Five Poems
by Bruce Morton
The Bleat of the Obsolete
So many things that I knew
Are now comfortably unknown,
Which is different than saying
They have been been forgotten.
Clueless. Without a clue. No idea.
Take carbon paper, what to make
Of it? Not an inkling. Not even
A smudge of doubt. Nada. Nothing.
Or the slide rule, worn holstered
To fast-draw recalculate whatever
Problem presented—sines of the times,
Tangents, even physics on balance.
Then there was the ash can, original
All-purpose receptacle for cinder
And ash for anyone who had bin
And shoot to coal the cellar furnace.
Set out on the street to be spread
On ice and snow to give traction.
It is slippery this thing we call
Memory, when we cannot recall
In the cool of the moment what
Something is was. Indeed, recall
The telephone booth with its seat,
Doors folding inward, coin slots
Like eyelids to be covered before
The upright coffin is shut, hung up,
Receiver finally replaced. Kaddish
Spoken, Ma Bell granted eternal rest,
Obsolete, like the party line before
It controlled by the operator. What?
A real person, omniscient, someone
Perhaps named Alexa, Siri, or God.
And what now is the party line?
The lie d’jour, a distortion of fact,
Wrong numbers undialed, friends,
Family, self reviled. Civility passé.
No sense of sorrow, wit, or joy,
No affect, only effect. All seems so
Artificial, the genuine fractured,
Sentiment manufactured.
Pinball
In the moment I go deaf—focus.
Mouth clamped shut, dumb—silent.
Close my eyes, blindly grab the blonde
Shoulder of its sturdy wood frame,
The sensuous, rounded corners
That hold the glass cover sheet
Of the Gottlieb machine in its glory,
The altar at which I worshipped
Every Saturday morning, teenage
Congregant in the church of the
Dissolute. Resolute, I feed it coins
Into the plated collection slot.
There is a cheap thrill with each draw
And release of the spring-loaded plunger
Propelling the steel ball on its way to
The top of the shute, shot just-so to
Allow me a delusion of finesse, no jest,
So that it will drop from its high point
On to the highest-point bumpers—
Bing-bing-bing, rack up the score.
Bing-bing—lights flash, bells ring-ring…
But here’s the thing, I try to catch ball
And time on a flipper, hold it, suspended,
Full pause, possibility pregnant, poised.
I let it move slowly, ever-so-slowly,
Toward flipper tip, projecting the illusion
Of control, and then with a flip sling it
Back to the high-count bumpers—
Bing-bing-bing, bing-bing-bing. It is
Music, let it sing, keep the ball in play,
Flip-flip, ring-ring, let it sing. I lean
Into the machine, tap-tap, right corner
I hit it again with the heal of my hand.
—TILT—
The ball rolls dead away. Disappears.
Pin hope on another ball. Pinball.
Anecdote of the Moth
Somewhere, right here,
On a tight bookshelf
In the state of Montana
Next to a mountain
A Miller moth lit
On the coal-dust
Jacket of the Letters
Of Wallace Stevens
Where I swatted him
Not quite as hard as
Hemingway hit Wallace.
The Eyes Have It
The eyes have it
Under furrowed brow
Lash and lid.
Pupils glaze over
At what there is
To learn. They dilate
At the enormity
Of the small things
That are unseen.
They close tight
To imagine things
A damn sight better.
The Blue Trail Range
As free-ranging kids we
Would play chicken, daring
Each other to harvest brass
Detritus at the shooting range.
We collected spent shells with
No idea as to their purchase.
We walked the deserted firing line
Like combing a beach, even leaving
Our footprints in the damp sand.
We found them where the shooters
Stood, picking up each shell where
It fell. No sense if its slug hit its target.
We pedaled our jangling brasses home
To divvy up our haul by caliber.
BIO: Bruce Morton divides his time between Montana and Arizona. His collection, Planet Mort, has been recently published by FootHills Publishing.