracotta pipe, partly closed.

 

In your nobleness and knobby knees you were what my father

 

Should have been.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

          Hal  (No. 2)

 

 

If you could reach me

 

I would tell you

 

The air is cleaner here, limpid

 

Like the way I wished I could view the earth.

 

I didn't need to bring my hanky

 

In case you have wondered.

 

The one your sister gave you with the faded green

 

Cyrillic letters on rough cotton--

 

It was tucked away in my hiking pack

 

A gift from a married woman

 

With a small field guide on rocks and mosses.

 

Neither did I bring my phone (at Abe's house)

 

Along with other things I didn't expect to need.

 

Nor did I bring much by the way of clothes.

 

There's the joy of going up

 

And the pleasure of going down.

 

And, perhaps splashing a little on the rocks by the crossing?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genevieve  (No. 1)

 

 

 

I warned you

 

It's not my way to belittle.

 

I try to honor the emotions

 

As I do for the hospital veterans.

 

But I called him a cipher, for

 

Good reason.

 

It's you, Ocean, your life

 

That calls you to engage with those

 

Who are right before you

 

Who come to you

 

Those you can touch, feel.

 

What role does Hal play other than

 

Abstraction, a vessel to fill

 

As you choose?  And what about

 

The others, their needs?  I caution you.

 

His quiet, observing self

 

May contain equal measures of treachery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Ocean (No.3)

 

No, I warned you, Hal.

 

I told you

 

That's a lot of traveling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rhad  (No. 1)

 

 

The day will come, but when?

 

It's no secret. I'm the older man

 

Sex is a no-go most of the time,

 

And I wonder if she could have handled it much

 

Had she met me

 

A lifetime and a half ago.

 

My beloved wife Lenora

 

God!  I ripped through her slender frame: she slapped me.

 

Number one, really the one

 

Ocean knows.

 

Now, three-quarters of the time

 

I am incontinent

 

And she repeats herself for my sake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 A living hell, redundancy.

 

Is that why she is on a loose and tangled leash

 

Finding her own way,

 

Her own pain and peopled joys?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           Eunyce  (No. 2)

 

 

I wrote to Ocean

 

There could be no avoiding her.

 

If I didn't tell her, Ocean's letters and calls

 

Her scribbles, her scrawls, her voice, her packages

 

Perhaps would continue to pour in.

 

They still do, a gentle backwash,

 

A ripple like at Christmas-time (or is that because of Charles' birthday?)

 

but not something I really care for.

 

After the initial comfort. 

 

Her reminders tear wounds wide,

 

A cut so jagged only a mother can experience.

 

I cannot let her slap me nor my pride

 

I was his mother.  She was not his wife.

 

Why does she carry on so?

 

 

 

Coming in and going out and coming in

 

and going out.