Here for the taking

j.a.arrick


She came to see me at lunch time. Slender fingers
reached out over the table as she quietly asked, “I
hope you aren’t allergic to peanut butter.” It stuck
to the top of my mouth.
“I’m not”.

She wore a blue dress with a white sweater. Her red
hair was like a bunch of small slinkies tied at the
top of a cliff. I hid my hair was because it was short and rough.
“Do you like my hat?”

Her eyes said, “I can’t wait to get you home” as they
burned with hope. I could see my brown eyes in her
blue.
“I don’t mean to stare.”

She said, “I have waited my whole life for you to come
along.” I knew it was time and that she was the one.
“Can I call you mom?”

The end of this present life must come, whether sooner or later

He rises from his car, a cane touching first where he will step
and limping step by shuffling step in sneakers crisply tied and white
he joins the crowd around the car -upturned onto its side.

He sees the stop sign now and puts -grandfatherly- his hand upon the car;
it cools as we call to her inside, entombed, blanketed
by airbag and glass.

She unclasps her seatbelt and climbs out, legs wobble, we reach
for her and marvel, we proclaim her miracle,
we resolve to improve our faith, resolve to increase our prayers.

She pales and shakes and sits upon the curb
and stares at the anchors of blood lowered from her hand.
The brush with death sickens us and leaves an acid taste inside our mouths.

But the man, hair still perfectly placed,
returns to the crumpled crib of his car, heart-beating and feeling
-more than he had for many years- alive alive alive.

The distinctions among created things; and their different rankings by the scales of utility and logic

My youngest son dragoned in zippered green fabric
waves a red shovel and hoe and Adams an Eden in the hall.
My oldest son dumptrucks a wagon of brown plastic horses
onto the ranch of the rug and rides a smile
into the western afternoon, full of wrangling.

With the autumning of my body
I weigh the jump-roping of their play-
from hot-rods, dinosaurs, and hard-hatted Indians
with six-shooters and wooden spoons belted to their sides
to the jackhammering through leaves
behind the Frankensteined soccerball-
the scales midlife into crisis.

Later, as my sons -on their stomachs- teeter-totter their legs,
I shiver when a tower of blocks Babel them
as it nine-elevens to the floor.


-Remy

Pierre Bonnard's Nude in a Bathtub

Perichoresis

j. a. arrick

Where is the to be or not to be seen?

-the man in the chair to the right of Ophelia.

Her face is not found nor bound hands and feet

rather, Athena’s chiseled figure is entombed

with weather faded stone.

Inferno fired cinderblocks holds

room in dance, and her, like paralysis’

daughter, songless, danceless, unclapped,

floats and therefore seem not to be.

He was not to be no more, but was to dance

In warmth and caress, with hand on side

Arm in air, and step in light, her face to his

The room decrease, their love crescendo

He was to dance. Instead, he is absent.

The room awaits the fiddle and horn,

and poises to tap a vibrant tune,

illuminates with joy and verve;

but there is not to be a dance

the couple is not to be.

nor anymore, Ophelia

Day in a Game

J. Andrew Arrick

An Endless summer brings a glare from the cedar slated balcony.

Flat up, a steep silled window looks to the shrubs then the row of trees,

Converse All Stars clean white and black,

scrape the sill and fill the cracks with gravel

as out the foxhole to the great known battle field of yard;

they fly with no avail.

With sword in hand, the sheathed tin

with glass buttons glares at a sweaty brow.

Up the slated porch with drawn arrows

The shots fly into white ninja target.

CHARGE!!! Lieutenant Johnson orders

Saracen blades drawn to down frail foe

of shrub and tree, in clump and row.

Retreat, that imminent thing these friends of summer darn not disobey,

with a snake path sprint from gunfire and mortars.

All caps leap off heads from brushing arrows.

From fair haven foxhole, the dawning comrade yelps like a bard in battle.

From room tombed bed knobs where slates shadows are gone

and the shaggy best friend pants and yawns.

With summer drowning and windows shut,

sweat is swiped from brow and bed again at days end.

End of bright from summer’s glare the boys in lair

in cover in pillow, lay with sleepy nights under balcony.

Assignment

Who's up for one?

Sonnet II

Here's my second sonnet ever, as read recently at James' house. I know there were objections to the "before the face of God" bit, as being lazily abstract. I'm working on it, but in the meantime, any suggestions?

- b.c.




ii.

I peer, my face against the streaming pane
like Japheth in the backseat of a car,
at the rain on the rocks:
The waters are
rising, grasping below the asphalt edge
of the road, and I wonder how could Cain
have thought that grain could make sufficient hedge
around our sin; could keep our heads above
the waves.

In saffron hues beside the road
the aspens burn with sacrificial love:
A momentary storm shrouds gray their flame
and in a flood suspended, cleansing rain
lifts up as mist before the face of God
like smoke ascending from a martyr’s pyre
to shelter dust from death with dust afire.