From My Corner Seat Read online

  assumes a micro grit

  to settle sifting down

  into the clanking gears

  of regularity.

  Examined time dissolves

  into the reel allowed

  by unexamined sprees

  pretending to be time

  unmeasured: desert spent

  in restlessness, a waste

  expanded in malaise,

  sincerity in sand

  slid over sand by sighs

  of long neglected winds.

  WCF

  19 October 2010

  Re: Joyce

  One step slips through the narrow gap,

  investigates this other side

  and brings a single, lovely bloom

  to visit through this afternoon.

  So neighborly is beauty come

  with unassuming, open joy.

  The blossom punctuates the day

  and proves of neighbors this delight.

  And so I celebrate the hand

  that planted, she who chose this plant

  and set it there to perpetrate

  this beauty’s neighborly ingress.

  WCF

  23 June 2001

  Pen to Page

  The poet leans to write

  lean words on latent sound;

  the pen positions, light

  and slight upon the page.

  These words sing slim encores

  to sounds that simmer, seethe

  upon that scintillating

  provision silence weaves

  about the soul. We pause,

  as poets must. We pause

  to listen. Silence, sheer

  and crystalline attends

  to poise of pen. A lift

  of delicate aplomb:

  sounds, resonates, escapes

  on brittle silence, lures

  the pensive pen to write.

  WCF

  9 June 2001

  “Begin Anywhere”

  The magnet says John Cage

  has said ‘Begin Anywhere.’

  An affable commending,

  a word spun easily

  leaves undefined the world

  of origin. Beginning

  is anywhere in three

  or four dimensions. When

  I pause to complement

  the manifold of hope,

  I understand the subtle

  complexity of want.

  Beginning, as a when

  or where, is anywhere

  in time and space, a bliss

  of face and gentleness,

  an undone readiness

  to wield and yield at this

  revisitation, meant

  impossibility;

  the access amply gapes

  before the prescient start.

  WCF

  26 August 2011

  Against May’s Mime

  Of Next July

  The hands reach up to trail

  the dangling hair, to lift

  new tangled strands along

  the head, leave bare the nape

  and free to vagrant breezes

  the gleaming moist skin there.

  She holds it with one hand

  and stands aloof to talk

  and linger on the words

  that rummage how the deep

  emerges in her tryst

  with personality.

  Alone as this she holds

  intriguingly aloof,

  aloft, afresh the poise

  of readiness for naught

  of my reclusive bliss.

  WCF

  14 May 2010

  The Now-Bare Hill Crest

  The years they tilled the land,

  converted rolling soil

  to feed and food, the house

  was lively. Those years hold

  a distant memory

  in aging folk. The house

  appeared as weathered, worn

  by sun and storm and time—

  relentless time. The old

  barn stood in bare planks—yet

  erect and proper. Together

  they huddled on the top

  above the road, and lone.

  The old tree still bent shade

  by afternoon along

  the porch. Then yesterday,

  when I walked past, I saw

  the open, barren spot

  where house belonged and barn

  assumed its rightful reign.

  Equipment, large and brute,

  still sits beside the waste

  as haste prepares the land

  and soil for fallow use

  in pending days when neither

  the house nor barn belong.

  WCF

  24 August 2011

  Carmella

  remembering

  As boisterous bold, a slice

  of boiled tomato slopped

  upon the grill of life,

  with strut and scruff, a slide

  of burly, tough approach…

  deciduous and kind,

  she swaggered through the days

  in brazen will, a lapse

  to generosity

  and sheer devotion, spent

  on covert will and want,

  an overt effort wrought

  in crusty tenderness

  and teasing, gentle heart.

  WCF

  2 April 2011

  Hard Frost, I See

  A frost-clad green lawn spreads

  beneath the pearl grey light

  this early morning filters round

  these hills. I give the cats

  their food dish filled, and wait

  as Arthur distillates

  the night in right relief.

  Unseen, the song birds thrill

  the nascent dawn—the sun

  not yet above the hills

  to fill the sky with ripe

  blue radiance. One wren

  sings out; another calls

  an answer—fluid joy

  within the morning. Others

  extend less florid songs

  to fully grace this pause

  between the night that’s gone

  and coming daylight’s shine.

  WCF

  10 May 2010

  The Sign

  Red thumb tack holds the sign

  announcing Seating On

  the Deck—an arrow points

  along the hidden hall.

  The breeze of fans creates

  a flutter in the card-

  stock sign. It bounces, wags

  and indicates a flush

  of energy, the sort that rides

  as flutter on the wake

  of passing breezes blown

  by passing bodies shown

  in exquisite display.

  The sign begins to weave

  significance as sign

  of breezes raised behind

  the passing on to leave.

  WCF

  14 May 2010

  A Mote Of Non-Constraint

  A momentary carelessness:

  the flow of everything about

  distracts attention, leaves a twist

  of neck, a flash of smile, a slight

  ingressive word to her who walks

  beside. Consideration quickly

 
absorbs abandon, overwhelms

  the flash of joy to contemplate

  reserved austerity. Yet in

  that singular neglect the face

  devolves its mystery, allows

  the flagrant pleasantry to bloom.

  WCF

  23 May 2010

  Postlude: In Underplaying

  Within the web of jabbering

  the subtle melodies emerge;

  they interleave cacophony

  with lilt to tease expectant ears.

  Such supple satisfaction plies

  the mystic sound against a din

  provided all around. Attention

  develops on gilt gossamer.

  WCF

  9 May 2010

  The Focusing Smoke

  An eerie night, hung still

  and clear, as crisp-cold stuns

  the face and subtle light

  sifts through suspected frost.

  The chimney smoke threads air,

  a pencil line rising, straight

  and undisturbed amid

  the balanced ordinary

  accoutrements of life.

  That tingling stillness—all

  of it—provides the zest

  in steady, constant means:

  it is our ambiance,

  the nuance tenor-swept

  throughout imagined life.

  Yet, in the midst, that thread

  of chimney smoke ascends

  with caught imagination

  to trace the warmth, abide

  the welcome other-stretched

  in my reality…

  until some stagnant lid

  prevents ascension, thwarts

  the time in incense plume.

  WCF

  29 November 2008

  As Thus Conviction Comes

  As if it matters after all,

  she comes across the aisle amid

  the swirling figures bent on peace.

  She comes to offer peace and takes

  my hand. The words exchange as she

  enfolds my single hand in both

  of hers—her head bent down beneath

  the shadow of her hat. I look

  and all that I can see of face

  is chin, a bit of cheek, enough

  to sense a subtle hint of smile

  confirming in the face the savor

  her hands implored for mine. I pause

  as she slips on again—to know

  it matters after all, this peace.

  WCF

  2 May 2010

  Table of Contents

  From My Corner Seat © 2012 by William Flewelling. All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Reformulating

  She Leaned To Cut the Blooms That Day

  “The Older Woman”

  BHS: Class of ’63

  The Cattle Come And Go

  A Birthday Thought

  A Satisfaction Known

  While Waiting On The Outdoor Bench

  I Say She’s Chasing Change

  Procedural Aplomb

  As Choristers Implore

  On Palmer Ridge

  Implicit Solemnity

  One Rose, Set Apart

  In Howell’s Paean

  An Unavoidable Passing, As It Seems

  He Watches Alzheimer’s In Rage

  The Familiar Crow Perch Tree

  Directions On The Air

  Shadow Work

  Just Like That Maple Burl

  The Deer In Flight

  A Stark Night

  All From A Fluster

  And Mrs.

  He Went Once More To Normandy

  An Explaining Of The Night

  An Exchange: Modest Enough

  The Sitting Still An Issue

  Tomatoes Win The Night

  One Man At Prayer

  An Unthought Legacy

  The Early Thunderstorm

  The Tulips

  A Hymn Is Sung On Mother’s Day

  A Quiet Reading Preferred

  Head In The Cloud

  Pictured Arrayed In Almost-Lines

  A Gathering Across The Shelf

  From The Chrysalis of Complaint

  When All Is In The Air

  And All The Rest

  Great? Or Merely Well Enough?

  Beggaring The Question

  The Comfort An Infant Glows

  At That Later Seam

  Acceptably Assessed

  A Surreptitious Sleight

  “In Obscurum”

  Intending Not To Overhear

  And, After The Breath…

  Inopportune Computer Glitch

  Approaching Compline

  Quite Useless For The Cause

  As Cast Aside

  A Visionary Dilemma

  The Count

  Sunshine’s Benefit Concert

  Sat At The Next Table

  The Quiet Man

  Balancing Act

  At Peace

  Met Amid Necessities

  Once Again, In Context

  Renewing Now

  Attending To The Chores

  So Open In Defense

  Lone Rabbit In Tall Grass

  Jack Remembered

  One Pause In Melancholy

  On Hilary Hahn: Brahms’ Violin Concerto

  All Aswirl Amok

  Air Beneath An Arm

  As I Ramble On

  The Old Man

  Recalled From Reverie

  So Known As Missing Now

  Exchange By Gesture

  Held At The Font

  We, Coming At The Last Of Times

  Coffee Ground Upon A Second Request

  With Utter Grace

  Ankh

  Correctly Poised

  Beloved Yet

  Upon Motet

  At Departure

  By Such Arrangements

  Re: Joyce

  Pen to Page

  “Begin Anywhere”

  Against May’s Mime Of Next July

  The Now-Bare Hill Crest

  Carmella

  Hard Frost, I See

  The Sign

  A Mote Of Non-Constraint

  Postlude: In Underplaying

  The Focusing Smoke

  As Thus Conviction Comes