Imagine this centered: And lunch with Kirk and Uncle Bubby

Even the birds are staying home today
Those flocks and flights whose accustomed spirals
Make animate the skies are grounded by frost
And leave the waters of the marsh in peace

Young men uniformed in Nomex 1 and beards
Spiral into Hollier’s Cajun Kitchen
From the barges and the maintenance shops,
Cracking units, pipelines and hotshot rigs

They are smart, tough, and strong; they fuel the world
And pose for pictures with the concrete pig 2


1 Nomex is a flame-resistant material developed by DuPont and is worn by workers in many industries, especially petro-chemicals.  The man or woman in Nomex keeps our cars, our lights, and our lives functioning.

2 There are in fact two concrete pigs outside Hollier’s (pronounced “O-Yays,” says Uncle Bubby).

The Moleskine™© is Chinese now, has been for years
And anyway Hemingway would probably type
Into his electronic personal device:
“Jose was dead. So was his fitness watch.”

Still

There’s rhythm in a pen as in a key
One flows, the other taps, syllables dance
Your thoughts into an opera of life
Performed in a theatre of silent stars

The Moleskine is in your hands now, will be for years
So choreograph your thoughts onto that page

A Field Guide to Awkward Silences
The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings
A Field Guide to Secure Wi-Fi
A Field Guide to Asset Forfeiture
A Field Guide to “Fake News”
A Field Guide to Lies
A Field Guide to Antibiotic Stewardship in Outpatient Settings
A Field Guide to the Italian New Right
A Field Guide to Getting Lost
A Field Guide to Ripple Effects Mapping
A Field Guide to ****** and Fly Fishing
A Field Guide to Jerks at Work
A Field Guide to Bad Faith Arguments

And so it field guides, and so it field guides
As dear old Kurt Vonnegut did not say
And what field is the writer talking about?
About the farmer outstanding in his field?

Alas there is no field guide to writing
A title blessedly free of field guide
Which would be a feel-good fieldless guideless
For which humanity would be grateful

About as original as Keep Calm
Keep Calm and Say Something Original
Let the last field guide be Keep Calm about
A Field Guide to Burying Tired Cliches’

A new calendar is a map of time
Showing you spaces in which you might live
And setting off the seasons and solemnities
The penances and feasts in order just

Beneath pictures of cafes’ in Water Street
Arctic-wind hiking trails in Ikkarumiklua
A pint of Quidi Vidi in The Gut
And Peter Pan’s statue in Bowring Park

Or maybe

Our Lady of Walsingham
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe
Notre Dame de La Salette

Or some puppies and kittens

               And may you find your heart’s desires this year

Pretend this is centered: Is Taos Burning?

          “…inspired by the pinon nut native to the Southwest.”

                                 - label on a coffee packet

Inspired

Apparently real pinon is not to be had,
Not anymore; the coffee is lesser now
Its taste inspired by a chemistry lab
Although the packet looks the same

Inspired

Instead of coffee flavored with pinon
The bean is only – inspired – and what is that?
It pretends that a chemical is from
The mountain pines of far New Mexico

Inspired

I want to go away to old Taos today
Where they make the best coffee at Michael’s Café

(Imagine the title centered)   Art in Pursuit of Man

        Reaction to a Temper Tantrum in a Fashionable Arts Magazine

Art cannot be but in pursuit of man
Whether or not man is in pursuit of art
For men are shifting shoals of shiftlessness
Artistic absolutes that calendar-clique

But art is not defined, not locked in time
Art does not yield her crown in obedience
To yet another Decree 349
To yet another Order of the Day

Art is herself; her names are Sapientia
And Sophia; she creates; she does not obey