Lightning Bugs

Surely lightning bugs are evidence of some fairy dust magic.

Ever an atheist, I rank them amongst the holiest syncopated miracles:

Haley’s Comet, Old Faithful, Great Migrations, the Aurora Borealis…

Fragile pupil-sized creatures orchestrate twinkling candles, multiplying

layering flickers, crescendos illuminating night’s respiration.

I’ll know yet my privilege is lost if when amid shadowy meadows

no swell in me is risen upon first sight of their brief iridescence.

Further, he who pauselessly dismisses a firefly without a trace of wonder

is touchless to me and nary worth more than my detached compassion.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Solesistic

“Buzzz! Buuuuuuzzzzzz!”

Announcing, the intercom.

His delivery: balanced skillfully,

sliced pizzas and cheesy breadsticks.

Trots away, tallying the cash.

Papa John’s Pizza baseball cap.

Except for that, he’s all pressed

slacks, belt, oxford, business casual.

“Doo---owoup!”

Unlocking, heavy doors.

Gingerly sits down: well maintained

silver 2008 sleek Lexus Sedan.

Drives away, dropping the windows.

“We'll steal away to the dark end of the street…”

Crooning, James Carr.

Cap comes off: salt-n-pepper cropped

slim, sixtyish, six-foot, black man.

*Solecism

1.  an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; also:  a minor blunder in speech.

2. something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order.

3. a breach of etiquette or decorum.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

By Comparison

We first met just a few hours ago.

Pointing to a faded scar on a thumb, telling of

teenage bravado totaling your dad’s truck;

and I gather it’s your big near death tale.

I meet your expectant too-casual glance

acting the appropriate level of awestruck.

Nowadays you work weekdays for your friend

while he takes vacations with the wife and the kid.

Your solitary weekends spent on home improvement projects,

“I’d get a dog,” you say, “if it weren’t for the gym after work,”

cause of course you’re gonna lose that “recently” gained weight.

Finally, you ask me a few automatic questions,

and without decoration I answer matter-of-factly.

A long margarita-sipping pause, you lean back and remark,

“Boy, your life’s pretty exciting!  Mine’s boring by comparison.”

Something about the way you say it…

My first thought was, “I haven't even told you the best parts!”

My second thought, “You’re quintessential middleamerica, I bet.”

But I stop at my third, growing uneasy and suspicious,

“Yeah, I know what you are, now.”

“Have you ever watched crabs in a bucket or barrel?”

I silently ask while stuffing down an enchilada.

Unspeakingly I persist through a dulce de leche dessert,

“Your proximate existence claws at my upward momentum,

drags me down to your complacent crawling towards

what-the-fuck-did-I-do-with-my-life deathbed regrets.”

We finish our coffees and give good-bye back pats,

each knowing the other would soon willingly forget

as we drive opposite directions out of the parking lot.

After all, you felt sucked down to the barrel’s bottom.

And I felt like an escapee scuttling back to the ocean. 

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Lovely

You look lovely with your

cocoa powder skin and

soft-sheen nape-length hair

black and effortlessly sweeping

your forehead reminiscent

of a 1950s-era soda-pop shop

background character.

Your pure white dress

cotton embroidered eyelet

fitted to the torso sweetening

at the hips into creaseless waves

for your knees’ peekaboo game.

Your mustard demi-sweater

sheltering shy shoulders

at modesty’s request 

(modesty cannot demand).

Lovely, I hope you are happy.

Ahead of me in line

you mutely purchase

your red leaf lettuce

and green leaf lettuce

and single cucumber.

Your beige hosiery

wrapping up cocoa calves

into humble suede pale

brown flats - your go-to

shoes for every occasion.

Your makeup-free fresh

face modestly adorned by

pearl post earrings and

clean-lined brows framing

unassuming dark eyes

meeting no one’s beckon.

Lovely, I hope you are happy.

Too often someone visioning

as lovely as you is just

pleasant-faced-masking

over a pain-filled life endured

nobly with passive grace.

Lovely, I hope you are happy

for my sake as much as yours.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

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Soto

Imagine a Samoan, like an NFL linebacker.

Not quite that tall, but like,

three-hundred-plus-pound-round-balloon big.

Imagine four thick rich basted brown turkey legs

for arms and thighs stuck out of his t-shirt and shorts.

His bouncing belly flap drags below the hem,

but he never self-consciously tugs the tee down.

Then you notice his insouciant smile and bright eyes,

proportioned like three holes in a bowling ball.

Technically he’s young, but you don’t consider his age –

a trait dwarfed by the master status of his

size, dark skin, and good nature – in that order.

He's not a Samoan, though.

He’s a Puerto Rican.

And he likes to cook.

And he loves his wife.

And his name is Soto.

Soto lumbers up to home plate lazily swinging

the bat like Fred Astaire with his cane.

He rocks the slugger up to sit on his shoulder,

the grip and the knob lost in his hands.

Soto shows he’s ready by just nodding twice,

but nothing else moves towards the pitcher.

Except his slow-motion head and dark eyes,

still not a twitch as the first ball flies by.

The second is the same

and the pitcher looks smug.

The third was the same

if you didn't look close.

But the bat’s on the ground?

And the ball’s in the air?

Landing far onto another field’s diamond,

it empties loaded bases and puts Soto on third.

The same Soto did all three times at bat,

over and again before the end of the game.

And afterwards Soto spoke of cooking Chicken Alfredo

as he gathered his wife and mopped off his brow.

Smiling and placidly saying, “Goodbye,”

Soto and his wife lumbered away.

And we thankfully smiled back at Soto –

our lip-smacking ball-cracking triple-sized guy.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Big Plans for the Weekend?

Any big plans for the weekend?

“Oh nothing much,” I sigh.

“I’ll muddle through somehow.

  Just a few obligations."

I’m sure. I’m sure. What are they, pray tell?

“A little banquet on Friday…

  I must give a talk

  About how I saved those rare little animals

  from a flood, a mudslide and a big rock.”

That’s great! Good for you!

“No no. Really it’s nothing. No big to-do.

  Now Saturday! I play Polo in the championships.

  But I’ll have to leave early out of Palm Springs.

  Maybe I’ll fly or perhaps take a train?”

Oh my. Why is that?

“Well, I don’t know if I can make it -

  A soiree in the Hamptons.

  It’s my best friend’s birthday party.

  Really, I shouldn't miss it.”

Then I do hope you make it. My weekend-

“I’ll probably stay overnight?  

  Then I can catch that luncheon in NYC.

  I really don’t know, we’ll just have to see.”

The luncheon? I’ll bite. What-

“Yes. For the Top Twenty Poets of 2016.”

But it’s only-

“Then Paris that night, I’m off to my show.

  It’s my newest collection: Springtime Essence.

  Now of that I am proud, so I simply must go.”

Jeez, I was just asking a simple quest-

“Then early on Sunday I’m up and on the run.

  Take the Chunnel from France to a Christening in London.

  Just a small family affair, nothing too fancy pants!

  I’ll be a godparent to my first cousin’s eldest son.

  (He’s only fifteenth in line for prince of Great Britain.)”

Well, congrats to you? Oh look at the time!

“But thankfully I’m back in my Midwest flat

  To start back at work on Monday at noon.

  So yeah, nothing too big. Why? What will you do?

  Any big plans this weekend for you?”

No. I have not. Nothing worth saying after all of that!

“Well honest to gosh, neither do I.

  But now you know how I feel

  Every time that question is asked,

  When all I have planned

  Is reading and a few household tasks.”

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Elementary Schooling

In every classroom of my elementary school,

Unpartitioned panes of glass from hip to ceiling stood.

Over and over the learning days

Through quiet observing and landscape gazing,

I shutter-snapped portraits of a changing world,

Collecting unplanned lessons within my mind’s eye:

Compressed for safekeeping, reduced to locket-size.

Until even now onward, some thirty years plus,

When presented with an architect’s constructed vignette,

Instinctually I’m instructed, as birds are to nest,

To study and write or contemplate that window’s habitus.

I find it irresistibly appealing

This elementary schooling

Gained from simply framing

A transparent pane of glass.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Three Hundred Miles Away

The night air bit

And the tulip had already closed her petals tight

Around her private parts.

While I waited

For the dogs to do what housedogs must

Before going to bed,

I stopped shuffling,

Tipped up my chin beyond the purple horizon, not

Stopping 'til I saw black.

Closing my eyes

Gently, the raw breeze on my cheeks and tousling

My hair strands,

I thought of you

Behind me slipping your arms through my akimbo limbs

Past my pocketed hands.

I felt you

Warming my thin body against the cold with yours tightly

Wrapping around me.

For a moment, until

A whimper brought me back to ready dogs with sudden

Wind snapping.

Eyes coldly open,

Your arms disappeared. So, upstairs to sleep, leaving the

Fragile tulips behind.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

No Longer with You

Summer is hard, because I remember

hours in lawn chairs sitting

and discussing countless ideas for listening

that I now never hear from you.

Fall is hard, because I remember

your crispy-popcorn candy roasting

and baking chocolate pudding pies for eating

that I now never taste from you.

Winter is hard, because I remember

soundly built hearth fires burning

and selecting fresh Christmas trees for adorning

that I now never feel with you.

Spring is hard, because I remember

chicken eggs marked for hatching

and mothering mares birthing foals for watching

that I now never see with you.

April and May wept, because I remember

brother with me twice burying

and smelling cut daffodils atop dark dirt for sleeping

that she now forever lays in with you.

Scent is a ninja, with bottled

sense memories like throwing stars injecting

your fermented spirits into our being

that nevermore lives with either of you. 

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

Cur Children

We’re watching a young man, in his khakis and wedding band,

Chasing hurriedly in loops his bantam-sized pooch,

"Theodore, Theodore," he’s repeatedly beseeching,

Whilst clutching in his arms another that’s screeching.

My dogs slowly spin and I stand like their center pin,

Their wide eyes silently fixed on the rude rotating jinx.

Then a dreadful thought occurs as I bemusedly watch them –

These spoiled rotten curs he’ll someday swap for children!

  

"Spoiled Rotten Baby"

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

He Knows

She’s restrained

by his body.

She’s silenced

by his hand.

She’s wounded

but he knows.

The pet name
He whispered

told her so.

        ~Volpini Amentum Arete Anemone

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