Salvaged Shipwreck  Beverly Koepplin

I am a salvaged shipwreck.

For years upon years, I sank, then drifted

sometimes heavily, floundering on the bottom, scraping my hull,

sometimes drifting with the wind running through the seas, at their mercy,

sometimes still and quiet in the murky waters, blindly waiting

until the currents lifted me and let me go.

Barnacles fed on me, sharp teeth nibbling at my rusty shell,

the creatures of the sea swam around and through me,

heavy green seaweeds beribboned my bow and floated around me

like tendrils of sea road showing me the way away

but still I waited until the currents lifted me and let me go.

Sometimes, not often, the few graces I could find lifted me up

so I would see light on the surface of the waters

thin and yellow and wavering and tantalizing.

But then I would sink yet again, wallowing in the troughs of despair,

Waiting for the currents to lift me and let me go.

One day the waters rolled magnificently below me

and with a mighty thundering roar heaved my tired and aching hull up and up

and gently set me on land, on a craggy ledge of rock that held me,

until I could find my legs, until I could see a clear path to walk,

and I waited no more for the currents to let me go.

I am a salvaged shipwreck.

                            ***

The Courtroom of a Fool - Robyn Makaruk

I’m the Royal Court Jester, a slave to humor

The Monarch's entertainer

Delivering riddles and rhymes with no substance

Offered in pantomime by this indentured clown.

A licensed Fool, clown to society. 

I am summoned to appear and perform,

to prance and dance and serve up antics and jokes

for the pleasure of the one who owns me.

Hidden truths as riddles is all that I speak

For payment returned in applause and false respect.

The smile tattooed on my face

Hides a heart that carries an empty bag

But when I twirl and whirl and dance to distraction

The endorphins rise up rendering moments of sanity. 

In these moments of joy 

This courthouse is my stage

And all the forbidden liaisons shared in whispers 

behind fluttering fans

By the audience of painted puppets

do not diminish the mastery of my performance, 

for I am the Monarch of the Moment

But when the day is over and I go to my cell

my antics lie dormant and I return to my lot

That of a slave to greed and sinister jocularity.

The face in the mirror stares at the stranger

Reminding me of my unique station in life.

                           ***

Out of the Ashes - Beverly Koepplin

I walk out of the courthouse, heart pounding,

traverse the bank of steps with suddenly shaky legs,

and collapse on the nearest bench, limp and nerveless.

It is over, this torture of a marriage, that time of my life,

those years - those decades actually - of miserable nothingness.

I should be glad, I should feel free, I should be dancing.

I sit still, trying to stop the world spinning so fast,

trying to think of how I should feel in this new time,

trying to recapture long-ago years of just being me, if I ever was.

In an effort to settle myself, I gaze around the courthouse lawn.

Off to the side, workers are clearing brush, heaping dry branches,

setting a small fire which soon billows up brilliant flames and rolling smoke.

In one quick flurry, a big dark bird hurls himself into the sky,

lifting up, so it seems, from the flames of the burning pile,

and clearing the clouds of smoke in a seamless high glide up and up and up.

It all happens so fast that even as the bird soars out of my sight

I wonder if it really happened at all, this phoenix appearing to me now,

when a part of me is dying while a new part of me is being born.

How can I die and live at the same time?  I do not know,

but I rise from the bench on suddenly strong legs,

and walk on solid ground toward  the horizons of my new life.

Like the phoenix, I will arise from the ashes and fly high.

My new feathers will glisten in the orange rays of the sun,

and I will know, as the phoenix does, that to be free is to live.

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

                              ***

Fitting the Pieces Back Together -John Field

Old friends clean and neat            

And full of responsibilities 

Rust holes in my memories

Each time they ask me 

If I ever killed anybody in ‘Nam,

My tragedies average, they suppose.                                                                

Machine gun bullets cutting down legs, 

Zigzaging up bodies.            

I dream double, 

Fall asleep in San Francisco and wake up 

In Saigon crowded with the ghosts 

Of thieves and lovers—trees, buildings,

Pedestrians, even their shadows burning,

Pouring clouds of smoke in the sky.

That’s why I think about dying young

On summer afternoons when the sun 

Beats down on my skull 

Like a blackjack wound, 

Minefields studded with the stumps

Of amputees instead of trees.

And am not surprised

When October’s blazing colors,

Always a godly sight or almost so,

Tell my hungry eyes no 

Before they ask--followed by 

November nights 

Without an address or an alibi

Lost in a maze of one-way alleys 

No map will ever master,

Knowing I’ll spend the rest of my life 

Hiding behind chalk marks 

On locked doors

Unless I slide my health forms

In the right slot, take my Meds

And stop believing the bad-ass lies

Cocaine whispers in my nose.

Then remember the 58,022 names 

Engraved 

On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

And try but not very hard

To get on with my life.

                 ***

Lounging Beverly Koepplin

I was lounging, unabashedly and without remorse,

even though I had writing to be done, 

plants hoarsely crying for water,

and a kitchen floor screaming dirty words at me.

And this is how it all started.

I laid down on the sofa to contemplate lounging,

soft pillow under my head, 

a bowl of ripe round glistening cherries at hand,

And a slight, temperate breeze caressing my bare skin.

I thought I should look up the meaning of the word “lounge”

so I would know exactly what to write about.

Grabbing my smartphone (also conveniently at hand), 

I accessed my Dictionary.

“Lounge” means to pass time, idly and indolently,

To rest or recline indolently, loll,

To go or move in a leisurely, indolent manner, saunter.

I decided I could lounge, it seemed doable,

and I also decided I liked the word indolent a lot.

It seemed to go hand in hand with lounging.

While I was trying to find the perfect position 

in which to lounge,

the house phone rang.  It was not conveniently at hand.

I got up grudgingly to find the handset, 

vowing to return to lounging ASAP.

Seconds after I abruptly terminated the call 

from an insurance salesperson,

I was back on the sofa, conjugating the verb “lounge” thusly –

I had been lounging, and I was currently lounging.

And when the doorbell rang, I muttered to myself 

“and I will be lounging again.”

After I got rid of the earnest young man 

who could sell me steaks at a good price

because he had been delivering them next door 

to my neighbor (ha!), I returned to the sofa.

Making sure the house phone was close and my door locked,

I laid down again, rearranged the pillow, 

and reached for a cherry.

Ah, I thought as I dangled the cherry above my mouth, 

I could grow to like lounging.

I decided to give lounging some more time 

to be sure I had the process right

I snuggled deeper into the soft pillow, 

turned my head to the breeze,

and let my mind drift hither, tither and yon, almost indolently.

At some point, the drifting found a home in sleep,

and I awoke to discover that, yes, I could indeed lounge

and that furthermore my writing was all done 

in my head and needed just to be put to paper.

As I got up, I thought to myself that I could definitely

Find room in my future for more indolent lounging.

After all, I seemed to excel at it.  Who knew?

A Courthouse of Fowls  Michael James

A cousin from England is staying with me for a few days.  Today I took him to the coast, straight to Bodega Headland, where we had difficulty holding open our car doors against the thrust of a 35 knot blast from the north-west. Hunkered down beneath the logs supported on concrete blocks to prevent cars from rolling over the cliff edge, two ravens eyed our approach as if measuring our auras for colors denoting our generosity. My cousin marked the particular insecurity of the lesser bird, how it seemed to defer to its companion as if to an older brother. I took out of my backpack a couple of good chips and walked gently up to the birds holding out my offering. As soon as they became uneasy, I flicked one under the log where it was immediately seized by the older animal, snapped in half, and the hard, jagged pieces swallowed one half at a time without a blink of the steady black eyes.

Cousin and I hiked up and over the headland, staying a little away from the cliff edge in case a gust of wind were to pick up my tottering steps and throw them over. It was hard sledding for this old bod and I was happy enough to sit on the ground and wait for his return, enjoying the silver sheen of the sun flickering on the waves as they rolled down from the north to crash onto the rocks below.

When we returned to the car I observed how pleasant it was to get in out of the wind; much as I love it, one tires of it when it is so strong and steady. I suggested we drive down off the headland to seek a more sheltered spot for lunch. The bay was much calmer than the top of Bodega Head, and we found a picnic table immediately. A few gulls standing or lying around the table notified us of their presence and great need as soon as we sat down by opening their beaks wide and screeching at us in falsetto mode.  My requests for quiet being soon observed,  I opened our lunch bag and laid out the victuals and drinks. A circle immediately formed around us as if we were guests in their courthouse whom they welcomed with much raucous cawing. 

I spoke to a few of the gulls near me urging them to shut their beaks if they wanted some scraps; two complied at once, a lovely mature bird with brilliant white plumage, trimmed in black, a white and yellow beak sporting an orange spot near its tip, and another bird dressed in the usual drab brown feathers and black beak of immaturity. I tossed scraps of my tuna fish sandwich to one of them at a time, apparently convincing them of my harmlessness, for they hopped up on the seat of the picnic table to retrieve scraps from the table top. And it wasn’t long before both of them became bold enough to get up on the table itself, from where they then had to ward off flock mates diving in for treats.

Feeding seagulls in the past had convinced me to be wary of those beaks of theirs, for the top part carries a pointed hook which can pierce the skin of a finger tip with ease, not intentionally, but just because the birds strike to catch their prey like a snake darting out of its coiled position. So I addressed my feathered new friend much as I have spoken to dogs looking for treats. I told the bird in a friendly, calm voice to take it easy, not to snatch, and that it would have seconds if it took the food gently. Then breaking off a little piece of my sandwich and holding it between thumb and forefinger, I stretched out my arm towards the animal and held it there.

The bird did a little foot shuffling, all the while looking at me with those passionless, unblinking eyes, black of pupil, yellow of iris, moving closer to my extended hand, withdrawing a moment, moving feet. Then all at once the gull committed itself and moved smoothly and gently to take the morsel from my fingers without even touching them with its beak. 

“Good job!” I told it, and broke off another piece, this time with some tuna fish on it. The same little dance occurred, though not as long, and a similar easy retrieval of the snack took place, leaving my fingers intact. I was elated! Junior moved in to pick up little pieces dropped from the catch. So I tried to coax him into a civilized feeding too. He wasn’t such a quick learner or quite as brave. I had to flick pieces to him though he was still on the table.

The feeding continued until my sandwich was consumed, though admittedly mostly by myself, the walking having given me a good appetite. But I still had chips and an apple, though I could not imagine a bird being able to consume chunks of that firm fruit. Both tried; however their bills had insufficient leverage to reduce the pieces to pulp so they could swallow them. The chips they broke into manageable morsels demonstrating the use of their beaks as tearing and pecking tools. And when the remaining chips were only in small pieces, the gulls bent their necks so that the sides of their beaks were flush with the table. There I noticed slight bulges on either side, perfect for scooping up crumbs.

Like raptors, the eyes of Jonathan Livingstone were almost in the front of his head, providing him over 200 degrees of vision and giving him that peculiar appearance of a hard stare. I was left wondering if it was this determined and hypnotic look that had separated me from my lunch.

As I sat there staring back at the bird, Jonathan Livingstone seemed to place a query in my mind.

“Besides their usefulness for binocular vision, why do you suppose we have two eyes”?

“I can’t imagine,” I answered perplexed.

“So that we can look at the finger pointing to the moon with one, and at the moon with the other.” With that he spread his wings, caught the wind, and sailed straight up into the sky which was too bright for me to follow him.

                                        ***

Labyrinth  Robyn Makaruk

I’ve named my brain Labyrinth.

It doesn’t contain a minotaur or other monster

And hasn’t needed a tune-up, yet

Although sometimes it feels like it.

But it is a real maze, 

With lots of pathways

And sensors blinking on and off

Toggles, if you will,

And neurons, firing with purpose

Reminding me to do this or that 

When and if I go astray.

Most of the time it keeps me out of harm’s way, 

But when I stray off the right path

It will set up a pounding hammer

That lets me know, ‘no, no, no!

You’ve made the wrong turn.  Go back!’ 

I like my brain 

And I’m going to take very good care of it.

Feed it three healthy meals a day

And make sure it gets enough sleep

Although its nighttime activities

Are different from mine.

It goes off on space travels

Careening around the Cosmos

Checking out all the Stardust  

Making sure there will be room for us 

To join all that went before, 

But only in due time.

                   ***

My Lookout Point  Beverly Koepplin

I climbed to my lookout point today.

I had decided yesterday evening that today was a good day to do that.

I arose earlier than usual this morning, ate well, dressed comfortably

and made sure I had a good bottle of wine laid aside for my return home.

Climbing to my lookout point is never easy

and as the years goes by, it is a harder task to undertake.

Nevertheless, I girded my loins and took the first step

on the path that would eventually culminate at my lookout point.

My climb started easily, and I felt an almost childish delight

at the adventure that was in front of me.

Peered around the corners, looked at the sky,

laughed as the clouds took on fanciful shapes of animals.

And then the path got harder as it slowly ascended,

and I found myself tripping over small unseen rocks,

and thin hard twigs buffeted my body as I struggled upwards.

A slight misty fog filled the air, but I did not waiver and kept true to my path.

The landscape, when I dared to look at it between small, slip-sliding steps,

was darkly gray and black and ashy white

and stick-like trees with charred bark stood sentinel

over what I did not want to imagine and really did not want to know.

At the next turn, the path smoothed, and I stopped to rest.

The fog had thinned, the landscape had turned green and the trees were leafing out.

I could hear water rushing and birds chirping somewhere in the distance,

and I gathered hope close to me as I started out again.

Ever nearing the top, the path wound upward

and the turns came closer together so that my eyes were constantly on the ground

lest I take a wrong step that would catapult me over the steep cliffs

that now lined the path in jagged walls of time-layered rocks.

I knew only that the landscapes varied as the path did

and in the short smooth stretches I caught glimpses

of sometimes the small patches of the barren lifeless lands

and sometimes the green smooth reaches of verdant meadows.

As I got close to the top of my lookout point,

the path widened and leveled out so that I could almost stroll.

One more turn, I told myself, just one more

and I will reach the point where I can look out – over my life.

For the journey to my lookout point is not a physical trek.

It is a path through time from the visions of my soul over the years of my life

to the reality of what I actually see with my eyes when I reach the top.

Today’s trip was, as it always is, arduous and long.

But I can say, quite confidently, that things are looking pretty damn good.

                                             ***