Monthly Archives: February 2016

First one arm

Then the other

Seeking the unseen

And unknown

Silken lining of the sleeve.

The settling of the jacket

Begins.

This process is

A feat of acrobatic dexterity

A miracle of instinct

And experience.

The right sleeve,

Mme. la Manche Droite,¹

Received the arm easily

While Mme. la Manche Gauche,²

Her sister, is a bit more

Obstinate

Because she must negotiate

The watch on the left wrist.

Once sleeves are persuaded

To go where they

Don’t want to

Hands newly emerged

From their respective sleeves

Must attend the collar

Which perforce has to stand up

(No doubt in recognition of

The august personage

Donning the jacket)

And so, hands cajole

M. le Collier³ into

A folded repose.

That settled,

The time comes to

Encounter

Collier’s great-aunt,

Mme. Fermeture Éclair ⁴

(known to her friends

As Zippee from her days

As an acrobat in a small circus).

She is quite sensitive about her

Plastic nature and longs

For the days of her ancestors

When M. le Vicomte d’ Éclair,

Made of metal,

The first of that name,

Served Louis XIV.

Mme. Éclair does her duty

At the behest of a single hand

Singing a song of old Paris

Before the war

As she slides up into place.

And once again

The jacket is settled.

 

Dan Verner

February 24, 2016

¹Right sleeve

² Left sleeve

³ Collar

⁴ Zipper

 

Here’s a post from my friend and phenomenal writer Colleen LaMay about being towed while in a strange city. Colleen funnels her outrage at the situation into her writing and yet recounts the events and describes the, uh, interesting people she encounters along the way. “Road Trip Whee!” engages the reader with Colleen’s tale in the classic American road trip genre. We hope for many more posts in this series, Colleen! Keep on truckin’!

Visiting a big city can be brutal if you don’t know the rules of the road, and on this trip, I found a gaping hole in my knowledge.

Source: “Hey Cassandra, who hid my car?”

This morning, dawn played out

Against a pristine wind-scoured sky,

Shading from faint salmon

Along the horizon,

Stealing upward through

Layers of virginal white, champagne cream, and

Powder blue clouds,

The color growing deeper and

Deeper at the apogee

Climbing to true sky color,

And then

The sun appeared–

An ancient monarch rising so

All her earthly subjects rose as well–

Slate cloud banks near the horizon,

Her spreading wings

Amid regal roseate bands of

Atmosphere.

 

Dan Verner

February 12, 2016

 

 

 

 

A key, taken

From pocket or purse

Accepts preparation

For its purpose.

It’s as simple

(and as complicated)

As that.

Keys must be held in readiness

For what might lie between car door

Bus stop, sidewalk or helicopter pad

And home.

Two fingers hold the moment’s key

At the ready, prepared to either

Fit into the keyway

Or punch into an attacker’s sclera,

Vitreous humor spurting like filling

From a squeezed cream-filled pastry

The key striking like an enraged raptor.

This key is violent.

But there are others.

Some keys are prepared by ink laser-fed onto

Paper designated by symbol and alphabetic name:

A, Bb, D, F#, G and up and down the staff

And around the circle of fifths.

This preparation serves

A greater good: is freeing these keys from

Paper or mind or creative impulse to sound,

As tenuous and transparent as filmy absence

But as real and solid as granite

And again:

Keys as the absolute way to resolve difficulty

And become clarity

With codes, puzzles, essays, sports plays and cells of

Life.

And yet:

Key players, keystones, key situations, key states and key to the heart:

These are the keys and they are necessary (if not absolutely

key) to so much that, without them, we would not be.

It’s as simple

(And as complicated)

As that.

 

Dan Verner

February 10, 2016