Reading and Making 'Metaphor Poems' by Simile & Rhyme
Video Readings from In Vitro, Section II:
How Deep the Night!
Dusk. Standing in a long registration line at a global World Peace
Conference at Ohio University, Athens. Two days past Christmas.
For G.K.J.
You, your friend, and I:
Too cold to snow? The cloudy day felt sad.
We stood in line on Athens’ windiest hill,
you bundled to your cheeks in black-watch plaid,
your blue eyes watering in the zero chill.
I spoke. Your “fish-eye-contacts” girl friend, shrill
in her appearance, manner, and her voice,
imposed herself on me, gave me no choice.
Again, to her as well as you, I spoke.
I listened close and hard to her remarks
while you stood silent, stolid as an oak.
At last your name — sweet as two meadowlarks —
escaped her lips in golden, gliding arcs . . . .
To you: “Could I meet you for supper . . . ? Six . . . ?”
“Thank you, but I’m a weary ton of bricks —
I’m skipping supper for a long night’s sleep.”
“All right — get lots of zees . . . .” I found my room,
dropped off my grip, and thought to take a peep
about the campus . . . . What? You sat in gloom
upon your suitcase, “Fisheyes” threatening doom:
“How will you get your beauty sleep if you
won’t drag yourself to bed? Some flopperoo!”
“Hello, again.” I said. “May I assist
you with your bag?” “The cops won’t let you in.”
“Could take it to the door.” “If you insist . . . .”
Past a stone bench, and at the door: “No din —?”
“Too tired . . . .” “Keep up your strength? And then turn in?”
“That’s a thought . . . . Okay.” “Great! Right here? At six . . . ?”
(How haltingly the second hand now ticks . . . .)
First Date
I:
The bitter cold of howling night’s north wind
blew through me on that backless bench of stone
for sixty minutes. I was so chagrined.
Chilled to my bones’ deep marrow, I felt thrown.
I’d left short notes — three — with a Dorm Cop crone:
Our dinner date, is it still on tonight?
(Perhaps you’re saying, Scram. Go fly a kite?)
You:
The rail coach fare from Boston (it was cheap)
meant we’d no sleep. So cold in that long line.
So warm, this sudsy tub . . . . Was I asleep?
Who banged the door? My water’s cold, malign.
“Who called my name?” “Some boy wants you to dine
with him but wonders should he fly a kite?”
“Tell him I’m coming — I’ll just have a bite.”
I spotted you hunched over on that bench
and braced myself to tell the simple fact:
“I’m sorry I threw you a monkey wrench.
I climbed down in a nice hot tub — and sacked.
Fell sound asleep! Woke up when someone whacked
the door, read out your note. Forgive me? Please?
It’s so cold out. I hope you didn’t freeze!”
We:
“I do. Thinking of you, I’m warm. Let’s eat.”
And arm in arm against the cold, we two
strode down the hill and stepped across the street
where J’s and K’s stood in a short neat queue.
Inside, deep warmth . . . . “Broiled chicken-halves. Beaucoup!”
You looked dismayed. “Too much. I couldn’t hope . . . .”
“I’ll cut, remove some — would that help you cope?”
I hailed a busboy for an extra plate.
“Prefer the breast and wing, or leg and thigh?”
“The breast alone, I think, would be just great.”
I took your knife and fork, aligned my eye,
severed the thigh and wing, and put them by.
“Perhaps, now, this won’t kill your appetite . . . ?”
How late we walked and talked . . . . How deep the night . . . !
Stroke!
Boston, Massachusetts. Early summer.
For G.K.J.
Perplexed, I tried to mind my P’s and Q’s.
How make that first impression good, awhirl
with all your kin at dinner? Dared not lose
you, pearl of my heart, by coming off a churl.
I could not reckon what to make of it:
On seven faces lurked a fleeting curl
of quivering lips, yours too. All eyes were lit
with smiles. Fourteen clenched fists — how read the gist? —
all forks and knives straight up! Where was my wit?
About to ape you all, I flexed each wrist.
Your dad looked round. “Stroke!” he cried. All fell to
on chicken casserole, and reminisced
with chortles how it was you passed the cue
and played this joke on first-time guests for dinner.
“Phil brought it home from training table. Crew.
They won the Henley Cup — our Phil a winner! —
you see?” your mom said, pointing, with a smile . . . .
Yet, what most eased my angst was, rather, inner:
Fisting his knife and fork in comic style,
your dad had gazed at me with warmth, and winked —
and I dared hope he’d walk you down the aisle.
New Hampshire Backwoods Loggers
A family camp-out (my wife, our two young kids and I) on the
outskirts of Sandwich, New Hampshire, on unworked farm
property, part of an unsettled estate. A hot day in July.
We’d come to camp three days up in the woods
beside Weed Brook, which tumbles down Old Black
Snout’s southern slope. We’d hoped to get the goods
on logging by some thieving backwoods jack.
Scouting about, I came upon two men
whose truck, in vapor lock, had “up and quit.”
One held the rusty hood, and said, “Again,
Clem, climb up. Drop your zip. Be sure you hit
the carb.” He did. Could I believe my eyes?
Flashes of steam rose up . . . . I moseyed on,
upwind, while trying not to show surprise.
Was this pure bluff? For me? A show of brawn?
Or just their S.O.P. . . ? Thus I stepped by
the truck’s rear license plate: “Live Free or Die.”
Early Freeze
West Hartford, Connecticut.
We raked last leaves beneath the first-out stars.
All night wind moaned, and blew so cold it rolled
up rhododendron leaves like green cigars
by dawn, and thrust up “throw-rugs” — clay cajoled
atop small fields of milk-white crystals. Cold!
I carried firewood in across their stalks.
They crunched beneath my feet in aftershocks.
Handicap
I walk down through our valley drought has cursed.
Ground’s dry as bones. It crackles, crunches, swirls
away, just dried up soil in loose weed furls.
Can’t tell if we will reap or see dispersed
the indigo a thunderhead cascades
beyond the mountain ridge against the west.
I climb up sepia grass, its root hairs stressed
or dead . . . . At ridge-top, blue sky promenades.
Next valley: Country Club. Big Cadillacs.
Its fairways, greens, are blue — they overgrow
on chems so toxic dogs fall sick and die.
Four golfers wearing knickers, slapping backs,
salute the crystal sky with clubs — they know
the handicap? The leader that they try?
Bedtime Story
For H.P.J.
I can’t recall exactly when it was
you raised the question. We were reading bed-
time stories still. The girls were all abuzz
in your First Grade — it made you hang your head.
“Dad, all boys have two things that swing between
their legs, but girls have none at all. NOT FAIR . . . !”
I thought, Already? This? I’d best come clean,
not beat around the bush with you, ma chère . . . .
“Wait here and let me fetch a picture book . . . .
This shows cross-section views . . . . These what they say
boys have?” “I guess so. Yes.” “Now take a look
at girls . . . their seed pods . . . baby’s passageway . . . .
A boy’s things are like girls’ — just inside out.”
“Oh . . . . Thanks for showing me what that’s about.”
Spoken Like a True Woman
Going home on the train from Washington, DC.
For H.P.J.
The Jefferson Memorial had touched
me most in 1976
when, bicentennial programs clutched
in hands, we two (you in grade six)
eagerly trained down to DC
to see well-mortared stones and bricks . . . .
Then, going home in high esprit,
I asked you, “What, from all five days,
do you recall most vividly?”
You grinned at me, your eyes ablaze,
and hesitated not an instant:
“Five days of eating in cafés!”
Puccini Caterer Speaks for “Angels”
Bushnell Memorial Hall, Hartford, Connecticut.
I cannot say I love Italian soaps
despite great music or the voices heard.
Musicians playing pit meet all my hopes —
but singers playing roles seem, well, absurd . . . .
The table groans beneath my red rib roast,
blood gravy, Yorkshire pudding, and the spuds.
The buffo moves the floor more than his host —
his quips, without his stage-biz, all are duds.
Before the “angels” quaff their wine, few care,
I have observed, for stage-biz, lights, good lines,
as much as for one’s voice and eye to spare
them queries as to their Last Will’s assigns.
There: Watch that asker’s “angel” arch one brow,
excuse himself, and slip away — no “Ciao.”
DeLand, Florida.
“He needs to sniff his PJ’s, sheets, or sweats,”
said Chip, the bloodhound handler. “Since he wets
most every night, they’re in the wash,” she said.
“Then shoes or socks, a bathrobe, jacket, bed-
side carpet where he climbs in, in bare feet?”
The bloodhound, Gus, looked like he’d like red meat . . . .
Thus she and Paul (her neighbor and attorney)
set off behind the dog and Chip. Odd journey.
They hiked past sycamore, live oak, and pine
all shagged with Spanish moss. Not yet a sign.
Chest-high palmetto — with its rattlesnake —
engulfed her heart with fear and made it ache.
Ahead, Gus plunged nose down into the scrub.
Chip stumbled, snapping fronds — a great hubub —
while Paul and she stood waiting at the road.
The sun bore down its overbearing goad.
“Thanks, Paul, for your great help . . . the dog and all.
So sad. He’s drifted downhill since last fall.”
“It is sad, Ellen, seeing him unwell.
I’m glad to help. For you this must be hell.”
She looked away and blinked at gnats and tears
which fluttered there among her many fears . . . .
A far-off siren wailed, drew closer, died.
Ambulance. Slowing, it stopped at their side.
“Paul, Chip’s found Mr. Peek. He’s fair, but weak.”
“That’s great, Jack. This is Mrs. Ellen Peek.”
“How-do, Miz Peek — by radio Chip said
he seems confused, not quite in his right head.
Exhausted. Scratched his face and hands. He fell.
No broken bones as far as he can tell —
he’s in the bottom, a hundred yards in there.
We’ll bring him out, Miz Peek, don’t you despair . . . .”
Ginger Snaps? Darjeeling?
For E.K.J.
The sensuous scents worn by those moms,
the dense sweet aftershaves on dads —
tables just lemon-waxed, live palms —
perhaps had put on edge the lads
and lasses who sat down to play
recitals on the Concert Grand.
When you sat down and struck an “A,”
your memory held its cap in hand.
“I’ll start with Movement Two,” you said,
and played it, plus the Third, quite well,
then found the First deep in your head
(or fingers’ muscled citadel).
You played that flawlessly, with feeling . . .
and quit recitals, snaps, Darjeeling . . . .
Anvils
For E.K.J.
Just past 18, your best friend is a lass
on horseback: You see “farrier” in your glass.
You mope about and hunger for the skills.
You need a pickup truck and 20 bills
to go to West Virginia Farrier School.
So you, an aunt, and we chip in a pool.
Returning home, you’re thrilled, no more aloof.
Your pickup’s capped. A chimney thrusts its roof.
You, sooty farrier, dance around its rear
by anvil, stocks of iron, coal forge gear —
while old time anthracite ascends our skies
above your rippling forearm, gleaming eyes.
You clang out glowing shoes at pony sheds,
but learn real money’s earned on thoroughbreds.
A race horse farrier says, “It’s no black hole,
and I can school you, so you learn control
of any flighty high-strung winning horse . . . .”
First day, you’re stunned. In shock, you flee the course.
We walk and walk, ’til you let out your blues:
“This guy, so gross! Designs corrective shoes,
makes champions on the Derby Winners scene.
Controls the horses with a hammer’s peen” —
you swallow back the tears, but outrage prods —
“he whacks a filly’s flank, a stallion’s cods.”
Water Sprouts
For E.K.J., remembering your hasty departure
for the University of Southern California.
Whatever had inspired you to prune out
the water sprouts from our tired apple tree
apparently expired in you about
the time the last one that you clipped fell free.
They lay upon the ground and withered brown
waiting for you to settle all your doubts.
I found no spit or tongue for verb or noun
to urge that you pick up those piles of sprouts.
Forgive me, please, the words I failed to speak.
I chose to make no issue, kept it light.
I cleaned them up for you, despite my pique,
appeasing you for the sake of peace — not bright . . . .
Were my love quicker (with a bolder gene)
might we now gently meet more conflicts green?
Cupsuptic River
Deep in the woods above Oquossoc, Maine.
In memory of H.S.O., poet and teacher, recalling
his caring work with students — young and old.
Quarter to four, by moonlight, we untied
and hoisted off your car your blue canoe.
Cupsuptic River quickly showed her pride:
A bull moose, huge, bell dripping, edged in view.
We rested paddles, silently drifting by
within twelve feet of him. He watched us go
with guarded gaze so as to verify
we were not foe to fight — just river’s flow . . . .
Illumined brightly by the rising sun —
a loon! Up high. And drafting close, one after.
A “kwuk.” And “kwuk.” Way off, another one
was weirdly yodeling and quavering laughter . . . .
Feeling and passion — yes, Hugh — make the poet.
That laughing loon is one. He won’t “outgrow” it.
My Warren Smile
Naples, Florida, to Hartford, Connecticut.
For several hours my flight had been delayed
in Naples while they flew an “O” ring in
to replace one that had become too frayed.
It seemed the jet fuel filler cap within
the skin of its right wing was leaking — bad.
It threw my travel plans into a spin.
In Philly, no connecting flights. Like mad
I ran, with bags, the whole concourse, and caught
a small commuter jet still on its pad.
The door snapped shut behind me. “Thanks a lot,”
I gasped, and buckled up as we rolled out
on tarmac. Cleared, we took off like a shot.
A twenty-nine seat Saab . . . . “We’re at about
five thousand feet,” the captain said. “Keep seat
belts on. Broad storm front to our left. No doubt
we’ll have a bumpy ride, but I’m upbeat
because we have a tail wind which is strong.
It will make air time short — if not too sweet.”
And turbulent . . . . I thought back on a long
and talk-filled stay with dear old Uncle Warren.
Eighty, he’d woven yarns told by a throng
of pilots — plus his own — of their riproarin’
exploits when flying was man’s newest bride
and airline safety was an oxymoron . . . .
Bottomless free-fall — sling shot’s stone, I spied
the moon above the clouds — whoops, lost the chair
beneath my butt . . . . These frolics amplified
for me those stories Warren loved to share
about flight’s frontier days, and I zigzaged
twixt now and then—twixt flights extraordinaire.
Across the aisle a barfing man just bagged
his mouth. Some kid cried, “Whoopsed my chili mac.”
Up front another heaved and retched and gagged . . . .
I felt for them, but couldn’t quite hold back
my Warren smile — down to a three-point landing
at 2 a.m. I craved a late night snack.
After-burn of an Airman’s Widow
In memory of E.T.P., a one-time Sooner.
For S.J.E.
I’d watch in agony as you would pray
before your brimming cup of colored pills —
the yellow Valium worse than all your ills.
“Throw out these awful drugs!” I would inveigh.
“You cannot fathom, Son, my disarray,
the pain inside my heart which pierces, shrills
my consciousness like shrieking escadrilles
on after-burners, like strafing’s ricochet . . . .”
Two decades since you died, I recognize
what I could not, back then: A deep regret
I only saw when I dared probe those eyes
remarriage glazed. You’d played the old roulette:
“Return to Father’s house? Leave friends? Green East?
No? Then I’ll wed this architect-artiste.”
Retirement Calling — in the Attic
For G.K.J.
Our walk-up attic had attracted such
detritus fallen from our lives in thirty
three years — we stumbled through the dim-lit clutch
barking our shins on stuff turned down and dirty.
Was time to move. I hung florescent strips
the attic’s length. We sat down in the light.
Pitch this? Will both kids cry, “Apocalypse”?
Let them decide to take, or ditch, their blight . . . .
Our blight we put at curbside on the street,
for scavengers or garbage pickup — load
on load — with feelings that flowed bittersweet,
all quickened by this stuff we’d so long stowed . . . .
The first hard step was done. A great relief,
we toasted it with an aperitif.
Scotsman’s Prophecy
“I doubt you’ll easily find a line of work
you’ll step irrevocably in, long term,”
a college prof had said. “Your knee may jerk,
but wiggle-worms in you will make you squirm.
If you’re like some, you’ll think you’ll go berserk
as you try out each job, ’til one affirms
your joy in it, and lifts your civil smirk
with eyes more lively than a pachyderm’s.”
Turns out my teacher had a sure sixth sense.
I first tried out the church, then show biz, life
insurance sales, career consulting, thence
recruiting — tiresome, all. Where was that fife
and drum corps I could prance beside for miles . . . ?
Retired, my “feet” dance rhymes — my eyes bright smiles.
This concludes Section II of In Vitro. Change Pace Poetry readings continue on IV Videos Section 3. Thank you.
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