Final Submissions for 2015 Design Annual

by Charles Allen Watson

Mean Wile, Back at the School Yard

I heard them again at nearly midnight
under the ink of a moonless starry sky.
Scuffling southbound in a hurried gang,
like a happy pack of children laughing
and playing, yelping, dancing, and singing
as an unbound one without fear of mile-marking gravel.

No cares for they ran altogether – orderly –
but not single file; a moment we have duly prepared
for hundreds of years.

And I thought: When we build the new school
to reflect and bridge new beginnings
at the infinite easement on this patchwork plain
of needs, wants, and desires, where
the outward jam of our sandwich
meets the pups of the frontier; in the night,

hours after the foot traffic of lunchtime
in the breeze of dumpster stench,
a call to order on the slivered tire chips
playground, where litter rolls and
Little Debbie wrappers drift like spent leaves,
coyotes chant and sing
proportionally – orderly –
CB, AC :: AC, AB
the chorus of the living, longing to achieve;

We build and design to show them the signs
to transmit, to send, to yield, and to bend;
to eat not with their own soiled hands
so innocently clean at the free-will machine
in shadows of American dreams.

They charge on invisibly in the carbon black of night.

(January, 2015)

Shoe Horn

To make them fit a Big Dipper,
a L’il Dipper, all those heels,
the clogs, the clomp-clomp-clomp,
of free-ranging nanny goat.

Patent f-me pumps that
you wore to work on a Friday –
Ursa Major, Ursa Minor –
how wondrously they hurt sometimes!

The trouble with those heels,
that collection there you see:
in the closet, behind the mirror, at the stairwell,
in your Subaru backseat;

is how you put them on,
day after day – your favorites,
your sentimentals, your unmentionables –
obstacles for your path.

Digging
Arching
Aching–
the forms that lift you up will tear you down.

Pumps and heels, lifts and deals
Graceful leather ornaments
except for that boot, mateless,
on the shelf by itself in the dark.

That waiting glimmer of
Arcturus Alpha Bootis,
the brightest star,
a link, that mere spark.

(May, 2014)

Her : OS / Y

Futuristic, diagnostic, Scarlettistic
and genuinely altruistic. It reads and listens,
an unsightly beauty, exquisitely unseen.

A virtual stay-puff creature to submit to his fashion,
the cool sets, and all that L.A. feng shui;
an investment like coin-operated symposium.

Wears his ear device
for the high-maintenance OS
to honor its emotions, its impatience;

Dons his glasses, his mustache
for the program and its random
silly spectacles;

Dates his OS
and conquers his real emotions,
I.T.’s emotions, Her emotions;

Sells thy soul
in a feast with his system.
Duped or dumped, she loved the philosopher anyway.

(December, 2014)

 

How their faces fit

What comes from a hug,
a longing full embrace,
a meandering hand?

Anticipate the pressure
volupté beholden.
Greet her magnificent teeth
in this arrangement of galactic gases
of some divine interplay.

With fresh lipstick like tomato paste,
she reminded him to go easy–amoré!
Benefits for both:

strong, firm, intact, belief, disbelief.
Oh wondrous sea!
a mist in the middle,
a shroud of possibility.
Can’t we be free?

A perfect nose, a subtle touch,
’Oh stealthy one.
To press again and live one more time.

(May, 2014)

Toxicodendron Radicans and Some Impatiens at the Forest Edge

Symbiotic and perennial, you wait
through summer until September,
not deceiving,
with patience, always there.
 So obvious, never alone
where the sun meets the shade
at the edge of the forest.

Under the fertile terra, under my skin,
you shoot and you surface – dig you out at your roots!
Bloom and weep – a renewal, a reminder
of where we have been.
Honor you dig you don’t scratch you – ratchet!

Like a sniffy hound or a shifty squirrel,
I always know where to find you.
So glad you’re in love
so happy for your love
user friendly, just for me.

’Twill run your course in a few weeks or so
with Mother Nature’s approval, yes –
an upheaval, but never an evil.
This June reminder, this bleeding heart
this respect in retrospect.

I know where to find you
and you know where to find me,
just like poison ivy.

(June, 2014)

Blink: When Photopositive Meets Negative (Eyelid Media)

Awaken to a morning light
through closed panes of clear glass
consenting leaves on yonder May timber.

A silent chill meets the window,
a barrier for the morning chatter:
No dove, no cardinal, ’oriole yet;
cackling grackles, ravenettes.

The phone buzzes a hazy, lazy conscience
and opens our eyes – just for a blink!
our pupils receive this treat:
Silhouettes, fixed like shadows,
or negative prints.

The frames of the panes
resolve onto closed lids –
these membranes – for a new game of empty squares
in shadow, they dissolve.

The stairs await us –
Go!
stares
photogenic.

Our eyes obscured by panes for vision,
panes that help us view,
an immeasurable force field.
We hold a stare with time
on this parched earth, this solid ground,
and tomorrow, we start over.

(May, 2014)