December 2016
Robert Knox
rc.knox2@gmail.com
rc.knox2@gmail.com
I am a husband, father, rabid backyard gardener, and blogger on nature, books, films and other subjects based on the premise that there's a garden metaphor for everything. Still utopian and idealistic after all these years, I cover the arts for the Boston Globe's 'South' regional section. "My poems have been published recently by The Poetry Superhighway, Semaphore Journal, Scarlet Leaf Review, These Fragile Lilacs, Every Day Poet, Off The Coast, Houseboat, Yellow Chair Review, and other journals. "Suosso's Lane," my recently published novel about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, is available at www.Web-e-Books.com.
Late Returns
Neighbor-good Gods
I hope to remember
that "hope is a creature of muscle"
(a poet's timely reminder*)
though maybe if it had some feathers too
it could fly
Light flies around the neighborhood
picking out the golden trees and yellow roofs
the silent soccer team's return
reports from Standing Rock where the young gather
to listen to the Elders
*Tricia Knoll
The Gift That Keeps on Giving (or: I'm Going to Yoga)
It's not a National Tragedy
The Civil War, for comparison, took 620,000 lives
Oh, but give it time. A year or two? Months?
The incredible shrinking government will no longer afford health care for those
with 'prior conditions' which human beings might call deadly illnesses
Affordable health care? Lyin' Ryan leers, pares with a knife, sticks it with a fork
A reckless buffoon ring-masters his circus of hates
and the running dogs yap, doing tricks for the shrill whistle of der tyrant
Somehow it's our fault for being 'elite'
Every day I work to get stupider, but the task is inhuman
and too great to bear
The rain of humiliation falls on both the just and the unjust
I'm going to Yoga, turning to Art and Poetry
When the homeless crowd the gutters
wisdom bids me stay indoors, roll up the car windows, listen to enlightening pod-casts
even as poisonous pods grow in our basements
Who is Ted and why does he have so much to talk about?
I shrink my violets, hide in my trees,
wake in the morning like the last man
in a Twilight Zone episode stunned to find he is here all alone
Be careful not to step on your glasses
on the way to reading Sinclair Lewis's "It can't happen here"
Or that science fiction story
where the rich game hunter goes back in geological time, steps off the path, and changes history so that in his own day the fascist is elected President.
We don't live, you have surely noted, in a state of nature
We won't last a week if a bumbling cyclops
shreds the bonds among us beyond repairing
Walk up and down the street, you'll find nothing to eat
Little that will burn, dirty rain to drink
And the only ones with ammunition are precisely those
you do not trust not to use it.
November Twilight
One of those still and silent twilights
a kiss goodnight from the forces of earth's persistence
no one will take a vote on the sky
the pink lip along the thickly treed horizon
the soft pouch of leafage, upturned like gloved hands
to take us down where it is safe, and beautiful
and sky kisses earth goodnight and chants, slowly,
the prayer for forgiveness, the prayer for gentle touches,
the prayer for deeper, dream-filled journeys, the prayer for better selves,
the remembrance of best love, held hands,
love domestic, like secret things told
to a child.
So Little To Be Proud Of
(or, what would Freud say about all this?)
Psyche silent on the trail
Men who fear their flame will fail
Their firearms are private tools
Would suffer from a woman's rules
Love and death have both decreed
Humanity shall be in need
What Blake foresaw in time of yore
Revolution wailing at the door
Every fearful infant's cry
Tells a truth mere fools deny
Changes real the world has seen
Flow swiftly from the guillotine
Changes slow the cost is paid
By childhood thwarted and afraid
Changes fast the cost is borne
By grayheads from their pillows torn
I hope to remember
that "hope is a creature of muscle"
(a poet's timely reminder*)
though maybe if it had some feathers too
it could fly
Light flies around the neighborhood
picking out the golden trees and yellow roofs
the silent soccer team's return
reports from Standing Rock where the young gather
to listen to the Elders
*Tricia Knoll
The Gift That Keeps on Giving (or: I'm Going to Yoga)
It's not a National Tragedy
The Civil War, for comparison, took 620,000 lives
Oh, but give it time. A year or two? Months?
The incredible shrinking government will no longer afford health care for those
with 'prior conditions' which human beings might call deadly illnesses
Affordable health care? Lyin' Ryan leers, pares with a knife, sticks it with a fork
A reckless buffoon ring-masters his circus of hates
and the running dogs yap, doing tricks for the shrill whistle of der tyrant
Somehow it's our fault for being 'elite'
Every day I work to get stupider, but the task is inhuman
and too great to bear
The rain of humiliation falls on both the just and the unjust
I'm going to Yoga, turning to Art and Poetry
When the homeless crowd the gutters
wisdom bids me stay indoors, roll up the car windows, listen to enlightening pod-casts
even as poisonous pods grow in our basements
Who is Ted and why does he have so much to talk about?
I shrink my violets, hide in my trees,
wake in the morning like the last man
in a Twilight Zone episode stunned to find he is here all alone
Be careful not to step on your glasses
on the way to reading Sinclair Lewis's "It can't happen here"
Or that science fiction story
where the rich game hunter goes back in geological time, steps off the path, and changes history so that in his own day the fascist is elected President.
We don't live, you have surely noted, in a state of nature
We won't last a week if a bumbling cyclops
shreds the bonds among us beyond repairing
Walk up and down the street, you'll find nothing to eat
Little that will burn, dirty rain to drink
And the only ones with ammunition are precisely those
you do not trust not to use it.
November Twilight
One of those still and silent twilights
a kiss goodnight from the forces of earth's persistence
no one will take a vote on the sky
the pink lip along the thickly treed horizon
the soft pouch of leafage, upturned like gloved hands
to take us down where it is safe, and beautiful
and sky kisses earth goodnight and chants, slowly,
the prayer for forgiveness, the prayer for gentle touches,
the prayer for deeper, dream-filled journeys, the prayer for better selves,
the remembrance of best love, held hands,
love domestic, like secret things told
to a child.
So Little To Be Proud Of
(or, what would Freud say about all this?)
Psyche silent on the trail
Men who fear their flame will fail
Their firearms are private tools
Would suffer from a woman's rules
Love and death have both decreed
Humanity shall be in need
What Blake foresaw in time of yore
Revolution wailing at the door
Every fearful infant's cry
Tells a truth mere fools deny
Changes real the world has seen
Flow swiftly from the guillotine
Changes slow the cost is paid
By childhood thwarted and afraid
Changes fast the cost is borne
By grayheads from their pillows torn
©2016 Robert C. Knox
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