Come Casual

Standing by the water’s edge, I think
Of her and cinch my collar close to void
The chilling breeze.  She said ………..

    Mist, so fine it fails to fall but taunts
    My face to let me know it’s in the air,
    Veils the distant shore, a quarter mile
    Away or more, while ripples lap beneath
    My feet and roar in miniature relief.

                    …………..I had always
To be right, everything was black
And white.  I never thought myself that way.
I wonder why ………….

    Darkened trees on the opposite side present
    A belt separating skirt from blouse,
    Preventing water from touching clouds ashen
    In a canopy that folds low overhead.
    I never knew so many shades of gray.

          ………….. I was oblivious to see
That which now she finds repugnant in me.
Yesterday I felt so confident in myself.

                                    rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Rolling up the interstate,

Cruise control on seventy-eight,

North to Lexington, K. Y.

Dark enough for headlights on

And light enough for ashen sky

To outline billboards zipping by,

The chevy gobbles highway strips,

Spits them out of straight rear pipes,

And the radio pounds out sixties’ gold.

I was drinking, I believe,

The very night I proposed

Marriage on a New Year’s Eve,

A long time ago.

Spontaneous words at the time

Issued from a muddled mind,

Yet some innate internal guide

Recognized that by my side

Sat an angel.

Was she sent to serve a sentence

And I put here to be her penance?

I suppose I’ll never know.

Time as best I can tell

Is motion perceived as change

Relative of another to me

However still as I might be.

But what if both remain the same?

Then decay assumes the name.

So change is not to be deprived

Nor time denied.

Damn, I missed my exit.

              rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Sweetness of the morning, a breath of air
Drawn and hardly noticed, if at all,
By youthful haughtiness presuming its entitlement.
Of more concern, social events of the day -
Who’s going to be with whom and what to wear.

Tomorrow’s dawn brings just another day
When its beauty is made common by endless supply.
Mortality, when all vistas extend out of sight,
Is only a word, understood without true comprehension
From urgency induced by time’s forsaking way.

Passion of the loins grudgingly releases its grasp,
Not by choice, to passion of the heart and the mind
Where yearnings are compressed against the wall of finality.
Each minute, each second, relentlessly squeezed until,
Surely, most truly cherished are breaths drawn last.

                                        rlkilgore

Comment to     rlkilgore@chartertn.net

A few will understand this, many will think
they do and some will haven’t a clue.

                  Every man in a life
       Should know the love of a woman,
A love with passion sustained beyond the night,
          Each day a melody made sweet
With love more devoted than to its own breath,
      That soars above the surface of self
And breaches the gates of heaven so any man,
       Fool as he might be, may see within.
     A love when lost, as in its time it shall,
                   Never to be again.

                            rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

rlkilgore@chartertn.net 

This poem was written for an elderly lady, Haydee Cansada.  She was born into position and wealth in Cuba, but had to leave when Castro came to power.  She lived in a small apartment in our town to be near her brother, her closest remaining relative. I took Spanish lessons from her and the reference to an owl comes from a discussion we had about why the owl is a symbol of wisdom.  She longed for the chance to see Cuba again but it never happened.  I wrote this for her as a present while she was still alive.

          Caribbean Blue

  (a Haydee, una dama de Cuba)

Fog of morning rolls up from the ground,
Windless motion that carries no sound
Except the hoot of an owl.
Out past the porch where ought to be trees,
Hangs abstract forest without any leaves,
Shrouded in a misty cowl.

Down the front steps, grass, smooth and deep,
Soft, wet and messy, adheres to my feet
And bends temporarily prone.
The air had texture that rubs on my face.
My God, how have I come to this place
To be so all alone?

Symmetrical webs perspire in the light
Reflecting labors completed last night,
Designed not to hinder the view.
Beauties of Spring, their colors in array,
Just memories masked by this curtain of gray.
Vainly, I strain to see through.

At last through the mist an unfiltered ray
Of sunlight cleaves cleanly, announcing the day
With its welcoming light.
Slowly, above, the veil changes hue,
First lacy, then pastel, then Caribbean blue.
Again the beloved sight!

                                  rlkilgore

Two old men together
In a small cafe downtown
Near the corner talked
About good old days.
They talked of being in the same
First grade and their competitions
Through the years of school,
Competitions for grades
Where one became salutatorian
And on the football field where
One starred as the receiver.

They talked of competition
Over girls, especially Sarah
Whom one eventually married
While the other remained a bachelor.

They talked of their businesses and
Accomplishments, each proud
In his own way of his.
Two old men in a cafe together,
One drinking coffee served by the other.

                                  rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Have you ever seen a gentlewoman
Having sex with a man,
Flat on his back with a broken leg
In a cast, confined to bed,
Racked with pain and violently thrusting
And bucking like a brama bull,
Nostrils flaring, spittle flying,
To throw her off -
And she, spurring that cast with her heel,
Rides him like a cowboy?

Oh, gentlewoman, how could you?

                          rlkilgore

Not so unlikely cousins, time and anguish,
One of which there’s not enough and the other
In abundance. If I could I would
Chose to hibernate, to sleep away
The pain and steal for life another day.

I would cling like the dew forming
Drops to fall from petals at my leisure,
Denying morning’s regimented haste
To press the scheme of day, and rather bask
Contentedly, defiant of the dawning’s task.

I would seek to lie in restful slumber
If it portrayed in glimpse eternal rapture
Free of tedium, binding the eagle’s flight
With constraints only the heavens endow,
Free to soar wherever dreams allow.

rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

Today a love was consummated
with promises to honor and love
and possibly obey, I couldn’t say
exactly what the vows consisted of.

The reverend droned with relevant
admonitions for the lovely pair.
Oh, my little girl,
my little girl with the golden hair

Pulled back in a pony-tail,
shining laughter, knowing no shame
from missing front teeth - it seems
memories most vivid appear in a frame.

“Do you take this woman?”
Oh, little girl rest your head on my chest
for a perpetual moment,
for an infinite caress.

“Do you take this man?”
No! My heart jumped with a start
of desperation. “No,” I shouted,
but my lips betrayed me and failed to part.

Today a love was consummated.
Flushed with rapture, the lovely pair,
with wholesome intent, stood wrapped
in a legacy of love, unaware.

rlkilgore

rlkilgore@chartertn.net

A small, dusty Texas town where no trees grow
Without being watered was OK for a sixth grade boy
Who did not know any better. There was no link
To the outside world with television so I
Didn’t know much anyway.

Barracks type buildings from the closed, World War II
Army base had been moved and converted
Into class rooms on the grounds of the junior
High school - and that was OK too.

We six graders started band in one of those barracks
And I played the clarinet. I played clarinet
Because my mother had found a used one cheap.
The problem was mine was shiny metal and the other
Clarinet players had black ones.

A boy named Gene sat next to me
In the clarinet section. He sat one seat closer
To the front row because he played a little better
Than I did. Gene was not corpulent
But he was somewhat overweight, I would
Call him soft. He was not athletic
And walked with a shuffling, pigeon-toed gait. His hair
Was a lighter shade than blond but I don’t believe
It was white. However, his most remarkable
Feature was a silver metal cap on one of his front
Teeth. I now know caps like that are the most
Inexpensive way of fixing a broken tooth.
He smiled frequently and pushed his glasses up
With the backside of his index finger. He
Was not one of the in-crowd and I was.

Gene and I had a conflict, the cause
Of which I don’t recall - nor what happened
Afterward. Regardless, I was trying to prove
To him I was somehow better off
Than he was.

In our town movies changed three times a week,
One on Saturday, one on Sunday and one
(only your mother would go to) in between.
I told Gene I went to all three movies
Every week. (This was a lie - I only
Went on weekends). He told me he did too.
Desperate for something to one-up him with I
Said at least I did not live on the north
Side of the tracks. He probably had never thought
About where he lived. He just stood looking with a wide-eyed
Stare like someone who had been stabbed in the heart with a knife
And was still alive to feel It. I had won.

The memory of his face burns in my mind
And haunts my heart so I cannot forget.
Gene, I am sorry.

rlkilgore

            I paused my walk of a hillside path
                To catch the morning glow,
              A distant crest with haloed sun             
                  And valley spread below.

            Close by flowers of yellow and red,
                  Dispersed in fields of grass,
              Gently swayed belying the breeze
                Stiffened by Springtime’s grasp.

              My eye lulled first on those nearby
                  Then rose above the crowd
        Where colors flowed and, blending as one,
                  Showed less bold and loud.

              Contented, I left my mind at ease,
                    Unfocused eyes to stare,
            With naught but feel the hand of God
                    Through my tousled hair.

              Suddenly, in flurry of wings and wind
                    A covy of panicked quail
              Exploding in flight from unseen peril
                    Startled me from my spell.

            When next I looked the sun’s full bloom
                    So reigned in blinding splay,
                The tranquil scene before now gone,
                      I turned and walked away.

                                          rlkilgore

Why glamorize a shooting star
Stealing swiftly through the darkened night,
Fleet and silent as a craven thief
Streaking so to cheat the dawning light?

Flashing thunder booms its flaunted pride
To emphasize with aplomb and flair
The bolt harbors no timidity of the star,
Yet neither leaves sign of ever passing there.

                              rlkilgore

This was written for a friend who recently passed away.  I was able to visit him about three weeks before he died.

Dreamy river, which way you flow concealed,
Indiscernible with the stillness of the air,
And ripples chased by the lightest breath of breeze
Belie your intent.  Only below, beneath
Your quiet surface, is your true course revealed.

Far away, on a distant mountain crest
Or sage covered prairie, your birthplace where
A single drop of rain finds its destiny,
A drip, a puddle, a trickle, a stream exploring
Each hollow and crevice, seeking unattainable rest.

Disdaining decorous shape, your surging swell
Grows, rising, strengthening, rushing, supplements
Of each gully and ravine quickening
The current to marauding pitch, undeniable,
Unyielding, nimbly accommodating each travail.

Your torrent plummets in cascades where boulders impede
Orderly passage, here quickly, there slowly, each spilllway
And eddy swirling and gushing in anguished impatience,
Single-mindedly driven, plunging in headlong
Pursuit to satisfy an ocean’s insatiable need.

Dreamy river, your tumultuous race to the sea
Now adjourned, your waters, deep and settled, have earned
This peace. Rest by my shore and warm your body.
The glistening sheen of your placid surface sparkles
Where your seminal raindrop smiles - and winks at me.

                                              rlkilgore