Why There Will Always be a Monday

Because grey skies
and rain need a place to call home
Because Sunday night blues
couldn’t work if we returned to Tuesday
Monday keeps everyone honest
returning us to an uphill trail
climbing to the scenic overlook of Friday
They say you can see two whole days
from Friday’s vantage point
According to the International Standards Organization
the first day of the week is Monday
Some old religions would say
it’s the second day
but reading Genesis
God started work on the cosmos
on a Monday.
Etymologists would note
it’s a moon day
More people commit suicide
and call in sick on this day
Monday was wash day
and has been called
big, black, blue, clean, cyber, wet, mead, manic
and miracle.
Monday is at the dark end of the calendar 
waiting for us to return.

Up North

Bluebird Fish Dinner #3

The silver grey scales
of the Whitefish I ate at the Bluebird Bar
matched the color of
the county road
I drove since Cadillac
leading up north through a sea of pines
to rent a cabin at the end
of a peninsula.

The day before my fresh water fish
swam beneath Lake Michigan white caps
under hard blue aurora skies
and popcorn clouds
its shimmering scales dazzled the sun for a moment
like the halo of a tilted Milky Way
I would watch that night
with a friend from Indiana

The Whitefish is a cold water fish
making me think
maybe the glaciers that carved these shores
and filed these lakes
not so long ago
would return like a neighborhood of angry fathers
to restore their defaced work
but not until I ate a few more summers of fish at the Bluebird Bar.


Leland Panorama

The green and grey Janice Sue
is moored at her dock on display at Fishtown,

There’s a yellow sea plane on the north lake
skimming the water moments before lifting into the air.

Nothing moves on the surface of the big lake
except ripples and rolling shadows.

At the Jolli-Lodge the bikes lie scattered over the lawn
as if they’d been struck by a shock wave.

Nearby under a forest green lamp sits a black Weber grill
closely tended by a white molded plastic lawn chair.

The white birches are resting
not like yesterday when they hissed and fizzed with their silver leaves.


Cloud Formation

Clouds move in as fog
on Good Harbor Bay
in the dark morning
before the farmers awake

More clouds spew from the nostrils of fisherman
like fire-breathing dragons
on the deck of the Joy
and then evaporate into the fog.

TV Test Pattern

It was the end
back when TV stations
shut off and went to bed
like the rest of the civilized world

I would watch till
the last of the late, late movies ended
till the flag waving star-spangled banner
or the poem having touched the hand of God

I looked on helpless
until my last companion turned away
posting a sign on the door
a test pattern of lines and numbers
commanded by determined Indian in a head dress

You knew it was the end
because after one last desperate
twist of the dial through thirteen UHF channels
there was desolation
and off you went to dream
under a blanket of white static.

Misty Mountain Review: Two poems by John Kropf

Misty Mountain Review: Two poems by John Kropf

Riding the Rails

Riding the 6pm Acela
from New York to Washington
under an overcast May sky
can be like living a life.

You emerge
from a dark tunnel
crawling through
open spaces
soon leaving them behind
picking up speed
moving into new scenes
until you’re traveling at 90 mph

***

Outside Philadelphia
worn out row houses
under tired skies
list like the hulks
of stranded boats
that once floated
on a vibrant ocean
long ago evaporated.

Neighborhood streets
still lead toward
decrepit brick factories
falling down
like abandoned temples
places that once promised
a new life
to someone’s immigrant
grandma and grandpa
remembered in family stories
after the generations moved on
but the houses remained
sunk on foundations
in neighborhoods
colored only by
brash graffiti
painted at night
and green sumac
consuming
black iron bridges
and chain link fences
over the decades
as silver trains blow by
on the hour
past dead stories of old lives
the travelers thinking
no life can happen here.

***

At the end of the ride
it comes to a full stop
under a dark shelter
and a black bed of ties
bound to the earth.

Human Autumn

Inspired by Loren Eisley's All the Strange Hours

Human autumn

before the snow

last attempt to order meaning

before a spring breaks

in the rusted heart

and dreams and memories

fall apart

in irreparable ruin.

Oncoming age

is a vast wild autumn  country

strewn with broken seed pods

hurrying clouds

abandoned farm machinery

and circling crows

family countenance

leaping from place to place

across oblivion.

 

A Dream of a Thousand Heroes

Poem after finishing The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Cast out on the waters

at the hands of the gods

to everlasting chaos

Ego shattering initiation

over a sea of pangs

and discovery of evil

Double monsters

need twin heroes

Have faith father is merciful

Open the sun door

and return home

with the wisdom of an eternal spirit

and the cosmic dance.