Archive for car

First Snow

November 3, 2009 at 12:26 pm · Filed under Estonia, God, car, poem, poetry, snow

The dogs and I venture into an alien landscape,
Lapland, Siberia, the Martian surface, new snow
like frozen ashes, like dead skin flaking from
the god of all things too cold and forbidding.

Those twenty centuries passed in the shtetls
on the Russian steppes, in the ghettos of Krakow,
Smolensk, L’vav, were nary enough time to
accustom my blood to the profound absence of light.

I crave sunshine, orange juice, olive groves, warm
sand and blue water, and the company of dark-
complected souls who collect the sun’s rays
and reflect them in warm and lively conversation.

On this third day of November, when my world
has turned from green to white, all color drained
like blood from a corpse, I feel like a car spinning
on an icy grade, or skidding toward the ditch.

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Every Falling Leaf

October 3, 2009 at 8:19 pm · Filed under God, car, fall, night, poem, poetry ·Tagged , ,

I worry about the birds — these birds,
singing here in this tree, whose names
I do not know, who best, I think, be
heading south — and all the children
of all the friends I have known and forgotten,
in cars on dark, curvy roads.  Where
could they be going on a night like this?

The sky is too wide, the forest too deep
to fret for every falling leaf.  For this,
men invent gods, multitudes of them.
They watch over fish and fowl,
beast and man who creates them
in the image to which he aspires —
all knowing and all seeing.

I see the skunk — that one
dashing across the big curve 
between South Range and Trimountain —
sleek, beautiful, head down, tail flying,
a black and white banner of night.
Take care, fellow traveler, you and I
have little ones waiting at home.

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Michigan Upper Peninsula

July 26, 2009 at 4:14 pm · Filed under U.P., Upper Peninsula, car, coffee, poem, poetry

Through fog and summer rain
you’d swear you were in Canada,
eastern Ontario or New Brunswick,
when you drive across the U.P.,
lakes and bogs and more trees
than people, spruce and popple,
maple and pine, watching for
cop cars, RVs, log trucks, moose,
listening to Niko Case,
high on coffee and Big Red gum,
chewing on your little troubles
stick by stick.

With the construction
it’ll take all afternoon
to get to the Bridge
then maybe Flint by sundown.
There’s an old man
stopped on the left shoulder
looking over his car and then
ahead on the right I see the deer
struck down dragging herself
like Christina prone and twisted
in that famous Weyth painting.
It’s too late to stop
and what could I do anyway?

Last night we found
the little black chick
who hatched last week, dying,
its guts spilt out.
You need to go, I said,
I’ll take care of this.
Smooth rock heavy
in my palm, one swift
bash, twitching, peace.

Hemmingway fished these streams,
Jim Harrison and Greg Brown too.
They say still waters run deep,
but some things
you push them down
and they just stir the muck
and bob to the surface.
Now the miles roll fast
under your wheels like years,
and slip away easier than
visions of old lovers.
I wish Dad, two years gone,
could sit here beside me.

Lightening!
Count the heart beats,
brace for the crash.

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Recycling on Earth Day, while I work on something new

April 22, 2009 at 2:18 pm · Filed under car, cats, poem, poetry, subaru

indirect object

 

quail tap dancing on carport roof

cat crouched on yellow car

looking up

 

blame is transitive

its object direct

or strongly

implied

 

regret is reflexive

like a cat crouched

re-

-cur-

-sive

like birds on a wire

 

cats can

be bedeviled by

the unreachable closeness of birds

 

regret is like this too

 if the roof were gone

he could reach the bird

but where to stand

and where the bird

 

the past is impenetrable as corrugated tin

and wavy

the sound of birds can fascinate

or mock

 

blame the bird

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vehicle

October 8, 2008 at 6:32 pm · Filed under bush, car, poetry, skinny dip, song, subaru, truck

(I want an woman with an) Old Subaru

 

I want a woman with an old Subaru

No Ford, no Chevy, no B M Double-U

I want to kick back and just soak up the view

With a woman in an old Subaru

 

With skis on top and a Yakima rack

Rusted-out body and a dog in the back

With four wheel drive and an engine so true

I want a woman with an old Subaru

 

Backpack, kayak, hear the whippoorwill

Bivouac in the back, drive us up the hill

Slim hips, skinny dips, dancing in the dew

Sweet lips, pleasure trips in her Subaru

 

I want a woman with an old Subaru

Tofu and veggies on a hot barbecue

Swiss Army knife with a blade and corkscrew

I want a woman with an old Subaru

 

I want a woman who can pull back her hair

Hike for two weeks with nary a care

A blow-dried babe from the city won’t do

I want a woman with an old Subaru

 

No Paris, No Mariah, a Mercedes just won’t do

No Britney en la playa  and her tacky retinue

No in-dash micro chips, no ditzy ingénue

Just good lovin pleasure trips in her Subaru

 

The president he drives a big pickup truck

When it comes to people he just don’t give a fuck

Now listen here — this is what we should do

Elect a woman in an old Subaru

 

I want a woman with an old Subaru

No Ford, no Chevy, no B M Double-U

I want to kick back and just soak up the view

With a woman in an old Subaru

Yeah, with my woman and her old Subaru

I said my woman and her old Subaru-u-u-u-u.

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