............
.........The Poetry Of.
.......................................... Richard Brooks
......
.........
............... The Magic Flute
.............
............. Here's what happens. I've seen it
............. often enough and been part of it on more than
............. one occasion: you take a geezer, there
............. behind a screen so no one sees the
............. the yellowed choppers or the
............. liverspotted hands, and you give him
............. a flute.
.............
.............
............. Not any
............. ordinary flute, but a
............. really extraordinary one. The kind that
............. has the keening, heartbroke, wideopen notes
............. and you rub it down- rub it
............. down with an ointment
............. fathers pass to daughters with their first kiss,
............. when they were fleshbloom new and pink in crack-cried
............. wonder at the world; the unguent
............. every woman has a memory of from rasp cheek/soft cheek
............. baby coo
.............
............. and you make that oiled, magic flute
............. play songs she's never heard or not heard
............. much in years and before you know it, you'll be purt
............. near god in her eyes. The same
............. can be done with words but I'd have to say
............. it's a dang sight harder; men
.............
............. long past their prime
............. can still move mountains in their angry waning
............. as they long to feel the slide of skirt
............. brush against their bended, bony knees
............. like Galahad, gazing
............. at the Grail.
.............
..............
..............
..............
..............
.............. Ten Again
...............
.............. Once worries were
.............. how long it'd take for a popsicle to melt
.............. in the Saturday June heat from Dowlrey's Store
.............. to the baseball diamond. Worries were
.............. how many million lightyears a comet could streak
.............. before the odds it hit
.............. slap
.............. damn
.............. right down in Cleveland. That's the kind of thing
.............. would occupy an evening under stars that wouldn't quit
.............. in a life to last
.............. forever
.............. and just heartsick
.............. for the every little
.............. all of it.
..............
..............
..............
..............
..............
.............. Spilled Milk
..............
..............
.............. Looking through a shoebox of old pictures
.............. at a flea market, Sunday, I began to cry. This was
.............. not only embarrassing because after all
.............. I knew no one in the sepia colored, cardboard captures of
.............. young girls in dropped-waist sailor dresses, or dogs
.............. probably called Pal or Buddy. Mutts with cocked ears,
.............. smiling in that dog way for the man with his head stuck
.............. under a black drape saying.....And...............smile!
.............. as the flash powder shot up and time froze for a moment-
.............. no, it was not that. It was the fact that in shoeboxes, old
.............. chifforobes, everywhere on the bottom of closets, hidden in attics
.............. dank in cellars there are millions of frozen moments
.............. where life was caught breathing so
.............. desperately, breath held
.............. while the camera clicked, got it right,
.............. trapped the past on paper for some old fool
.............. to find and cry over
.............. not even knowing why.
...............
..............
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