89/365: Julia (Published in Words Dance)

She would be in her nineties now
but I only imagine her at four -
still awkward,
the roundness of her face
waiting to be stretched out
over family cheek bones.

Since photographs
were luxuries beyond
their means,
I can only guess
that her long hair
had a wave to it,
like ripples over a dark pond,
as mine once did.

I've only heard about you,
Aunt Julia,
in the way family scars are shared -
the teller of the tale
surprised to be telling,
but needing to tell
in order to help make sense.

My grandmother, your sister,
was twelve
and in charge.
Because adolescence
had not been invented in 1926.

What were you looking for
with your long hair flowing
when you opened the coal stove?

Deep in the waters of story
this is the moment
when madness sparked,
burning generations.


See this poem on Words Dance: http://wordsdance.com/2014/10/julia-by-mark-bonica/

88/365: San Antonio, after rain

After rain
the gully
reflects the sky:
a schmear of white clouds
against razor blue.

There is a blossoming of insects
and the long grass grows
a foot overnight
it seems.

One wouldn't guess
that rock bones
will jut
through the dry skin of dirt
in only a few days.

87/365: oil

Whenever I pour olive oil
I find I've spilled some on my fingers.
It seems a requirement
that a drop or two
slips down somehow to my index finger,
or into the crotch of my thumb.

Today it's there on the ridge
of my middle finger
and rather than wipe it with a paper towel
I press it into my hand
feeling the warm slickness.

I contemplate the green glass bottle
that holds the rest of the oil
like the bottles and jugs and barrels
that flow backward millennia
connected by this gentle thing.

86/365: parking lot sunrise

Not quite ready to go into the office,
I sit in my mini van
listening to poetry,
chewing over the poet's voice.

When I notice the sun
is breaking the horizon
I realize I had driven in the dark
drinking coffee from a steel mug
the audiobook playing,
everything on automatic.

As I watch the sun making that first sprint
over the trees and buildings
another car parks along side me.
I hear the driver slam his (or her) door,
but I'm thinking about the moment,
and s/he's already gone.

85/365: household spirits

the hearth spirit (who lives in the oven)
is displeased again
with the way I leave my frying pan on the stove
and don't wash it immediately.

I sprinkle some flakes in the fish tank
and the water sprite I swore was a gold fish
when I bought her at the pet store
(no wonder the owner refused payment)
complains about how it's always more of the same.

The guardian of the threshold
informs me my shoes are not the best match
for the belt I am wearing;

the garden gnomes are disgruntled
about the un-neat edging I did yesterday
(what is "un-neat"?);

the dryad steps out from her trunk,
arms crossed,
and glowers as I get in the car.

It's the glower that stays with me
and when I get home
I hang the bird house I had promised
and forgotten about.

Then it's in to change and back out again
with the weed whacker.
I hear after, "he's learning"
as I go back through the garage.

The guardian approves
of my taking my sneakers off
at the door,

and when I drop some dried shrimp in the tank
the eager splashing is followed
by a bubbly belch.

I grab a beer and sit down at the kitchen table,
and the hearth spirit asks,
have the Christmas sales started yet?
It's only August, I reply, wiping sweat
with my hand.

It's never too early to start thinking
about family, she replies.


***

audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/household-spirits

84/365: my people

I contemplate the fifteen kinds of jerky -
two turkey and thirteen beef -
by the register at Walmart.

The blessings of far flung lands
burst into the aisles
and spill forth from end caps
and I wander amongst them
as I once did bookstores
(when there were bookstores)
considering the potential.
There is a book aisle at Walmart,
do not fear,
if you want to relive for forty feet of shelf space
what that other life was like.

This is a different kind of potential,
but not so different as the hipsters
would have you believe.

These are my people, I tell you.
They are dreamers dreaming dreams.
They are building castles in the sky
under which they hope to some day
put foundations.

They do not keep pace with you,
and they have not heard
of Henry David Thoreau and his project
to eat beans and drink water
and do nothing but sit by a pond,
so mock them.
But with their XXXL leopard print spandex
they too ride their scooters
to the beat of a drummer
you cannot hear.

82/365: just in case

My briefcase stowed in the hold,
I throw off
and drift into the stream of traffic
making my way down the canals
of my subdivision,
merging through the locks of lights
until I hit the big river highway.

I set my minivan on a southerly heading -
two hands on the wheel.
Red lights off the bow
and white coming past port -
the sun has yet to unfurl its rosy-fingered arms.

When questioned whether he was a merchant
or a pirate
Odysseus declared for the black flag.
There is no glory in being a merchant
and so I have my Jolly Roger in the glove box
and a bottle of rum under the lumbar-supporting seat
just in case I find the courage today
to drive on past my exit -
straight
into the winedark sea.

---

From Adam Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence:

In a rude society nothing is honourable but war. In  the Odyssey, Ulysses is sometimes asked, by way of affront, whether he be a pirate or a merchant. At that time a merchant was reckoned odious and despicable; but a pirate or robber, as he was a man of military bravery, was treated with honour. We may observe that those principles of the human mind which are most beneficial to society, are by no means marked by nature as the most honourable.

81/365: Accidentally Talking with Oedipus

Oedipus will back me up on this -
you were destined to be reading these lines

right at this moment.

There are things you can fight,
but fate isn't one of them.

So I'm sorry if I've entered
your afternoon web surfing unexpectedly,
but it was preordained.

It's also true that
your choice of dinner this evening
is going to lead to an inevitable conclusion
some years from now.

Well, maybe not your dinner,
but something will.

See - Oedipus is nodding over there
the empty sockets of his eyes
directed away from us, but his ear
pointed straight at you.

He tells me it's not all bad,
this fate thing -

not

all.

***

audio: https://soundcloud.com/mbonica/accidentally-talking-with-oedipus

80/365: a conversation

we say a lot
or we say a little

words come forth and
do dances

or 

they come forth
and sit down, feet kicked up
on punctuation ottomans

hearing what isn't said
especially
when there is a riotous word gathering -

a joyous festival of word patrons -
or a staccato of angry word soldiers -
or just a subway platform of word commuters
pushing and shoving onto the next train -

it seems it might be important
to count the silences.

79/365: point of view

I was not born in Turkey
so it's hard for me to explain
why when we talk
I seem to be a whirl of bright cloth,
my twin blades flashing
in a turning
not unlike the chaotic turning of two suns offset
rising East-West as expected, but also almost West-East
if this were possible.

You, with your laconically complected articulation
that says little when we both listen closely
(ears bent in - observing)
You are closer to the British style
as if what you hold back
is not as obvious as what I put forward -
the tip of your rapier
pointed and waiting for the linear strike
through all of my words -
my words.

but my words are a cloud of meaning -
does the lightning speak any more clearly
than the sky?