the smedley log - suburban scrawl

Tony Baloney

I ran into Tony yesterday.
He must’ve been on his break
when he spotted me in line at the food court.
We sat and talked over lunch.
It had been a while.
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inert bodies

it’s everything I hate to see;
this lack of confidence unchallenged,
and it’s no mistake.

it’s just the way you plan it:
no bliss, but no earth shattering, the way
fragile hopes can break.

tell me how, again,
you’re happier this way;
it’s easier you say.

I have no doubt it is.
a change in perspective takes a lot;
objects at rest resist the thought
of the slightest motion.

One more…

Lantern #5
by Karen Nicoloso

Godfather
Uncle Howard
Shoots many people
(with his camera thankfully)
Photographer

Maxillofacial 575

Maxillofacial 575
by Karen Nicoloso

Poor Uncle Howard,
The dentist stole his wisdom…
Teeth. Where are they now?

A Poem About My Uncle

A Poem About my Uncle
by Daniel Nicoloso

My dear old Uncle Howard,
He’s quite a camera guy.
You must beware that look,
That he gets into his eye.
It’s the sign it’s time to fly, fly, fly

He meanders ‘bout the house
Shooting me and all my siblings
Whether munching at our lunches,
Or immersed in petty quiblings

We must beware the sound
Of that zooming camera scope
Hearing it’s
Our last little bit of hope,
To hide behind a curtain, a table or a bed
Or maybe, just maybe do something else instead.
We could come out of our hiding,
Standing straight and tall,
Like a military person,
Backed up against a wall.

Personally I think, I’d stare him in the face
And think to myself, “Oh, what a futile chase.”
The flash would sound
And the tables turn ‘round.
And suddenly I am still,
Upon his window sill, sill, sill…

I’m standing still and not quite harmed,
Though he be deadly armed,
He chuckles and walks away,
He lives to shoot another day,
My dear old Uncle Howard,
He’s quite a camera guy

Monday morning couplet

Tired weekends wilt to the pressure of Monday’s dawn.
Always wish they’d hold out, but the pattern trudges on.
…

randomuse

Peering
at half-headed mannequins
on Chestnut Street
elicits a fleeting sympathy.

They’re ghosts
or leftover sensations
or memories
recalling a feeling incomplete.

(Images courtesy of Marisa)

It occurs to me that not everybody has seen a “half-headed” mannequin. Prior to last night, neither had I. (And now I wish I’d taken a picture for those who have no idea what one looks like.) Maybe I just don’t get out enough, but they struck me as a combination of amusing and morbid.

When I made an off-hand comment that I could write a poem about them, I didn’t actually intend to do so. But in the wee hours before I could fall asleep, those melancholy window dwellers came back to me. Go figure.

(Note: A belated bit of gratitude to Marisa for hearing my passive/aggressive plea for photos.)

Rent

My soul is aching
an ache that was overdue.
Had you not forsaken,
or had I enough of you,
it wouldn’t have taken
so long to believe it’s true.
You didn’t break it,
but it breaks because of you.

Suburban scrawl
(from before we got swallowed)

Your roads, once dusty,
now boldly encroach
on land we once treasured,
but now simply own.

Our reach
has exceeded our grasp
of all that
once signified value.
The blights
you can never take back;
the damage
you can’t ever undo.

Our fathers once tilled the earth,
aware there was more to its worth
than sheer commodity,
and that some things are
sweeter when shared.
But these we discard.

When those lessons are lost,
as are all the ideals we once followed,
sweet amnesia’s erased
all we cherished before we got swallowed.

Image credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Turning up

(For a penny minted in 1916)

I wonder how many hands you had to pass through to get to mine.
How many coin purses,
give-a-penny-take-a-penny trays,
cash register tills,
how many coin rolls?

I wonder about the years you’ve seen,
and the places you’ve been.
What are the chances you’ve spent
your whole existence
in this city,
this state or
even this country?

Has your feathered tail traveled overseas
in the pocket of a tourist or a soldier
off to any of the wars
(or possibly all of them) since Wilson presided?
Might you have been carried by James Dean
as a child walking to the store
to buy some penny candy?
Might you have been given as a reward
to a child, or to generations of children?

How many people with no other discernible connection
could be linked simply by their possession of you?
(Or, considering how many of your carriers you’ve likely outlived,
perhaps they’re linked by your possession of them.)

Whose skin have you touched?
What purchases have you helped afford?
What adventures must you have endured
to attain such a weathered face?

How did you bear seeing your utility dry
to the point that a child can’t even use you
to ransom candy from a penny vendor anymore?
Your once proud copper image, now reduced to
biding time in ash trays and couch cushions
until someone seeks you in desperation
(or until you are summoned by the vacuum cleaner).

What are the chances you’d not have found yourself
in the bottom of a river or lake or ocean, and if you have,
what would be the chances you’d find your way back?

How is it you’ve escaped the fate of your poor cousins
mutilated by the souvenir penny grinders?
How many of your brethren born the same year
are liable to thrive (or even exist) these years later?
Is it accomplishment or sorrow, seniority or old age,
you feel as you see all the newer, shinier models
rolling out every year.

And as you hear of other old coins kept by collectors,
valued at thousands of times their face,
do you find yourself green with envy (or just corrosion)?

Or perhaps you just soldier on,
resigned to serve whatever purpose you can,
however seemingly small,
satisfied,
knowing
you’ll probably outlast us all.

Five

I wasn’t going to post much along the lines of this unfortunate anniversary, partly because I knew I couldn’t add to the grand discourse on the subject. That, and I find many of the statements being carved out on 9/11 are in tones that I wouldn’t want to duplicate on my worst day. So, to avoid sounding like a partisan idiot, a conspiracy theorist or a 21st century internet philosopher, I decided to abstain from waxing eloquent about the greatest domestic tragedy of my lifetime. At least that’s what I meant to do.

But I couldn’t sleep this morning, so I pulled out an old draft of a poem I’d been writing a few years ago. I won’t pretend to speak to the grand truths of tragedies like 9/11; I just wanted to offer this vague, personal remembrance. I figured it was about time to send a small tribute:

Also, if you are so inclined, you can view the film 7 Days in September via Google Video

Love’s austere and lonely offices

As I sneak my Father’s Day post just under the wire this year…

The following is from a Father’s Day meditation I posted two years ago:

My father’s not a loud man, not one to boast, even when he’s right and everyone else is pretty much wrong. In my youth I mistook his humility for weakness, but now I realize that the measured approach he took with life’s little twists and turns is what helped him not turn and run when times were tough. He taught me, among other things, that love requires humility (sometimes even humiliation) and that strength is more often demonstrated through patience than through brute force.

He has always been on the quieter side of things, revealing a sense of manhood that can’t be mimicked with the chest-beating machismo so often mistaken for manliness. Physically, he’s always been a strong man, but his intellectual depth and perspective are what have impressed me most as I’ve grown older, and some might even say, wiser.

Or in the words of Robert Hayden: [Read more →]

Default

She sets the boundaries I shouldn’t dare cross.
Hope that was found just before it was lost.
Our lack of planning-
-these misunderstandings
were destined to happen one day.

She was the angel I couldn’t have held-
-passed for a stranger ‘til after I fell.
Leave things to chance, and
the things you most fancy
are destined to leave you one day.

…

This winter Sunday

“Those Winter Sundays”

I was flipping around the internets when I randomly happened upon this old poem.

I’ve probably mentioned this one before at some point, but it’s worth re-mentioning. It’s just one of those fine poetic illustrations of why the thing we call love isn’t the glamorously flimsy attribute we often mistake it for. And it always reminded me of the stories my father would tell of waking up in an old farm house that took a good while to warm up.

Dreaming of the sea

a steady gaze upon the door
like she’s forgotten what they use it for

I try to ask, but she’ll rebuke:
“You’re not from here, you’ll never get the view”

spending lifetimes afraid to flee
the self-made confines, dreaming of the sea

I had the thought, just like the rest
inside a moment far short of my best

too human not to tell her so
and deal in theory past the things we know

but consequence is far more real
than mere advisers ever have to feel

I should’ve listened, should’ve seen;
I should’ve let her linger in the dream.

I scribbled this one down last night, sort of stream of conscious, though, so don’t beat yourself (or me) up if it doesn’t make sense.

– just a little off-the-cuff material for someone I hardly know, another person I know well, and someone else I’m sure I should’ve known better.

Nascent rhymes and crossing out the wrong words

if you need someone to tell you
the sky’s not gonna’ fall;
if you need someone to sell you
on dreams you couldn’t draw;
if the hope that lies within you
(is) still waitin’ for the thaw,
take my hand now darlin’ – - I’ll show you what I saw…

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new

if fears play out w/bitter lies
based solely on the past,
and memories are laced w/cries
to bring the former back;
if all my lost romantic wars
convince me of the curse
that I have not known love before,
then you could be the first.

Covert

You put me in your shadows;
box me like old magazines;
tear up all the photos,
lest they end up being seen.

You make sure no one’s looking
just before you take a chance,
lest they see you kissng
me, or catch us in a dance.

Say they won’t understand it,
so we’d best keep from the light;
you talk like we planned it,
when it’s more than we could write.

If you’re the secret angel,
fanning flames inside my soul,
how will I be able
to remain invisible?

unspoken

My dreams are just a whisper now,
But wonders lie ahead.
I still recall the cold, hard ground
Where nothing grows (-they said).

But spring will always remedy
The cold of winter’s grasp,
As sure she has lifted me
From dwelling in the past.

Her smile, a soft, unspoken thrill
That flutters in my veins,
Leaves inspiration to fulfill
The hope to fly again.

I’d tell you what my love is like,
But words fall by the way.
And pictures fail to realize
The senses she can sway.

I’d tell you what my love is like,
But words will only lie-
-hers are the eyes I gaze upon
And stumble to describe.

Satellite

You be the sun;
I’ll be the moon;
just let your light
come shining through.
And when night comes,
just like the moon,
I’ll shine the light
right back to you.