BIG SNOW

AT THE POST OFFICE

"I'm the last leaf on the tree."

                        Tom Waits

Looking for the old time post cards,

Marissa, the postal clerk

I've known for years, tells me,

We have what you're looking for

but they're not old fashioned.

Plain, but postmarked, I say,

I want to use the commemoratives.

Laying stamps out before me

I have all but Repeal the Stamp Act.

If you have Repeal the Election,

I'll take all of the sheets in the drawer.

Had I thought that rather than said it

in the hearing of the banal clerk in the next window,

had I thought it in silence,

the white misogynist's poisoned offering

Lock her up,

wouldn't be stamping me days later.

Jim Bodeen

2 Dec 2016

MEDITATION ON THE NAME ALEPPO

AFTER IT BEGINS SHOWING UP IN CHRISTMAS CARDS

There is the Aleppo Boil,

lasting a long time

and leaving a deep scar.

Wiktionary etymology,

from Italian Aleppo,

from French Alep,

from Ottoman Turkish,

halep, from Arabic halab,

of uncertain origin.

Folk etymology,

from Arabic halaba,

gave out milk,

coming from tradition

that Abraham gave milk

to travelers moving through.

Jim Bodeen

20 December 2016

BEFORE THE ROLLER SKATING PARTY IN UNION GAP

Did you see the video of your granddaughter

last night, looking at the stars? my wife asks

as I come in from shoveling snow to rest the back

and warm my cheeks while reading the news story

of county votes Statewide, looking at enrolments

in health care. It seems the poor have voted

themselves out of coverage. The writer for the Times

asks the question, How much are we obligated to care?

He resurrects sarcasm from Mencken:

Common people know what they want

and deserve to get it good and hard.

Shop talking journalists trace it all

to radiating fear and loathing against liberals.

On this day my granddaughter turns nine.

Jim Bodeen

10 December 2016

SATURDAY MORNING, TALKING WITH A NEIGHBOR

Blaze lives around the corner

in the next block, walks his dog, Luna

by my place while I'm out

shoveling snow. Give me a little Luna

light, I say, my glasses already dark

from an hour in snow. About that name,

Blaze, I say, can you say something

about those parents who named you?

I can, he says. Mom and Dad

are in Michigan. Dad was in school

studying philosophers. Blaze Pascal

is who I'm named after. Yes, I nod.

"Men never do evil so cheerfully as when

they do it from religious conviction.

Jim Bodeen

10 December 2016

THE WEEK THAT SNOW COVERED

up November, friends check in

with reading lists and detailed plans

to carry them deeper into the young century.

Flush with new books myself.

Early December, Guadalupe's name day

after the weekend, I can already hear

trombone and tuba marching

through dark streets. Body of Water,

Dead Souls, Montale's Complete, 1925-1977.

Elegance of designed dust covers.

A full year into following an old word:

Banal. Banalities. Poshlost in Russian.

Melville's Clarel, longest American poem,

threads needle towards 2020.

Jim Bodeen

10 December 2016

SHADOWLIGHT IN TALL TREES BEFORE SOLSTICE

Snow came with its beauty, but it came early,

and the cover-up was only partial. Going alone is paradoxical,

as it includes mail, and while mail is no guarantee,

it is packed and cared for as survival gear.

Side light, then. Mid-afternoon, mid-December,

after big snow. Fresh snow.

Real cover this time. Astonishing.

Sunshine hike on skis, in Paradise.

Thighs talking to the eyes, who don't even try to listen.

Jim Bodeen

19 December 2016