Life With Horace

poetry & essays


Leave a comment

And Peggy Sue

They called him Crane, not Ichabod but the bird. I’d see him Saturday nights at the tap room where he won big money throwing darts, bony fingers on a different circuit from the rest of him when as he drank. Never pretty in daylight — when drunk, his angles seemed smoothed out, almost aging movie star vaselined. The dim lit corners left the knife scar on his neck alone, a dull flash of on-off michelob blinking onto his baldness. One of those nights college boys found the bar, and while the rest of his townie pals shunned the clueless preps, he fought them at the dart board one by one with his dead aim, metal sinking into cork almost soundless, like a perfect dive knifes into chlorined blue. Always left them broke, their egos bleeding out. The drunker he got, the better he played, groove sunk cheeks split by a grin. He took them all, keening Peggy Sue softly between each throw.


2 Comments

Seeing them off

Today they are still here,
and I am too, in late September.
My hummingbird pair. One darts in
to feed, the other perches
drinking deeply, tipping her head back
to let the nectar slide.
I feel that energy sweet and cool
down my throat.
Their absence looms, a large bell
with muffled clappers tolling
unopposed, reddening the trees,
exiling light, ushering in cold.
Lately the question, will they
visit me again, or will there be
someone else looking out my window
twelve months on?
Each year it is harder let them go,
as if there were a choice.


Leave a comment

The morning watch

He sits behind the screen
the sun’s minute hand
remaps his curves in warmth
With not much else to do
his morning’s work is
out there living traffic
to watch and note
force marched ants in single file
small brown toads
leaf rustles out of sight
the swooping zizz
of dragonflies
A hummingbird returns
to drink then preen
this makes him smile
even they must stop and rest
The small world quiets
starts to wait for shade
when high sun moves away
raptors drafting on high currents
He sees and understands
Feeling stiff he’s up to find
another patch of sun
A whoofing sigh then
sleep, his head on paws