Five Points
Above all
the mourning doves know
their seed will be served
as always;
the now begun next phase
of downtown infrasructure
and then beautifying
has started on our stretch
of the downtown
with the thawing
of roadway frost
and the decorative planters
below us removed for safe-keeping
The doves and we are above it all,
yet very much a part of it.
^,^
Where there is love
by Playing for Change
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cABVKIPk_u0
^,^
A favorite, Joel McNally
http://shepherdexpress.com/article-27297-political-anger-at-its-lightest-and-darkest.html
We've been reading and admiring the writing of Joel McNally since the 1970's when he then wrote for the Milwaukee aternative paper, THE KALEIDOSCOPE. We then lived on the Milw. east side.
You can find Joel now in THE SHEPHERD EXPRESS, available for free at the Steaming Cup and Pick N Save etc. A great alternative to the Freeman and the Milw. Journal Sentinel!
^,^
A few historic odes
^,^
Selected Shorts Subject
The
cold season in Wisconsin
sets in once more,
and
still I wear my tattered gray short pants
around
the
house and surround where my home office is,
though
I know sartorially no great credit to me these bare threads
redound.
The
hems dangle down. You say time has made my abbreviated trousers
unpresentable; yes, by some standards I am
poorly
gowned.
Just
this very day a squad car passed while I in my shorts
raked
leaves into a mound. The cops spied my
special drawers and
frowned.
But
I don't seem to give a darn or a big rat's ass anymore,
if
ever I did, how my own unpublicized posterior is clad. Perhaps I shed or add
a
pound
now
and then, but my shredded fading sheath is a forgiving shroud;
the waist is elastic, a yet strongly expanding
and contracting heart. So
hound
me
if you will, washing after ragging washing, I just cling to
these
pants the more, and they to me; I know how couthless that may
sound.
There
may be a Lack of Fashion Statement in such die-hard loin clothing
but
I don't intend to make it:
I too am fraying, but my pants and I,
together, will hold our dear
ground.
[David
Dix]
^,^
To Max the Cat
1988 – 1999
In an age of many
things blackened
Your missing
blackness no more cattening
Our rooms and
halls, our souls are slackened
Max, we loved you,
we gently lay you down.
I live some miles
from where you rest
But you are here
right now
On my mourning mind
As I feel your
lumpen weight on my reclining chest,
And if pall bearers
there would have been,
I would have been
one for you,
My feline, too.
You were not just a
good cat (pass me that wine!)
You were a great
cat
A cavernous black
hole you’ve left in my heart
And in the hearts
of our friends, mine and yours
On the Helt farm,
An address to which
your beloved bones
We forever consign,
and as at Arlington
Guard and mind in
perpetuity
Or till we too have
moved on
We know where that
dark well is,
where your shell
is,
and when I visit
that little grave- site
I am going to lay
myself down on it,
Out of
Out of Africa
Might I?
You never asked me
when the table was turned
But I could have
shooed you away
And now I’m glad I
never did.
I’ll be wet- eyed
as now I am
And sigh: Max, Max, Max, why do we die?
You want ed to no
more than I
Or Buddy, or
Maggie, your surviving cats
In the house gone
dry,
Save for tears of unsuccessful
searching
Now that you are no
longer in it
Who upon our chests
will lie
And make such a
weighty thing of it?
Why?
We thought you were
good for fifteen years
you got eleven;
Much is wrong with
our world
Though you are in
your heaven
And, I don’t want
to “recover” from your loss
It’s made me
frankly cross, and blue
You showed your
trust, no part of you did you withhold
You brought us
gamey socks
And tolerated moods
of many hues
You did your
darndest to talk to us
Now we withhold
nothing in ever remembering you;
Your gamboling
gamble of a life may be over
You may have been
but “an animal”
Yes, but never to
us
Dear Max, we send
you our best
We loved you, we
gently lay you down.
[David Dix 2006]
^,^
You Call That a Glass a
Wine?
A hell of a way to run a
railroad
While the
Episcopalians swill real communion wine
From a common metal
cup, the rim of which is
Merely swiped lightly
with a cloth between hearty gulps
Of the blood of
Christ,
A block away at the
Congregational Church
They’ve gone from
glass to plastic thimbles that are disposable
After each
hummingbird half-filling of Juicy Juice; and why?
Because one can never
be sure;
Were they washed well
enough between once-a-month
Eucharists? Germs, oh
nastiful nasties, fie upon them;
Although a good
Christian willfully eats his allotted bucket of dirt
A year, and breathes
noxious fumes all ‘round,
At the Congregational
Church
He can control at
least something, and it’s
The type of
mini-vessel
From which he tiddles
his teensy taste,
His weensy taste of
sugary “blood”;
But I’ll tell you one
thing;
Those plastic vials
will never clink
The way real glass
did in the communion racks!
You cannot slam down
a plastic thimble
Nor can you cherish
the feel of it in your fingers;
It just aint the
same; and brother,
It’s not the way we
used to do it.
It is just a good
thing, probably,
The heavenly
monitors, if they be,
Couldn’t care less
what form
Our worship takes, as
long as it’s sincere,
And resonant, if
ecologically unsound.
[David Dix, 02-03-04 ]
^,^
Ragtime’s Testicles
We had a cat who was a male
Whose habits and wants none could
assail
Except in his dotage he’d flagrantly
pee
In places inside where we’d smell,
and then see
The vet said of that he could be
easily fixed
By neutering him that scourge would
be nixed
So I took him in and had the job
done
And I told the vet I had a request,
only one
That he save the testes in a small
glass jar
For me to take home; would not carry’t too far
They were to be sure Ragtime’s
prized possessions
And I thought that to save them
might stay any questions
Thus I placed in the ice box
Ragtime’s yellow-gray orbs
In a small screw-top jar midst the
food of all sorts
And with time in the way of fridges
everywhere galore
The little jar got forgotten; I knew it no more
I married Dee
later, and she liked to clean
She tackled my icebox, threw out
many things mean
But my sauces and condiments if
questioned got left
For me to not lose so I’d be not bereft
Besides, the mystery jar took so
little room
And didn’t look mouldy, formelahyded
safely from gloom
The contents looked like something
that I might want to keep
So Dee, a good saver, said not a
peep
Years later my father visited and in
accord with his habit
Required a martini; he’d make it and
have it
The gin and the vermouth were there
in plain sight
But no garnishments, like olives,
cheered him that terrible night
He made do through searching, built
a drink I’d have banned
And joined us in the living room,
bare toothpicks in hand
And his brow it was furrowed as his
lips he did smack
Saying, “Boy, your cocktail onions a
wallop do pack!”
“They have a certain gristle I’m not
used to having,
And the flavour, though pungent, I’d
probably be halving;
How long have you had them?” Though with dawning great dread
I said not “The cat that they came
from is dead!”
[David Dix 4-18-2004 ]
^,^
Calls For The Singing
Fairies
I have a secret glass
In the kitchen
cabinet
I re-found it
after many years
in one of the high
Cabinets we rarely go
in
It’s been here
since at least 1941
It was my grandmother’s
when she bought this
house
And I think she may
have had it
Long before that
It may date back to
my great grandparents
Who were
farmers in Sheboygan
County
The Furhrmans or
maybe the Froehlichs
my maternal German
bloodline
I say it’s secret
because it must have
A magic spell cast
upon it
The glass is so
paper-thin
A juice glass in size
But it has over all
these never-never decades
never ever been broken
In spite of its
fragility
It has etched lilies
of the valley
Cut into it’s
thinness
Making the glass even
thinner
In those places
I like to think this
glass
Sought shelter from
breakage
By getting into that
upper cupboard
Somehow of
supernatural volition
So as to not be
broken
As one of the
daily-used often chipped
Cups and bowls are
Frequent breakage of
our common
Crockery
Is not unknown in
this house
When I wash this
fragile glass
after carefully using and admiring
its still-whole
thinness
Coming and going
through me
Onto the table, then
Into the clean soapy
dishwater
Before any soiled
utensils
Or anything else is
plunged
I get true but ginger
hands on it
Hold it fast as I
rinse it
Long and roundly
under warm water
And air-dry it on an
embroidered
Dishtowel
I’m afraid to own it
But I want to use it
To feel it while
Trying to protect it
Maybe for a next
generation
So I have it in the
lower cabinet
Where it gets daily
use
And I wash it every
day
I have regular fear
Mixed with the joy of
having it
When I held this
glass
As a small child
- was it this very
one or another
in a set, now
broken?-
My grandmother would
sing to me:
White coral bells
Upon a slender stalk
Lilies of the valley
Line my garden walk
Oh don’t you wish
That you could hear them ring?
That will happen only
When the fairies sing!
My fragile glass
To casual viewers
Secret as it is
Should not be
looked-for
But it’s there
Waiting?
For?
A last chance for
fairies to sing?
[David Dix 11-06]
All for today; there'll be more
