The Last Ohio Morning

Intro

The Last Ohio Morning was written during the summer of 2004.
The words began as a two week tour of Ohio, August 25-Sept 5,
but when I got back to Bellingham, I couldn’t stop writing it
until Fall.

Ohio Motors
The Liberty
This is Who
The Silver Dollar Man
Joey the Mop
After the Storm
Dust and Feathers
Dust & Feathers: The Television Series
The Old Rustle
Another Life
Bessemer
Numerology
5:50
Ohio, Japan
Listening to Larry
Walk in the Woods
Gardens
Vincentography
Second Grade
Advice
House Cleaning
Chocolate Hair
Jumping in the Sea
Other Means
The Last Wind
The Next President
Slow Game
Clock
Unsleepy Hollow
The Freeway House
Pressed Flowers
Open
Broken Chair
Unstung
Moth
The Pretty Boy Floyd River
The Turn-Around Road
Barstool
Rented Tree
Follow Your Friend
Look Out Windows
Poe in Japan

Ohio Motors

All day long the motors go
a hundred hornets bake in the hive
The cicadas steer the heat wave clamor
a luff of lazy breeze bends the corner
a cardinal shoots red across the flat
green fronds of the magnolia tree
Lake Erie throws a fit
crickets train clatter
the yellow lawn chairs fry
and wait out the sun for
the slow rise of an orange
jungle moon




The Liberty

There’s The Liberty
where you used to live
closed windows watching
the doors gone through
I start thinking of you
driving past too fast
to see anything but leaves




This is Who

So this is who walks around at 2 AM
in the neighborhood all blacked out
except for the tall amber street lamps
spaced every block and a half
I’m out walking the baby
in charge of wide-eyed insomnia
when the leaves of the willow
rattle behind us and ahead
a rabbit darts over the street
silent as a dream going home
to sleeping home




The Silver Dollar Man

Blue lights were after him. His bolt across the lot from
the carwash left a trail of stolen quarters. It didn’t matter,
he had to get away. With 23 pounds of silver in each of his
pockets he sunk footsteps into the sod becoming mud at
the edge of the wetlands. Hobbled by the weight of dollars,
he wobbled his way into the bulrushes, cracking stalks aside.
Carp flapped and thrashed showing yellow scales. A shot
clocked above his head terrifying blackbirds up into a cloud.
A heron beat to wing. And it was happening, he was vanishing.
The swamp clung to him and pulled him deeper. He was gone,
under the reeds, the lily pads waving over in the wind of voices
losing him from the shore. Round little green leaves small as
penny rivets swerved and spread again to cover his bubbles
and submerge.




Joey the Mop

The bleak industrial flat of the land where the city
stacked its rust and crumbles is resting place to
Joey the Mop who ended up dumped in the junk
at the back end of a black sedan trunk in 1951.
Anyone wondering what happened knew better
than to go looking. Let the years sandwich
him between layers of decay and oil spills
forgotten unless something bubbled up




After the Storm

After the storm
beneath a lid of clouds
we’re walking at 3 AM

Time to be calm
the dragon is gone
what it left is felt
on bare feet

A warm shallow skin
of dark green water
on the street




Dust and Feathers

At last
caught sight of
the Carolina Parrot

Long lost
kept in glass
a ghost of dust
and feathers




Dust & Feathers:
The Television Series

The water reflected the clouds and violet sky.
Below the surface a few fathoms down there’s
a strange sight, bent and lit by green rays of sun…
The mirage-like vision of two people playing cards,
dealing across a round table littered with silver coins
and dollar bills, spilled bottles sprouting green tendrils,
stacked piles of sand. A shoal of fish meanders past.

Then the painted view was chopped by oars digging
into the foamy swell above. “I see them, Dust!”
Owen Feathers announced. He fumbled with
the buttons on the front of his Hawaiian shirt.
Ben Dust held the oars up so they dripped little diamonds
off. His stern expression revealed his still smoldering
disappointment that the department couldn’t spring for
a motorboat ripping with horsepower.
It didn’t seem dignified for two officers to be tossing
in some rented rowboat. With a quick violent motion,
he stowed the oars and threw off his leather jacket.
“Let’s get them,” he growled.

Commercial:
Park scene, author sitting on a curved wooden bench
in shade of an oak tree. With one foot, he’s rocking a baby
buggy, his eight month old son is asleep. Background sound
of crickets and lawnmower faint rumbling two blocks away.
Summer six o’clock sunlight blue sky, peaceful.
In his hands he makes a story out of turning three pages,
paper from his daughter’s spiral-bound notebook.

Joey the Mop reached out the bony arm of a tattered striped
Italian suit. His white fingers clutched the winning fan of cards.
As the man with silver dollar eyes flipped the table over,
bubbles shot to the surface and burst around the unmanned
rowboat. The water was flecked with two dissolving silhouettes…
a coat of dust and ghost white feathers.




The Old Rustle

He gave us a tour of the Edison home
a very old man with the same shape as our son
the same name too and he had to say,
“I didn’t know anyone was called that today.”
And then he went on to show us room by room
the inventor’s life as contours and floors.
“This crescent moon bedspread took 3 years to make.”
“Edison never heard a bird after 12 years old.”
“Archaeologists dug the mud from this plate,”
stopping once again to ask, “How did you name him?”
“It was our daughter,” we said. “And we liked the sound.”
So then we went on. Until Rustle got worn out
Laura took him goodbye, he was needing new air.
Now it was Rosa, her grandpa and me and
an old lady who spoke in a feeble derail,
she was next to go, saying, “I feel ill…”
lurching at doors and I joked, “Who’s next?”
But we made it through, and old Rustle did too.
At last outside the kitchen into the glade,
tall red calla flowers and green elephant ears,
he showed us the map on wooden tiers.
This place is full of names and memories
that haven’t changed in years




Another Life

Every year
more disrepair
concrete streets
deal on the hill
cracking open
like eggshell
to reveal
another life
returning

The nature
of having, losing
finding again

It’s simple as
understanding
the sidewalk
while we go
pushing wheels
over green




Bessemer

Adapting
to the air
since 1853
butterflies and bees
wear
soot wings
to gather
charcoal clover
blossoming
by the glow
of bessemer




Numerology

After home, the cigar store was the first door.
He dropped a bet on lucky 207 then he walked
with the rest of the shift up those metal stairs
high over the railyards, down to the furnaces
on the Ohio river




5:50

Good morning and goodbye
the last Ohio morning
we wake a dozen white moths
as we walk across wet lawn




Ohio, Japan

This new morning
a red sun rose
on Lake Erie




Listening to Larry

A white heron
takes off
at the end
of your worry

The air lifts
both of them




Walk in the Woods

I don’t have a camera
we have to remember it
by heart

Our walk in the woods
stops for the picture
of sun through leaves
onto you

The little silver creek
with words in it
a ghost white spider
the unseen thread
guiding it




Gardens

A late summer rain
wets the sidewalks
and all the old
forgotten chalk drawings
crisscrosses and scribbles
those hopscotch games
bloom like gardens
for the day
until after the night
In the morning
when the next dew
washes them away




Vincentography

Capture in your hands
that blue speed of water
pushing under the bridge




Second Grade

Second grade started today
I got home from the job
stepped off the bus and saw
the kids playing on the grass
Rosa’s friend is wearing camouflage
I don’t have to wonder why
Her father is going to the war
and this is what’s happening here
on this plot of land, my home
some things seem the same
I have to cut the lawn
my wife and baby son
watch me get close to them
It’s so good to be home
then I hear something like rain
or water bailed on the driveway
I walk around our parked car
so I can see
the 4 year old forgotten girl
the sister of Rosa’s friend
sitting in the dust by the wheel
picking up handfuls of gravel
throwing them on down the hill
I say hello but as I walk away
I feel the hot sting of those rocks
as she targets me




Advice

Like Al Capone
holding out a hand
across the shadowy room
Rosa’s grandfather
explained the art
of making a fist
“Keep the thumb
outside the other fingers
or else it might break
when you hit”




House Cleaning

It’s hard to throw out
what’s been around
dragged down by sentiment
Think about what it meant
think what used to be

Even though I know
what is here
is only transitory
everything is caught
in possibility




Chocolate Hair

“Oh that chocolate hair!”
moaned the dentist
in love with the girl
in his chair




Jumping in the Sea

The trip back took a while
as the boy kept jumping in the sea
each time the outboard got going full
the waves splaying off in a white rush
the boy would suddenly stand and leap
from the hull out into the deep green
sink in a sheath of bubbles thick as leaves
then bob back up behind the boat
the cold shock of hitting black water
going under to another world
bigger beyond feeling, only rising
out of there for lack of air




Other Means

Caught up in these
ferocious war years
I set a plastic trap
in the cupboard
without first trying
other means

The next day
I checked under there
the trap had sprung

It was no victory
the mouse was so small
I could have caught it
in a child’s glove
and let it go alive
in the field
across the street




The Last Wind

This time we find
the last wind of the game
dropped into the dark

It’s all a mess
war is failure
four years of fear
sets back humanity
like a broken light
in the night

The whole creation
is corruption
who can we hold
our hands to?




The Next President

We stand in a line
to see the next president
when it starts to rain
low gray clouds ram
and make lightning
the drops falling
warm as tears

The Ohio Valley
fills with the sound
streets are awash
as we wait underneath
newspapers and umbrellas
some just wait in it
wet to the skin

This place has seen
its share of change
hard times and war
and disasters before
anything that happens
has a history
and what will be
is why we’re here




Slow Game

The town is back again
familiar names and neighbors
laid out in grass avenues

Alive with the wind
warm sunlight and the far off
sounds of music and cars

All the stones
tip and slant
like a slow game
of dominoes

A dust coated cat
wakes on the weeds
trolleys off to hunt
among the slate




Clock

every hour
goes by
what
a way
to make
a day
when
it all
goes
away




Unsleepy Hollow

They stay awake
night is never dark
lit by talk
and pumpkins
carved without
fear of midnight
laughing at how
things turn out




The Freeway House

Some rare times
the sound of cars
stops

Silence
surrounds
the freeway house




Pressed Flowers

Discovering them
by accident

Now I see
hidden botany

She keeps colors
pressed in a book

Flowers
between pages




Open

It’s the book
open, learn
we’re all here
for a reason

Why
is
it
baffling?
Find out
don’t forget

You
bear
the
idea

Open eyes
are doors
so
open them




Broken Chair

Wobbled
to the floor
calling out for
hammer and nails
a fresh yellow leg
made of fitted pine




Unstung

Sunday morning
through the woods
into meadows

A sunflower tree
deep grass dew

Wading into fall
the sour breeze
under curling leaves
plums and apples
on the ground

The last fruit
for hornets
too busy
to sting




Moth

A moth upon
your wooden door

A knock so soft
you wouldn’t know




The Pretty Boy Floyd River

The river became a man
walked through town
and stopped at the bank

He opened the door
and squeaked over
the marble floor

He waited in line
just like anyone
hummed a little
familiar song
then got his chance
at the teller’s window
where he washed
back into water
swept the place clean
with a green surge
like Pretty Boy Floyd
taking all the money
out glass doors




The Turn-Around Road

Even in darkest night
the way is lit
lamps in the leaves
stars are little lights
like a runway
swing the wheel
on the cul-de-sac
fly out of there




Barstool

I wear
your smoke
in my clothes
the memory
of barstool
whatever
you said
is still
on me
but I
can’t see
you
out here




Rented Tree

Two houses ago
on muddy Grant Street
it got fierce one night
the wind cut the wire
with a broken bough
so the telephone company
sent an angry truck over
to fell the corner tree

They left a ghost
a waist cut in half

We read the wet rings
counted the years
it once occupied in
that big shape of air

On the ground
in snapped ruined green
we found survivors
violin wood chestnuts

We took some in pockets
to plant in the troughs
our car tires drove
into the soft loam
of our rented backyard




Follow Your Friend

Follow your friend on
the crop that isn’t
this is a field of mud

Each step up
needs somewhere
to land

Try not to sink
when you come down

He has left
prints hollowed
with heels of water




Look Out Windows

Before the day
ends and
you’re ready
to sleep
look out windows
see the sky
think about it
where you’ve been
what you’ve done
and what will happen
tomorrow




Poe in Japan

He took a skeleton with sails over the Pacific,
crashed through two bad storms when he prayed
for the end, then in a gray morning stood at the rail
to see the skyline turn into land. Japan. Soon he saw
the pagoda towers, the pines, the wooden houses,
pennants of fish, dragons, bright creatures that kited
on the air. When he stepped ashore, all covered in black,
he wobbled from lack of ground for so long. He knew
he was being looked at, he felt the picture frame on him.
He wore it awkwardly up past the fishing things beside
the shore. He hoped to find an address someone gave him.
The whole reason for the journey was scratched across
in his tree branch writing on a torn scrap of paper he kept
caught like a dove in a pocket. When looking for somewhere
in a place like this, he was just another wind blown off the sea,
someone who looked lost as a ghost.