Make every day a beautiful day.
Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine. Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.
The movie unfolds
A series of stop-action still-lifes
Twenty-four frames might make
A gesture or a word
Forty-eight or seventy-two frames
Might convey
Stillness
A camera takes a picture
To make a frame
Life unfolds
In a series of moments
An in-breath is a moment
An out-breath is a moment
Birth and death
Both moments
We don’t know who or what
Makes moments
We only know
The most important one is
This one.
-- Tom Rubenoff
For some, too soon.
But none know when.
For some she’s still
a child at 49
with cancer
in the gut
spreading,
chomping.
Stage 4,
the doctors say.
Chemo
may help.
Runs in the family.
Brother survived it.
For some, too soon.
But none know when.
Middle of the night he flies out of bed
to the commode only to wonder
in the dim light minutes later
if that's blood or simply a good-bye
from his wife’s stewed tomatoes,
a Moroccan dish she found on the web.
When he asked for a third serving
he pronounced them delicious.
So too, he said, was her dessert,
the Moroccan plum mousse
with the dark plums he likes.
Even with the ceiling light on
he doesn’t know now what he sees
so with his medical history he's
speeding at midnight to the ER
where the doctor says better safe
than sorry and orders a fast
colonoscopy to solve the mystery.
When he finally gets home, he tells
his wife when her boss comes over
for that big dinner Saturday night,
why not make Moroccan tomatoes
and her magnificent plum mousse.
He may never forget either.
1.
From one ovum, armadillos produce
four genetically identical offspring
representing the four corners of the Earth
The armadillo’s origin
was Latino and Pacific
and making her slow way
she populated the East
all the way to Florida
but Cold has blocked her way north
She can go no further than
Nebraska and Kansas
She waits for Global Warming
to further open the door
Her ambition is to sleep
in Minneapolis
and a constellation of points
in Canada
including the Yukon
Meanwhile her current geo-limits frustrate
create spiritual tension within her
Nature demands groups of four
North must not evade her
There is sexual tension as well
You can see it in her gait
in the way she eats fire ants
2.
The Four Siblings
also represent the Father Son Holy Ghost
and Holy Criminal
Armadillos gather on the steps
of the Catholic Church
seeking confession
and absolution
but no priest will serve them
No priest will offer them salvation
even now that Francis is Pope
Francis who preached to birds
and creatures of all kinds
1.
In the Fiesta of the Sacred Cross
tequila drunkards
play harmonicas made from armadillo shell
play accordions the keys of which are pearl
and armadillo
shake tambourines
that ring with armadillo toes
2.
My dentist extracted all my teeth
and replaced them with dentures
made of armadillo shell
If I bite someone I can give them leprosy
even if I merely kiss them
and I’m feeling aggressive
like a first grader with no social skills
I’m feeling affectionate too
I’m blowing a saxophone
made from a scooped out
armadillo corpse
I’m feeling hopeful
as a jazz moon
and the new year approach
For a short time Kayla fancies herself
a Renaissance Woman
She descends the rickety stairs into the cellar
and tries to fix the well pump
The wrench slips
and bashes her hand
It bleeds
The foundation stones sweat and glisten
Each one reminds Kayla of a big fake tit
Some emails
are more difficult
to receive
from a child
long out of college
the daughter who writes
her cancer is back
but the doctor says
with chemo and surgery
things should be fine
and all the while
the father wonders
why she didn’t call
at midnight and let
the telephone scream
hysterically in the night
to deliver the news
a computer is too
cold a messenger
to deliver hot terror
on Sunday morning
while machine guns
of sleet drive
bullets too bright
into the ground
Part One: 1944
Sunlight on broad strand,
Incoming tide: cousins wade
Unaware of war.
Part Two: 1958
College beach weekend:
Hot drive home, awful headache,
Wet bread on the floor.
Part Three: 2008
Ninth-floor oceanfront
Condos for sale:
Motel rooms in perpetuity.
Tuesday morning:
By the sofa,
Philip’s goggles, left behind,
Other people’s grandchildren
On the beach.
The receding tide
Sucks sand from under your feet:
Time slipping away
Powered by three extension cords,
The dervish spool spins wildly, as
A thin plastic strand somehow levels
Oak and maple seedlings,
Plantain, stinging nettle,
Ragweed on the leach field,
A June duty, a need, we were advised,
Lest roots take hold.
One neighbor trims his field flat,
A kind of stubbly putting green;
Another lets it grow unchecked.
A seeker of the middle way,
I want it to look as though given thought
And leave the yellow touch-me-nots,
Born of seeds our grandson spread
And those royal ferns my mother loved.
Inside, Martha is straightening up
The address book, repository of information
We do not need but are afraid to lose:
How to reach distant cousins overseas,
E-mails from beyond the grave,
The folly, dolesome but required,
Of cutting things off at the ground.
We had taken our girls,
Quite young,
To see the town
Of their grandfather’s growing up,
Leafy Victorian homes
On brick streets
Along the Ohio River.
We brought back a bottle of red wine
From a new Indiana vintner.
Well, he said,
In the early stages
Of whatever it was he had,
This won’t be any damn good:
Not unpredictable,
That this is what we remember
Of that time in his life,
Our lives,
That trip, that gift.
Every man
needs a cane
and a German Shepherd
to ford the mind
and engage the maze
of any woman
single or married.
It doesn’t matter
which maze
which woman
as long as he
trundles on
when he marries
supports his children
grows old
and then rises
one hot morning
blinks in the ether
and asks himself
why did he marry
this maze
of a woman
only to find alas
she’s gone
Gallivanting again
she’s now 33
where she goes
ever a mystery
Her parents bewildered
are ill and retired
they watch her kids
seven so far
quints and twins
sires unknown
this time it's Nome
the twins were told
to meet her soulmate
found on the web
she was a nun once
cloistered in Rome.
Danny the pruner
fell out of a tree
bounced only once
lay in a lump for
gapers to see
a lover was Danny
renowned in the city
the ladies confirmed
two men and a gurney
swept him away
spoke not a word
till he woke in hell
yelled at the devils
dancing in circles
chanting with glee
a litany of names
of other men’s wives
told Danny he'd soon
have horns of his own
no chance to flee.
January day
not a leaf left
on this skeleton
tree teeming
with sparrows
chirping and hopping
branch to branch
waiting for the deck
feeder to be free of
cardinals and jays
bickering for seed
while on the floor
four doves
stroll in silence
feasting on spilled
seed near the railing
where a fat squirrel
sits with its tail high
in a question mark
ready to dive
and scatter them all
You were a good boy,
following your parents' advice,
never going out in the rain.
At the sound of rain
you dove under the bed,
bawled and shouted,
“Come out, come out
wherever you are"
but no one came out,
not even you.
When your parents died
your uncle gave you
boots and a bumbershoot
and out you went
whatever the weather.
The rain in Spring you found
a wonderful thing and not
so bad in Summer either
until the flood roared in
and you floated away.
Noah and his ark sailed by,
Noah on deck
between two giraffes
smiling and shouting,
“Come out, come out
wherever you are"
but no one came out,
not even you.
Tonight we offer the new Janis Joplin
a black girl in white skin who growls
every melancholy note and is
still looking for the man
she wants forever who
wants her even more.
But Janis would probably yell,
“Good luck with that, sister.
Shut up and sing.”
Rip had a wife who lost
an arm and a leg
and could no longer wait
on him hand and foot
so he found a woman,
a gymnast, who could
once she landed her jump
from the parallel bars.
Only then would she
do the laundry and cook
and take out the garbage.
Rip liked her better
high on the bars, her
melons bouncing as she
prepared to land her jump.
She went back to the bars
and Rip hired a laundress
and later a cook.
Life’s better now for Rip
but not for his former wife
who lost that arm and leg.
There’s nothing she can do
with the other arm and leg
not that she ever would.
If I have to die
let it be on Monday, God,
so I won’t have to work
or call in sick.
I want the weekend
to think about it
over steins
of cold Michelob
and a carton
of Pall Malls,
two things I quit
decades ago
the day I got married.
I can’t remember
why I did that—
get married, I mean.
I know why I quit
Michelob and Pall Malls.
Sometimes we do
the right thing
for the wrong reason.
The chairs wait in rows
Pregnant once again
With an audience
To be shortly borne
Some chairs bear labels
Like a hospital bracelet:
‘How can I make you
More comfortable,
Ms. Reserved?’
Stools with backs
Make the back row
Rising above the common
Seats
In the very front
Backless benches
Charity ward, or
Place of Honor
Musicians
Tune and noodle
Like husbands
Waiting to be called in
The doors open
The chairs give birth
The audience is borne
To its short life as
The music begins
-- Tom Rubenoff
For years leprechauns lived
under Pop’s fedora.
They danced jigs on his head
when he wore it
and hid in his ears
when he took it off
to scratch his head
then jumped back up
to dance a few reels
when he took it off
for another good scratch.
Leprechauns dancing
confused my mother.
She thought Pops
had ringworm or lice
and should see a doctor.
The attendant said no
ringworm or lice but said
Pop might look odd
wearing a hat in his coffin.
