1. The Blues (with deepest blue apologies to Alexander Theroux)
I’m talking about
the blue of the blue hand that
used to be painted
on doors or behind
the left ears of grooms to ward
off evil spirits.
I’m talking about
the shade of blue that Van Gogh
may have foreshadowed
his own doom with. I’m
talking about the blue of
the mosaic masks
of ancient Incan
priests and Chinese emperors
when at worship. I’m
talking about the
blue of night and shadows,
fiends and villains and
supernatural
creatures. I’m talking about
candle flames that burn
blue when there are ghosts
about. I’m talking about the
worried note of a
worried song, sung by
a worried man. I’m talkin’
‘bout the blues, baby.
2. Moonlight Coming
Through the Window (Tanka)
A jelly jar full
of fireflies on the bedside
dresser / mercury-
blue moonlight coming through the
window makes the whole room glow.
3. Some Kind of Tension, There
Well,
it
looks like
tonight there’s
a full moon versus
a sodium vapor street lamp
and both with an unearthly glow of some weird hybrid
of peach and gold, both out just making their
nightly rounds, though you get the sense that there’s no
ill will or even a low level competition
between them. But still, there’s some kind
of tension, there, as
they pass each
other
in
the
night
sky,
(which has,
along with
the road and the woods,
decided again, to remain
completely silent and still over the matter).
4. What I Thought I Saw
I had to turn the
car around and go back at
least a mile just to
confirm what I thought I saw:
Yep! Seven yellow butter-
flies resting on a bull’s horn.
5. Coming and Going
Too many of us
seem to think that we are the
money we make, the
job we do to make it, the
car we drive to get
us there, the clothes we wear, the
house we store all our
worldly possessions in,
the neighborhood we
live in, the neighbors we wave
to every day
as we come and go but don’t
really know very
much about except maybe
who their favorite
sports team is and who they think
the rest of us should vote for
6. No Need for an Introduction (after Billy Collins)
I’m generally
not one to give a lengthy
introduction to
my poems (it’s best just to
fire them up and go
and let the chips fall / dice roll,
et al.). However,
I feel that I should say some-
thing about the word
four, which appears, exactly,
four times throughout the
poem and is meant to be
symbolic of The
Four Tenors (Pavoratti,
Mario Lanza,
Plocido Domingo and
Jose Carreras),
and then there’s Chuang Tzu, of course,
(known to many as
Zhuongzi), an ancient Chinese
philosopher of
the late 4th century, who
was one of the chief
architects of Taoism.
And I suppose I
should probably mention that
nephology is
the study of clouds and cloud
formations, and the
Nephilim were biblical
beings said to have
been the hybrid offspring of
rebellious angels
and human women (with the
ability, among
other things, to control the
Earth’s magnetic fields).
And, no doubt, you’re already
familiar with
Queen Nefirtiti (wife of
Akhenaten (not
to be confused, of course, with
Nefertari (wife
of Ramesses II)). But, now that
I think more about
it, there could be a little
confusion about
dolcelatte (also known
as gorgonzola
dolce) which is a soft, blue-
veined cheese that can be
served as either a dessert
or appetizer.
And, I would assume that most
people are, at least,
somewhat, aware of the deep
connectivity
between the Fibonacci
Sequence, The Golden
Ratio (also known as
the Golden Mean or
Divine Proportion) and The
Pythagorean
Theorem. And you might recall
that Bob Jackson was
the photographer who took
that famous photo
of Jack Ruby shooting Lee
Harvey Oswald (who,
my mother dated, briefly,
back in the day, by
the way (Jackson, I mean, not
Ruby or Oswald,
obviously)). Other than
those few things, I think
the rest of the poem is
pretty clear and self-
explanatory, and can
speak for itself. It’s
about the time I got lost
in the woods, once, while
hiking. It’s called Getting Lost
in the Woods, Once, While Hiking
