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Brainstorm on Black Velvet

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by Charles Hibbard


Brainstorm on Black Velvet

  Poems

  Charles Hibbard

  Copyright 2016 Charles Hibbard

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  1. Beach Evening 1970

  A red sun grazed

  the ragged edge

  of the world.

  Those were waves

  driven green

  before miles of wind,

  old voyagers deep

  with uncensused life

  and poised to tumble

  into white teeth

  that tore harmlessly

  at their own feet.

  That roar was surf

  not applause

  prayer or gunfire,

  drone of lies

  or rumble of rolling heads.

  And that was only evening

  even-ing. A proper

  temporary darkness

  returning

  2. Any Theories?

  Something called the birds.

  Abruptly they were on the move

  northward, in tattered clouds,

  thrushes, warblers, scoters,

  straight back into winter.

  The sea was a green grove

  of diving sunbeams,

  November light

  gentled by smoke.

  The birds disdained all this

  and simply took flight.

  It was done by noon

  “as if someone had slammed

  a door” – subsumed

  in the earth without a trace;

  though later, after dark, a few

  stragglers fled across the face

  of the crumbling gibbous moon.

  3. Carpe somnum

  Given that the alarm clock

  shoves an icepick through the brain,

  does consciousness shadow our dreams?

  Walking that silent stage

  do we dread the death of waking?

  Rejoining you in bed

  I barely sense your breath

  beside me in the dark.

  But I trust your warm back

  and the grateful drop into sleep.

  Should I check the clock’s

  bloodshot eye? It can tell me only

  that this downy other world

  has an end, and when it will come.

  Do I want to know that?

  4. The Sixth Extinction

  In their dark distant plane

  between Jupiter and Mars

  asteroids hurtle.

  That’s their nature,

  what they do.

  And every dumb rock

  has its will and ego

  of energy and speed

  bestowed by careless gravity.

  Now and then the blind

  play of forces turns one

  toward our blue world.

  It may believe it plans;

  but no, it simply Must.

  Though even a stone

  may feel a twinge as it

  takes aim at a trillion lives,

  and our wisp of air begins

  to melt its ancient skin.

  5. Reunion

  Side-saddle, the old lady

  reclines, half on her couch.

  I hear you’ve been sick,

  my father says.

  They eye each other,

  third-degree initiates

  in the guild of old age.

  He’s sober and swollen,

  grimly tamping his pipe.

  She’s gaunt but steady,

  blanketed to her waist,

  his cousin and childhood friend:

  sprite of woods and water,

  small-town princess,

  Olympic equestrian,

  mother of a judge,

  grandmother of a crowd,

  doyenne of that same small town.

  In later years a lone rider

  coaxing her giant steed

  through silent woodland,

  somber, dark-eyed, straight.

  Diverticulitis, she says.

  My father watches her,

  his girl of the glimmering lake,

  now too old for surgery.

  Everybody gets something,

  she says, watching him back.

  This is what I got.

  6. 20th-Century Chemistry

  In his day the rulebook read

  only: No maiming or killing kids.

  He was a madman at the demo bench:

  belly, hairpiece, and giant head,

  eyes ballooning in heavy glass;

  lord of phosphor, fume and fire,

  smoke and stench, flash and boom.

  Finals done, every June in the lab

  he threw an all-day bash,

  potluck noodles, cake and crab.

  That was a class you’d never forget!

  One of those Junes he left the scene.

  In a year his name was dust.

  Focus shifted across the chart

  from left to right, reactive

  to inert, as drowsy scholars

  dribbled drops in tiny hollows,

  wanly hoping for signs of change –

  light or heat or wisp of flame

  or something caustic to consume

  the hardening plaster of patience.

  Thus the elements periodically repeat

  but always with variations.

  7. Cottonwoods

  If these cottonwoods

  could follow their dreams

  I know what they’d do.

  Transpiration tells me

  which way they’d go –

  from the ground up

  to join the breeze.

  The billow of their crowns

  betrays their yearnings,

  and the silver stream

  and clatter of their leaves

  as the cumulus sail by,

  rootless and fancy-free

  and never short of water...

  8. Dark Matters

  We’ve learned that dark matter

  is nine-tenths of everything

  or so the scientists say.

  I’ve been glass half-empty

  for decades, but now I guess

  that makes me an optimist.

 

  Maybe it’s time to raise

  darkness to its proper place –

  rich black batter

  the cosmos bakes,

  with sprinkles of stars

  and a thin crust of puppies

  lovers nightingales

  singing barking hugging.

  We’re forced to take that cake

  but allowed to praise

  some offhand god

  for the frosting.

  9. Nature Sanctuary

  Three growling diesels haul

  a black line of tank cars

  toward a horizon piled high

  with evening clouds

  yellowed and still as though

  they’d never dream of change.

  I think it’s summer still.

  A redstart, a vireo

  still singing their claims;

  a vortex of midges

  and squadrons of mosquitoes

  scrambled at my passage

  and the cotton wind.

  Deep in bending grass

  the conversation of crickets

  and at the end

  of another hungry day

  the boundless patience of ticks.

  10. One Way of Looking at It

  Two nestlings on the sidewalk,

  baked, dead, one crushedr />
  by a careless step.

  Two weeks in the nest

  in green shade

  shielded by a song.

  Two weeks

  from egg to concrete.

  A dozen quiet nights

  and then the street.

  11. Dechambeau Ranch

  Ringing the silent house

  the tops of old poplars

  are bare finger bones

  imploring the dry air.

  The sun crosses another day

  and the twentieth

  generation of owls

  (the last ten undisturbed)

  float from tree to tree

  vanish among the boughs

  and peeling bark, their gaze

  on the sagging stable

  stacked with tumbleweed,

  awaiting the twilight

  and their long-time partners

  the bats and mice.

  12. Mouse

  I step up on the rock

  and out of his house

  in the dust pops

  a gray cork of mouse

  a streak of fur sprinting

  he’s sure for his life

  over sand and stone

  skitter scramble

  into the gray-green

  matching sage

  where he freezes

  to listen watch wait

  every fiber electric

  with wasted fear:

  I never eat mice.

  I went on with my hike

  had a salad for dinner

  with tofu and rice.

  I called my wife.

  I wonder what the rest

  of his day was like.

  13. Moon Sets

  I.

  This morning, before the sun,

  it’s more the moon than the rising wind

  that owns the worried lake,

  scribbles its red wake over jostling waves

  and sinks like the stone it is

  behind black hills, where there waits

  some still dark unknown.

  II.

  The lake was still, polished flat,

  the guileless moon sat white

  on the hills in a sky that would soon

  be blue. Sunlight to come

  already lit the dark edges

  of the world. All was real

  nothing concealed.

  14. Used Horses

  How horses are coddled these days!

  Their arrogant gleaming butts

  sashay grandly down the trails;

  braided manes and shining coats,

  Rapunzel tails sweep the ground,

  wildeyed, snorting and tossing,

  gods in helmets and jodhpurs

  barely hold them to earth.

  It wasn’t always that way.

  Naturally there were always

  pet horses, Beamers and bays,

  chestnuts, Audis, with stable boys

  to polish them and rotate their shoes.

  But back when horses were things,

  there were used ones too – dusty,

  tattered saddles, rusting trim

  and tangled manes, bumpers sagging,

  mufflers dragging, treadless hooves,

  hanging heads. And grinning salesmen,

  lying odometers. Horse doctors.

  Tow trucks. Glue.

  15. Fall Migration

  Tidy perfection

  of your plumage:

  that white throat

  gold spot

  behind your bill

  black stripes your crown.

  north

  south

  north

  south

  tiny feathered pendulum

  I wonder where you’ve flown

  dangling from my hand

  by one pink foot

  upside down

  feathered pendulum

  your bright eye lately

  hauled away by ants.

  I wonder where you’ve flown.

  16. Mineral Point

  Turkey day small town

  improperly warm rain

  mist and dripping trees

  historic sandstone houses

  stand already winter bleak.

  Looming old Methodist church

  streaked blocks cut black

  from the heart of the mines

  ignores the neat brick

  Episcopalians next door

  to frown down High Street.

  Ahead of me in the fog

  jog two young blondes

  escorted on tiptoes by

  a springy white poodle.

  Sleek thighs and dayglo jackets

  fade puzzlingly into the haze

  of a future – theirs, this town’s,

  this planet’s – in which I

  will not be present.

  17. Greenland Is Melting Away

 

  ...but no worries;

  for every stream we spray

  into the dry air of Vegas

  or splash over our cars

  to ripple away

  and sink in a sewer,

  a brand new river will rise

  heavenly blue in Greenland,

  tumble a mile or two

  on the snowblind dome of ice

  and spin down a moulin

  to the sea – to the sea

  that can never be full.

  18. The Martian

  Just as round as our own

  and even more helpless,

  it hangs out there, a red

  brainstorm on black velvet.

  Of course it’s not home;

  but still – valleys and hills,

  rivers (just add water),

  empty sightlines, sky

  almost blue, improved

  by two speedy little moons.

  Our ancient modus operandi,

  tried and true:

  Leave this midden to the old

  and slow! Start fresh!

  Much simpler and cleaner

  than cling to a used-up world

  and try to muck out the mess.

  19. Amendment II Rosary

  Autumn Sunday morning; the trees

  in this park are nearly bare.

  Sunlight fills the spaces

  left by falling leaves.

  I’m alone in the drifting air

  and what would be silence

  if not for sparrows

  and the faithful at the nearby range

  blasting their prayers to the breeze.

  20. A Dream of Unassisted Living

  It’s not so much the fear of losing you.

  I’ve slotted that now and learned

  to make it fuel whatever will glow

  in today and tomorrow.

  But despite the memories

  of Rome and Bergamo,

  the shadow grows of a final trip,

  when, never mind our vows

  and even though I hold your hand,

  I’ll know you’re traveling somewhere

  alone and beginning not to care.

  21. Sensing the soul’s departure, the cat

  Eventually I had to give up toys and Santa Claus The Boogie Man

  wizards square-riggers talking animal guardians and being read to

  soda cottoncandy amusement parks fudge chocolate desserts

  four bicuspids and one incisor virginity hair not eyebrows

  orangejuice football passion baseball eggs meat

  cigarettes pipe weed squash basketball parents

  aspirin sleeping all night twisting bending

  stooping walking burritos orgasms

  wine anything that tasted good

  enemies friends reading

  sandals lifelong lover

  sleeping waking going

  to sleep waking up

  politics clothes

  nakedness music

  hearing seeing

  understandingr />
  standing up

  talking tears

  being read to

  impatience

  cleanliness

  curiosity

  caring pain

  yesterday

  dreaming

  breathing

  cats

  22. The Doctor

  Seventy odd years ago

  a man was intimate with my mother

  and with me, as with so many others.

  She’s only dilated that much

  he told my father, making a circle

  with thumb and finger.

  My father went out for coffee.

  Much later the doctor laid the damp mass

  of me on my mother’s breast. My father,

  thinking he had a son, went home

  and, for her, painted the kitchen

  the wrong color.

  After that brief conjunction

  my deliverer went on about his work

  of piloting tens or hundreds

  of my sisters and brothers

  to the open sea, and then went under,

  decades ago, unknown to me.

  Today, somehow, I feel his touch

  on my wrinkling skin, and wonder

  who where he was and went

  and how so much space

  and time contrive

  to wedge themselves between us.

  23. Life Companions

  First, I hasten to say,

  it’s not her job. But my PJs

  emerge from the dryer

  with pockets inside out;

  they’d hang like hounds’ ears

  on my hips at night, useless

  for holding kleenex

  if she didn’t patiently

  tuck them back in.

  It’s only a few seconds.

  I could do it myself

  without even thinking.

  But seeing the pockets

  corrected, I know

  exactly what she feels.

  And it’s not my job to peel

  my avid socks away

  from her nylon panties

  just out of the dryer.

  So much for the job description.

  24. Glass Mountain

  Half the height of Aconcagua,

  a third of Chomolungma

  but still, eleven thousand feet,

 

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