April 2022
Bio Note: I am a Professor of Animal Ecology at the University of Georgia. I enjoy poetry, running, fishing, gardening, songwriting and singing as well as sculpting. Recent/forthcoming poetry credits include Poetry Superhighway, Trouvaille Review, and The Knot, I am always writing something - garydavidgrossman.medium.com
Transformation
Avocados follow
the laws of physics.
Not conservation
of mass, but Newton’s
Third—every action an
equal and opposite
reaction. And the
Second law of
thermodynamics,
because this avocado,
grocery stacked yesterday
like green cordwood, and at
least as hard, has become
entropic overnight, now
a flaccid globe of
canary and brown flesh.
This transmutation, how
and where? In the tan
paper sack perched on
the rear seat? No--still
firm exiting the bag.
In my kitchen--secretly
caressed at night by
the ethylene Lilith
that seduces all my fruit,
because bananas do
me the same way?
Who knows?
A minute, an hour,
a day, we are all
slowly dissolving,
fodder for the next star.
Author's Note: vocalise is pronounced vocaleze.
Voice Lessons
for SC
How are they born, the
universal truths of pitch,
tone, resonance, texture?
To sing like the small wind
painting my lover’s skin,
orange-gold tones emerging
like adult monarchs from
chrysalises.
We begin with vocalises,
fantasy syllables to
loosen tongue, palette
and sound box. Eyes
closed, shoulders back,
head centered, leaning
slightly forward on the
balls of my feet, as if
to make a free-throw.
Rectus and transversus
abdominus are
bellows, stoking my
vocal forge. Piano
chords ricochet off
studio walls, painted
reassuring-green.
The first vocalise,
shu papa, shu papa,
shu papa shu hints
at meaning, but instead
just animates the
pine siskins feeding
outside the open
studio window.
The tempo becomes
fierce-too fast-and
eventually my
lips descend into
laughter. We have soared
and stooped through two full
octaves.
More complex vocalises
follow--ne na nah no
each note two beats, and
ve o e o e o e o e, and
again, I run two octaves
each, perhaps seven
vocalizes in my
weekly lesson.
Most sessions I vanish
into the notes, nothing
present but vibrating
atoms, speeding from
my lungs.
It is the cleanest
I have ever felt.
My Night Stand Drawer
Slightly ajar, and the diary
of my nighttime needs, or just
things I hold close, a stew of feelings
and wants. Small LCD flashlight
for novels when nightmares rise but
my beloved’s inhales and exhales
are regular as summer tides.
White exercise rubber band to
counter five hours daily of keyboard.
Red albuterol inhaler, though
asthma has mostly left the room.
Box of shells for Dad’s Remington .45,
that tasted both Iwo and Guadal.
A coarse nail file, so fingertips are
solid on a rosewood fretboard, steel
clippers too. Eight ounces of A&D,
appeasement for skin raw from a
new tat. Four X six inch notebook and
ballpoint—inspiration at 3:12 AM
stanza and verse.
Half a roll of orange-flavored Tums,
reflux, ugh. The light smell of must,
is it from the minute dust bunny
sleeping in a corner?
Do possessions mark us or are they
void of content? Perhaps a small
autobiography, a material
confession, or just lines on a life
unscrolled?
©2022 Gary D. Grossman
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