There is little I have learned
More than this: people will do
Just about whatever they
Can get away with: call it
Humanity 101.
Look at any emperor,
Any rock n roll guitar
Player, friend of an uncle,
CEO, famous golfer—
All those things you tell yourself
You never going to do
When you make it to the top.
And yet, history spirals.
The grooves grow ever deeper.
The earth still a dank prison.
If you burned this gloomy poem,
It would barely make a flame.
If you don’t have a story,
Then let them chase horcruxes.
Or let them ride in a bus
Covered in fantasy paint.
Claim this is about travel
Though there is nowhere to go.
Talk about the silence of
Fishermen, the glib manic
Fury of drunken hunters.
Spread peanut butter on rye.
Picture a dog or a child.
Uncover a drum of sleep.
What you can’t pay back you try
To pay forward; Dad was a
Preacher, a job that gave him
The flex to be these other
Things he wanted, Little League
Baseball coach, backyard catcher,
Set his own hours, always
Found time to work on pitching
With me most afternoons: he
Worked for the Lord even when
He sat on that bean pickin
Stool calling for the slow curve,
Left knuckle down on the seam—
When my time came, I worked with
Runners instead of ballers,
A kid from the church, students,
A nephew, my reluctant
Boys, who never really
Caught the bug the way I did—
Now I’m still waiting to see
What they will do.
Half-Talent Friday Night
I’m trying to watch old videos
From you tube, a local country
Band who nearly almost made it,
But on the TV a college baseball
Coach has allowed his starter
To hurl over 130 pitches,
An undersized lefty,
Not likely a prospect,
And I am now completely
Distracted from the quality
Harmonies, the rare footage
From the PB Scotts dome
In 1983 Blowing Rock.
No wonder the MLB
Hates college baseball
I’m thinking as the home
Team ties the game
On a ninth inning homer,
Pitch number 138.
After which the “coach”
Finally makes the change.
The band’s lead singer’s
Name is Walkup, and he
By God looked like a prospect
In the hard suffering world
Of music. Two batters
Later the home team
Hits a two-run homer walk off.
In the next video Walkup
Is a white-bearded old man,
Still harmonizing with
What’s left of the crew,
In a much reduced venue.
They play seated on stools,
Cowboy hats replaced by ball caps.
The bar’s beer lights blink behind them.
The audience is sparse as the
Chess pieces left at the end
Of a long game.
Rooftop in Little Washington
One customer described as
A stunning view of the river,
A caterwauler with a
Townes voice slowly begins
Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here
And the sunset flocks pinkly
Above the Pamlico pushing
A King’s Tide into back yards.
The dessert disappoints, the
Lemon bar too much like a
Common cobbler, you sigh and
Drift to the chorus as he
Plays mandolin into the
Pre-recorded guitar track
Too loud and you lift the fork
For the final bite as a
Harley growls down Water Street
And three, four, you tap your feet.
Poem at the River
Ted Pope doesn’t want to go
To Heaven and I do not
As well—he has his reasons
I am sorting through my own.
There was a night a lot like
This one when a facebook friend
Made an offhanded remark
About how there was a likely
No historical Jesus,
An idea I had not thought
Possible, the myth firmly
Woven into my world,
Bible stories in Sunday
School, reinforced at home, no
Prayer missed before any meal.
No historical Jesus—
My brethren would have of course
Blamed my doubts on the Devil,
The idea that everything I’d
Been taught might be a fraud and
Suddenly I knew it True
And I understood what a
Paradigm shift was, how it
Cleaned you up and gave yourself
Back to you.
Origins
His parents raised cross county,
Farm kids on the rural map,
Sliding like pieces on a
Board game as the dice rolled them
Square to square, over fields and
Creeks, school yards, cemeteries,
Late summers and trips to town,
Worshipping and making a
Case for a dream against war
And other calamities
That might keep them in distant
Corners, then college washing
Cafeteria dishes—
He got the nerve to ask her out,
Bought his first preacher suit—the
One chess move his daddy taught,
Castled to protect his queen—
The old story of how we
Came to be here, living lean.
