Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

If memory serves me right it was time for dessert
not to mention a beige cottage house baked into a
shimmering egg crust this happened so long ago last
Thursday or earlier even another lifetime etc.
outside the lemon sun gleamed thinly pungent
a gray haired mutt was turning
circles in the street of course you spoke to it
simpatico of course &
that street really went no place
& that snow wasn’t granulated sugar that snow was
salt in everyone involved’s
wounds &
you were almost gone just then Good -
bye good-bye this is something like
memory, a late winter’s day oh
early afternoon
Then I thought I found love &
lost it & I thought I found love & lost
it walking the floor off-tempo couldn’t
eat couldn’t sleep etc. a country song & so forth the
years passed as they do pass they were
red peonies shedding their petals where Eberle
planted them next to the hammock
& under the cottonwood not to mention a
tune you hear dreaming you can even hum it
you wake up the tune is lost inside yourself
it’s the red red taste
of the best pie you ever ate sad to say that was
long long ago last Saturday you were
                                                      someone else
                                                      & love was different then
                                                      a magnolia in February
                                                      a moonlit railroadcar diner
                                                      an fm radio dialed far left of the dial
& I thought I found love &
did like a ’58 Harmony archtop cradled in my arms & my
lap & found love & sat lonesome & loved & savoring
those last forkfuls of strawberry
rhubarb pie Eberle’s baked again & has spooned on a
blue blue china plate & you don’t know this however the
rhubarb’s growing where now and again a sunset
drips syrupy thru the honeysuckle hedge
& the thorn tree’s growing there too
& that’s all about love after all this Friday &
for awhile
& nothing’s bitter just now only
memory tho memory’s not bitter

Jack Hayes
© 2010

Fondue

A curlew whooping & dipping between the 
dimensions you look up but you don’t see it the 
ghost swooping into the past & future the present’s
so rarely here in my hands the washed-out yellow & purple 

twilight that lasts forever in early July

                                                                a caquelon first rubbed

with a garlic clove then melting raclette I
want to ask everyone what they want in this poem I can’t 

it’s all up to me now the heat lightning the crusts of
bread the swallows zigzagging toward every cardinal 

point the poems
I wrote & may write & haven’t written & won’t the
words you speak when you’re standing outside yourself &
wonder why all the while
                            dipping between dimensions the pale 

purple twilight melts into the space-time continuum
just another Star Trek: the Next Generation episode the USS 

Enterprise suddenly shifting at light speeds into the wrong place at 

the right time or vice-versa—this happens all the time
the consistent heat that keeps the cheese from burning
it could be Gruyère stirred constantly the ghostly twilight yellow 

melting—tinges of purple—it could be raclette the white sky 

overhead awash with curlews you can’t see I want to ask everyone 

what comes next in this poem it’s up to me of course—the words 

you regret—the words we don’t say of course we mean them so 

urgently we say something else a joke perhaps dipping into
the past the future present’s so rarely here—the natural sustain 

of an archtop acoustic’s low E string humming for seconds & 

seconds until you damp it
                                                                by accident the curlew dipping 

between the Gruyère & raclette patches of sky its call
melting into the poems I won’t write
                                                                        in this pale purple twilight 

at some point I’ve held everything in my hands at some points
I’ve held nothing why can’t I ask everyone what they want in this 

poem a thin crust of toasted cheese—not burnt—what remains
the sky as purple as a bruise in the east—There was a
Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode like this

Jack Hayes
© 2010

Macaroni & Cheese

A C augmented chord huffing autumn thru a 12-button accordion when

the evenings are guinea hen gray

                                            we have seen so much & forever is so

short a time really the gusts coming down off Council Mountain full of

geese & swans & now it’s March & you said

“You’re making a white sauce,” incredulously because I didn’t know any better

Yellow marimba mallets bouncing down a chromatic bass line the willow

tree you showed me where to plant is grown into goldfinches chirping all May—

6 tablespoons of butter melting in a copper pot with

                                            flour black pepper paprkia

the willow’s leaves the china jade & honey agate rosary beads the

tree of life—time is moving chromatic & crisp & hollow

along the wooden keys—“Dreaming on clouds of butter fat” you said—

Something about our life & the recipes found in a 1933 Fannie Farmer

Cookbook is both the same & alien—whisking the roux & the white white

sky in July the smoke from the Snake River valley fires

inexorable as a freight train crossing Oregon

                                            as things breaking down

inside & 3 cups of milk which can be 2% fat if you wish

& things breaking down inside the body that is—the milk & flour

thickening in the whisk—a syncopated flute solo starting on low

E recalling how Yellow-headed Blackbirds

                                            sing guttural & vanish

“Is it really 6 cups of grated cheese?” you asked, astonished.

Yes I said yes & I meant it everlasting i.e. a lifetime is how many years the chokecherries scarlet in autumn the frozen fog sculpting the willow in

December the juncos foraging for seeds across the deck a layer of

macaroni (cooked al denté 1st – a layer of cheese—a layer of macaroni topped with cheese & white sauce—repeat—the stoneware pot baked at 400 roughly

45 minutes—you know when it’s done when you see it—

                                            I’ve said everything I meant

to say to you—a bowed bass trembling against your body—I’ve really said nothing

Pasta Alleluia

Lots of people I haven’t understood in this lifetime—
& I haven’t seen olive trees gesturing in breezes
overlooking the Mediterranean like evacuees from Bullfinch

except unmoving—the people I haven’t
understood in this lifetime but loved—& holding my hand a few
inches over the sauté pan I can tell the oil’s ready for the

garlic Eberle grew in the two rows she harvests in June—because the
people I loved I haven’t understood, I was busy thinking
about them—lightly browned, the garlic’s set aside, & chopped morels

our friends left for us added now with ground pepper—of all the
people I haven’t understood & have said I loved
—as the mushrooms wilt & soak up oil—

I haven’t walked where the forest burnt last summer, that’s
where the morels have sprouted amongst the blackened
lodgepole pine—of all the people I’ve loved

nearly the best & almost the worst & not
understood for a minute—& Eberle’s pensive
in her garden picking the spring mix—a simple balsamic dressing—of

all the people I haven’t understood & wanted to—
the chopped Kalamatas add lots of salt—about two dozen—&
the pine nuts & the oregano I never measure—

& Dani says, “I wouldn't wish writing poetry on anyone"—
tho there’s nothing else just now—keep the water at
a simmer so it’s ready for the pasta & it’s time

now—of all the people I haven’t loved well—a
guitar song I wrote for Eberle after a quarrel—the lonesome
train tracks leading everywhere past the Russian Olive groves including

Los Angeles—on the guitar she gave me like
love itself she gave me—of all the people I’ve loved
yes I’ve loved some of them like a guitar perhaps—salting the water—

& there’s another language amongst people who love
& a language to speak about it—talking all night like an
alleluia like a mandocello—

the people I haven’t understood—the pasta’s drained &
tossed—this is so far the hardest poem
before the next poem in this lifetime


Jack Hayes
© 2010

Potato Salad

The sky, too, needs to be white, not exactly an oboe awash in Debussy but maybe a clarinet basking in a Hoagy Carmichael chromatic progression & lolling about in mid-register where the clouds are practically smoky curtains—

& a tenor ukulele strummed in a green canoe in a pond where those clouds are floating topsy-turvy amidst the patches of duckweed—

cilantro, chopped fine, is crucial—the odor of leafing thru sheet music in a used bookstore San Francisco late 90’s & the musty pages & the breezes off the Pacific slightly green with kelp—

some brand of delicatessen mustard—poignant with horseradish—neglected words on any lemonade June day when it seems there are light years at least to say them while a guitar transmits watermelons bicycles Dorothy Sayers’ mysteries beyond the bluish & optimistic horizon—

which is also white though with a yellow patina—the potatoes are Yukon Golds & some say chop them larger & some say smaller—when we were young we were so extraordinarily young like the strings on a baritone uke strumming Blue Moon like a Ferris wheel & the picnic table beside the lake stands empty as the long twilight starts to edge down—

tho really only fresh Ranch dressing will do—the buttermilk warmth— & plenty of ground black pepper—& the sky, too, needs to be blue as worn denim or blue as a Crayola sky blue crayon melting for hours & hours over Golden Gate Park—

& not thinking too much how it all slowly goes into indigo as the clarinet sighs down to low G & below & deeper blue as is most everything else—


Jack Hayes
© 2010

Greek Salad

An heirloom tomato chopped not sliced a scarlet

daylily unfurled—page 27 of La physiologie du goût

in english translation the evening star blooming yellow this

Independence Day & yellow fireworks gesticulating

broadly over Indian Valley a butter-yellow

daylily unfurled—we were walking home from the

end of the world up the dirt road it’s only a

quarter of a mile roughly—a cucumber sliced

unpeeled tho—everything’s raw this evening

                                                                        another evening

the fog rolling southward along Divisidero it was

curtains sewn from cigarette smoke a greek

salad to go from the pizzeria on the corner at

Fulton—the raw raw lonesome air—

                                                                        another evening

the dogwoods budding whitely the smoke from a

Lucky Strike swirling hopeless thru the Virginia twilight the

sliced red onion the pale magenta

daylily unfurled in the garden this afternoon my

life a salad of recollections & flowers—a white plate a

white page speckled with words a white

daylily unfurled—the salad seasoned with

salt ground pepper oregano

                                                                        another evening

drinking Rolling Rock & heartbroken in Vermont a

kid only a kid really the purple sky’s a

bruise above the purple lake a purple

daylily unfurled this afternoon—crumbled

feta & pitted Kalamatas—it’s taken

52 years so far – these daylilies

unfurl briefly—they say Brillat-Savarin

dying left the world like a satisfied diner—

tho we’re walking back downhill

tho the sky’s folding its blue-violet petals

Jack Hayes

© 2010

French Toast

Goldfinches camped out & hectic atop the yokes of
dandelions asked the musical question I
couldn’t catch—the world grows larger some days

the fruit trees blooming white & pink & rustling with
sparrows— the world gets smaller—a kitchen beating free-range
eggs with a fork in a red glass mixing bowl &

how much cinnamon & nutmeg whisked into the eggs these things are
measured in pinches like a dream I dreamed dreaming What
larks! everything’s a laugh—

meadowlarks giggling in the pasture just now
this orange & blue marmalade morning L’amour la poésie
means nothing more than the world transformed thru a lonesome

Hank Williams’ whippoorwill yodel or the paired low C’s vibrating
over a mandocello’s mahogany soundboard
a scrumptious breakfast with sunshine

pouring Grade A fancy amber through the matchstick blinds a peal of
lovely laughter a rupture in the world’s brown eggshell—
the world grows large again back at the ranch I’m

dipping wheat bread into the egg mixture the unsalted
butter skating across the cast-iron skillet the egg-soaked bread
sizzles in goldenly—& orange wedges drip on blue plates my blue

heart my red heart my golden heart opens & closes &
shrinks & grows— the world I know the people I
hold in my heart as it grows & breaks—the

world is el corazón in a Mexican painting the brown
eggshell broken & full & inscribed—the goldfinches
scattering into the blue from the blossoms &

the French Toast’s served with Grade A fancy
light amber like a window—the golden crust this morning
is everyone’s sweet eggshell heartache


Jack Hayes
© 2010

Pasta Alleluia

Lots of people I haven’t understood in this lifetime—
& I haven’t seen olive trees gesturing in breezes
overlooking the Mediterranean like evacuees from Bullfinch

except unmoving—the people I haven’t
understood in this lifetime but loved—& holding my hand a few
inches over the sauté pan I can tell the oil’s ready for the

garlic Eberle grew in the two rows she harvests in June—because the
people I loved I haven’t understood, I was busy thinking
about them—lightly browned, the garlic’s set aside, & chopped morels

our friends left for us added now with ground pepper—of all the
people I haven’t understood & have said I loved
—as the mushrooms wilt & soak up oil—

I haven’t walked where the forest burnt last summer, that’s
where the morels have sprouted amongst the blackened
lodgepole pine—of all the people I’ve loved

nearly the best & almost the worst & not
understood for a minute—& Eberle’s pensive in her garden
picking the spring mix—a simple balsamic dressing—of

all the people I haven’t understood & wanted to—
the chopped Kalamatas add lots of salt—about two dozen—&
the pine nuts & the oregano I never measure—

& Dani says, “I wouldn't wish writing poetry on anyone"—
tho there’s nothing else just now—keep the water at
a simmer so it’s ready for the pasta & it’s time

now—of all the people I haven’t loved well—a
guitar song I wrote for Eberle after a quarrel—the lonesome
train tracks leading everywhere past the Russian Olive groves including

Los Angeles—on the guitar she gave me like
love itself she gave me—of all the people I’ve loved yes I’ve loved
some of them like a guitar perhaps—salting the water—

& there’s another language amongst people who love
& a language to speak about it—talking all night like an
alleluia like a mandocello—

the people I haven’t understood—the pasta’s drained &
tossed—this is so far the hardest poem
before the next poem in this lifetime

Jack Hayes
© 2010

Pasta Alleluia – the Recipe

Time for another poetic recipe from the pages of The Spring Ghazals, wouldn’t you say?

I remember the first time I heard about Pasta Alleluia.  I was living in San Francisco & hanging out one day with old poebiz pal Jonah Winter.  What was the context of the conversation?  It may have had to do with eating well on the cheap.   Needless to say, the name “Pasta Alleluia” really stuck in my mind.

It turns on that the name Pasta Alleluia actually derives from the Leone family—Robert Frost's Banjo readers know L.E. Leone—& it's a Leone-ism for pasta aglio é olio, which as you may know is pasta with garlic & olive oil.  As such, it’s a very basic but very tasty dish; & as L.E. Leone's brother, Chris Leone has described in some detail to me, it can be expanded upon with ingredients ranging from humble to exotic.  In the years that I’ve experimented with Pasta Alleluia, I’ve come up with the following:

Ingredients:
About 1/3 cup of good olive oil: Sorry, but most of the measurements/quantities for this recipe are pretty impressionistic. 
Several cloves of garlic, minced: I’ve used as many as 7-8 cloves of garlic, but Eberle & I love the stuff.  Still, I wouldn’t cut that down too much, since the infusion of aglio in the olio is the basis of the whole recipe.
Ground black pepper to taste: Don’t skimp
A pinch or so of salt: Remember—the olives are salty!
About a cup of chopped mushrooms: or perhaps a tad more.  We’ve used the generic store-bought mushrooms, & fresh morels & the mini portabellas, & they’re all good.
Around two dozen olives, pitted & halved: Kalamatas are the best, but any old olive will do (except I avoid the canned variety).
Roughly 1/4 cup of roasted pine nuts
About a teaspoon of oregano
About a tablespoon of basil
1 lb. of spaghetti (or linguini)

That’s it—& remember: everything after the salt (except the pasta of course!) is optional, & you could substitute any number of items; sun-dried tomatoes would be wonderful, for instance.

Heat the oil on medium & then add the minced garlic (I also reduce the heat a bit when I add the garlic).  Sauté the garlic for a few minutes until it’s golden, then remove the garlic from the oil using a slotted spoon.  I keep the garlic aside in a small dish, because I add it back in again at the very end, but this isn’t absolutely necessary.  Then, add black pepper, salt & the chopped mushrooms; sauté the mushrooms for several minutes, then add the olives & the oregano.  You could also add the basil now if you’re using dried basil.  If you’re using fresh basil, wait until just before serving.  Again, sauté for several minutes, then add the pine nuts.  Throughout this process, I use a medium low heat.  After I add the pine nuts, I turn the heat down & cover. 

This sort of oil-based sauce doesn’t like a long cooking time, so by now you should have your water boiling & your pasta ready to cook.  Cook your spaghetti as you usually would, & when there’s a couple of minutes left for the pasta add the garlic back in (if you wish).  Also add the fresh basil right before tossing the pasta & the sauce.  Drain the pasta, & toss it with the oil sauce.

Buon appetito!  My poem “Pasta Alleluia” follows in the next post.

Macaroni & Cheese (the poem)

Macaroni & Cheese

A C augmented chord huffing autumn thru a 12-button accordion

          when

the evenings are guinea hen gray

                                            we have seen so much & forever is so

short a time really the gusts coming down off Council Mountain full of

geese & swans & now it’s March & you said

“You’re making a white sauce,” incredulously because I didn’t know

          any better

Yellow marimba mallets bouncing down a chromatic bass line the

          willow

tree you showed me where to plant is grown into goldfinches chirping

          all May—

6 tablespoons of butter melting in a copper pot with

                                            flour black pepper paprkia

the willow’s leaves the china jade & honey agate rosary beads the

tree of life—time is moving chromatic & crisp & hollow

along the wooden keys—“Dreaming on clouds of butter fat” you said—

Something about our life & the recipes found in a 1933 Fannie Farmer

Cookbook is both the same & alien—whisking the roux & the white

          white

sky in July the smoke from the Snake River valley fires

inexorable as a freight train crossing Oregon

                                            as things breaking down

inside & 3 cups of milk which can be 2% fat if you wish

& things breaking down inside the body that is—the milk & flour

thickening in the whisk—a syncopated flute solo starting on low

E recalling how Yellow-headed Blackbirds

                                            sing guttural & vanish

“Is it really 6 cups of grated cheese?” you asked, astonished.

Yes I said yes & I meant it everlasting i.e. a lifetime is how many years the chokecherries scarlet in autumn the frozen fog sculpting the

          willow in

December the juncos foraging for seeds across the deck a layer of

macaroni (cooked al denté 1st – a layer of cheese—a layer of macaroni topped with cheese & white sauce—repeat—the stoneware

          pot baked at 400 roughly

45 minutes—you know when it’s done when you see it—

                                            I’ve said everything I meant

to say to you—a bowed bass trembling against your body—I’ve really

          said nothing

Jack Hayes
© 2010
 

Macaroni & Cheese (the recipe)

If you’ve read The Spring Ghazals, or even if you only read one or more of the four fine interweb reviews of the book, you know that food plays a significant role in the poems, especially (& obviously) in the “Kitchen Poems” section.  In a nod to that, I thought I’d share a couple of my recipes (yes, I’m the comfort food cook!) for your pleasure, as well as sharing the poems about those foods.  Today’s offering: macaroni & cheese.  This post is a revised version of an early post on Robert Frost’s Banjo.

As a passable cook, I have a knack— or so I’ve been told—for making a mean version of what may be the king (or queen?) of comfort food, macaroni & cheese—thank goodness, because this regal dish has really been bastardized by the various frozen & boxed varieties now being sold in a supermarket near you; & frankly, even a fantastic soul food joint like the late, great Gravy’s in Daly City, CA served a side of mac & cheese that was no better than “ok” (they did serve the best fried oysters ever & amazing fried chicken, though).

Upfront, I should say that my recipe didn’t spring, like Athena, fully imagined from my brain. No, it relies a lot on the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, 9th edition, revised 1951, which for my money is the best comfort food & pie cookbook going. So if you wanted, you could kind of parse the same thing out from that source; or if you wanted, you could pretty much get the recipe from my poem “Macaroni & Cheese” dedicated to my dear wife Eberle—see next post! But to save you the trouble:

First, don’t be afraid of the quantities of dairy goods you see. As Eberle says, eating macaroni & cheese is “like floating on clouds of butterfat.” So you need to grate about 6 cups of cheddar cheese—I prefer sharp; & you know, the cheese doesn’t have to be artisanal, just pretty ok.  In the meantime, cook 4 cups of elbow macaroni just as you normally would— typically 9-11 minutes.

Now it’s time to make the white sauce, which is one of two keys to the whole macaroni & cheese thing. Melt 6 Tbsp of butter in a saucepan, then whisk in a mixture made of the following:

6 Tbsp flour
½ tsp of ground mustard
¼ tsp of paprika
ground pepper to taste—I like lots

Whisk this to a smooth consistency, then slowly add in 6 cups of milk (see, everything except the macaroni is in multiples of three—what does that mean?), whisking all the while—steady & consistent whisking for those not familiar with white sauce (steady & consistent whisking also for those who ARE familiar with white sauce, but we presume they know this). Bring this to a boil, whisking all the while, & let the sauce boil for two minutes, then reduce the heat & let the sauce simmer for 15 minutes (DON’T stop whisking!) Now those of you who are real cooks no doubt have gas stoves, & so have no problem reducing heat quickly & efficiently. For those of us with electric ranges this isn’t so straightforward. What I do is have a burner already turned to low heat, & switch the sauce to that burner after the 2 minutes of boiling—works like a charm, because if you’ve ever tried to deal with boiling milk while waiting for a red-hot electric burner to lose temperature—well, it’s not a pretty sight. By the way, having a second burner in reserve also works like a charm for rice made on an electric range—it’s pretty much foolproof.

By now, you should have your oven heated to 400 degrees. You assemble the ingredients as follows in an oven-safe pot or casserole (more on that in a moment):

layer of macaroni
layer of cheese
layer of macaroni
layer of cheese
layer of white sauce
layer of macaroni
layer of cheese
layer of white sauce

At least that’s the number of layers I get in my stoneware oven pot; & let me tell you, if there’s any chance you can use stoneware, please do so. I’ve also made this for my folks at their old home in Florida in a glass casserole, & while it was certainly good (they liked it a lot), you don’t get quite the same killer crust with glass as with stoneware. The pot you see in the pic at the top of the post—or something like it—is pretty crucial to this recipe.

Bake the macaroni & cheese uncovered at 400 degrees for about 40-45 minutes. You know the whole spiel about oven temps varying, etc. etc. so that’s a caveat. You want to see a golden brown top to indicate that a good crust has formed, but ideally you still want to see it bubbling a bit, too—not dried out.

& in the next post: “Macaroni & Cheese”—the Poem!

Virtual Reading #4 (& Questions)

For your listening pleasure: a couple of new recordings of poems from the “Kitchen Poems” section of The Spring Ghazals.  “French Toast” was one of the first few poems written in the entire manuscript, while “Greek Salad” was the last poem written for this section.  The poem “Fondue,” which appeared in an earlier virtual reading is also embedded in the player in case you missed it the first time around or simply would like to hear it again.  Don’t forget: there’s a discussion of my poem “Fondue” by writer Aaron Wilson on his Soulless Machine blog.  You can read Mr Wilson’s post about it here, & you can also see a video I made as background for the reading.

Speaking of backgrounds for readings: I’m tossing around the idea of creating musical settings as background for some of the poems from The Spring Ghazals & then recording the complete package to issue as a cd.  While I realize the readership here is a pretty select sample, I’d be curious if such an item would interest people, either in concept or in actuality.   Or would a cd of “just poetry” be more your cup of tea?  Since Lulu also produces cds, I’m thinking eventually I could make this into a one-stop shopping experience.

Of course, as you will hear, I know I need to invest in a pop filter before I go any further; using our condensor mic I just can’t keep the “p’s” from distorting & still keep the rest of the levels normal.  But that’s a relatively inexpensive item—around $20.  But I also noticed this page has a pretty ingenious homemade design which (per the article) can be built for $5.50.

A gentle reminder: you have less than 10 days to get The Spring Ghazals from Lulu.com at 15% off the $12 cover price.  The discount comes out of Lulu’s pocket, by the way!  Simply enter code LEAF305 at checkout.  You can purchase The Spring Ghazals here.

If you have a moment, please do weigh in on the cd idea; I’m tossing around various musical ideas related to the poems as we begin planning this week for next summer’s fine arts extravaganza in McCall! 

I’d also be interested in any suggestions about topics readers would like me to address here.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

“Fondue”

[Hey, everybody—how about a little free content today?  Here’s the poem Aaron Wilson wrote about in his review on Soulless Machine, which you can read here.  At Aaron’s blog you can also hear yours truly reading this poem, as well as watch a video version.  Enjoy!]

Fondue
A curlew whooping & dipping between the dimensions you look up but you don’t see it the ghost swooping into the past & future the present’s
so rarely here in my hands the washed-out yellow & purple 

twilight that lasts forever in early July

                                                                a caquelon first rubbed

with a garlic clove then melting raclette I
want to ask everyone what they want in this poem I can’t 

it’s all up to me now the heat lightning the crusts of
bread the swallows zigzagging toward every cardinal 

point the poems
I wrote & may write & haven’t written & won’t the
words you speak when you’re standing outside yourself &
wonder why all the while
                            dipping between dimensions the pale 

purple twilight melts into the space-time continuum
just another Star Trek: the Next Generation episode the USS 

Enterprise suddenly shifting at light speeds into the wrong place at 

the right time or vice-versa—this happens all the time
the consistent heat that keeps the cheese from burning
it could be Gruyère stirred constantly the ghostly twilight yellow 

melting—tinges of purple—it could be raclette the white sky 

overhead awash with curlews you can’t see I want to ask everyone 

what comes next in this poem it’s up to me of course—the words 

you regret—the words we don’t say of course we mean them so 

urgently we say something else a joke perhaps dipping into
the past the future present’s so rarely here—the natural sustain 

of an archtop acoustic’s low E string humming for seconds & 

seconds until you damp it
                                                                by accident the curlew dipping 

between the Gruyère & raclette patches of sky its call
melting into the poems I won’t write
                                                                        in this pale purple twilight 

at some point I’ve held everything in my hands at some points
I’ve held nothing why can’t I ask everyone what they want in this 

poem a thin crust of toasted cheese—not burnt—what remains
the sky as purple as a bruise in the east—There was a
Star Trek Deep Space Nine episode like this

Jack Hayes
© 2010
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