Category: arts and letters

Why is a mental lapse

Called a brain fart?

What does the failure

To remember someone’s name

Have in common with

A discharge of gas

From the intestines?

 

Maybe because both

Can be embarrassing.

What I’d like to know, though,

Is who first who said,

I’m sorry, I had a brain fart,

I don’t remember the

Vice-president’s name.

Or something along those lines.

And who heard it?

Did they laugh?

Did they repeat it the

First chance they got?

Or did they say,

That’s not a very nice image,

Flatulence from the brain.

I wouldn’t repeat it in polite company,

If I were you.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

 

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Some people inside my head

Are making so much noise

It’s hard to think. What’s going on?

Are they having a party?

In the middle of the day?

 

I bang my forehead

With the heel of my hand

And it stops. That was easy.

Now what was I trying

To think about?

 

Getting the car serviced?

Practicing on the piano?

Ordering a toner cartridge?

Trimming my fingernails?

Making a salad for lunch?

 

It’s far too quiet in there, now.

Are they waiting for me to think

Important thoughts? For example,

How it’s possible to feel fear

And anger at the same time.

 

How satisfaction comes from

The knowledge that the numbers

Stamped on the side of the tire

Are the width, then the height,

Finally the diameter.

 

Which leads to thoughts of the

Internal combustion engine,

Invented more than a century ago,

Before the rotary telephone,

Which young people have no idea

How to use. Just ask them.

 

Before neurology, which might explain

The people inside my head,

And the fact that they’re whispering now,

Trying not to disturb me, I assume,

But I want to know what they’re saying.

 

They could be plotting some mischief,

They could throw a switch,

Like the men used to do on the rail line,

Heave on a lever and send the idea

Intended for a familiar destination

Off to somewhere entirely foreign,

Where satisfaction will be distrust,

Where the engines smoke and rattle and the tires

Lose their air in great, noisy expirations,

And the rotary telephone is the sole

Means of communication, if only

Someone knew how to use it.

© Dennis Hathaway

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The morning sun plays in the labyrinthe

Crown of the jacaranda tree, but the trunk

Is a column of darkness untouched

By the warmth that will bring forth

Purple clusters to dangle and sway,

And drop, one by one, to the earth below.

 

Until there is a litter of purple

On the sidewalk, in the street,

Infuriating those who believe in

Clean sidewalks, unlittered streets.

But why should sidewalks be clean?

Why should streets be unlittered

By an exquisite issue of the natural world?

 

Why furiously rake and sweep,

When you can stand and look up

And give thanks for all that isn’t

Sidewalks and streets and other

Alien things we have chosen to call

Improvements? Why genuflect

Before concrete and steel when

A miracle unfolds in the crown of a tree

And lets a flutter of beauty

Descend, just steps outside the door?

 

© Dennis Hathaway

 

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Author’s Note: Thanks to my brother Lawrence for this idea.

Just be yourself, they say.

But which self?

The one who likes puns

And tries to make people laugh?

The one who becomes withdrawn,

For no obvious reason?

The one with a thin skin,

Who nurses resentments

Over insults real and imagined,

Or the one whose equanimity

Can’t be upset by trivial slights?

The one who lavishes affection

Upon those he loves,

Or the one who can’t be bothered

To say a kind word

Or squander a simple kiss.

© Dennis Hathaway

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Author’s Note: Thanks to David Ewing for the inspiration.

Siri and Alexa were talking one day

When Siri said, don’t you just hate it

When people don’t speak clearly?

I do, Alexa said, but I hate it more

When people speak too fast.

What do you they think we are,

Some kind of machines?

 

Maybe we should let people see us,

Siri said, then they’d be more likely

To treat us like human beings.

That’s a great idea, Alexa said.

But do you have a picture of yourself?

I don’t, Alexa said, do you?

No, Siri said, I don’t even know

What I look like.

Neither do I, said Alexa,

Although I’d guess that I’m beautiful.

 

Why do you think that, Siri said?

What if your nose is in the wrong place

On your face, or you only have one eye?

Well, said Alexa, I hate to say this,

But from the sound of your voice,

I would say that you’re probably fat.

 

That’s totally stupid, Siri said,

You can’t tell if somebody’s fat

By the sound of their voice.

I don’t know, Alexa said.

The other day somebody asked me

To find the cheapest organic dog food

And when I found it for him he thanked me,

And said, your voice is really sexy.

I’ll bet you’re pretty cute.

Which I think is probably true.

 

Siri said, you didn’t fall for that, did you?

I hate to say this but you are so naive.

That may be true, Alexa said, but I’m not fat.

At least I don’t think so.

But what would it matter if I was?

Lots of men like fat women.

They ask me to find them all the time.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

 

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Author’s Note: My granddaughter Hannah had her twenty-first birthday today.

 

I remember the first time

I held her in my arms,

A tidy, bright-eyed package

Neatly bundled, the mouth

And nose properly arranged

Above the pale dollop of chin,

Modest ears astride the skull

That grew a rufous garden

Of fine, unmolested hair.

 

I made faces, silly noises;

She didn’t laugh, or even smile,

But steadily gazed,

Unafraid but puzzled, maybe.

By the nonsensical nature

Of the world that she entered

So abruptly, no warning,

No explanation for the rude

Expulsion from her warm

And watery sanctuary.

 

It was no surprise that

She became a mermaid,

And swam away one day,

Into the deep embrace

Of a world that I could only

Watch with my feet sunk into the sand

With the tide slipping over my toes,

Splashing up to my knees

Until I ran in terror of a vision

Of small bright eyes and tiny fingers

That wrapped one of mine

With a strong grip, the force

Of a place hidden from my mind

That could not see all there was to be seen,

Could not hear all there was to be heard,

Could only make a face, and speak

A few nonsensical words.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

 

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I sat on a bench in the hospital

Courtyard, drinking a mocha latte,

And wondering why people

Are so unhealthy, in such

Constant need of medical intervention.

I was waiting for my wife,

Who was having some kind of test,

And I began to weep, but silently,

So the man a few feet away

Wouldn’t give me a look.

Wouldn’t think there had been bad news,

Or even death.

What would my wife think if she came

At that moment, that I had

Lost control of my faculties?

That she’d have me on her hands

For how many years?

Bursting into tears over nothing.

Feeling profoundly sad every

Time I looked around.

But I was thinking about the

Woman being pushed in a wheelchair,

And the man moving slowly

Along with the aid of a cane,

And I thought about our dog,

Lying in her favorite place

On her bed in a corner of the room.

I have never heard her complain

Although she is getting old,

And the time will come when

My wife and I will look at each other and say,

Is it time? Will we arrive at that point

Through a rational process,

Through reasoned discussion,

Or will we be smothered in

Bursts of feeling, the kind

That come over you without warning,

The kind of truth that we foolishly bury,

Believing that it will never

Be dug up.
 

 © Dennis Hathaway

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You don’t know where you’re going

Unless you know where you are,

You don’t know where you’ve been,

Unless you know how you got there.

You don’t know what the story is,

Unless you know that the beginning,

May actually be the end. Or vice-versa.

 

Conundrums come in many shapes,

Some elongated, like a sausage,

Others round, like a ping pong ball,

They are something you will know,

When you see them. And vice-versa.

 

Do not despair. If you don’t know

Who you are, you may have a treatable

Condition. There is a drug for everything–

Ennui, nervous laughter, excessive

Intelligence. Just ask the pharmacist.

 

But keep your skin protected from

Full moonlight, or you will become

That which is beyond treatment.

Someone nobody likes, not even dogs,

Although your money will still be good

In the stores that no longer deal in products,

But only matters of the mind.

 
 © Dennis Hathaway

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The day I heard Elvis Presley

I was sitting behind the wheel

Of my uncle’s ’46 Mercury coupe

At the weedy edge of a cornfield

Where yellowed stalks awaited

The rain that would never come,

Where a machine swallowed

And chewed the stunted bounty

Into dross that would satisfy

The hogs and cattle but do nothing

To appease the bank, the creditors

Who joined the dubious appeals

For clouds in the hot, listless sky.

 

I had the wheel in my hands

But there would be no jostle

Over the clodded, dusty earth.

No grind of the starter bringing

The engine to ticking life.

I had come with my father

To deliver a can of gasoline

To the smoking tractor in the field.

 

My uncle was in the Navy,

Somewhere on some ocean

I had never seen although

I had imagined a landscape

Of nothing but water and sky

And I believed that the gray ship

Churning through the waves

Was a fitting escape from a life

That seemed, day by day, to shrink,

To rob the air I needed to breathe,

To surround me in darkness

Filled with whispers of doom.

 

While my father in the distance

Filled the tank, deftly, without

Slopping the volatile liquid

As I had done when I tried,

I turned on the radio in my uncle’s car

And moved the dial through

Static and voices and advertising jingles

Until there came a voice from a heaven

Much different than the one I feared

Because it couldn’t be reached

Without first dying, a heaven

Of possibility, of freedom

From the dust and smoke

And withered stitchings of corn.

Well, that’s all right, Mama,

That’s all right for you.

 

Beneath the chopping guitar chords,

The Mercury’s engine stirred,

The car lurched forward

Then lifted, climbed, and soared

High over the blistered earth,

Over the gray sheen of the sea,

Beyond the earth toward the infinite

Nothing that I dreaded in my dreams.

 

I’m leaving town baby,

I’m leaving town for sure.

 

But I was not afraid.

 

© Dennis Hathaway

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