Kevin Cawley<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brown Wolf<\/strong><\/p>\n Does it matter in the story of a dog chews his rope and strikes out for the Klondike. At last they let him choose, and for a while fails to overcome it. With a most <\/p>\n Darkening Ages<\/strong><\/p>\n An overlay of surface dirt obscures however bright they look will turn the corner Considering my particular bazaar Centuries of Brownian motion mar <\/p>\n The Walk<\/strong><\/p>\n Flame in the tree-top: Leaves gone to red-orange Ice on the ditch-water: Crow in the tree-top <\/p>\n Stop Action<\/strong><\/p>\n A spider web with coats of frost delectable inconsequence, <\/p>\n The Misfortune of Having Missed out on Pessimism<\/strong><\/p>\n A man sits in the Cleveland Public Library. <\/p>\n Ongoing<\/strong><\/p>\n Rust flakes off the maple tree Preoccupied with marriage plans Nature nevertheless occurs <\/p>\n Bleach<\/strong><\/p>\n Wife of one day He’s taken the batteries Not even on whites. but they do disagree. <\/p>\n A Preference in Weather<\/strong><\/p>\n However thick-headed it makes me feel, <\/p>\n The Big Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n Whats have roots and branches Downward, outward, upward <\/p>\n De Light<\/strong><\/p>\n The middle of nowhere’s somewhere once Super Market<\/strong><\/p>\n Rose moon at sundown Change keeps coming <\/p>\n Rip<\/strong><\/p>\n Pulled over by the littoral The best advice from those ashore Those who try to swim against <\/p>\n Robert Forst<\/strong><\/p>\n Preposterous thing to do with a pen — What mockery of original thought — And what will they do with the one mistake? <\/p>\n Beyond Rubies<\/strong><\/p>\n I never wear apparel Because the gate is narrow <\/p>\n Fly Paper<\/strong><\/p>\n Why we call a fly-leaf Nor does it hold me. Flies immobilized <\/p>\n Lounge<\/strong><\/p>\n A long chaise in the sunroom would do nicely; In winter, when its draftiness betrays I like the way the floor creaks when I walk. Once a monotonous solid, it faded, bled, The old mock torso and its pedestal <\/p>\n Stalling<\/strong><\/p>\n All those years I wore <\/p>\n Lobster Subservient<\/strong><\/p>\n To comfort a lobster Won’t come when you call her, You want an admirer, Lobster won’t go for it. <\/p>\n Focus<\/strong><\/p>\n We pray continually as commanded Occasionally an individual learns <\/p>\n 100% Natural<\/strong><\/p>\n Geese go their way, I go mine. Out the window as I wait Their honking made me think of hounds With Nature’s creatures in the dark <\/p>\n Reluctance<\/strong><\/p>\n The way a cat will linger at the door nudge her with your toe, the way a cat reminds me of myself in my approach wealth to an uncomfortable degree — <\/p>\n Tribute<\/strong><\/p>\n Beauty in uniform, Truth in drag, I knew if I told them to go away <\/p>\n The Difference of Indifference<\/strong><\/p>\n Nature does not disdain as we do. We sense its contradictions, given Death does not dismay it: lively Placid as dust around a seed <\/p>\n Photons for an Exhibition<\/strong><\/p>\n Spun honey spread the lawn alive birds the grey an undertone and leaves the shade half overhead from picket fence a gloss as bland My kitchen window the fence, the shed boxes around a patch of mind squares of color squares of time reflections passing already missing <\/p>\n Pigs<\/strong><\/p>\n We people corrupted the pigs. had dignity to bristle, A fat man whose disaster And pigs that get away <\/p>\n Aunt Alien<\/strong><\/p>\n Family faces in a baby’s face wrinkle of rage, angle of angry chin, an icon of implicit criticism their appetites, their petty princely airs, <\/p>\n Vapor<\/strong><\/p>\n I pour myself a bowl of steam, vapor, breath, the smoke a mouth It comes to pass: the fate of steam <\/p>\n Devil’s Food<\/strong><\/p>\n Giving your devils their due Have they a right to eat? Human brains taste best. You advocates must find us <\/p>\n On Meeting Adam in the Afterlife<\/strong><\/p>\n We mumble and seem somewhat hard of hearing. If Adam met us in the afterlife <\/p>\n Enlightenment<\/strong><\/p>\n At 13 months my daughter she pointed at them, made her Uncountable and nameless, <\/p>\n Free Fall<\/strong><\/p>\n Tree-borne trash has now completely Inert for half a year. A certain Success requires engines, vessels, Tempted, sometimes, to attempt <\/p>\n Religious Perspectives<\/strong><\/p>\n Heisenberg imagined he had found Heidegger complained that we are still I knew a man with cancer who had read He’d made his living criticizing critics. <\/p>\n from<\/em>\u00a0Father of Pearl<\/strong><\/p>\n One might\u00a0suppose the animals The rabbit I imagine here A path made broad by traffic, flat to walk it in my gum-soled shoes, * * * * Eyes that make for life-long fog But as the afternoon wears on Blinded by this repartee * * * * Appointments having lead to dis- * * * * A psychological device A marriage of impediments. But thanks to the lamp of therapy Kevin Cawley Brown Wolf Does it matter in the story of a dog if only the dog has character, if humans behave as fatefully as weather systems? The dog rejects their California doctrine, chews his rope and strikes out for the Klondike. Again and again the tag around his neck delivers him in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5084,"featured_media":0,"parent":41,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-78","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78\/revisions\/87"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nif only the dog has character, if humans
\nbehave as fatefully as weather systems?
\nThe dog rejects their California doctrine,<\/p>\n
\nAgain and again the tag around his neck
\ndelivers him in a cage to their discretion.
\nThey make him sleep indoors. He howls at night.<\/p>\n
\nhe chooses to remain. But in the end
\nhe hears the call again, and California<\/p>\n
\napologetic look he moves along,
\nchews his ties and strikes out for the north.<\/p>\n
\npaintings in oil, Baroque and Renaissance.
\nTypical, how dinginess endures
\nbeyond the term of light — how all our wants<\/p>\n
\ndown this alley brown with lowering grime.
\nAnd yet from evidence like this we garner
\nauthoritative summaries of time.<\/p>\n
\nI can’t imagine how it used to look —
\nbillowy silks, lamps gaudier than gold.<\/p>\n
\nperception so discreetly I mistook
\nthese new lamps on the peddler’s cart for old.<\/p>\n
\nlame on the tongue
\ntalk never touches what
\nwalking discovers.<\/p>\n
\ngrieve at the frost:
\nwords only fracture what
\nbirds fly away from.<\/p>\n
\nnice cloud of vapor
\nflies from the mouth as it
\ntries to describe it.<\/p>\n
\nknows not to bother:
\ncaws to the walker what
\nlaws please a lizard.<\/p>\n
\nproviding extra emphasis
\nhangs like macrame across
\nthe corner of the shed. And this<\/p>\n
\nat large when practicality
\ndeclines, calls up uncommon sense.
\nWhich looks a while. And lets things be.<\/p>\n
\nHe never heard of Schopenhauer. Marble
\nbanisters guide him when he climbs the stairs.
\nBut usually he takes the elevator.
\nThis afternoon he reads a mystery.
\nThe grey that passes for sunshine in that region
\ngives way to the grey that passes for twilight. Pigeons
\nin grey plumage pay no attention to tourists.
\nSightseers wait for a bus and watch the pigeons,
\nhaving nothing better to do at the moment.
\nLater they plan to visit Garfield’s tomb.
\nEarlier they toured the Public Library,
\nthe largest in the country to allow
\nthe poor to wander through its open stacks.
\nTherefore the man could someday possibly
\nhappen upon Spinoza. Schopenhauer,
\nmentioned on page nineteen of the mystery,
\nhas made no great impression. Nevertheless,
\nno longer can we class the man as one
\nwho never heard of Schopenhauer. Instead
\nwe must content ourselves to say: He never
\nstudied Spinoza, though someday he might.<\/p>\n
\ncover half our Autumn lawn
\nSummer having come and gone
\nwithout the slightest help from me.<\/p>\n
\nI look at flowers sold in stores
\nnot at blooming weeds outdoors.
\nI drink my colors out of cans.<\/p>\n
\nno matter what occurs to me.
\nRust flakes off the maple tree.
\nSquirrels grow their winter furs.<\/p>\n
\nshe bleached his grey socks.
\nShe washed her own watch.
\nWhat will he say?<\/p>\n
\nout of her clocks.
\nHe’s never used bleach.
\n(He says, “what’s the matter?”)<\/p>\n
\nHe seldom locks locks.
\nHe hates ticking clocks.
\nThey haven’t had fights<\/p>\n
\n(She says, “Come and see.”)
\nMarried one day.
\nWhat will he say?<\/p>\n
\nI have nothing against drizzle: I rather enjoy
\ngloom in the skylight, runnels, drops
\nin progress down a sloping glass.
\nThis animation of the glaze
\npromises and delivers change:
\nsmall change accumulating makes
\nfor major currency. The window’s
\nshedding freshets now. I breathe
\nrelief, unfurl my folded gills.
\nI’ve had my gasp of brilliance
\nin the dry domain of men:
\nmy attic’s under water;
\nI’m amphibious again.<\/p>\n
\ntendrils cracking fire:
\nan earth composed of answers
\ninvites them to inquire.<\/p>\n
\nthey split rock, split the sky:
\nlapping up their supper
\nthey push away the why.<\/p>\n
\na body builds a cabin there:
\nwrapped up in light, delighted under
\nlate October maples, I
\ninterrogate enlightenment:
\nhere the roads have potholes: rain
\nhas made them all reflecting pools:
\nthe literal-minded take my point:
\nlight overhead, light underfoot,
\nleft, right, left: ahead, behind:
\nan easy yoke, my burden light:
\nresponse ability in sight.<\/p>\n
\nme with my groceries
\ntaking a breather
\nfinding it strange:
\nround as the coin
\nin my pocket, token
\nhardly worth carrying,
\neunuch of change.<\/p>\n
\nvalued or not
\nthe moon waxes
\nthe moon wanes
\nonce in a while
\nthe moon wears rouge
\nand gleans a few glances
\nfor all her pains.<\/p>\n
\nmy figurative bent
\ncatches a rip that takes me out
\nbeyond the currency of route
\nbeyond the beggary of gulls
\ninto the deeply meant.<\/p>\n
\nsays never to resist
\nbut ride it out beyond the bar
\nwhere currents end and chances are
\nthe best can make it back to shore —
\nwhere chances are the best.<\/p>\n
\nthe current always drown:
\nthe strongest swimmers end up dead —
\nthey stroke but fail to get ahead,
\ntheir headstrong lifeguards’ confidence
\ntoo dense to come around.<\/p>\n
\nsigning my name again and again
\nuntil I fumble and get it wrong:
\nthe fallible hand that framed the song
\nnumb with a dream that cramps its style.
\nA while to go? Too long a while.<\/p>\n
\nso much admired it has me caught
\nmired in a repetitious act
\nwriting reduced to meaningless fact
\nthe spelling of my taken name
\nalways (or almost) always the same.<\/p>\n
\nOne of a kind. Wouldn’t it make
\nan autograph vampire lust even more
\nquiver to own at the quisling core
\nthis bug this antigen of song
\nstupidly written and written wrong?<\/p>\n
\nand hardly ever pose
\nin anything as daring
\nas negligee or hose.<\/p>\n
\nand nosy heaven knows
\nI never wear apparel
\njust ordinary clothes.<\/p>\n
\nwhat we call it I can’t say:
\na moment ago an insect
\nlanded on this trap
\nwhich had no glue to hold it.<\/p>\n
\nSo I turn the page and study
\nmore attractive tracts.
\nBut do the phrases stick
\nor do I stick to them?<\/p>\n
\non the paper in my brain
\nwiggle a while and die:
\nor I myself a fly
\nwalking a tacky way.<\/p>\n
\nfurnish it the way you would the lawn.
\nI’ll sit there in the morning with my coffee.<\/p>\n
\nthe inefficiency of single windows
\nI’ll wrap my feet in blankets — and my shoulders.<\/p>\n
\nI feel the give flow through me, sole to scalp.
\nI like the coloration of the carpet.<\/p>\n
\nsuccumbed to floods and sunlight, wore away
\na pattern, record of its mammal’s habits.<\/p>\n
\ncan stay. Perhaps I’ll make my friend a dress.
\nI’ve always liked the company of scarecrows.<\/p>\n
\nno footwear whatsoever:
\nbarefoot in the shower!
\nBut now I’ve promised never
\nto jog another stall
\nwithout my running shoes
\nto keep me on my toes.
\nThe fallen pay their dues.
\nNevertheless in time
\nI’ll falter and repeat
\nmy unoriginal trope,
\ntrippingly tongue defeat.<\/p>\n
\none has to get wet;
\nshe does not in fact
\nmake a very good pet.<\/p>\n
\nwon’t beg or play dead,
\nwon’t purr when you pet her
\nor mew to get fed.<\/p>\n
\nwant to play god —
\na creature to worship you,
\ngive you the nod.<\/p>\n
\nLacking a head,
\nbest she can manage:
\nget boiled, turn red.<\/p>\n
\nby the force of Natural Law. We can’t
\npause for a moment. Every gripe goes up
\nto heaven like a helium balloon.
\nEvery yelp of pleasure, every curse
\ncourses away. Concentric waves of will
\nrebound from every pebble we release
\nuntil a formless turbulence prevails.<\/p>\n
\nto calm that surface, still that stormy business,
\nthrow over all throwing over for a while.
\nImagine a pond flat as a plate glass table:
\nthe child above it listens for a moment,
\nleans on a balanced boulder, tips it in.<\/p>\n
\nPrattle about the Natural
\npreoccupies the party line
\nmy children use to shoot the bull.<\/p>\n
\nimpatient for the phone to clear
\na flock of Canadas in flight
\npoints out the flaw in what I hear.<\/p>\n
\nabout to tree a trite raccoon —
\nassociating sight and sound
\nI catch them as they cross the moon.<\/p>\n
\nbeyond a barrier of glass
\nwe tell each other how things work
\nand miss them when they come to pass.<\/p>\n
\npace and scratch until you open it
\nand let the night air nip, the way a cat
\nwill linger there as you impatiently<\/p>\n
\nwill hump up like a caterpillar then,
\nwalk halfway out and all the way back in,
\nthe way a cat will linger at the door<\/p>\n
\nto evening and its promises, my wad
\nfattening the wallet in my pocket,<\/p>\n
\nand I with plans to dance and do some drinking
\nlogy-legged pause inside the door.<\/p>\n
\nand Good in a hooded monastic rag
\nappeared at my door one Halloween,
\nthe oldest children I’d ever seen.<\/p>\n
\nthey’d make me sick with the tricks they’d play,
\nbut since I consented to pay their tax
\nthey thanked me blankly and turned their backs.<\/p>\n
\nIt likes brown leaves as well as green.
\nIt has no word for weed or freedom.
\nWe can’t say what its signals mean.<\/p>\n
\nopposites by which we live.
\nDenials of death by which we’re driven
\nknow it in the negative.<\/p>\n
\ndialectic to survive
\ndepends on death, on strife, on striving
\nmortals deadly while alive.<\/p>\n
\nthrough drought and storm, in brown and green,
\nit writes a weed: to call it freedom
\ndwells on what it doesn’t mean.<\/p>\n
\non whole grain bread<\/p>\n
\nwith mourning doves<\/p>\n
\nof shaley scree<\/p>\n
\nof bygone green<\/p>\n
\nof unstained wood<\/p>\n
\nhalf of them spread<\/p>\n
\nto picket fence<\/p>\n
\nas common sense.<\/p>\n
\ntakes it in<\/p>\n
\nsquare in its grid<\/p>\n
\nbright boughs, bright ground<\/p>\n
\na camera blind<\/p>\n
\nstanding still<\/p>\n
\nin wooden frames<\/p>\n
\npanes of glass<\/p>\n
\nwhat they’ve passed.<\/p>\n
\nThey never used to wallow.
\nThe wild boar, a fellow
\ncareful of his digs,<\/p>\n
\nwit to take offense,
\nmuscle fit to tense
\ntough tendon, able gristle.<\/p>\n
\nhas taught him to grow lean
\nand shrunk his clothing clean
\nhas studied with a master.<\/p>\n
\nrun grunting through the woods
\ndeprived of earthly goods
\nbut given back to play.<\/p>\n
\nframed in an heirloom spiderweb of lace,
\ngenes of immigrants in dingy ships
\napparent in a parody of lips,<\/p>\n
\ncomplexion more than texture of the skin
\ndeclaring independence as if cast
\nin plastic from some sculpture of the past:<\/p>\n
\namalgamating in a human prism
\nelders with their disapproving glares,<\/p>\n
\nand something else, a well-remembered grin —
\nAunt Alien when she called the children in.<\/p>\n
\nvapor to clear the phlegm away.
\nThe word translated vanity,
\nthe Hebrew word Ecclesiastes
\nuses, means more literally<\/p>\n
\nexpresses in the winter air.
\nNot bad at all: we all need breath
\nand moisture in the mix of ether,
\nvapor not too dry to breathe.<\/p>\n
\ninevitably to drift away —
\ndissolve, disintegrate, as we,
\nlike personalities of gas,
\ndissolve ourselves in going free.<\/p>\n
\nwe nevertheless observe
\nthe bone chips in their gluey stew,
\ntheir nourishment of nerve.<\/p>\n
\nEnlightened appetite
\nfinds brain and testicle both sweet,
\nlikes cheese gone blue with blight.<\/p>\n
\nHuman testicles
\nmake oysters that surpass the rest
\nand pickle well in dill.<\/p>\n
\nnarrow-minded, dense.
\nYou say they want to serve mankind.
\nWe wonder in what sense.<\/p>\n
\nWhatever you’ve been saying, I say “What?”
\nWhatever I’ve been saying, you say “Pardon?”
\nBodily limitations undercut
\nthe wit we might no longer need to mutter
\nif Michael let us burgle Adam’s garden.<\/p>\n
\nhow well would we communicate? What English
\ncould a couple on the ball, never
\nso much the souls of wit as now, our tongues
\nturned into flame, our speech made into song,
\nemploy with one who found himself too clever?<\/p>\n
\ntook notice of the birds
\nlighting on their feeder.
\nAt a loss for words<\/p>\n
\nnoises of delight.
\nShe didn’t have their number:
\nshe couldn’t count to eight.<\/p>\n
\na tale she’d never tell:
\nthe melting veil of sameness,
\na woman at the well.<\/p>\n
\ntarred and feathered my dead car:
\nall organic, healthy fallout,
\nmaple-scrap adhesive tape,
\nglops of pasty rock-dove dropping,
\nstorm-wrack twigs that scratch and scar.<\/p>\n
\nseasonable dignity
\naccumulates in time, a rumor
\nof November. And I love
\nthe solitude implied by fall,
\nwith me on foot and far from company.<\/p>\n
\nsingle-minded voyagings.
\nFailure lets a person bail
\nout. Fall free. I have no doubt
\nachieved a failure here — by leaving
\nthings alone to do their things.<\/p>\n
\nto charge the battery and start
\nthe motor just to hear it go,
\nI settle for some running water,
\na nuzzle with a hose nozzle.
\nMy garden ornament, my work of art.<\/p>\n
\na final answer in uncertainty,
\nboasted on a book jacket sounding
\nmore pedantic than some parody.<\/p>\n
\nnot thinking; his most thought-provoking thought
\nimplied however that our children will
\nbecause they will have savored what he taught.<\/p>\n
\nboth Heisenberg and Heidegger. He died
\nbefore the age of forty in a bed
\nsurrounded by the scripture he denied.<\/p>\n
\nDying made him cranky. Over tea
\nhe taught his seminar the place of pity.
\nSuperstition. Ancient history.<\/p>\n
\nwould shy away from human trails
\ntest the oddly stunted tracks
\npause to nose them, smell the smells.<\/p>\n
\ninhabiting this patch of trees
\nwould vanish in the undergrowth
\nrenounce the human dream of ease.<\/p>\n
\nby athletes on their morning run
\nmade white by freshly fallen snow —
\nand I arrive before the sun<\/p>\n
\nto walk to work, the same old news.
\nBut look! Fresh tracks of rabbit show
\none took the way I mean to go.<\/p>\n
\nThe window\u00a0by my desk at work
\nmakes splendid days look bleak to me:
\na milky way between the panes
\nwelcomes the milky way I see.<\/p>\n
\ntry to peer through cloudy glass,
\ninhale a cloudless afternoon
\nthrough veils of vapor, solid gas.<\/p>\n
\nby passing down and out the sun
\nenters the purview of my panes
\nto interview me one on one.<\/p>\n
\nblindly I begin to say
\nI see. Because of course I don’t.
\nBut feel I might now, not I won’t.<\/p>\n
\nWhen solitude\u00a0involves a soul,
\nhollow full of hollow, how
\ncan loneliness solidify?
\nOnly an empty question now.<\/p>\n
\nappointments, as they often do,
\nalone means loneliness again,
\na bone to gnaw, a haunting Who?<\/p>\n
\nA rosary\u00a0of resentments: as
\nshe dozes in bed she tells her beads,
\nticks off the things that tick her off
\nplucking them out like garden weeds.<\/p>\n
\nmaking religion obsolete.
\nAs Cupid to her Psyche once
\n(how stupid) I agreed to meet.<\/p>\n
\nCarefully we kept things dark,
\nshut bushel baskets, loads of light,
\nput curiosity in park.<\/p>\n
\n(thank God) she got the best of me:
\nthey frightened her, peculiar things,
\nmy light, my easy yoke of wings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"