Sixfold Poetry Winter 2013

by Sixfold

  Two sparks fanned into an inferno,

  hormones racing at light speed,

  devouring the last of childhood,

  unstoppable.

  You are the girl with a half-pulled

  zipper on her bedroom ceiling.

  One side of the painting a gold

  stripe running from the edge of the wall

  to the center of the room, a detailed

  rendition. From here the mural

  opens to reveal a wedge of jet-black

  sky filled with glow-in-the-dark planets,

  whirling galaxies, shooting stars.

  As with most art, and with all girls,

  I’m not sure what to think.

  The mural poses several questions,

  although for a teenage boy,

  only one question matters—

  is that zipper half open?

  Nick’s

  I.

  A last game break cracks,

  squeaking chalk pivots

  on custom pool sticks.

  Stripe and solid scatter,

  race for soft edges, batter

  each other’s tangents,

  bump cushion,

  slow-roll

  stop.

  One player props against a stool,

  re-lights a Marlboro.

  Another coolly stalks the green slate field,

  calling his next best shot.

  In a corner, a couple seeks distance.

  She sits erect listening, staring

  at the floor. He sidles into her gaze, reaching

  for her shoulder, she jerks away—two hearts

  in a Gordian knot.

  Co-eds help a birthday friend giggle home.

  Their waitress fills a tray with empty bottles,

  (one stuffed with a carefully peeled label),

  wipes her once white rag across the tabletop,

  pockets the ten—hard-won milk-money.

  A Miller man sits at the bar sweet-talking

  the dirty ash tray, picks at a half-dozen cold

  hot wings. Across the thin room, a plain woman

  locks his copper eyes—smiles him over

  for a few quick shots. He holds open

  her black leather coat—

  they trickle toward the side door.

  Santana wails, in stereo:

  . . . tryin’ to make a devil out of me.

  II.

  Under a fog comforter

  good mornings are exchanged

  in half-tone light.

  Fingers grope

  a plastic coffee spoon,

  double-sweeten instant.

  Nothing is promised, nor expected.

  I fasten an out-of-town tie,

  snick the door locked.

  Outside, two tentative song birds

  call mates. A neon sign buzzes:

  vacancy.

  Catherine Dierker

  dinner party

  a dishtowel tucked

  in your back pocket

  that i follow

  as we walk

  up the stairs

  single file

  a quiet entrance

  shoes are removed

  the humility of

  standing in socks

  before you

  for the first time.

  movie night

  low light in the doorway

  thin and pallid,

  sourceless

  a glow that works well

  with the evening,

  the mood

  on screen a film plays

  out in crimson,

  it bleeds

  this place calls for

  something fragrant,

  breathing

  a flower.

  cocktail hour

  endless summer.

  no socks and

  pants rolled up

  drink in hand

  with one leg

  crossed, casual.

  he’s a cool

  match for

  a kid like me

  calm-faced and

  quiet, sits

  like a listener

  the picture

  makes me

  want to sing

  or at least

  to swing down

  and kiss his

  bare ankle.

  window treatment

  your fingers are deft

  they fold clothes neatly

  draw perfect flowers

  cut fruit with precision

  tonight, as you ready

  the table, i sit waiting

  watching the sun set

  through a curtained window

  like smiling through a veil.

  a bike ride / the christening

  together we crossed over

  to a place of quiet, of peace

  where we will swim

  in the lake of endless depths.

  the moment of diving

  the hardest moment

  the curve of restraint

  the fear of violence.

  shattering light,

  shattering glass

  we crossed over

  flying, crying—

  with wind

  with gravel

  hitting our faces

  stinging our eyes.

  William Doreski

  Hate the Sinner, Not the Sin

  Reading Dante has taught me

  to hate the sinner, not the sin.

  An hour before dawn the mirror

  in the bathroom confirms that pride

  defines and defiles me, the pores

  of my parchment hide opened

  to flattery I never receive.

  I should replace myself with lust,

  with the smirk of the lecher;

  but you with your usual beauty

  would find that expression comic

  on me, a Halloween mask

  two weeks early. Our barred owl

  hoots his tedious medley,

  each note thick as a woolen scarf.

  Stars rattle loose in their sockets,

  and one goes down with a shriek.

  Or is that the neighbor’s rooster?

  Pride offends me enough to cut

  my throat, but I can’t afford

  to waste an expensive razor blade

  by indulging a little vengeance.

  Besides, you’d have to clean up

  after me, and I know you hate that.

  The microwave oven beeps

  that apologetic little beep

  and the cat’s breakfast is done.

  The kettle boils water for coffee.

  I should swallow my pride in doses

  modest enough to fully digest,

  but the famous portrait of Dante

  with limber nose and oval mien

  leers on a paperback cover

  to confirm how clumsy I look

  unshaven and fluffy with sleep.

  I pour hot water over grounds

  and realize this is punishment

  enough, the daily unraveling

  of ego in bite-sized chores, each

  modest enough to kill me.

  Post-Neoclassical Poem

  The blond forest undressing

  leaf by leaf reminds me

  how you’ve courted every man

  who’s leaned even slightly your way.

  Two brooks converge. A boulder

  overlooks the pool where nymphs

  bathe on summer nights while humans

  indulge in mortal dream lives.

  I’d like to creep here in the dark

  and watch moonlight catch a glimpse

  of metallic bodies flashing.

  I’d like to compare their grasp

  of the classics with your own;

  but with your mastery of legal

  Latin you’d probably snuff me

  under a heap of edicts and writs

  to enjoin me from remembering

&
nbsp; how frankly naked you could be.

  Of course you don’t want to contrast

  your old-fashioned body with theirs.

  Of course the brooks flushing down

  from the twin monadnocks have chilled,

  dispersing mythic creatures

  until the next two seasons pass.

  At the ruined stone dam, two deer

  startle and flee. The folding chair

  left to rust many years ago

  still invites me, so I sit.

  The light seems smaller, too shy

  to support complexities no painter

  since Constable can endorse.

  Three miles above, a jetliner

  sears the air. It’s headed your way

  with fuel enough to eat all three

  thousand miles between us, leaving

  only the faintest taste of ash.

  Moustaches of Slaughtered Heroes

  Framed in expressive black oak,

  your watercolors stick to the wall

  like leeches. Frost hikes its skirts

  at the pond’s edge where geese chat

  about flying to Kentucky.

  Do I hear a drumroll enter

  your small conversation? Do stones

  at the bottom of the pond expect

  to testify? Other events squeeze

  from the tubes of paint arranged

  by hue and cry. Brushes become

  moustaches of slaughtered heroes.

  In gusts of small talk you project

  the naked retorts of the moons

  of Saturn and Jupiter. Half mind,

  half sun, you’re anything but flesh

  now that flesh has lost its fashion.

  Your horizons sport crows and jays

  to herd away the geese that spangle

  your lawn with gray wet droppings.

  Yet the bird wars occur mainly

  in literature you’re too proud to read.

  I prop myself against a wall and wait

  for the pond to freeze with tingling

  and cries of pain. Your husband plans

  to stay up all night and whisper

  your fetishes to the stars. Why

  should you care? Sparks roughed

  from visiting boulders tender

  light and heat enough to ease you

  into those last gestures artists

  require for their celestial fame.

  Your water colors resist you

  just enough to cling to three

  or four dimensions, honoring

  or more likely blaming you.

  Naked Under Our Clothes

  Naked under our clothes, we enter

  the famous public library

  as if unaware that even

  avid old scholars possess

  bodies as secret as ours.

  You head for the gardening books

  while I descend a floor to scour

  the art books for Gauguin prints

  to rip out and smuggle home.

  The canned air smells chemical.

  The librarians nod and smile

  and wish they could step outside

  fresh as King Lear in the rain.

  While you read about designing

  gardens with water features

  to foster turtles and frogs, I bless

  the tropics for inciting Gauguin

  to portray such burly colors.

  Later we’ll meet for lunch

  at the oyster bar where lawyers

  and their paralegals hunker

  at small tables and plot their trysts.

  Someone should paint their expressions,

  which prove that they’re too aware

  of how naked they could be

  if circumstances should allow.

  I find a couple of honest prints

  but lack the strength or moral

  fiber to tear them from the books.

  Maybe I’ll copy them with flimsy

  pencil sketches from my youth.

  The lines shiver, stutter and fail,

  but the effort relieves and renews me.

  For a moment everyone’s naked

  and tropical in hue, even upstairs

  where you flirt with photos of gardens

  Adam and Eve would have scorned.

  A Hideous Verb

  Self-condemned to adult camp

  to punish my political self,

  I weep with arts and crafts all day

  and drink with friends all night.

  The weather sighs like a bagpipe.

  The horizons crumple and fold.

  I miss you the way a bullfrog

  misses his croak. I’d phone you,

  but you’d hear the hangover creak

  in my voice and disdain me.

  I’ve sewn you a leather wallet

  and crimped several blobs of jewelry.

  I’ve even woven a wool rug

  that isn’t quite rectangular.

  When with my fellow campers

  I walk to the village at dusk

  I suspect you’re watching via

  satellite TV. In local bars

  we slurp cheap beer and play darts.

  No fights, no politics, religion.

  Only the slush of draft beer, kisses

  with little force behind them,

  promises to keep in touch.

  Porous belief systems fail

  in this crystalline atmosphere.

  Dawn breaks the backs of couples

  caught in narrow bunks. Such crimes

  lack resonance. After breakfast

  of groats, instructors apply

  cobbler’s tools—hammer, awl, needle—

  to leather, plastic and wood.

  We follow step by step. Always

  with you I’ve followed step by step,

  but at last I’ve learned that “craft”

  not only makes a hideous verb

  but encourages useless skills.

  Robert Barasch

  Loons

  My daughter photographs loons—

  finds them in their nests, tracks them

  as they swim across lakes, knows

  when the hatchlings are due, waits

  to record first swims.

  She photographs babies on the backs

  of their mothers and fathers, the same

  who dive from under them

  to emerge from the water with fry

  to put into their mouths.

  I have pictures of my daughter on my back

  and of my granddaughters on her back

  and of my great-grandchildren

  on their parents’ backs

  and being fed treats over shoulders.

  “Up,” my children would say

  and we understood and lifted them.

  Lev Vygotsky proclaimed:

  no thought without language first

  and I think of the loons’ calls.

  Are the words of instruction in those yodels,

  setting the babies to think about leaping up?

  Did I grab my mother’s breast without a thought?

  Did Helen Keller's first thought come on that famous day,

  or do we just not understand?

  Pas De Deux

  The fourteen-month-old boy stands,

  one hand on the edge of the chair

  before launching himself

  toward his great-grandmother,

  who grips the edge of the kitchen counter

  before stepping out

  toward the table between them,

  one amazed at his new way of travel

  the other perplexed by hers.

  They continue to learn new steps of their minuet,

  first performed shortly after he was born.

  Early variations included slow dancing in rocking chairs,

  arm and hand motions together on a piano bench,

  these and others before the early warnings.
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  Now, both vertical, the choreography calls

  for their hands to meet at the center of the room,

  an awkward couple among complacently confident dancers.

  The background music is both silent and polyphonic,

  his a Sousa-like march with flute and cymbals,

  hers a violin with slipped tuning,

  strings frayed, notes elusive,

  more and more unreachable.

  One peers gleefully into the opening out,

  the other squeezed by the relentless closing in.

  Bedazzled

  That ’possum never had a chance,

  dazzled as she was by the beam of light,

  brightest star of her night; she,

  fading already in their thoughts

  before the warm glow of the fire.

  They sat and talked about her—

  how her eyes gave back to them

  part of the light they gave to her—how

  each shot once, the three shots hitting her—

  how she lay, limp fur, on the ground.

  So Mary, seventeen, a game girl,

  lay drunk on her father's lawn

  while the three football stars talked

  in the red glow of the Wurlitzer,

  recalling her hungry eyes, her furry gift,

  her falling into a loose heap

  when they dropped her off at home.

  Spring of 2001

  Fifteen feet of snow and twenty below

  got the downtown caucuses talking.

  “Might not get a garden this year.”

  “Tractor tires still frozen to the ground.”

  “Old horse’ll have to eat snowballs this summer.”

  At the red store, a man at the gas pump said

  it was because of killing the rain forest.

  Another one said you can’t blame nukes

  for this one. A man at another pump said

  “Oh yes you can it’s the final tab

  for Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

  Oblivious, the croakers strained their muscles

  pushing the sluggish mud, breathing stilled,

  letting their cold skin suck muddy bubbles

  of air. All pushing at the same time,

  they sent currents to the ceiling of the pond,

  startling the ice. Like a locomotive in a roundhouse,

  the engine of winter got turned around;

  still, no one heard a sound. Suddenly,

  only two weeks behind schedule,

  the snow receding to the shadiest woods,

  the songs erupted in the pond. This year,

  along with their songs of longing,