First Robin
Saw Dolly Parton
sitting in a tree
first robin this Spring
singing with glee
telling all the swains
"It's me! It's me!"
Every Child Needs a Father
Back in sixth grade Billy hits a ball so far
it never comes down, as he tells the story now,
50 years later, drunk in a bar, talking with strangers.
He rounds the bases but doesn't touch home.
The catcher tags him and the ump says he's out.
Sitting in the stands, his father curses so
Billy runs away with the puppy he found
that his father says he cannot keep.
He hides in the forest but his sister squeals
about the cave he now calls home.
Around midnight, the puppy is sleeping
when Billy sees searchlights weaving in the dark
and hears cops shouting "Billy! Billy!"
The cops take him home and the puppy away.
Billy gets welts on his butt from a belt
and never plays baseball again but
every summer his father tells neighbors
some day my Billy will play for the Yankees.
The Human Condition
Did I forgive her, you ask?
What a silly question.
Why wouldn't I forgive her?
The mother of my children,
she's been dead for years.
Our long war died with her.
Did I attend her funeral?
I'd have been a distraction.
But I pray for her,
the repose of her soul.
She belongs in Heaven,
no denying that, up front
in a box seat after all
she's been through.
If I'm lucky, I'll find
the side door to
Heaven unlocked.
I'll sneak in quietly
and if Peter doesn't
throw me out, I'll sit
in the bleachers.
The question is,
will I wave if she
turns around?
Winter in the Checkout Lane
Old lady on a park bench
hunkered down
babushka and shawl
snow and wind
dancing everywhere
as she waves her cane
and says young man
you and I are in
the same checkout lane
our carts are heaped
with many good things
we can't take with us
I'm ahead of you
and can see a sign
on the register
that says "no cash,
no credit accepted
but everyone pays.
Have a nice day."
Trombone Player
i stand to the side, or
toward the back
and make small sounds
at hopefully appropriate times
though i am loud
i am soft
blending, joining
strengthening
i want to make
my own sounds
have my own
voice
but the lesson is
that greater beauty
is in more so the combined
less so the solo
when the solo comes
i will stand beside
or behind
the listener
there will always
be someone
to whom
i can give
-- Tom Rubenoff
Half-Speed
There was a day once
when I started to see it
dissect in slow motion:
that fraction of wind that
intertwines with allium
and hyacinth;
the fibers of spider silk
detaching from the upper
reach of the garden arbor
in the gaps between the
morning hours;
the inconstant yellow
of birch leaves suspended
in a certain angle of
October light.
I quarantine particles of
time. I pass microseconds
through a slurry of unhurried
moments, like the hazel that
bursts from your eyes across
the florescence of the hall,
the vapors of sadness
that rise in the space
between.
Footinthemouthophobia
I couldn’t say anything
coherent to you.
At any time the right
words would
wander into a hive
on the verge of
colony collapse.
They’d ride to the city
on the 8:10 express,
stray with the embers
up the flue
on a dark search for
the month’s new moon.
I’d piece you a phrase
from leftover phonemes.
I’d echo an answer,
the uncut response
biding time until the
morning shower or
autumn equinox.
I stumble across a
list of phobias in a
book you left behind.
There’s a word for
fear of words,
of long terms and
small things.
Fear of stillness comes
closest, but I find no
name for the letdown
of tongue-tied quiet or
the dread of anticipation
threaded through
dangling participles
and vacant
tripping speech.
Four Untitled Poems
A kestrel hovers in sunlight
It calls to those
who can see it
I walk through the morning door
I return through the evening door
I walk through this morning’s door
and this evening I will not return.
days of rain
glide under the footbridge
an older me
whom failures relinquish
rain-fed acolyte
a follower of rivers
Constant celebrants of
a boundless Mardi Gras
Thrumming our melodies
within echoes of footfalls
from each and all of us
Well, imagine that!
Thrumming our melodies
within echoes of footfalls
from each and all of us!
Abandoning the Umbrella
Dead umbrellas’ dance of ribs
Exposed beneath torn colorful skin
Or collapsed in casual asymmetry
Of repose newly askew
Face down the rag dispensers
Weekly monthly black and white trash
Thrown down by wind and hosed down by sky
Wreckage of enterprise
Avian fly-by song greeting
Weather breaking new day
Washed of the homeless
Redraws its natives with sun
Memory of the storm recedes
With the flooded stream
Reflections winking blue sky
With the puddle’s open eye
Drying, litter unglues itself
In the breeze tumbling
Across the river of my life
I walk like rain
My footsteps like raindrops
Shattering on the surface
The gale of the real breaks
The ribs that frame
The fragile canopy of my hope
Falling from my hand
It lies broken
Unencumbered I walk free
-- Tom Rubenoff
Plagiarism
I'd never steal a poem
or any of its shining facets
but I'd take the mood
a poem is born in
if the poem is smiling.
A lot of poems smile
but lately mine
can only scowl.
So when I read
a poem written
in the daylight by
a soul who's
painting clouds
against a brilliant sky
as if the clouds
were butterflies
too lovely to let go
and fly away,
that's the mood
I want with me
every midnight
in the basement
when I feed the ghosts
I can't allow upstairs.
Unrequited Love
On their 50th anniversary
Sammy gave Dolly a necklace
and told his darling wife that
if they lived long enough
one of them would wake
to find the other one had died.
"That's life," said Sammy.
And so it came to pass
Dolly rose one day
and found old Sammy
on the bathroom floor,
face blue, body cold,
arms outstretched,
an old man crucified.
This wasn't the first time
in 50 years Sammy had
ruined Dolly's day but now
free of fear, Dolly spoke:
"I never thought you'd die.
I'll have your ashes in an urn
and under dirt by end of day."
Scrivener's Cauldron
It's a fire hazard, really,
my wife keeps telling me,
the cauldron that I keep
bubbling in the basement
with its steaming stew of
nouns and verbs but no
adjectives or adverbs
because they'd destroy
the flavor, I remind her.
Whenever I go down
the basement I stoke
the embers roaring
underneath the cauldron
then strain the stew
until I find a noun
or verb tastier
than those I have
simmering upstairs.
Birds of Change
Birdsong gathers into flocks
Perches on power lines
Speaks in hushed bird tones
Or group-swoops the air
A choreographed bird of birds
In synchronized aerobatics
That fold and unfold
Like a checkered flag
Sometimes a smaller group breaks away
A little revolution
Flying off at an angle
To destinations unknown
The bird-bird disassembles itself
And lands in fifty branches of a tree
There maybe they anticipate or discuss
Departure times or review routes and possible
Hazards they may Encounter as they journey
South to escape
The snow
Then the hush will fall
Birdsong will consist of only
The blare of the blue jay
Cawing of crows
And the subdued music of chickadees
Winter crows roost
In a narrow strip of trees
Hundreds of them
Each day before dawn
Singing their crow song
In waves from end to end
Of the flock
And no one sleeps
For blocks around
In the spring the birds return singly
Males do battle for nesting sites
The music of their desire
Loud in all the suitable trees
Females choose the most appealing
Male song
And so the pair is made
Softer music greets each summer morning
And changes in the evening
With sweet reluctance releasing
Each warm, sweet day
A song for the coming storm
A different song for rain
A song for hot sun
Until the sunsets sooner come
And the birds of change
Fly again as one
-- Tom Rubenoff
The Ruler
Bruised and alone, yet tall she reigns
Rising from the cornered chamber to balance her heavy crown
Her pride visible as banners caught high on a morning squall
With subjects of seclusion, regret, and hate eager to await her command
She obliges their hunger, cautious of the offering
It will not last. It will not hold sway
The borders must be sealed and the walls rebuilt
She will not stop short. She will not falter again
None will be spared once she holds dominion
The guards will destroy all who dare near
Such is vital for her succession
Long may she rule
The Ampersand of Psychoanalysis
Ten daydreams
& a dozen nightmares
from that area of nowhere
known as nothing
We took that leap and never looked up
only down
no bungee cord,
no mountain climbing rope tied between us
it wasn’t so much bravery or bravado
that made us do it, but rather, naiveté
& laundered haste
sometime when you’re bored and so am I
we should take out the old photo album
& try to find the ghosts, demons
& monsters in the subliminal fudge
-- Samuel Vargo
Sick’s Sense
Charlie has a sick’s sense
Because he knows everything
And then some
He’s a regular cross between Jesus and Buddha
Throw in hunter t. and james dean,
Add some elvis flakes and stir gently
“God doesn’t drive a Bentley
Or even a Volvo,
But an old Dodge Dart
With over 345,000 miles
On its dusty odometer
With the same engine intact
As the day He built it
And clean as a fish fork – “
A Charlie quote
Etched on the wall.
Say the guys
At the garage,
About Charlie's philosophy:
He was a sparked plug of a guy.-
What a charmer, what a ladies' fella
- He foretold the Sox winning
The World Series ten years before
The Pirates won the big pennant
- And what’I’dliketooknow
Mr. Scribe on the half shell
Is just how Mr. Nostro-dumbass
Could eat something queasy
Liked oysters raw and bleeding
When he knew so much was going to happen
Bad and good and in between
That philosopher had more serpentine
Guts than most '71 muscle cars
"If James Dean was alive today,"
Charlie said right before the big
Gig heart attack that buried him,
"I’m sure he’d be a helluva
lot more green, phony and wide."
- So much for Philosophy class
101 and even add 112 to the list, fellas.
Charlie says. "whati’dliketoknow
Mr. Cool, is who cut the cucumbers so thin. So
Just grab me another cold one from the cooler."
-- Samuel Vargo
I hate to write poetry
When I was young
I was given a model Sopwith Camel
In a cardboard box, brand new,
Just bits and pieces of plastic
To paint and glue together.
The glue got me higher than a flying ace.
That plane - about the size
Of a hamster- was a beauty.
I put it on my dresser
In front of the sailing ships,
Battleships and destroyers.
Years later I got drunk
And busted them all to smithereens.
How I hate to write free verse now.
-- Samuel Vargo
Tour of the Front Stairs
Ascending from the vestibule
The carpeted staircase
Though downtrodden maintains
Self esteem between
Bannister and wainscoting
Sandalwood in the hallway
A column of closed doors
Skylit by the skylight
Mysterious shoes
Newspapers
A plant trails down from
The top floor landing
Like a question
Or perhaps an invitation
To meditation of structure
Inferences and differences
The patch of blue beyond
Empty mullions
Accents the interior
Scented air with space
-- Tom Rubenoff
Old Batteries Can Surge
Things reach a certain age,
an age at which
things don't work
the way they once did.
The battery in your car,
the battery in your phone,
the battery in your laptop die
but these can be replaced.
Not so the battery in you.
But today your battery's en fuego
so you tell the wife tonight's the night.
Dinner and a movie first, of course.
An Olympic Gesture
Saturday afternoon.
He's watching the Olympics
and she calls to say
she's still at the store.
Would he like to go
to a movie this afternoon?
He says he's watching
the Olympics and the U.S.
is on the verge of winning
a gold medal against Russia,
which is no small feat,
he reminds her nicely.
He asks the name of the movie
and discovers it's a chick flick
two men in the world
might like to see.
In an Olympic gesture
he agrees to go with her
if they can sit in the balcony.
He's amazed when she agrees.
When they get to the theatre
it's practically empty.
Everyone's at home, he says,
watching the Olympics.
They sit in the balcony,
the last row.
After an hour she admits
she doesn't like the movie
so they kiss a little.
He nibbles her ear and
puts a hand on her thigh.
He kisses her again
and whispers he's going
for the gold.
She's still his bride,
beautiful and new,
after 34 years.