PROGRESS ON WHITE MOUNTAIN

Going up as a lucid poet
through separate hills
yet being muted in caves
of the buried Vermont crevices
by arriving early travelers
on first iced snowy peaks
that all look alike
in colorful fleeced jackets
with my own binoculars
yet abandoned in my pilgrimage
as repetitions of morning light
open a witnessing hunger
of promised goings over
spying a caught speckled fawn
spiked near the bushes
needing a rescue in a clump
of entangled Maple trees
shading my blinding eyes
brushing through a tall wilderness
conversing with November's body
of west winds whipping my back
between bands of rains
in a cloudy forecast
motionless in a landscaped shot
by leaning on a scraggly boulder
as my adolescent scout memory
returns in a daily litmus divide
of my own cross examination
when opposing forces
crash your body releasing
over the minor monitors
of our own ego egging us on
emerging to bluff our way
in a metaphysical anguish
when we silence the gliding
of an early embodied journey
in a lonely intimation
of our fast footfalls
on this frosty Fall hike
carrying my bundles of water
and brie cheese baguette
up these White mountains
with only the song bird
in the cleft of the rock
waiting for his bread.

TO TAKE BACK TIME
(For Phllip Larkin 1922-1985)

In the trampled weight
surprised by the waves
along the ocean
sharing the double oars
of a dissonant hour motioning
from the transient siren songs
of a swinging chorus chants
like honorable Odysseus
seeking to return home
to Penelope
after his troubled time
thinking of you, Phillip Larkin
without any sense of venture
in your cold water flat
over the English Channel
did you ever imagine travel
or leaving for Greece
yet only counting ashen faces
of your own hell bent grief
walking into Jason's fleece
of a woolen blankets
on cold Fall nights
worrying about the rent,
yet your work out dream
in full body opening
of words that make our worlds
double their inheritance of love
without any reason of belief
even in our exiles, shipwrecks,
open heart operations,
chance living in Gulags,
on soccer fields, war zones
reciting canticles
by a hundred candles
we survive in long corridors
from sheets, hands over pianos
or behind troubled recital doors
holding onto your verse.

PILGRIMS ON MAYFLOWER
Nov 9, 1620

Pilgrims sight land here
on Cape Cod
believing it was no whim
that shaped and shared
an enlightened plan of God.

BETWEEN US

Between phlox in a rock garden
and pebbles from the sea
the dead stones come alive
from my noon daydream
of tackle fishing in November
on the other side of the Bay
here for a last run on the Cape
miles away from the shore
as trout survive
seconds, seasons, times
now remembering my headlight
of my motorcycle
needs to be switched off
e mailing my sailor friend
along these predicable waves
visiting me from England
who plays drums like Ringo
named by his blues singer mom
who named him after
her attending in London
my Beat poem reading
hoping Ringo
would become an ecologist
traveling like his brother Mo
on roads always of exodus
living in tabernacles and tents
over unnoticed desert borders
to protect and rescue turtles
sea lions, whales, other mammals
by outposts of crowded sails
under chromatic rays by sunshine
with look-outs over grassy island
though Ringo was a Hollywood extra
in a brief dust up column
about a movie involving
a triangle affair
starring his wife Brenda
who was also film director
who understood his life of venture
and eventual poetic surrender,
tells me not to worry even though
he is tossed in motionless waves
riddled by his own jokes
in his blue angler kayak
who says he noticed
the old Harley and fixed it
in the parking lot on the dock.

LET THIS NOVEMBER

Let this November dawn
be a morning
of such Keatsian perception
that signs and wonders
will be in our hiking direction
thinking to pause on windows
to watch chimeras of songbirds
hearing cicadas and cardinals
on whatever road we travel
by Robert Frost's birches
on James Dean's cycles
thanking life's moments
for a worthwhile day spent
bemused by glimpsing times
of recluse Salinger in Vermont
for miracles of Kerouac's prose
or visiting Emily at Amherst groves
where we park on the right route
over deep expressway obstacles
by a thick river of cars
off the pike to her cemetery
planting a shoot of roses
from near my rock garden
and along the Cape's riverbeds
to seek in very boundless words
as a cool mortal Beat
and a smooth jazz guy
in my hands, toes and feet
may pardon, circle and disclose
of their memory when the grass
on the golf fields are still green
we will remember the rumor
going round this map and square
that even in our terrifying times
when we are lost in traffic
eyeing the orange and red leaves
in the sponged sunny footfalls
of their Autumn foliage
our aging still life has the art
in a language of humor to share.

MARATHON

Jolts in my body
hitting the wall
hearing barefoot fans
interceding for us
by road beds on river ruts
our shaken up bodies
near birds on statues
singing by tree stumps
at the first hour of dawn
by indelible tracks
on distant paths
crosswise near green hills
some recounting time
others wishing to make
a record for themselves
under reconveyed bridges
soon with wobbling knees
and sweated shoulder pain
bodies with feet blisters
cramping hope on rugged terrain
far from home
with one hand clasping
from two sidelined
recumbent leaning bodies
wishing us well
all in search for meaning
or here for charity
as our salt eyelids
rivet from its blur
wanting oxygen
and a bottle of water
rising to a jazz rhythm
keeping in the lane
forgetting past riffs
by helping one beside us
to get up from the grass
hearing sax music on the field
of a recent blueberry harvest
grinding around us
with fourteen hours left
to mimic last night's sleep
yet pressing toward
the recondite right landmarks
gambling on this day's calling
with no stop watch
not quitting until dark
until the yellow finish line
appears out of now where
yet miles not acquainted
or time acquitted
falling short for rest
in my path by a golf course
near crooked peaks
and red birch
as runner ups in landslips
over greensward dales
trying to be undaunted
but not fully understanding
why here at my age
taking turns over this time
off and on windy lashes
unlaced in a chalk circle
following an eagle on the Bay
not frightened by a skin head
on the side of the road
in any gifts of suggestion
but with our better life spirit
my heart seeking more water
yet determined and vigilant
to keep running the race
in a touch patch of life
without strength of flesh
near St. Joseph's church
now too hungry to change lanes
but to shower quickly
without inspecting any damage
get into a coat of many colors.

NOVEMBER 9TH BIRTHDAYS


It's November 9th with
a wonderful birthday wish
for Anne Sextant
and James Schuyler
are still here in a city vista
seen by critics or academics
in a brief era winding by
to the extant that words,
suffering, identity, love
still matter between earth
above summits of the sky
in this time of sensation
publicity, and celebrity
of do, die or acquit
from a untamed anger
a competent shame
of deep benevolent feeling
and close enchantment
between poet and reader
that a life's pulpit confessional
was more than a scattered obit
like filtered water
for a returning bird feeder,
when a son or daughter
who discerned about suffering
was asked and then learned
to come out in practical life
not to be hidden as in a veil
or under a holiday's
forbidden mask
in a free pass
or press expression
or from a Village gossip column
for more than a concession
in a miracle moment's pause
but today there are few
solemn hours of care
for such expression,
yet why not for us
to remember them
with a single candle incident
as November 9th births
of Anne Sextant
and James Schuyler
for all their laughter and tears
of their vigilant fans behalf
after these writer's have gone
there is a now a neophyte
vocal chorus of shared souls
living fearless among scandal
in their local place
surrendered to leaving us more
than a loving covenant
of two added names on a roll
of all these unscrolled years
in a wired newspaper dispatch
as a crowded afternoon fades
they are not anonymous now
knowing how wronged they were
snatched only for our eternity
in their own famous
mad Sixties time and space.