Why We're Here

We were designed by the wind, frustrated

with its inability to inflate a balloon.

We were invented by dogs because after aeons

of licking only each other, they yearned for love

without hairballs.

We evolved from birds, who wanted to be able

to talk with their hands without being carried away.

We were invented by cats to tend door knobs.

We were invented by stones who wanted to reproduce

themselves, but could not set one stone

upon another.

We were invented by the night, grown tired

of having nothing to hide.

We were invented by the flowers, sick and tired

of color-blind bees who only wanted them

for one thing.

We were thought up by the fish, trying to imagine

dreaming with their eyes closed.

We were invented by the snow, dreaming of hugging angels.

We were invented by the fire to reflect it in eyes and cheeks,

for every other creature, fearing it, could not admire it.

We were invented by the sand to make fine distinctions.

We were created by the sun when he discovered

that, alone, he could light up only one side

of the earth at a time.

We were created by the rain, which could not

spell its name in the sand.

The earth made us in hopes we would enable it

to see where it's going.

We were made by the ocean to package its

salty elixir and distribute it to high ground

beyond the reach of surf.

We were made by mountains grown tired of crushing

everything they tried to embrace.

We were made by the full moon because,

though it could reflect endlessly,

it could not smile.

We were made by the trees, because they couldn't

hear themselves fall.

We were made by the grass to graze with our eyes

and gobble up the excess green.

We were made by the cockroaches because their faith

forbids suicide.

by Dean Blehert

copyright (c) 2010 by Dean Blehert

Posted by Pam Blehert

Old

by Dean Blehert

"Don't get old like me." (Grimacing
to steady her shakey scrawl on
the check.) "Not much choice,"
I said. "Funny--I thought
I'd have a lot of choices,
but my mother and father are dead,
all my family, all my friends
are dead, and I'm..." (Hears
her own voice, looks up,
astonished, young) "...I'm still
here--I'm 89--that's OLD! Not
many people get to be 89.
Why me? I don't understand
why I'm still here! I keep thinking:
I won't be here for THIS,
I won't be here for THAT,
but look at me, I'm
still here! I don't understand
why I'm still here." Shrinking back
into herself, she says something
about leaving it up to God, but
that wasn't what she had to say.

Our Children

Almost five years we've been married,
but have no children. The oldest
of the children we haven't had
(a boy, I think) is nearly five,
a good kid, tough, bright, cute,
though already his tow-head darkens.
Whoever had him instead of us,
I'm sure he's loved and in good hands.
The other two (a girl and a boy,
I think) are also thriving. All feel
tucked in among the toys, easy chairs
and faces they have known forever.

Later, perhaps, each will wonder
if there is not a truer home
than they know, a presence calling
faintly in the hush of wind moving away
through tall grass on the hillside,
a sense of something just out of
reach...which may have nothing to do
with their being the children we never had

We, too, are doing very well:
My wife's smile never fails to charm me
and I always say the cutest things.

by Dean Blehert

The Makers

We are the makers.
When there is nothing left to say,
we make something to say.
When there is no language left
to say it in, we make a language.
When none will listen,
we make them listen.
When there is no one left to listen,
we make listeners.

by Dean Blehert

How to Cheat Nightmares

In my dream, I left the airplane,
toting two bags,
stopped in a restaurant
to talk to the woman who ran it
(and seemed to know me), then,
on the sidewalk, heading home,
noticed my bags had vanished, but,
knowing the ways of dream luggage,
was not upset:
"If I just keep walking
as if it were here, it will reappear."
And it did.

by Dean Blehert

Invisible

The sun must imagine himself invisible,
because no matter how hard he shines,
no one ever looks right at him.

Though you never seem to see me,
I must be content if, in my light,
you can see one another.

by Dean Blehert

Wrong signal

She gives me a friendly hug.
I give her a more-than-friendly hug.
She sheds me like a sweater in a warm room.

by Dean Blehert
(Posted by Pam Blehert -- this one made me laugh!)

Catnapping

5 a.m. - quick! The cat is howling!
Tie Pam to the mast AND plug her ears,
lest she throttle the cat! Listen
to that deep-throated yowl. The cat
gives good tongue. She knows we are trying
to assimilate her into our dreams.
She WILL not be assimilated. We make her
a song. She wails louder. We make her
a siren. Louder. We make her...Oh,
what's the use, I am awake - but
I'll not give her satisfaction. I'll
lie here with my eyes closed. After all,
most people only pretend to be awake.
Call it waking. Call this sleeping.

by Dean blehert

Haiku

After much search I find
the lost key in the lock
where I left it.

by Dean Blehert

What rhymes with orange?

Challenged by a fellow poet, here's a rhyming stanza Dean came up with off the cuff:

Maid, sculpt your hair with orange gel
For coif where lover or angel
May, safe from cooties or mange dwell
And loving fingers – O!—range well.

by Dean Blehert

(Not exactly a rhyme with just "orange", but pretty nice, nonetheless!)

One Day

One day in the middle of my life
I realized that I knew nothing
about living with a woman,
having friends, making money,
owning a house, and caring for carpets,
plants, animals, and cars.

What a relief to recognize
all my vague fears as precise
ignorances!

What a joy to be rewarded
for 37 years of knowing it all
with the chance to learn something.

by Dean Blehert

Untitled

Rain. I stay inside
where the rain can't touch me, but
neither can the sky.

by Dean Blehert

Close Encounters of the Fourth Course

The dessert tray, a shimmering alien civilization
Of mirrored chocolate domes and creamy turrets
And tessellated plazas, cherry-studded, with gardens
of emerald kiwi, descends, hovers, whisks away,
Hovers near again — I feel tractor beams
Reaching out to me, probing, searching
For intelligent life to pervade, and now,
All purpose, all sense of proportion
Vanished, I am being pulled in, closer...
Closer — suddenly before my glazed eyes
The pecan pie is about to speak to me,
I know it...
And that's all I remember.

by Dean Blehert

Faking it

Sometimes it's hard to know what to do.
It's like losing your place in the music.

The music doesn't stop:
If you miss your entrance,
you take your lumps in silence
and join in where you can.

"Could we please take it from the top?"
you plead, but the music goes on,
its only concession being
to incorporate into itself

(perhaps a tremulous violin
counterpointed against sneering clarinet)
the sub-theme of your pleading.

by Dean Blehert

Making Fun

He made fun of her for feeling sorry
For baby seals and other dumb helpless
Creatures. His mockery soon cured her
Of that feeling, which, it turned out,
Included her love for him.

I miss having a woman in my bed.
What a strange thing to miss. How is it
that my bed, so simple, functional and complete,
can shape for me the infinitely baroque
complexities and irrelevancies
of a woman's absence?

by Dean Blehert
Posted by Pam Blehert
Comment: This is an example of how time (the great charlatan) can make liers of us. There were times when Dean and I were separated by travel necessity, but not now. Plenty of woman in his bed (in fact 50 extra lbs of woman!) But i like this poem. It's an example of the quirky way he looks at things. (Note: I'm posting to Dean's blog because he' so busy!)

Vision

Is brightness aware of brightness?
Without eyes I would see the shapes
of my absences.

 

by Dean Blehert
(posted by Pam)

More to the Dream

I dreamed I had something important to say.
Crickets woke me with their din.
I fell asleep again and dreamed
that humanity desperately needed to hear
what I had to say.  In the morning
birds broke, like pebbles
tossed in a pond, the surface
of my dream with their twitter.
Wide awake, I can think of nothing
to say, but it seems important
that I have something important
to say.  There must be more
to the dream.

Dean Blehert
(posted by Pam)

Good body

In the shower I notice what a good body I have:
responsive, smooth, elastic to the touch —
"Good body!" I say, patting its belly and
feeling it looking for a tail to wag.

(poem by Dean, posted by Pam)

Shades

How is it that fissure of morning brightness,
just there, where curtains don't quite meet,
can generate a hotel room full
of grey outlines, nooks, niches of wrinkled blankets--
a shadowland?  As if a fraction of dawn
equals a full dusk, as if morning
has been husbanded, doled out,
one crack of dawn per room, don't be
greedy, day broken up into cubicles
of colorless form, looming hints of depth,
how efficient! 

But why, then, outside,
such extravagance of sunlight?
There one mica-flaked square of concrete sidewalk
basks in glare enough to touch
with grey-brown intelligence the forms
of a thousand suites, the sweets
of a thousand forms, and there,
a glassy waste of shop windows
blasts the eyes with brilliance enough
to illuminate gently the texts
of all the yellowed classics ever fingered
in the mellow depths of reading rooms,

enough to detach from grey dawn
with just the softest mottling hint of umber
a swell of shadowed nakedness
(were you with me), a billion nakednesses
in a billion waking rooms--one unreadable
window's waste of morning dazzle
could touch all these lives with promise,

as once, when I reached to touch, lightly,
that dim fullness beside me,
my closed eyes spilling over with light.

Dean Blehert
(posted by Pam)