The Debt

I've owed the newsstand man a quarter
for a little more than a year
on  a copy of the Times he gave me
one morning when I came up short.
I walk past him every day now.
His gray beard still the same,
arrayed around him, gum, and newsprint.
In sunshine snow and rain.
When I pass he doesn't look at me.
Doesn't remember, probably,
That I never paid my debt.
But I haven't stopped at that newsstand
Since he let me have the Times.

Liquid History ... mmm, boozy!

A History of the World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm usually a little leery when journalists write history books (the obvious counter-example being Bob Woodward, who writes about contemporary history and is a whole other bag of nails), and this one bears out why. Starting with the dubious and much commented-upon inclusion of a numeral in the title, the main thrust of Six Glasses is consistently toward accessibility rather than depth. I found it worked best when discussing areas I was less familiar with, which only serves to illustrate my point.

Ginsberg’s Bus

One Sunday morning in November
Alan Ginsberg caught a bus
On Avenue A and mounted it
Like a salmon above his mantle.

It was cold, but hadn't snowed yet
Though the thought was there
In the way the exhaust curled
And bounced along the pavement

He looked out his window
Past his coffee cup, empty
After a night writing letters
And saw it lumbering like oxen.

Around the corner of St. Marks
Where a bongo player'd passed out
On the sidewalk, with a cop
Too bored to beat him.

That bus was caught without knowing
And now it's all that's left
Of that morning, that corner,
Or Ginsberg, for that matter,
Although it still belongs to him.

The Bucket - A Sestina

The kitchen window rings with falling rain
that leaves its tracks upon the glass in steps,
and underneath the sink the bin is full;
Banana peels and coffee grounds and life.
It's time to feed the pile, that gracious pile.
The wonder-making garden-feeding goo.

Mud on my feet, Oregonian goo
composed of slugs, and moss, and ferns, and rain,
as my bucket heads out to that old pile
of mud and worms. Twenty seven steps
across my lawn. The love of my life
after my wife and kids, it grows so full.

It's prickly after the summer, but full
of basil, filled with its fragrant goo,
and of lavender, which is full of life.
My shirt so quickly becomes damp in the rain
and my hummingbird is dogging my steps.
We happy four, grass, man, bird, and the pile.

That gaping, glorious, grand old man pile
so full, puff'd full, swollen full, bursting full.
That final goal of my pilgrimage steps
to give out my offering of grand goo
that sings, and dances and lives for the rain
and brings still more singing dancing life

I'm not the only one sliding through life
on the long long pilgrim path to my pile.
They all greet me stepping out to the rain
indeed I come to find my garden full
of snails and ravens, and a trail of goo
from the slug crawling down across my steps.

Now his trail is my trail along my steps -
smeared across my bare feet, the streaks of life
lived, pulled, wrenched out from the goo
that marinates at bottom of the pile
in Oregonian fog, and brimming full
to run into the garden with the rain.

This divine gift of given goo lies across my steps
dancing in the rain, in this lily life.
When I am tossed on that pile, I will be full too.