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Selected poems by Joel Banner Baird Sexy Algae Token Hokem Sept. 2006 thinking long and hard about the H20 Tangent Flirts Nov., 08 So moved, my slow Bat Channel March 2008 We charge at swipes of sky Trill-seeking wave-riders Skeeter-scooping in code In appetite-mode Sweeping for morsels, hearts and minds Smaller yet more: Daybreak prey and daybreak prayer Weigh the same. We’re all airborne, aired, All dyed light black and caped For the feint, the dive-bomb, The sharp tack through glare White noise Drummed-dumb artifact. We drop in and ripple, Pin-dance and needle, Play fat-chance math for a moth So everyone’s winning, re-running: Same time, same place, same mass; Same moon, same sun, Same beam of disbelief Lifts our winged fingers; Touch that dial: That’s some Delicious click. Instrumental late summer, 2004 Sweet ache, cooing like a coaxed drum, like cave-heard rain playing every fungal key in the scalloped baritone under the stones where knee-deep rapids in the neighborhood river feud symphonic, audience or not then drawn shyly to the eyes of trees: birds fugue to the whining larynx of a mid-size dog of mysterious pedigree. Hurricane’s September 2003 Hurricane’s wash winds up, winds down: Isabel’s mid-Atlantic waltz Skirts rain and scarves of cloud Gathered and flung from a funnel, Spun by the earth’s shear and spin, Torn from the thickness of air Like a gossamer top, uncoiled at birth When the sun played favorites With the wet of her Tropics So hot underneath such cold sky heighths! Such giant, heaving surges never reconciled Gotta getta big move-on, right here. So she gathers her robes and she straddles the sea A myth named and noted, turns and tiptoes Over her left shoulder, staring and Un-making time irresistibly West. Say – who claims these shores: The insects who cling to its sand by the millions? The creatures who pray for my disorientation? Why should I listen? Listen: The salt and the sediment, the brick and the ceement, Protein and enzyme rise and erode and dissolve In my breath, in my sweat, in saliva, in tears. Try turning the tides, try me on for size: Steam-clean the biosphere, flush Earth’s foundations Barge into dry hearts of continents unbidden With some of my too-true religion. Try. Man’s gods reward man in man’s tiny ways: little centuries, little cities, little wars, little species - Briefly borrow my atoms and orbits, My order, my physics, my rinse and my spin And make way for my make-way way.
Julips When there’s booze Guys and Dogs Pre-thought, prehistoric: Guys and Dogs blink knowingly; Breathing deeply and with odor; Forgiving of each other’s pedigree, Grooming, excesses and deficiencies. We share a love of romp, of chase, of rump and cozy nuzzle; Fears of damp, solitude, hunger, and exposure. Dogs’ cunning takes on our scape (they hear higher and smell lower) They grant clues we humbly welcome Into our upright, fingered, and front-lobed puzzle. Guys aspire to Dogs’ play, To earth-bound and earth-cradled, four-foot-driven certainty; To guileless tail wagging, full-souled howls, Barks, moans, and the truly pitiful whimper. We pray there is a contagion between us More practical than any dolphin’s song: A drooling symbiosis that defines, without clumsy words, Our territory, loyalties, muscle, and bone, Guys and Dogs; muscle and bone.
The Great American Indoorsman Every morning as I walk my dog Mona by the Middle River, I behold the works of great American indoorsmen. Bud Lite cans. Half-full bottles of Mountain Dew. Rubbed and discarded lottery tickets. The cardboard and plastic remains of burgers, fries and a large soft drink. Together, they form the sub-species’ emblem, a coat of arms: litter strewn around a potato couchante. I try to imagine that the great indoorsmen are a generous bunch as they festoon the riverbank with the totems of their cheerful existence. I try to imagine the fun it must be, casting off leftovers and the contents of ash trays — as if they never existed. I wonder if there are correspondingly bigger pleasures when an indoorsman heaves a sack or two of household garbage or a half-gutted deer off the back of a pickup truck. I must be missing something. So I force myself to walk in their shoes — or rather, to lounge afloat the springs of their bucket seats. An open car or truck window is an invitation: to sample the world without letting it barge into your life. A door swung wide approximates the repeated, televised promise of adventure and rugged machinery. As long as the battery’s charged, your soundtrack will be there for you; will keep things familiar. Go on, indoorsmen: step outside. You can always beat a hasty retreat to the convenience store for refills. Not bad for a theme park. And you can bring the family. The children of indoorsmen learn to dodge or ignore the broken glass and disposable diapers and the condoms. Even with their eyes open, they must assume, like their parents, that mankind’s detritus vanishes once it’s tipped downhill or downstream. The have a birthright. Property rights. Some adult indoorsmen swam in the Middle River as kids. Some now teach their children to fish and to watch the ripples and the current. Most indoorsmen must feel the slow pleasures of the river’s seasons — or they wouldn’t keep coming back for another glimpse. Maybe the junk is an offering to the river goddess. Maybe the indoorsman sullies what he can’t own. Maybe it’s a form of rebellion; maybe the indoorsman feels betrayed by his job, his television, his dreams. Maybe.
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