It is about an hour before sunset, which will actually be a sunset tonight. This town, where most folks here forget is first and foremost a seaport town, has been May gloomy for almost two weeks. i like it. After all, i can feel and smell the sea in the mist that the marine layer blows inward. But the skies cleared in the late afternoon. i sit in the backyard. It is refreshing. That sea wind is blowing cool. The temperature is already hinging between the high 50’s and low 60’s. i have on a light sweater. It’s not enough. i used to have a earthen chimaera here but it cracked long ago. i’ve yet to replace it because we can’t quite figure out what we want for outdoor heating, a must of outside sitting in the Southwest corner evenings. The world is green. The agpanthea are  beginning to bloom their purple and white. The sage under the breakfast nook window is healthy and will soon attract our hummingbirds for breakfast viewing.

Maureen is watching an interesting movie in the family room.

i came out to write my Democrat column, the third from the last.

There are several other writing projects i considered.

But i sit here in the cool and reject the idea of creating. There is enough creation around me. It occurs to me that twilight is not bad in oh so many ways.

So i will just put a couple of poems i wrote in 1965 in the space remaining. Sit here in the cool, listen to Duke Ellington on my bluetooth thingie, and enjoy before giving it up and going to bed.

This was written when i was smitten by a beautiful young woman in the summer of 1965. She and i took a Southern Literature class together. Mr. Evins, the professor and a thin, bald, old man, read the antebellum novel So Red the Rose by Stark Young, through most of the classes. The young woman sat to the right and one row in front of me. i spent most of the classes surreptitiously watching her and wondering how i should introduce myself. My opportunity came when i had to wait for Jimmy Hatcher to complete a class so we could commute back to Lebanon together. i went to the student union/cafeteria and saw her in line. i went up to her as she waited with her tray and introduced myself. She recognized me and for a moment, my opportunity seemed golden. That’s when i looked down and saw her hand had an engagement ring. C’est la vie.

a furtive glance at what might have been

winsome woman
sitting there
unaware
of eyes drinking in your beauty:
don’t you know the hollow pit
which constitutes
and
reputes
all emotions running amok
in my soul.

your olive skin
smooth as custard
compliments
the large black pools
fools have named eyes;
the long silken hair
blacker than Poe’s dark bird
shine in the dim light
of the cramped room.

then you smile,
white teeth flash,
to splash
the pale red lips
with soft humor:
somewhere deep down
a whine of mine
begins to swell
into a moan,
and
then, like roaring thunder,
attempts to crash
from my lips
in a bleating, pleading frenzy
but
i conquer the cry,
settling back to enjoy
your tender presence
for the short while
before
we go our separate ways.

for you see,
yesterday,
i noticed your long graceful hand
and
know you are taken.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee
October 1965

i’ve always been drawn to irony. i wrote this on one of my thousands of trips to Nashville, most likely to Vanderbilt for another Saturday with my friends. The poem was generated by the view of the city at the base of Church Street when coming over the Shelby Street bridge from U.S. Highway 70, better known back then as “Lebanon Pike” by Nashvillians going east, and “Nashville Pike” by Lebanonites going west. i did not include the large ad painted on the side of one building which encouraged me to by “Goo Goo’s.”

Noticings

Have you ever noticed
cobblestone streets
always run beside
auto dealers
and
dirty brick buildings
with the name of the warehouse
painted on the side?

Nashville, Tennessee
1965

Several comments about my post “That’s not my dog” made me to decide to visit Cass once more.

The first is what i wrote within days before i had to put him down. The second was my way of dealing with what has to be one of the saddest days of my life.

Cass’ ashes are part of the base of my flag pole at the top of our hill, looking over his domain. The pole went down hard in the February winds. i’m working on a newer, stronger version. It will go up, i just don’t know exactly when. But it will go back up. It’s a tribute to Cass.

Old Dog Gone

i am not sending this to you because i need solace or support. I do not want your agreement nor disagreement. i am sending this to you because i want to share my feelings at a critical moment of my emotional well-being. I want you to know how i feel because you are my friend.

My old dog will be leaving soon. It will be my decision as to when. i will take him to a clean, neat, well-lighted room, and hold him while these well-meaning, kind and helpful people inject him with an end-of-misery liquid. He will not know. i will. For the first time in my life, i will be in total control of the situation. It will be the most miserable day of my life.

Hell, i’ve had some pretty miserable days in my time, but without fail, part of the misery was because i wasn’t in control. This time it is totally my decision, although i will give time and age a partial credit. Worse, i must interpret how he feels about all of this, and for 15 years all i could figure out about how he feels is that he really does love me, he enjoys people and he is, literally, one stubborn son-of-a-bitch.

Now i’m not a pets’ rights advocate. My oldest daughter gets that from her mother, not me. And there’s nothing wrong with that either, especially for these times, but i do believe in the natural law of the animal kingdom. i also recognize dying is part of the scheme of things: damn near impossible to avoid. But here i am putting more worry into this old dog dying than some people worry about killing other humans.

Ole Cass is a fine dog, even noble. Even yet, he’s noble though the eyes aren’t clear, the legs are hobbled by big dogs’ bane, the ears don’t hear. He has taken to yelping to gain assurance that i am near by.

Have i mentioned he’s stubborn too? Won’t go like most dogs do. He keeps on hanging on, noble-like, never giving up.

But lord, what a magnificent, splendid, independent cuss of a dog he’s been, a joy for 15 years. Pain in the ass, sure, but a joy.

i never have owned him. Yeh, i bought him, even tried to train him. He took what he wanted and discarded the rest.

But now, he can’t tell me he’s ready. He can’t tell me the pain and the lack of freedom outweighs the benefits of breathing. i must interpret, act in his stead. There is no living will to guide me. He is not totally incapacitated, just enough so to require me to make decisions about his quality of life.

He has chased the rabbits, run over the possums, played with the coyotes, caught the polecat, outfought the doberman, body-surfed to the delight of the crowd, dug holes that would awe the “diggingest dog,” damn near caught the roadrunner. No more.

i am reminded of the last morning i spent with Ray Boggs, a hero in my mind. Ray was in his last day, and, despite the morphine that was deadening the pain, he knew. He was not big into big, dramatic productions, and i think that early morning talk with me was what he wanted. While i sat in the respond mood only, he began an engineer’s analysis of the curtain rod hanger around his bed. His static and dynamic breakdown was methodical, mechanically engineered, correct, and accompanied by my nods and grunts of agreement. He neared the coup de gras of rendering this curtain rod hanger a most ineffective product, when he stopped, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “But hell, it’s only a curtain rod.”

So now i must deal with a curtain rod, when in certain moments it seems to be the hanger of the universe.

And it is all so irrelevant because soon ole Cass will be a good dog gone regardless of my decisions. And my life will be a bit easier but a bit more empty than it’s been in a while.

Then i will be able to deal with my belief that dying is a part of the life experience and that we must deal with our dying and other dyings as a consequence of living, not a tragedy.

It will be easy then, but not now.

Bonita, California
September 7, 1999

Cass Done Gone

a part of my soul left today.
the stubborn, ole cuss of a lab was more me than him
i worshiped the way he defied the world
until it no longer mattered.
some people told me
i would know when it was time.
i did not believe until
that silly old dog told me two nights ago and
told me last night it was okay.
he has been my mirror, my dreams, my soul
fifteen years.
i could tell him me like i can tell no other.
i am not ashamed of crying, feeling lost.
my granddaddy would scoff:
it isn’t the way it was back then.
there is an emptiness in my soul.
i am really not sure i’ll recover.
yeh, the pain will go in time;
the emptiness will be covered by events passing by,
but the hole will never be filled,
he was one of a kind to me.
he was me
he is gone.
i will bury his ashes at the top of the hill behind the house.
you can see the beach where he body surfed;
you can see the trails where he ran with abandon,
scaring hell out of coyote, rabbit, possum and birds alike;
if you turn around you can see the home he ruled
welcoming unknown people as if they were long lost friends;
taking on all dogs who foolishly entered his territory:
the doberman, the big shepherd, and all other intruders
stood clear after one encounter .

my feet feel cool now.
for most of his life, he would lie under my desk,
while i read, contemplated or typed with
his head resting on my feet.
the silence is awkward:
even in his sleep, he would grunt, wheeze,
kick the walls, chasing something in his dreams,
my dreams.

run sweet dog again;
pant with delicious tiredness after chasing the blues away;
scan the field with those keen sparkling eyes that
always read joy to me;
catch the next wave to bound into the bubbling surf
shake the misery with the salt wetness
from your coat of gold;
lick the face of someone
to give them unmitigated joy.

goodbye, sweet Cass.
goodbye, you joyful part of my soul.

Bonita, California
September 13, 1999

Inspector Clouseau (Peter Sellars) was told that when he said, “I thought you said your dog did not bite,” in “The Pink Panther Strikes Again.” It remains one of the funniest lines i’ve ever heard in a movie.

It is also the way i think of Cass.

i have had dogs for pets, not as many as most, about six by my count. i have loved them all, enjoyed them all.

But Cass was not my dog.

We lived together for fifteen years. We played together. We walked together across the high desert lands. i chased him. He chased me (along with about every critter he ever came across). He body surfed while i watched. i carried him on my shoulders when he was too tired and refused to walk. The damages he caused are legendary, especially when it came to Maureen’s prized possessions.

i have more tales than most about Cass.

But Cass was not my dog.

i have had many friends. Still do. Many remain close. i hope they are not insulted when i say they are not my closest friend.

Putting him down, even though i remain certain it was exactly the right thing to do, is the toughest thing i’ve ever had to do in my life, and i’ve had to do some pretty tough things.

Even today, tonight, as i run across a photo of him, he remains not just my closest friend, but part of my soul.

But no, Cass was not my dog.

i wrote this in 1963. It initially seemed a bit strange to me as it sounds so much like my first experience with the Santa Fe Station here in San Diego, but i was not in the Santa Fe Depot until at least the 1980’s. Then i remembered. In early June 1963, my parents took me to Nashville’s Union Station. There was no train involved, but at the time, Trailways Buses had a station in the old depot. As a third-class midshipman, i took a bus from Nashville to Newport, Rhode Island. i could have flown but reasoned (well, may reason wasn’t really involved) i could take the money i saved and use it for other purposes. i blew it all. The bus went through Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and probably several other places. i left Nashville noon Saturday and arrived in Newport around 7:00 am, Monday morning. There are a couple of other stories around that trip. But i’m sure this poem was generated by a scene in one of the bus stations on that trip. i’m thinking maybe Louisville.

A Lonely Thing

the huge room with the high ceiling was virtually empty;
the loud speaker’s bark echoed with a hollow ring;
the black night air was forlorn, almost chilly,
the bus’s muffled roar was a lonely thing.

the old man with ragged shoes sat down in the wooden seat,
his odor was of the musty, smoke-filled air;
he picked up the butt of the nickel cigar and caressed it,
lit up and stroked his long, near-mangy hair.

the huge archaic clock showed it to be early morning
as the speaker throated huskily once more,
the old man arose, straggled out of the entrance;
alone, he gazed back through the glass-paned door.

i am now beginning to post poems i posted before the great crash and were lost or i never put them out there. i hope you enjoy them as most are different from what has been on this site…i think. i wrote this one in 1962 after being dumped by someone. i was a romantic then and must confess i haven’t changed all that much.

Do You Know

Do you know
the whole world is dark,
but there is light in the sky?
something inside
indescribable
brings peace but no calm;

Can’t you feel
the world around?
it’s appalling
to know you are alone;

Is there anyone
who feels the same you feel?
all in the world
must feel something similar.

See the red barn;
the barn is red;
the sun sparkles off the tin roof
painted black with
white letters broadcasting
“See Rock City;”

let us go to Rock City and live in the world of wonderment.