Discordia Concors

Burns Night in Texas

2012-11-27T07:18:00.002-06:00

They lifted toasts,

single malt blends,

pretenses of culture

engraved deep into crystal

tumblers and silver salvers.

They brayed their way

through alien brogues

muddled through the Selkirk Grace

pretended to be disappointed

when they had no Haggis.

They let their minds wander,

chasing exploits of ancient warriors,

lifting skirts of lowland lasses,

replaying holes on the old course,

dreaming of old days, red roses, crowns.

When it’s time for auld lang syne,

they dream of brotherhood,

tip bottles to honor old times,

only to find their voices teetering

alone in a haze of scotch and smoke.

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First appeared in The Blue Rock Review: Vox (Volume 8), edited by Billy Crockett, Nathan Brown, Don Dorsey, Christopher Everett, and Connie Todd.

Sonoran Monsoon Season

2011-11-15T19:29:00.001-06:00

(July 4, 2010)

“I don’t know why bad ideas

spread faster than good ones,

but they do.”

—David Sedaris

Folks sip margaritas and beer,

smoke babyback ribs, gorge themselves

on sweet corn and watermelon,

clamoring for the yearly fireworks show,

patriotic bombs bursting in air

to celebrate the unalienable rights

to send aliens back where they came from

and to treat everyone as an illegal

just for breathing the air of liberty

in the land of the free and home of the brave.

Storm clouds build on the mountains,

gusts whipping through the valley

shaking ancient saguaro to the roots.

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First appeared in Agave, a Celebration of Tequila, edited by Nathan and Ashley Brown, published by Ink Brush Press available at Amazon.

Never Ending

2011-09-14T00:15:00.000-05:00

“…he showed a little thing…”

--Julian of Norwich

Julian handled a universe

in a hazelnut in her hand

and saw thrice-fairer faces

in a showing of God’s

making, keeping, loving.

When she saw this world

made, kept, loved so well,

she found her heart in him

who never stops being

Maker, Keeper, Lover.

The Annual Talent Show

2011-08-18T07:17:00.002-05:00

Junior recited the twelve apostles,

Sissy fumbled through the fruit

of the spirit, Grandma Nell thought

her mumbles were sure signs,

the gift of tongues, and Uncle Buford

strummed an old guitar and hummed

a ballad about the rise and fall of heroes.

Edna read something she called a poem,

words inspired by her fascination

with pockets. Blue-haired Ruthie warbled

love songs to widowers and bachelors,

promised hot cobbler and sweet cream

to lonely hearts and empty stomachs.

Violin and mountain dulcimer cried.

Dora fiddles with the microphone.

Feedback squelches and squawks,

then the voice of an angel rises above heads

of hungry penitents, falls like snowflakes

on shoulders, blankets the fallen

with strains of gloria in excelsis Deo,

makes for this moment on earth, peace.

Fight or Flight

2011-07-18T09:10:00.003-05:00

“This may sound like gibberish to you,

but I think I’m in a tragedy.”

--Stranger than Fiction

When he reads that the bus comes to squash the boy,

the hero is ready to face his fate, confront the bus.

He knew he had to die.

He knew his story.

But then some sentimental alien

toys with him, plays deus ex machina

on his ass and heart,

plunges him into comedy.

And they all know he needed to die

for the fiction to work.

They all know saving the boy

and dying in his stead

is the only way to make great art—

his knowing choice to give his life,

his love, his world

to save the innocent.

He rejects the instinct to stay on the curb.

He steps out, pushes the child to safety,

stands in front of the bus,

willing to die a hero’s death.

The audience and author can’t bear it,

insist on a tired happy-ever-after ending

Refuse to fight it. Rewrite. Revise.

They flee greatness in the end.

The Toad and the Beetle

2011-07-17T07:48:00.000-05:00

Out of the dark rains

emerges a Sonoran toad.

His skin like an avocado,

dark, dimpled, thick.

Red dots betray its youth.

In the patter of raindrops,

his kind call in the night,

like muted horns of ships

stranded in an ocean of fog.

This toad finds rich feeding

beneath the back porch,

bugs drawn to the dryness,

clamoring to the light.

This buffet of corn bugs,

moths, and roaches suits

the hulking green monster,

until he eyes a dung beetle

big enough to fill him full.

The toad is slow, lumbers

toward this boon. The beetle

is slower, has no idea he’s

about to become Jonah

in the belly of a monster.

One gulp seems sufficient.

The toad swallows him whole.

The beetle wallows in darkness.

A contest of wills ensues.

The beetle breaks free,

bursts from the maw,

sticky from stomach acid,

reeling from noxious slime.

The surprised toad decides

his stomach is bigger

than his eyes, tries again

to consume the beetle

who refuses to be eaten.

The beetle wins a second

and third round in this battle,

tickling the throat, slipping past

clenched lips, falling to the floor,

exhausted, stuck in toxic glue.

The toad contemplates the stillness,

seems willing to call it a draw,

rather than feel scratching claws again.

Still hungry, he flees his nightmare.

Mountain Passes

2011-06-30T07:13:00.001-05:00

I weigh each message,

consider fragments and moods,

balance the imperative to

“watch for falling rocks”

against the need to eye

the edges of the winding road.

I see evidence of fallen rocks,

wonder who saw the falling.

The dash flashes eighty degrees,

but signs in July still caution

“Bridge may ice before road.”

I know oracles hedge their bets,

satisfy fate and unearth the proud

with ambiguity. Sans meteors

and icicles, I dare cross the bridge,

resume the ascent up the steepening

last climb. This final slope

abounded with redundancies—

“Slower traffic keep right,”

“Left lane for passing only.”

Approaching the summit,

I find myself halfway there,

I hug the right, cling to life.

Unsettled Estates

2011-05-25T06:01:00.002-05:00

Father died the year

her children hunted

eggs in snow on Easter,

blues and greens bleeding

in melted slush, hidden

in splashes of bluebonnets.

The next winter was warm.

Outside geraniums

bloomed until Christmas,

bugs thrived past New Year’s.

Mandated to bring an end

to this end, she begins

the dismantling of his house,

sorting attic junk,

giving Goodwill the goods,

boxing precious books

for a two-bit fundraiser.

Then, touched by dry leather,

yellowed leaves

and brittle spines,

a daughter reads pages

of ancients, history, philosophy,

and his favorite poetry,

finding one more hair

plucked from his brow

deep in the gutter,

left like a breadcrumb

to his presence.

What if...

2011-05-21T08:44:00.001-05:00

What if I actually believed

it was finished when he said it was done?

What if I stopped fussing

about casseroles, seating arrangements,

paychecks or job titles, and attended

the one thing needful?

What if I found a mustard seed

hidden under the piles of doubt,

moved mountains, saw oceans

as reasons for a daily stroll?

What if I stopped defending

myself against attacks,

embraced my enemies without plunging

daggers in their backs?

What if I really did the math

Of forgiveness, learned the grace

that makes one greater than seven

or seventy times seven?

What if I stopped explaining

away my gluttony and greed,

my wrath and wrongheadedness,

accepted my ignorance,

and owned the blessing he called down

when he asked his dad to let them off

because they simply didn’t know

what they were doing.

It was finished when he said it was done.

What if I actually believed him?

Triptych

2011-05-15T09:14:00.002-05:00

(after O’Keeffe’s Red Hills and Bones)

I. In the beginning

were grand projects—

light, sky, water, earth.

In groundbreaking moments

after oceans parted and

mountains peaked, then

emerged another operation.

The dust settled,

was shaped, was sculpted,

so much dirt and breath,

a ghostly gasp, then the urge

to ascend jagged peaks,

beckon stars come closer,

settle within easy reach.

II. One man, one woman,

halfway to sublime,

could not resist

savoring sweet nectar,

and the fall blooms,

flowers into grace

for want of a savior.

Erosion cut to the bone.

Lines weathered deep,

until piles of sediment,

layers of canyon,

buried the bones,

pressed bone to stone,

made dry souls concrete.

III. Rare rain falls, washes the draws,

exposes roots and tender veins.

This spit makes mud,

creates rivers deep in the gorge.

Red clay cakes on the table below,

awaits the hand to unseal

sealed lids and eyes.

Bones in the valley

rattle like castanets,

sing like reeds

as the spirit fans

the fire within,

rumble low and humble

as flesh fleshes anew.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First published in Faraway Nearby, edited by Lon Chaffin.

Gravity

2011-05-14T08:06:00.002-05:00

People pretend

science and faith

are at odds

but even Newton, Einstein,

Wittgenstein, Vonnegut

and the Pope

knew the first law

was for Adam, Eve,

and the apple

to fall

at the same

rate

to fall

together

unchanging

until acted

upon

by another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in an Interview with Sorina Higgins at Iambic Admonit (June 2010).

An Old Refrain

2011-05-13T12:32:00.001-05:00

The biggest screens of all stood at the drive-in

anchoring the northeast edge of town

to the Dumas highway, double features

for three bucks per car, a coke and popcorn

swimming in pools of butter for a dollar more,

then heroes and villains magnified

on the forty-foot screen, their tinny voices

piped in by metal box speakers that hung

suspended from half-down windows.

And the congregation had to wonder

when the preacher’s four-year old

began to belt out the latest musical,

a singing Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin

in some odd gold-miner ménage a trois,

this trio pushing aside the rightful trinity

while a little boy sings “who gives a damn”

to the titters of blue-haired ladies

and the chuckles of once-dour deacons.

And when he hit the chorus a second time,

“who gives a damn, who gives a damn

we’re on our way,” they knew they were right

about their suspicion that these pictures

robbed people of their souls,

and they longed for a simpler time

when people knew good clean fun

without sneaking peeks in the rear-view mirror

at the blue movies on screen two.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in Faraway Nearby, edited by Lon Chaffin.

New Beginnings

2011-05-07T18:39:00.002-05:00

“We die and rise the same…”

John Donne, The Canonization

The night before the fall,

they had no way to know

winter would freeze

the vines, wither the fruit.

In their joy they had no

idea their sin would prompt

birthdays and funerals,

holidays and weddings,

any excuse to turn

water to wine, toast fresh starts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First appeared in Riffs (November 2009). Reprinted in Thirty-First Bird, volume 1.

The Second Bar

2011-05-04T21:34:00.001-05:00

Thin light skips the waves

as he wades out to the second bar,

a guess to find the flounder or reds

as they run into the bay. Dawn breaks

as a calm surf rolls and swells at intervals

against his stomach, the nascent

pulse of a soul in utero.

Time and flounder pass him by.

The sun climbs high, beats down, and he

reaches for an empty water bottle as it floats off.

A rope stringer leashes three trout to his belt, a swell

morning until the swell of waves laps water at his armpits

with him standing tip-toe on the second bar,

stranded in the ebb and flow of the bay.

And he swims for shore, one arm stroking

the surging sea, the other hand clinging to the reel

he bought for his birthday. He swims, urging the trout

on the stringer to swim with him, not out to sea. He kicks

off his shoes and bobs toward shore, wondering when to ditch

the rod, the reel, the stringer of fish in his fight

to overcome the suck of the undertow.

Happy hour ends just as he bellies up

to the second bar of the night, orders a beer

and makes jokes about anesthesia while the singer

croons jazzy tunes of life and love, melancholia made

sweet and deep. He hums along as dissonance strikes chords

out of reach, churns under-currents from the deep

rift beneath the surface of numbness.

He gulps another longneck, gasps for air,

spills his story of an unknown son or daughter,

a mother’s breathless cries, fruitless labor, ruthless

waves breaking on shoals of grief, rolling on broken hopes.

Then last call, bright lights, empty stage, cold room.

Sorrow swallows him whole while he drowns

in a sea-sickness of memory and beer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First appeared in descant, Volume 48, 2009.

Lux Fiat

2011-05-04T20:58:00.002-05:00

“Nobody’s in the kitchen,” my baby jokes

while staring at the walls and drilling holes

through the cabinets with eyebeams brighter

than blue halogen lamps. A two-year old

can appreciate the feigned surprise,

the sheer audacity of finding nobody

in empty space. When nobody reappears

in the tired pages of Goodnight Moon

she titters and giggles, indexing the blank page

with a sideways glance back to the kitchen,

fingering the void and making it something,

naming this nothing and becoming a maker,

a goddess on the brink of being the one

she was made to be, a somebody by fiat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Number 29, Fall/Winter 2007.

Sirens in the Desert

2011-05-03T21:32:00.001-05:00

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls…”

—John Donne

The ambulance calls once or twice each week.

It’s only natural that people at the pool

of the retirement community should ask

for whom the sirens sound.

It’s only inevitable that somebody

makes a joke about Hemingway or Donay,

and for someone else to correct the name

to Donne, which leads to another round

of lame jokes about being done, well done,

or whatever. Still the sirens sound

and people want to know who has fallen,

who won’t be getting up tomorrow.

And when they hear about a drowned grandson

or a lightning strike, they know sirens call us all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First appeared in Di-Verse-City 2011: Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology. Edited by Barbara Youngblood Carr. April 7, 2011.