Taught to speak then told to be quiet,

I learned to talk and was taught to be silent,

then learned to write with no such restrictions.

Write! they said Write!     Quietly write.

 

Start with white and beige pads of blank paper

from the plant—my mom’s work, Moore Business Forms—

bound with bright red gum on top, the edges

cut smooth to fan against my lips the cheek,

hand-sized pages designed to be ink-lined

in a waitress-apron at a diner

but slightly off-square, unprinted, lopped ends

left at the chopper for Mom to bring home;

 

add pencil or pen from a coffee can,

and look like Mom when she writes a letter—

squint up and left as if trying to see thoughts

on the ceiling and walls through my eyebrows—

then, starting top left corner of the page,

draw shapes like letters scribbled into lines

that look like the words Mom sends to grandma.

 

Later on, the pads had built-in carbons.

When I was very young some blank pads

had a double-long page of carbon paper

that was pulled and inserted as the pad

was used. But in third grade Moore’s invented

NCR^© paper, self-copying sheets;

and every scribbled page      self-published.

—in memory of Randy Roebuck

He was as he so often said

                        a dark skin’ded dude,

but being father, son, and friend

his skin and he were more than that:

deep earth soil live and roiling from his soul

black butter onto which I pressed my heart

and felt the frail-strong softness there within

  take self-sculpted shapes

      of  body    face    mind

Allegany mud in the hands of a black Rodin,

of the person he wanted us to want him to be.

 

As strong winds stiffen up the sapling in passing

            Randy Roebuck reshaped me

                        and privileged me to see

                        the emergence of his selfhood

                                       as what was

became what could be.

 

So, what the fuck, Unca’ Buck!

Ditched us for another fishing trip?

            The obit said you battled hard.

                                    Would that I’d been witness to that war.

 

Instead I see you now as I did then—

            master of the funk, spinning in your chair

            from tape to tape, deck to deck,  

            DJing for no one and the world

            from your turret room above Bloom’s Saloon

            fronting your wall of cassettes

                        a twister in your mouth   

                        that crooked smile, long deep-shining face

                        The Voice a bari sax: Ship Oars!

Oh Noooo! We’re gonna rock down to —

Electric Avenue!

                        easy teeth, goofy grin, linty naps,

                        puffy I-ain’t-had-my-coffee-yet-this-morning eyes,

                                    Gettin’ right, gettin’ tight

Talkin’ ’bout gettin’ dem panties tonight!

Speak into the mo’fo mic!

 

Close, even at a distance, distant

even with your arm around me

rollin’ with the group home boys

scopin’ on da bugs, da purdy trees

a shadow of the little boy you’d been

alive with those felonious man-children

yet diving under the table at a back-fire,

     never trusting anything completely

   after being there in country

    never spoken of.

 

With your charm and looks

            you could have made the velvet hustle pay—

                        the happy gigolo with goo-goo cooing

                        sugar-mommas paying for the ride—

                                                but no.                  

You chose to help,

                        with an MSW you thought was bullshit,

                        the flower-hatted, ruby-lipped church ladies

                                    you mimicked mercilessly

                                                            but whom I know you loved,

the case-loads-full of group home kids,

foster families, moms, grandmas, grandkids, aunties,

generations of cousins, nephews, nieces

happier now because of you

than you could ever make yourself.

 

I don’t know who you were trying to please—

            your wife? Your sons? But it was seldom really you.

                        Like me, I’m sure they were happy to be

                                     teased    annoyed    disarmed

                                    the way you knew how to do it.

 

To a tee you played the part of

            I-don’t-give-a-fuck macho soul brother—

                        but many knew you so much better.

We knew the boy inside the man with arms

            so long they wrapped around you twice,

I knew the warmth inside your leather

            jacket as I clung to you on your motorcycle

                        proud that people thought I was your boyfriend,

                                    down at The Stud dancing with the boys

                                    looking for women at the end of the night

                                                ending up with Jack-n-seven, a joint,

and the long hall between us.

 

Thank you for the smile that said I see you

     and understand the spaces in our hearts

                     that we can never fill.

It’s OK to let it roll, let it ride,

     straight up, beer back,

              cribbage on the side.

You let me see the man you saw in me.

                     Thank you.

(with acknowledgements to Billie Holiday & Abel Meeropol, Jim Morrison, and Devo)

— excerpted in Behind the Mask: 40 Quarantine Poems from Humboldt County, 2020

Behind the Mask

1

This fallowed field frames our time:

            the structure of our soil redefined

            untilled until the flood we know will come.

 

Well-worked before the blight

            we test its tilth in silent streets

            quiescent public spaces, empty slips.

 

But the abandonment is shallow

            only surface-bare, the harbored ships and buildings

            bleed, so thick they are with life and longing.

 

Still we shelter in our cabins, becalmed:

            the flesh retreats to salty sallow bones

            of sickness and regret. In desperation

 

we borrow the youth of our children’s lives,

            secretly reverse our parents’ mortgage,

            and pawn grandparents’ legacy for booze.

                        All to justify the past.

                        The bill is due.

2

Ironic electronic comics co-mix on the air

            virus protection severed at the head—

            logic circuits shorted-out with hairspray,

            spur a million minions on to armed denial:

                        Open up! Damn the data! Full speed ahead!

                        Yo! Gallows crooners! Sing to the rafters!

                        Appeal for more applause!

                                    as trap doors drop

and bodies twitch and sway.

 

We sail away to reap unfallowed shores,

            to use the heated tide to raise all boats,

            but though flood waters rise, there is no wind.

Lulled, we pull from dinghies, coxswain hoarse

            reshouting orders never understood

            masks cover both his ears but not his mouth

            weak wet breath fogs face shields as we row

            we squint to read the signing hands behind

            propaganda-podium performers

                        reality stars spew unreality

                        The Situation stalks the Situation Room

                        he’s been elected Captain of the World

                        the Ship of State is in his grip of doom

                                    as lemming-rats escape into their tombs

                                    shallows-sailors schoon full sail into reefs,

                                    pursuing loyalty not buoyancy

                                    they kiss the ring of commander-in-thief

                                    and set more canvas as the virus rips our hull

                        while body-bags of new Strange Fruit are hanged

                        from the pure white yardarms of Good Ship Hope,

                                    its red double-crosses spawning tent-morgues.

                                            Embalmed.    Becalmed.    Fallowed.

3

Horse Latitudes breed coarse platitudes

            still-birthed currents tiny monsters.

Flail or fallow further, dance or drown:

            legs furiously pump the volume

            cranking up confinement music

            break on through to cardio panic:

                        Keep it going! Keep it up!

                        Pant! Fetch! Roll over! Play dead!

                        Get spiritual-minded!

                        Don’t let yourself and others down!

                        Don’t fallow idle! Teach the children!

                        Spur your hobbies! Make more art!

                        Up and download! Stream and binge!

                        Zoom around your partner’s screen

                        forget to clear your history

                        schedule make-up sex, forget your makeup

                        sext your landlord by mistake

                        pandemic virtue-news is fake relief

                        relive, retrieve your life in full

                        pass-time all the time

         pass time         times past        time’s up.

4

Now the fever fills the lungs and shallow

            intubated breathing clings to life.

We cultivate, we culturate

            evacuate occult blood from our bowels

            as all around us human tallow drips

            and draws the sea-salt sorrow from our eyes.

 

Ground-fog rises to lowering sea-clouds

            the vampire-mist spreads brighter than the slate sky

            as dawn-light splits the air from blackened hills

            grey rainbows wet the backs of starving cows:

            the morning comes, yet no one wakes.

       We sleep.           Becalmed.           Fallowed.

5

These naked fields will in time be fecund;

            weeds that we call crops will intercede.

Though oceans we pretend to sail are beckoned

            to hollows in the earth to salt the seed

the earth below, slow burning, will explode.

 

Our culture is at work at home

            the culture of the loam

            the tunnels of the worms

            the nematodes of joy

            the nodes of nitro-fixing germs

            we till to live we live until

   untilled        becalmed        we fallow.

 

How will the callow children of this night

begin to find their hallows of delight?

 

             — North Coast Journal, December, 2018

 

gray on gray in morning

white on green at noon

glowing coral in the gloaming

gone by night

 

so many egrets in the pasture

now as winter nears feeding together

still    slow    steps

sudden spear staving hunger

indifferent in their scattered flock

swallowing frogs and gophers

or picking maggots from the dung

 

looking up I see the honkers rise

from the bottom to the dune

Aleutian cackling geese

flapping wing to wing

each a unit of the whole

as in one another’s blinds

they jostle squawk and scramble

the V taking shape then losing squadrons

coming apart at the turns

spawning smaller Ws and Ms

that surge and straighten to another V

 

but these stilted specters in the thistle

single flames atop impossible stems

do not seem to know each other

as if they are the same bird

each in a different part of its own life

then as I watch I see

that they are moving like the geese

aware without the fanfare of their place

more the space between them as they graze

they take no heed of me

I think they know the fence

a patch of safety for their quest

zoned and plotted not yet subdivided

plowed and fallowed remnant of a meadow

of which they do not know and would not care

a movement in the mud the pulsing prey

is all their flight-bred minds are focused on

but fly they will when darkness hides their quarry 

across the bottomland and bay

together mostly silent and alone

to light upon the rustling boughs of home.