To be freed from enchantment is also its own thing with intrinsic value.

You know—When Perceval found the Fisher King, and that grail  was brought out before him on a wheel or a tray of hors d’oeuvres ( no one really knows what from reading Chretien’s French vagueries ) Perceval failed to ask what he was even looking at. Or with whom Or what he might stand to lose for never asking. Perceval was a kid in that story. & the enchantment of the grail only released him when he became an old man—too crooked for romance.

After that he learned the simple value of a ‘grail’ filled up with water to bridge the gulf between his well and the garden hedges during dry spells when the land had finished giving angry men its magic. 

cicada raddle’ reminds Ron

                                of a cornfield

he used to sit up for on the other side of the

mountain Hell if he has not slept well since moving

A young couple in a

blazingburntothetouch’ lectric

blue drives up to the pumps 

and Ron goes to it 

to take her in. He’s not full service 

except for today. & girls think he’s old enough to be cute

now So he soaks that up too When They ask

on the route round the pass it falls from his mouth like a

cuss, quick and direct and smooth He says

take a picture with all of that

corn Then he gives the long slow way &

they seem pleased then they leave Ron watches

                                             that moment: 

she looking so

intent at that Boy

as if he were still water

with secrets at the bottom. Ron

was not sure anyone ever looked at him before

like that In the bait and tackle shop Ron

dreams of a way back to golden fields That stretch on

forever.

when I think of builders

I think of the architect 

who beat me at cards

kings cup in oregon

and said: every builder is

made a fool by 

                    entropy 

 

then when he won: he 

bust up in a fit of laughter

so hard the antique chair

groaned and suddenly

bust. When I was a boy,

 

my father was a mechanic and 

kept long hours in his 

garage alone. Even then 

I felt his distance and 

I think he felt

mine too. But

 

the last time he held me, he threaded

 

me through his winch: 

a loop for dead or dying 

transmissions of soft red rope. 

My father

 

pulled hand over 

dirty hand–until I was up 

and up with my arms out

like Christopher Reeve.  

 

My father was a builder. 

Bait

On her late drive

over the pass, Martha eats

figs from a blue speckled

bowl, the fragrance

and weight as Grand

mother’s craftsman lit

up with candles

after waves

Of thunder had

snapped each light

off. On the road

a young boy

nurses his tabby

and looks lost.

Freeze

Upside

down

through mirrors

you hold that

pose with broken

gold through

birch

maple

Sequoia.

Boughs develop

your hair in

halo. I set the

timer and

run to join you. But

you appear in the frame

alone. Smiling and

complete.

Uncompromised.

Like every American, I deserve to meet my accuser, especially when this accuser, the so-called “Whistleblower,” represented a perfect conversation with a foreign leader in a totally inaccurate and fraudulent way. Then Schiff made up what I actually said by lying to Congress……

3:53 PM – 29 Sep 2019

His lies were made in perhaps the most blatant and sinister manner ever seen in the great Chamber. He wrote down and read terrible things, then said it was from the mouth of the President of the United States. I want Schiff questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason…..

3:53 PM – 29 Sep 2019

These Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, are doing great harm to our Country. They are lying & cheating like never before in our Country’s history in order to destabilize the United States of America & it’s upcoming 2020 Election. They & the Fake News Media are Dangerous & Bad!

4:07 PM – 29 Sep 2019

Last night—because of all

that fighting and probably this strange

weather, I saw you—the way you are

in that portrait your brother has 

up in his hallway.

                       Anyway. 

 

In the dream I had last 

night, I toss heavy metal rings at your hometown

Spring Faire, behind the big white church

head, which your Mother tells me almost

all burnt down one year ago. It stands today— 

not today standing at all just

                                      dreamwise, 

 

—shingled and white washed. And you 

say to me I hate the way it looms 

over everything. Not me hating the church

at all but you hating it with everything

 

you have. And you’re so small. A little girlie with red

knees and a milk gap set in your teeth. It makes you

embarrassed. It has no bells in its steeple. Instead

a tinny sound chokes through loudspeak

ers every hour on the hour. Then your Mother tells me 

concentrate

 

I finally get one to wobble on the green glass neck. Singing.

 

_____________in__

the kitchen______________:

a_______kite fluttering.

F_M.

The pain in my knee suckers me, while I squat in the gym beneath the barbell loaded up with weight. I keep going down. Then, all the way up. Thinking of my elementary school coach, Dixon, who would have scolded me. Or said something about how no athlete, not Kobe, nor any football guy, would never play on an injury. And I think of a less-long time ago, when the know-it-all comic book store owner with the long hair and pins on his fishing tackle vest, said jetpacks could never work because the human knee is not designed for bracing the impact. In my head I think: Maybe yours isn’t. But the pain is there all through the rest of my work out until I soak at home in my bath. I can’t believe I’m soaking. I think of an older friend I haven’t talked to in a long time, who used to be skeeved out by old people soaking–because, she would say, it’s just you sitting in a soup of all your oils and bacteria and filth. And then all of my body feels the weight of the years behind me that I did not know were there, in the bath with me. Floating. And I can’t remember how long it’s been since it felt okay, or where the pain started. FDM

In the Arizona rental farmhouse, they are both almost newlyweds–glowing together in the kitchen, at the table with her sisters–his sisters-in-law. As his oldest friend, I drink from the slender jade bottle of whiskey–merrily. Then he tells me I’m his best man so I drink again to that. I am so merry then, and desperate to tell her: I would be a bridesmaid for her, my oldest friend who is a woman. I say it dumbly, in front of all of the sisters.  I fall asleep in the couch.

I am awake, miserably. And hungover at the Grand Canyon’s crest, with him and her taking pictures of themselves, them posing while I take–pictures of them against a clear blue sky that goes on forever behind them. It looks so great like movies. I feel like I could reach out and touch the flat gauche of azure and red and orange parallax.

Later, he fingers dirt for her and explains erosion. I am selfishly aware of the world changing, like Stevie Nicks and her landslide. But I do not throw up.FDM.

In the kitchen with the single-pane window full of gold light, Lloyd kissed Harriet and told her he was sorry, he shouldn’t have said the things he did. He said they should both enjoy a quiet dinner together and put an end to the fight right there, that it was hardly a fight at all.  Lloyd put the game on the new set in the corner of the dining room and the kitchen filled up with static and Vin’s deep velvety voice. Then Lloyd sat down at the table in his dirty coveralls. This was Lloyd’s earned television and dinner time, he was not going to spend the night fighting and shouting. He preferred a quiet night. Was that so much? He watched the boys take the field and could smell Harriet fixing a plate of roast. It got him wanting his cigarettes so he got up to get that pack. When he came back, he sat down again and lit a cigarette, getting ready for Harriet to say something. He felt himself getting defensive about her rebuke of the cigarette and the ball game to come. When Harriet sat down, she had two plates of roast in front of her, his and hers. She had the milk bottle uncapped and was drinking from that for a long time. She wiped her small mouth and looked with her big eyes at him. The milk and then the roast. Her plate first and then his. She forked it all up. Then, when Lloyd tried to ask what the hell she was doing, she got up and walked out. On the television, the announcer said there would be a change to the lineup. It was a rookie from the farm system. FDM.