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Dave Hardin Oct 2016
Our Science Film

Autumn colors leave me
Pining for black and white
Grammar school reel to reel
Science films snaking through
Rackety Cold War projectors
Chalk motes swarming
Cones of gibbering light
Can-do voice-overs
Always a hiccup off
Read by radio men
Sporting pale miens
Pie plate headphones
Brylcreem slick
Perhaps a Scholastic
Short featuring winsome
Child actors playing
You and me
Button noses
Wrinkled in stricken
Joy at a baby bunny
Wide eyed and stock still
In an apple crate
Beneath an apple tree
Leaves schooling in binary
Shimmer on the summer
Breeze blowing through our film
An introduction to photosynthesis
Or the metamorphosis of caterpillars
It matters little to you
Beribboned in gingham
Or me flying flapping
Dungarees
Platinum hair
Whipping our faces
Sky a china white
Behind ivory billows
Framed forever
Dimpled and laughing
Milkweed exploding
From our fingers like secrets
Shared in alabaster
Sign language.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
“He also saw the cook’s cat which could do somersaults.”  

At least that’s what the cook said,
a claim the cat, shapeless sack
of snide, deigned neither to confirm

nor deny, content to ****
long afternoons in desultory

elongation, stationed
on the window sill above
the blackened eight burner Garland.

Once, when the cook stepped outside
to smoke, the cat, mood sour,

expansive, airily confided
the corpulent cook could climb
stairs on his hands while whistling

“Parlez-Moi d’Amour”
then spat in the soup, dispelling

any lingering incredulity,
his stomach duly nailing
a flawless double backflip.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
Catch

Eternal summer spent back peddling
on your lofted rocket
through leafy canopy
teeming careless at the ragged
edges on slender stems, chastened
by autumn pooling gold while I wade
gloved through swirling eddies
engulfing parked cars
losing the ball against chalk
white skies stricken with dripping
black lattice, misjudging
the parabolic frown while robins
hawk spring like it was something
new and improved
snagging the ball
on the run, in the webbing, at the curb
sun spackled and off my stride
for the return throw
taking time to plant my feet and read
the Braille of stitching
your farewell note
with post script
to tell me you remembered
to pack your glove.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
My Answer To A Request By Rosanne Cash To Sit In For A Performance At The Rubin Museum Of Art

I’m flattered of course
but I must confess
I don’t play guitar
or a wind instrument  
the nylon strings of the Silvertone
I practiced on
a cats cradle beneath
my fumbling fingers
the school trumpet
that always left me
kind of blue.  
Let me be up front about
my limited vocal range
pathetic inability to carry
a tune in a bucket amplified
by a fear of public speaking
a crippling shyness going back
to my peripatetic youth.  
But I can see you won’t take
no for an answer, not surprising
you, daughter of the Man In Black
me, a man possessed
of subtle dormant talent
waiting only for a spotlight
stool and tambourine.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
Miller Moth

Promises were made
that dress of yours
yellow as a Miller moth
batting about the bulb
of a painted porch light
yearning on hanger
to caress a ***** of shoulder
ride a swell of hip
bell the well-turned ankle.
Pleat and dart pooled about
first one foot
then the other
rose to lip
a halting smile of neckline
assumed an aspect
of sail gathered wind
sung vows in the rigging
where I madly batted  
drawn, ensnared.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
Brief Affair

Word was things had grown  
Stale between them
Sleek as she is
Him handy in a tight spot

But the other night
When I flipped
On the bathroom light
I found them trading

Tangent points on the vanity
Bristles deeply meshed
Handles lightly touching
The envy of those two

Coffee lovin’ Joe’s in the kitchen
Spotted later side by side
In the sink, rims stealing
A figure eight kiss of infinity

Sharing a bit of undergarment
Gossip, a rumored stowaway
Discovered fresh
From the dryer burrowed

Within a pair of my own.
Hell, I wore them that way
Who am I to judge
Their brief affair.
Dave Hardin Oct 2016
Spice Rack


I will make eggs in the morning
coffee in the cold back room
windows on the feeders
epicenter of an explosion
of birds on film run
forward and backward
a mad scramble of egg layers
iron skillet butter crack and whisk yes
to toast salt and pepper in shakers
simple gifts a hymn to a humble meal  
yet the spice rack hums with fiery powders
waiting for the chance to ignite
the rocket of our morning  
crushed red pepper curry cayenne chili’s bristle
but alas cumin just a pinch my hand
stayed a cook wise to incendiary breakfast.
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