by Richard McLaughlin
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Newport Panorama
The truth shows itself in the interstices,
liminal time between night and human motion
The eye scans a scene
spectacular as the battlefields
held still in circular rooms.
Down to the sea
the eye wanders,
pulled by the steady progress of the maintenance carts
writing order on the green
and the anomaly of sand traps
like esoteric knowledge or topographic maps
illegible to laymen.
The scene is set
and on the paved paths
slugs ooze a steady Morse,
slow surveys with homes on their backs
the picture of regal dignity.
Already caravans of cars sing poor imitations unknowingly,
zipping dazed along the coastal highway.
This is the first morning of the rest of life on earth
and beheaded trees
of unidentifiable stock
stand sentinel in the coolness
of condensation.
A truck's blinker
wrapped in the distance like an insulated thud
drums out the tempo in silence.
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Chosen Remnant
It's hard to believe,
in this stretch of houses and strip malls –
old and young, men and women,
but singly on porches,
a symbol of time and resources –
That in a mortuary building
indistinguishable from a church,
three columns of pews
but far too bright, white-walled
and two flat-screen TVs in perfect angled symmetry,
there could be an image like this –
A window view, a trompe-l'œil
out on the horizon,
a terrace, a railing with eleven braces and two plinths to hold the ceiling in the sky,
and vegetation paired, incongruous
(or maybe I know nothing of the plants in the forest, Gary Snyder's dictum),
two stands of poplars, then cloud-like trees from the Serengeti,
and finally Mediterranean aloe,
And beyond it scaling back to an infinite indefinite vanishing,
rows of purple mountains, greying and losing their definition
until they're a cascade in line and hushed tone,
a beyond ineffable and true,
never to be named by the compulsive deliberation
of men and women singly at the pulpit.
How to interpret it?
It is enough, the words that come
to speak of a scene so out of keeping –
a scale of color waning purple into dusk,
a tone singing out, a bell sustaining
into the rustle of settling evening,
the water of an organ's notes
drifting through silence
into its clearing after,
when you feel it,
still there,
ringing.
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Made In The Shade
California in August,
the heat thick in the air
like the day we sat in the park
eating cold cuts,
the only food we could imagine
on such a hot day,
the park we live close to now,
just us then and the man
with all the shopping bags
separately seeking afternoon shade.
The poplars in the yard opposite,
stark stalks of green in a blue sky
and not much else for coverage.
A moment's breeze for respite
and a reminder of movement
on a lizard-crouched day.
A butterfly's shadow
silhouette along the green umbrella
weaves an instant of incredible size
and a lingering thought of flight.
In my view,
the three old bricks
and tattered tarp
remind me of the days of smoke
and wind
and hold the present
in the suspense of another time
and feeling.
My son opens his eyes
and looks at me
The world is changed.
Signing off for now…
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Early To Rise
Relearning old behaviors
Like are you the kind of person
To stand up to take off their jacket or coat
Or do you pull the sleeves blithely off your arms
Without getting up
Jettisoning the garment to the back of your chair
Like an awkward child
The fences run across the land
That old style
Where the wood slots into the posts
2 lengths long,
Like something out of feudal England
They run
And we’re frozen in the car
And how are the trees here?
Like how they used to make brooms
Out of old branches
Wicker brooms
Did they ever do that
Or is it your dark old media brain
Blacking out the past
Old dumb sludge to keep us here in the hearsay here-and-now
And really it’s just too damn cold,
It’ll snow tomorrow they say, a little bit
So let’s cozy up
Inside the hearth of mingled voices
They say they say
Our elders getting older every year,
And one day fading from the picture
But the gestures the same
And the faces carried through
Dutifully
Survivor’s guilt
An expression
I didn’t think I’d offer up
To name the blunt reality
Of time
As non-renewable resource,
Transmuted not into gold
But the gossamer of thought.
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Richard McLaughlin is a writer, educator, and musician based in Pasadena, CA.
Listen to his music here: https://rmclaughlin.bandcamp.com/