Wordtreasure

The Blackouts

She wasn’t a Joe Sixpack drinker
consuming alcohol with gusto
or quietly sipping bourbon or wine
or both at all hours
like my dad.

One martini and she was off balance.
One drink was all it took
to spring the hatch suppressing
every childhood resentment
or marital grievance
or parental dissatisfaction,
and come the morning
claim not to remember anything!

Joe Sixpack remembered enough
of his drunken escapades and abuses
to enliven the AA meetings.
Not Mother.

Because of her rages,
Mother owned all the bandwidth
in the family,
and it was up to us
to brainstorm strategies
for outfoxing peevishness
and sidestepping pyroclastic vitriol.

Contact info: davebaldwin37@gmail.com

Betrayal

for my daughter’s first husband

“I love you and I will always be faithful to you.”
No doubt he meant it on the day and the year of the postmark.

So little time from moon to rising moon;
in his need for novelty, the eye was wandering by noon.

What is the harm, he reasoned, as he kindled a spark
by texting the identical promise to someone new.

Chapel of the Transfiguration

The first thing I saw was the constellation of houseflies
on the Chapel of the Transfiguration window blocking the grandeur
of the Cathedral Group with Grand Teton in the center.
The fly was the filthiest of creatures to my fastidious eye.
I was offended at first: the sacred was marred by the profane.
so I stepped outside the log church to see
the majesty of the mountains beneath the blue canopy
without the pious interference of human hands.

That was sixty-two years ago. I’ve had a rethink.
God is not captured, domesticated, and confined
to churches, but is alive in every created thing.
Without a nature-based spirituality, the word profane
means outside the temple. Are we fish looking for water?
And why do we argue about who owns the water?

The Midwatch

Lieutenant Fallon goes over the log
as I assume the midnight watch.
He heads for his rack in officer’s country.
I’ll be here until oh four hundred.

The ship is cruising at 15 knots
in calm waters west of Pearl
on the same great circle route
that always takes us to Subic Bay.

We’ll be in combat soon enough,
but not tonight—all is quiet.
I think of roommates I left behind
on Hillegass Avenue two years ago.

Roger with his history PhD.
is now an analyst for the C.I.A.;
Milt is an engineer at IBM;
and Walt is teaching Freshman Comp.

Their lives are set, but I’m here
standing watch, marking time
in harm’s way, but I don’t regret
that I am the one who chose to serve.

The midwatch is slow. I sip some coffee
simmering on the burner for many hours.
How long, oh how long, til four o’clock
when, finally, I can get some sleep?

At the end of the watch, I had a thought.
We all make choices and this is mine:
I love my country, America, my home;
because of love, I chose to serve.

NOTE: For Veteran’s Day 2025.

Excuses

We waste a lot of time making excuses.
The Bible is full of them. Some are good
like Moses saying, correctly, he is not eloquent.
The Lord enlists brother Aaron to speak
for him, and that is enough to do the job.
But most excuses are offered out of indolence.
For every Isaiah who says, “Here am I,
send me,” many more can’t be bothered.

Jeremiah is just a kid when the Lord calls
on him. Now the Lord is a master salesman
who knows how to handle every objection.
He has heard them all! He tells the kid
not to worry—He will provide the words
to say, and will protect Jeremiah at all times.
The Lord says to him, “Now I have put
my words in your mouth. Jeremiah: see, today
I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy
and to overthrow, to build up and to plant.”

In our era, everything is totally different
in every way except for the one dishonest
excuse that never goes out of style, “I’m busy.”

[tanka]

lost mojo
on the Red Line
a sweet face
no opportunity
for me

For the Love of Flight

Precision tree swallows
black silhouettes
against the dishwater cloud bank
rise like a school of fish
high above the wetlands
turning this way
rising twisting
turning that way
twisting falling
heave upward once again
and curve for a landing
in a giant big leaf maple
just for the love of flight.

To the Young Ravens

The young ravens in the nest are nearly grown.
They are dull black with patches of gray and white.
They flex their wing muscles intermittently,
but they know not yet what the wings are for.

Their pink, fish-like mouths prop open,
even in sleep, for mom to shove down
a grub with her beak. Dad watches the nest,
then hops aside when mom returns with food.

Expectant faces point toward the mother,
but there is always one facing the wrong way!
Mom hops over the open beaks to satisfy
the misdirected aperture. These helpless chicks

are blessed with attentive parents, but the young ravens
are a sorry lot, ragged in appearance, feathers
still coming in, and cawing off-key
when they hear the arrival of fluttering wings.

Cultivating Stillness

A shallow mind is never still.
A compulsive need
for constant stimulation
ensures a state
of constant agitation.

By understanding and cultivating stillness,
a deep mind
is heavy enough to master itself.
Stillness is the master of agitation.

For the shallow mind,
the world is heavy;
it is mindful of the world.
For the deep mind,
the world is light;
it is mindful of the spirit.

By doing nothing,
nothing remains undone.
I am at peace:
things change by themselves.
The world orders itself.

The Logic of Athletics

He challenged the ice in canyons silvergreen.
He challenged the heat, one hundred plus, to chase
the best of men. He challenged the raving rain,
thunderously applauding. The gladness of the race
was always there, but those who saw his face,
disfigured daily by sweat, fatigue, and pain
would ask, amused, Wherefore marathons in space
and time? He challenged life by trying to run
forever fixed beneath the westering sun,
but certainly he knew, beyond the wheeling sky,
the price and peace of gathering night would come
in time. He challenged those who questioned why:
With every race I learn to live, to die.

[tanka]

she is the wind
she cares for nothing…
he is the grass;
he cannot move
without her

Layoffs Coming Next Week

Everyone knows.
Layoffs are coming and rumor has it
next week is the big reveal.
The managers assure us
the best people will keep their jobs,
that retention will be based on merit.

The old timers have heard this before.
Don’t believe that for a minute, they say.
Remember when engineering excellence
was all that mattered to the company?
Now it is about goosing the stock price
to please the shareholders.
Reducing payroll is one way to do that,
which means firing those
with the highest hourly rate.

There is an office pool
of who will get the ax.
Cynicism is out in the open
and people laugh about it.
But what can you say?
Contracts have been winding down
for the last year.
We’re losing proposals right and left.
Our bids are too expensive
we are told.

The office catchphrase now is Ask me if I care.
Well, I care. I have mouths to feed.
Oh gah! The boss is walking this way.
I hide my poem behind the spreadsheet.

Shock and Awe

Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns—the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult one.

~Donald Rumsfeld

Baghdad…
birds build their nests
in smashed houses
it’s the migration season
for people

after curfew,
men in ski masks
visit the neighbors
rib-thin dogs
hunt for food

springtime in Baghdad…
soldiers plug bullet holes
with chocolates
nest-building birds
know nothing of God

suicide video—
her last wish
is for the continuation
of hatred…
changing the channel

third deployment:
tears
cannot be numbered
the nation
goes about its business

stage props
as the president speaks:
flags, banners, signs, soldiers…
which of these things
is not like the others?

the death toll rises
because of us…
because of us
the war is back
above the fold

water finds its way
around and through
all things
even the bodies
in the Tigris River