Secret Santa

In dark December, sink
into the memory of childhood
like a bog man into the peat.
Drink too much & sing.
Gather all your small griefs,
your long-bearded regrets
& grotesque humiliations,
dress them in red & set
them to hammering. This is
the season of fresh starts
& the slaughter of innocents.
Remember to cut air holes
in the top crust & don’t stint
on butter. Wear sensible boots.
Go out into the long night
& learn the names of the stars.

A Carol

This entry is part 2 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

 

What’s there to be so worked up about? Is it
an upset stomach, a crumb of moldy cheese,
an underdone turnip, a ponderous chain
that clanks with every careworn step?
Let the snow fall amid the stenciled
branches, let the winds swirl like spirits
whose coming is always foretold, but who
cannot linger. They’re here, they’re here,
they’ve never left. They watch us who weigh
everything by gain, point to the shadows
of things that are yet to come. Curse
or blessing? May you be happy in the life
you’ve chosen
. Remember what passed between
us: clear, bright, cold. I know this place,
this tune, down to the last mince pie and dance.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Landscape, in the Aftermath of Flood

This entry is part 1 of 73 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Winter 2011-12

 

This is the way it often is, after calamity:
sudden gust of quiet, or spool of open air;

a few hundred feet of nothing. Nothing moving,
nothing doing, gray stasis of between-one-thing-

and-another. Until: closer view of the aftermath—
human figures daubed with mud, pinned under the ruins.

Did you not move quietly? Didn’t you take care not
to rouse the gods, or the duendes, or the anitos?

When you passed a large outcropping of rock,
didn’t you keep your head down? Didn’t you stop

short of teasing the makahiya into folding up its
leaflets? Didn’t you whisper, pagpaumanhin po ninyo ako?

Pray that the river does not rise again, does not reach
its muddy arms to take you in your sleep. Whole

cities have just gone under. When the wind bears down,
every frond bristles with the recent memory of voices

calling children from supper and to bed, singing
simple lullabies, saying Yes, tomorrow.

It’s all you can do to keep from giving yourself to
oblivion. If not for taking the living in your arms.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

Apocalyptic dreams

Sherry Chandler

I dreamed I was taking clothes down from the line on a windy day and a sweat suit blown into my body by the wind wrapped its arms and legs around me like a child and held on. I carried it indoors and laid it on a narrow cot. The thing begged me to let it go, saying it would never really be Bob Dylan.

On the way home

Clouds in every hollow and ravine, hovering over ponds, hiding under the trees, snaking along the one-track rail line where they filmed that movie about the runaway train. Clouds above & clouds below us as we sail past on the interstate half-way up the ridge, talking about that afternoon’s matinée. And then the slow drive up our own hollow at dusk & the white forms of our houses rising from the fog. We set down our bags, take off our boots & go in.

Morning Song

This entry is part 63 of 63 in the series Morning Porch Poems: Autumn 2011

 

Because I dream, I’m told my punishment is that I should always be the first to see dawn arrive at the edge of the world. But ever one to question the edict handed down, I demand proof: why punishment? Today it arrives in darkness, like a soft grey scarf of pulled fiber. So fleecy it seems the animal still breathes softly in its tent of skin. Rain ripples along its sequined flanks. There’s enough light soon to see how it noses into the day— and even when light floods the porch, fills the hollows like tea poured into cups, quilts the wooden planks beneath the window— I’ll always have the echo of its first muted sound in my ear. Tendril wound through my hair; small whisk of breath: I love your ambiguous arrivals. Reminder of what might leap into flame, thicken into honey, should I rub my two hands, stone and flint, together.

 

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

How to distress furniture

This entry is part 37 of 39 in the series Manual

 

Bang on it with sticks, but fail to keep the beat. Wrap it in chains but evince no erotic interest in it whatsoever. Let mice rummage through its drawers or nest in its box spring, and recoil at the suggestion that you might leave your own bite-marks on its legs. Paint it absentmindedly while humming some recent and forgettable pop tune. Sand against the grain. Be in your 20s, and talk on and on about how ageing confers authenticity. Take photos of each step of the operation and post them on your blog for everyone to see. Thereafter, use it solely as a surface on which to stack empty boxes. Turn it to the wall. Replace it after three years with some cheap thing from Ikea.