Category: Poem of the Day

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading the daily poems, with a special thanks to those who have offered their comments. You are a small but selective readership, and highly appreciated. However, I have been contacted by a member of the Trump administration and asked to write and deliver a poem at the 2021 inauguration. As you can imagine, this is a great honor and I will be spending all my time and creative energy in the next 21 months composing this poem, and won’t be able to continue writing daily poems. Some of you may ask if I have a problem participating in that inaugural, given comments I’ve made about the president in the past, but I know you can all understand that there are times when expediency must trump principles. Thank you again.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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How do you tell someone you love them?

How do you express that ardor

Without taking the easy way out

And using those letters–L O V E.

It’s not a matter of finding a synonym

In a thesaurus, it’s a matter of finding

The color, the sound, the tactile quality,

The aroma, the sense of being lost

In a place where you and that person

Are the only residents, a place where

Silence is music and movement gives

Forth an unbearable heat. It will melt

You into a state where you can be

Poured into each other, hot potions

That will cure indifference and banish malaise,

And make the world, for just one moment,

The dazzling gift you have always believed

That you deserve.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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Who are you? Why don’t you speak?

Didn’t you heard the whistle of bombs,

The staccato of bullets,

The cry of a mother whose child

Lies buried in smoking rubble.

Are you blind? Can’t you see the

Red stains in the dust of the road,

The ribbon of earth that must be owned,

Controlled, subjected, pacified.

Can’t you feel it shudder?

You say we are the lucky ones.

Where others die without warning,

We expire peacefully, the breath

Leaving us in frugal gasps,

When we are old and wise.

Where are you going? Do you know?

The road is smooth and wide,

The sky above is deep and placid,

But who are those people trudging

Along like domestic animals

Herded to an unremitting fate?

Are you one of them? Do you taste

The hollowness in the air,

The flutter of the leaves that

Drop, one by one, to the astringent,

Ravaged ground.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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I opened my presidential campaign

With a speech that I wrote with a quill pen

And ink I made from frozen blueberries

And vinegar and another ingredient I’m

Keeping secret for reasons that I’m not

Prepared to disclose. I chose this method

To evoke the Founding Fathers, those

Great men of the past who approved of slavery

And didn’t think women ought to vote and used

The words Thus and Heretofore and Whereas

And a few too many times.

I rehearsed the speech for my wife,

Who fell asleep after the first paragraph,

Which, admittedly, went on for half a page.

My audience was then the dog, who doesn’t

Bother to vote and would rather gnaw

On a stale bone than keep up with current events.

I aimed for an exalted tone, beginning with,

“Nothing I say here will be long remembered,”

And moving through some platitudes about

God and Homeland that I consider hogwash

Although I’m bright enough not to say that

Directly, but to imply it through subtle employment

Of metaphor.

The state of the union, I said, is so bad

That nothing can redeem it. In other words,

Nothing I can do as president will make

A fig’s worth of difference although I promise

To appoint a Supreme Court justice, if I have

The opportunity, who at some point in his or her

Life has watched Beavis and Butthead and laughed

Out loud. Or in the alternative, who has worn a

Shirt wrong side out for an entire day without noticing

That fact. Anyone who has gone to Yale will

Be automatically disqualified for the court

Or my cabinet or any other government position

Which I am entitled to fill. I have no personal

Animus toward that institution, but enough is enough.

I was ready to conclude on a soaring note,

Talking about the need to investigate everything

That hasn’t already been investigated, which,

I admit, may not amount to that much, but

At that point the dog sat up and began to bark.

Shut up, I said, and being a good dog she complied,

Which gave me an idea, an addendum to my speech,

A promise that when any cabinet member or

Senator or aide or constituent says anything about anything,

I’ll just tell them to shut up.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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The parrots come screeching over the back yard,

A pair of them, mates perhaps, or siblings.

I looked in Wikipedia, they are monogomous,

But like us? Highly imperfect, veering after

Another of their kind, caught in the fantasy

Of a thrill that might soar but sooner or later

Will land with a thud. They live in the

Giant fan palm down the block; the man

In the nearest house brought out his gun

And tried to shoot them; he was driven mad

By their loud shrill colloqies but his

Neighbors failed to understand, they warned him,

The police would be called if he tried again.

The man moved and the parrots stayed,

Their green feathers glossy in the sunlight,

Their cries of ecstasy or anguish or maybe

Just rote noises like the dog’s bark that

Erupts for no reason in the middle of the night.

Or no apparent reason, I should say,

Because how can we know what enters

The canine brain, the skull of the parrot

With its prehistoric beak, useful for cracking

Nuts and seeds, I learned, a fact of no

Importance, no utility in a world we believe

To be of our own making when it fact it

Belongs to the parrots that screech from

The regal heights of their lofty tree.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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I asked the dog why she barked at the moon,

And she said, because it’s the moon.

You’re begging the question, I said.

Didn’t your mother teach you anything,

When you were in the kennel?

She gave me that look I take to mean

Give me a break, will you.

Why is the moon round, she asked,

And I wondered if it was a trick question.

I said, I don’t really know, come to think of it.

Don’t know? she said. Are you kidding me?

The moon is round because it’s the moon!

She had been standing but now she sat,

Proud of herself, I suppose. Deserving a treat.

That’s another logical fallacy, I said.

Circular reasoning. Surely you learned that somewhere.

At least I had an answer, she said, sounding miffed.

You didn’t know anything.

You didn’t even try to figure it out.

Okay, I said, it’s out there spinning in space

And over millions of years all the corners

And high spots get worn off and it eventually

Becomes a sphere. How’s that?

Idiotic, she said. The moon doesn’t rotate.

That’s why the dark side is always dark.

I’m very surprised you didn’t know that.

I was certain she was wrong but I didn’t know why

So I decided to change the subject.

Why do you chase cats, I asked?

Because they’re cats, she said, and she shook her head

And went off to her favorite corner to lie down.
 

 © Dennis Hathaway

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The eucalyptus leaves twitter against

The dull, flat sky. Is the sun’s absence

Punishable? The brain awakens more slowly

Than the muscles, the bones, the tissues

All twitching with energy pent up

In the inert but harrowing night, while the brain

Lumpen and inactive in the skull,

Sends rote signals here and there,

Without reflection. Random movements

Like the cat’s prowling through the labyrinths

Of back yards. Memory, knowledge, beauty,

Truth trapped on neural roads closed for repair.

It’s like the gray nest of wasps secluded in the eaves,

Light, sound, color, movement pokes it, keeps

Poking it until tractable thought comes pouring forth,

Buzzing, swarming, an angry chaos that erupts

Into the murmur of imagination, into speech, into

The reckoning that carries the bones and tissues

And organs into the tunnels and passages

Of another gray and bewildering day.

 © Dennis Hathaway

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