Brainstorm on Black Velvet
Poems
Charles Hibbard
Copyright 2016 Charles Hibbard
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1. Beach Evening 1970
A red sun grazed
the ragged edge
of the world.
Those were waves
driven green
before miles of wind,
old voyagers deep
with uncensused life
and poised to tumble
into white teeth
that tore harmlessly
at their own feet.
That roar was surf
not applause
prayer or gunfire,
drone of lies
or rumble of rolling heads.
And that was only evening
even-ing. A proper
temporary darkness
returning
2. Any Theories?
Something called the birds.
Abruptly they were on the move
northward, in tattered clouds,
thrushes, warblers, scoters,
straight back into winter.
The sea was a green grove
of diving sunbeams,
November light
gentled by smoke.
The birds disdained all this
and simply took flight.
It was done by noon
“as if someone had slammed
a door” – subsumed
in the earth without a trace;
though later, after dark, a few
stragglers fled across the face
of the crumbling gibbous moon.
3. Carpe somnum
Given that the alarm clock
shoves an icepick through the brain,
does consciousness shadow our dreams?
Walking that silent stage
do we dread the death of waking?
Rejoining you in bed
I barely sense your breath
beside me in the dark.
But I trust your warm back
and the grateful drop into sleep.
Should I check the clock’s
bloodshot eye? It can tell me only
that this downy other world
has an end, and when it will come.
Do I want to know that?
4. The Sixth Extinction
In their dark distant plane
between Jupiter and Mars
asteroids hurtle.
That’s their nature,
what they do.
And every dumb rock
has its will and ego
of energy and speed
bestowed by careless gravity.
Now and then the blind
play of forces turns one
toward our blue world.
It may believe it plans;
but no, it simply Must.
Though even a stone
may feel a twinge as it
takes aim at a trillion lives,
and our wisp of air begins
to melt its ancient skin.
5. Reunion
Side-saddle, the old lady
reclines, half on her couch.
I hear you’ve been sick,
my father says.
They eye each other,
third-degree initiates
in the guild of old age.
He’s sober and swollen,
grimly tamping his pipe.
She’s gaunt but steady,
blanketed to her waist,
his cousin and childhood friend:
sprite of woods and water,
small-town princess,
Olympic equestrian,
mother of a judge,
grandmother of a crowd,
doyenne of that same small town.
In later years a lone rider
coaxing her giant steed
through silent woodland,
somber, dark-eyed, straight.
Diverticulitis, she says.
My father watches her,
his girl of the glimmering lake,
now too old for surgery.
Everybody gets something,
she says, watching him back.
This is what I got.
6. 20th-Century Chemistry
In his day the rulebook read
only: No maiming or killing kids.
He was a madman at the demo bench:
belly, hairpiece, and giant head,
eyes ballooning in heavy glass;
lord of phosphor, fume and fire,
smoke and stench, flash and boom.
Finals done, every June in the lab
he threw an all-day bash,
potluck noodles, cake and crab.
That was a class you’d never forget!
One of those Junes he left the scene.
In a year his name was dust.
Focus shifted across the chart
from left to right, reactive
to inert, as drowsy scholars
dribbled drops in tiny hollows,
wanly hoping for signs of change –
light or heat or wisp of flame
or something caustic to consume
the hardening plaster of patience.
Thus the elements periodically repeat
but always with variations.
7. Cottonwoods
If these cottonwoods
could follow their dreams
I know what they’d do.
Transpiration tells me
which way they’d go –
from the ground up
to join the breeze.
The billow of their crowns
betrays their yearnings,
and the silver stream
and clatter of their leaves
as the cumulus sail by,
rootless and fancy-free
and never short of water...
8. Dark Matters
We’ve learned that dark matter
is nine-tenths of everything
or so the scientists say.
I’ve been glass half-empty
for decades, but now I guess
that makes me an optimist.
Maybe it’s time to raise
darkness to its proper place –
rich black batter
the cosmos bakes,
with sprinkles of stars
and a thin crust of puppies
lovers nightingales
singing barking hugging.
We’re forced to take that cake
but allowed to praise
some offhand god
for the frosting.
9. Nature Sanctuary
Three growling diesels haul
a black line of tank cars
toward a horizon piled high
with evening clouds
yellowed and still as though
they’d never dream of change.
I think it’s summer still.
A redstart, a vireo
still singing their claims;
a vortex of midges
and squadrons of mosquitoes
scrambled at my passage
and the cotton wind.
Deep in bending grass
the conversation of crickets
and at the end
of another hungry day
the boundless patience of ticks.
10. One Way of Looking at It
Two nestlings on the sidewalk,
baked, dead, one crushed
by a careless step.
Two weeks in the nest
in green shade
shielded by a song.
Two weeks
from egg to concrete.
A dozen quiet nights
and then the street.
11. Dechambeau Ranch
Ringing the silent house
the tops of old poplars
are bare finger bones
imploring the dry air.
The sun crosses another day
and the twentieth
generation of owls
(the last ten undisturbed)
float from tree to tree
vanish among the boughs
and peeling bark, their gaze
on the sagging stable
stacked with tumbleweed,
awaiting the twilight
and their long-time partners
the bats and mice.
12. Mouse
I step up on the rock
and out of his house
in the dust pops
a gray cork of mouse
a streak of fur sprinting
he’s sure for his life
over sand and stone
skitter scramble
into the gray-green
where he freezes
to listen watch wait
every fiber electric
with wasted fear:
I never eat mice.
I went on with my hike
had a salad for dinner
with tofu and rice.
I called my wife.
I wonder what the rest
of his day was like.
13. Moon Sets
I.
This morning, before the sun,
it’s more the moon than the rising wind
that owns the worried lake,
scribbles its red wake over jostling waves
and sinks like the stone it is
behind black hills, where there waits
some still dark unknown.
II.
The lake was still, polished flat,
the guileless moon sat white
on the hills in a sky that would soon
be blue. Sunlight to come
already lit the dark edges
of the world. All was real
nothing concealed.
14. Used Horses
How horses are coddled these days!
Their arrogant gleaming butts
sashay grandly down the trails;
braided manes and shining coats,
Rapunzel tails sweep the ground,
wildeyed, snorting and tossing,
gods in helmets and jodhpurs
barely hold them to earth.
It wasn’t always that way.
Naturally there were always
pet horses, Beamers and bays,
chestnuts, Audis, with stable boys
to polish them and rotate their shoes.
But back when horses were things,
there were used ones too – dusty,
tattered saddles, rusting trim
and tangled manes, bumpers sagging,
mufflers dragging, treadless hooves,
hanging heads. And grinning salesmen,
lying odometers. Horse doctors.
Tow trucks. Glue.
15. Fall Migration
Tidy perfection
of your plumage:
that white throat
gold spot
behind your bill
black stripes your crown.
north
south
north
south
tiny feathered pendulum
I wonder where you’ve flown
dangling from my hand
by one pink foot
upside down
feathered pendulum
your bright eye lately
hauled away by ants.
I wonder where you’ve flown.
16. Mineral Point
Turkey day small town
improperly warm rain
mist and dripping trees
historic sandstone houses
stand already winter bleak.
Looming old Methodist church
streaked blocks cut black
from the heart of the mines
ignores the neat brick
Episcopalians next door
to frown down High Street.
Ahead of me in the fog
jog two young blondes
escorted on tiptoes by
a springy white poodle.
Sleek thighs and dayglo jackets
fade puzzlingly into the haze
of a future – theirs, this town’s,
this planet’s – in which I
will not be present.
17. Greenland Is Melting Away
...but no worries;
for every stream we spray
into the dry air of Vegas
or splash over our cars
to ripple away
and sink in a sewer,
a brand new river will rise
heavenly blue in Greenland,
tumble a mile or two
on the snowblind dome of ice
and spin down a moulin
to the sea – to the sea
that can never be full.
18. The Martian
Just as round as our own
and even more helpless,
it hangs out there, a red
brainstorm on black velvet.
Of course it’s not home;
but still – valleys and hills,
empty sightlines, sky
almost blue, improved
by two speedy little moons.
Our ancient modus operandi,
tried and true:
Leave this midden to the old
and slow! Start fresh!
Much simpler and cleaner
than cling to a used-up world
and try to muck out the mess.
19. Amendment II Rosary
Autumn Sunday morning; the trees
in this park are nearly bare.
Sunlight fills the spaces
left by falling leaves.
I’m alone in the drifting air
and what would be silence
if not for sparrows
and the faithful at the nearby range
blasting their prayers to the breeze.
20. A Dream of Unassisted Living
It’s not so much the fear of losing you.
I’ve slotted that now and learned
to make it fuel whatever will glow
in today and tomorrow.
But despite the memories
of Rome and Bergamo,
the shadow grows of a final trip,
when, never mind our vows
and even though I hold your hand,
I’ll know you’re traveling somewhere
alone and beginning not to care.
21. Sensing the soul’s departure, the cat
Eventually I had to give up toys and Santa Claus The Boogie Man
wizards square-riggers talking animal guardians and being read to
soda cottoncandy amusement parks fudge chocolate desserts
four bicuspids and one incisor virginity hair not eyebrows
orangejuice football passion baseball eggs meat
cigarettes pipe weed squash basketball parents
aspirin sleeping all night twisting bending
stooping walking burritos orgasms
wine anything that tasted good
enemies friends reading
sandals lifelong lover
sleeping waking going
to sleep waking up
politics clothes
nakedness music
hearing seeing
understanding
standing up
talking tears
being read to
impatience
cleanliness
curiosity
caring pain
yesterday
dreaming
breathing
cats
22. The Doctor
Seventy odd years ago
a man was intimate with my mother
and with me, as with so many others.
She’s only dilated that much
he told my father, making a circle
with thumb and finger.
My father went out for coffee.
Much later the doctor laid the damp mass
of me on my mother’s breast. My father,
thinking he had a son, went home
and, for her, painted the kitchen
the wrong color.
After that brief conjunction
my deliverer went on about his work
of piloting tens or hundreds
of my sisters and brothers
to the open sea, and then went under,
decades ago, unknown to me.
Today, somehow, I feel his touch
on my wrinkling skin, and wonder
who where he was and went
and how so much space
and time contrive
to wedge themselves between us.
23. Life Companions
First, I hasten to say,
it’s not her job. But my PJs
emerge from the dryer
with pockets inside out;
they’d hang like hounds’ ears
on my hips at night, useless
for holding kleenex
if she didn’t patiently
tuck them back in.
It’s only a few seconds.
I could do it myself
without even thinking.
But seeing the pockets
corrected, I know
exactly what she feels.
And it’s not my job to peel
my avid socks away
from her nylon panties
just out of the dryer.
So much for the job description.
24. Glass Mountain
Half the height of Aconcagua,
a third of Chomolungma
but still, eleven thousand feet,