Overheard

It is really quite odd when you know something about someone that is quite personal, but they don't have any reason to expect that you would know...read this poem for that twist.


Overheard

You can’t be blamed for incompetence
they said to each other, but I disagreed.
Why not? …if someone chose to
be incompetent, rather than being
incompetent through no choice of their own.
We discussed this at length, then,
by the coffee pot, which makes such
a terrible brew, ..who drinks this stuff?
We decided that in this case, the manager
who hired the incompetent person was
accountable, and could be blamed,
not the poor sack who showed up for a
job for which he had not a thread of
aptitude or desire. We had never really
spoken before, although I had seen
his divorce papers at the fax machine one day.
A nice fellow really. I hope we’ll
talk again some day by the coffee pot.

Orbital Debris and Feelings

Seems that the main thing I think about lately is how to protect a satellite in orbit high above the earth from the threat of micrometeroids and orbital debris. Yet, that has little to do with my life as a human being, until I realized how closely they are related.

Orbital Debris and Feelings

Debris is generated by the high velocity impact
of an orbiting satellite with a rogue, uncatalogued
object traveling at 15 kilometers per second.
The satellite is obliterated into millions of shards,
tools, paint chips and spent rocket boosters which,
in turn, orbit around the earth, some at higher altitude,
some lower, with velocities described by a Gebbard diagram.
The unidentified debris of my feelings is generated
by an unexpected high velocity, high impact
collision between my concealed feelings
and his unspoken ones. The shards of this
collision, in turn, orbit around and into our
relationship, until they are further identified
and carefully de-orbited in a fiery descent
back to earth.

Ski Lesson #2

Ski Lesson #2

I didn’t cry this time.
I laughed instead, and
put my skis down flat
sometimes,
and shifted my weight
from left to right
sometimes,
flying down hills
sometimes without falling,
and yes, struggling up hills,
always making it to the top,
Progress, how sweet
it is!

Her Boyfriend is a Republican

I'm delighted whenever my daughter is
happy, but I have to admit I smiled yet a bit
wider when she told me, "

Her boyfriend is a Republican

OH, her voice is so cheery,
my liberal, oh so liberal, daughter,
who organizes her dormitory to recycle,
who fights for freedom of speech
for Che, the ultimate icon of revolution
and she tells me she is dating a
Republican? Mr. Andrew, no less,
a rather proper name, I’d say, a gentleman,
no less, someone with manners, are
there no Democrats with manners out
there at Harvard University? As for me,
I am delighted that my left wing daughter
is dating a nice young man, regardless of
his politics.

The Bathroom Project

The Bathroom Project

when will it be done, I wonder
as I wander through my living room
which resembles the two rooms upstairs
and the downstairs bathroom, since everything
from those rooms resides in my living room
a dissembled desk, a bucket of sponges,
a stack of towels, a medicine cabinet
and boxes overflowing with the miscellaneous
in all our lives, the half used soap, the half
empty bottle of shampoo, a broken chair.
when will it be done, I wonder, as I
step over the broken stair, a beautiful honey color
of newly refinished pine boards, once upstairs
admiring the new blue-grey paint in the back
room, which will be my studio and that the
front room wears its golden coat again,
but the bathroom is not done yet, half painted,
the shower is not tiled, the fixtures yet to be
selected, much less installed, no toilet, no sink,
no lighting, just a beautiful oak floor,
when will it be done, I wonder,
I hope soon.

Join this Group

Last night I started the process of moving our neighborhood e-Group from Yahoo Groups to Google Groups. This is why:

“Join this Group”

The first commitment is to click “Join This Group”
and so many don’t even do that, perhaps confused
as to whether they must click that button,
or if they do, are they committed to action?
Perhaps they don’t remember that sunny afternoon
near my front gate, chatting about the garden and
the neighborhood, and how much they wanted to be
“in the know” and how that conversation culminated
in their desire to write down their email address on
that small scrap of paper they found in their pocket.
Being ever the optimist, with so little supporting evidence,
I assume they are confused and want to be part of the
neighborhood group, and so I stay up late and make lists
and change groups so that I can just add them to the group
without asking them to reconsider or to even make
such a commitment as to click “Join this Group”.

Loading the Dishwasher

This poem was inspired by how four different people loaded the dishwasher this weekend at Snow Mountain Ranch. Everytime I opened the dishwasher, I thought how badly it was loaded!

Loading the Dishwasher

More marriages break up over differences
in dishwasher loading,
he wants to put the bowls in the top rack,
she only wants the bowls in the lower,
wine glasses should never go in the dishwasher
she informs him coldly and he insists
no less rigidly that his knives with the
wooden handles must be washed by hand
and dried immediately. Every day, after
dinner, she clenches her teeth as she
moves the bowls from the upper rack to the
lower, takes out the wine glasses, her expression
turning to glee as she takes the clean knives
off the magnetic strip over the stove and puts
them in the dishwasher, until one day he
tells her he has filed for divorce,
over how she loads the dishwasher.