Hurricane Lodge

I found a 1950′s guide called “100 Desert Wildflowers in natural color” in a July 4th sale in the Barnard Town Hall. The gaudy photos and text have inspired an ekphrastic-like series — I am up to 15, the “Parry Agave.” Here’s an early draft and photo (not the book’s photo which didn’t scan very well).

Parry Agave

Parry Agave

She brings gifts of Mescaline, Tequila
and a Mexican beer called Pulque. Burn
the stalks in a pit, go off
into the mountains, mix it all up
together and the sky burns,
dusty hillsides fill with yellow snow,
cacti turn into husky-voiced women,
desert crows begin to sing
some crazy song only you understand.
The din grows, the old ones appear
out of nowhere, light obliterates
the dark and your skull splits open.

This is a once
in a lifetime party.

Given how many innings the Sox bullpen is putting in these days,

this poem seemed to beg for a visit from the dugout.

He’s in the Bullpen

Perched in my usual haunt, Section
24, Seat 28, I can just see the far expanses
of left field, grass so manicured that at first sight
some forty-five years ago, I thought
it was a lime green sea, dead calm.

Ghosts are everywhere in this ancient
park, they flitter up underneath grimy
rafters, down steamy corridors near
the cheap seats yet nothing is cheap here.
“Sell your tickets, go to Paris instead,”

my wife says; maybe she doesn’t love
baseball? Late innings, tight game, stare hard
into the Sox bullpen. I can barely see
Dad sitting quietly, far corner of the bench
next to the pitchers.  He whispers “just throw

strikes” as they get the call, jog
in from right-field to take the mound.
Blink, top of the ninth now, look
so hard it hurts, rub the sweat
from your eyes. He isn’t there anymore

but I know I saw him holding court
that special way that was his alone.