Daylight Savings

I’d love to have that hour back.
Not that I object
to the manipulation of time,
but I’m better misconstrued
in honest twilight.

hence the dilemma:
what I could do
with another sixty minutes
and the wisdom of another day?
swallow my words
without the bitter aftertaste
and stare without wavering
at the mirage before me.

Original: 5 May 1996, Cambridge, MA
Revised: 11 March 2012, Cochituate, MA

believing next year will be better
I open another beer

New Year’s Eve —
an empty whiskey bottle
slumped against the curb

dream sequence - part 23

I was in a beautiful old downtown building for a meeting, surrounded by tall ceilings and marble floors. Two dozen or so of us were crowded into a small conference room. I didn’t recognize anyone, but they all seemed to know one another. Before the meeting started, about half of the room was dismissed on account of a high-priority project. At that point it was decided to move the meeting to a smaller room in the basement of the building.

There were still a dozen of us left, but only one person seemed to know where we were going. He led us down a dark, narrow passage way through a maze of caves carved out of stone, climbing continually downward. Each cave was brightly lit and featured a whirlwind of activity — people walking every which way, monitors flashing and music blasting. We had been walking for several minutes and must have traveled several stories beneath street level. Sensing my apprehension, our self-appointed guide said “we’re almost there — it’s just around the corner.”

I never made it to the conference room. You and I ducked into a small, intimate cave with a comfortable couch facing a large television screen. It featured a live feed from a camera mounted inside the lobby of the building facing toward the sidewalk to give us the illusion that these passers-by were almost close enough to touch. Suffice to say, your kiss took me completely by surprise.

Of all the times for my phone to ring, I cursed the improbable reception of this underground hideaway. In reality, it was my alarm, returning me to the pre-dawn darkness of the awaiting world.

Black Friday

by the time I realized
that I was out of beer
it was already too late.
I had been standing
in the middle of the living room
with an empty six-pack in my hand,
taking to someone who wasn’t there.

for Jessica, Josiah and Me

I found this on the old rec.arts.poems newsgroup, which is evidently archived by Google these days. I wrote it back in ’96, when both my son Josiah and Jessica Dubroff, who died while trying to become the youngest person to fly an aircraft solo, were seven years old. Josiah, now 22, has recently started his second four-year tour in the Marines.

if not for the blinding sunlight
I could see her
high above the clouds
but there was no sun that day —
only a cold driving rain
and a dark heavy sky.
all that’s left
is this long-winded mantra
that she was destined to fly
that to deny her
was the ultimate cruelty.
and so she flew
and I wait for the rain
to wash the blue-eyed dream
from my outstretched hands.

October dusk (and variation)

October dusk —
wishing I could see
just one more firefly

October dusk —
just one more
firefly

Surrounded by Heather

Mike Doughty may have gone to school with 27 Jennifers, but in my workplace I’ve discovered that I’m surrounded by Heather — the name that is. I’d say that the median age in my workplace is somewhere around 31, which should provide some clues regarding the prominance of the aforementioned name. According to the Social Security Administration, the name Heather was in the top-20 for baby names between 1970 and 1990. In 1980, the birth year of the median-aged employee, Heather was at number 6.

By contrast, Heather was ranked number 685 in 2010. One can only hope that the outbreak of Heather has abated.