Big Old Mourning
“Big Old”, I am told
by my youngest son,
is a special man who works with him
and laughs with him
in the village kitchen.
Old is always itchin’
to have big fun
with a pot he pretends to be a drum,
and a make-believe tuba,
“oompawpaw oompaw.”
In between stacks of dirty plates,
Old rinses, recalling dates
when, as a drummer, he belonged
to a music-making throng,
celebrating right along.
Big makes my boy’s tired spirits lift;
the goofiness becomes a gift.
Next, my son told me
of a touching tragedy;
Big Old’s mamma died.
No one noticed if Big cried,
but they saw him march with pots and pans,
in front of his adoring fans,
and he beat the drums a little slower,
and played the tuba for his mother.
Was Big Old too out of it to know
the proper way to grieve, too dull or slow?
Or did he mourn in a brighter way
than the rest of us on such a day?
© 2007 Darrell Moneyhon
(as defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary)
Definition: a pilotless airplane that is directed in flight by remote control
"I like that blend.
Gotta ask 'em tomorrow morning,
'What was the coffee of the day yesterday?'
I assume Starbucks keeps a record of some sort.
Maybe I better stop on the way home
and find out before the day ends.
Can't count on corporate policy
covering me on this.
I'll buy a bag tonight,
whatever the name is,
grind it and brew it
here in the office,
sip it all day long
while I stare at the monitor.
Lets see, what are the destination coordinates
on that site sarge said to target?
Here they are.
There it is.
Drop everything.
Another one bites the dust.
Damn, this coffee is good.
Need a warm up.
I think it was a village or something.
What's next? Latitude... Longitude...
That could be a training ground.
Looks like a storage building right there.
Zoom in. Lock on.
Bombs away.
Huh,
too many bodies for a warehouse.
Three spots left.
One,
two,
three.
Damn, I'm good.
The king of the joy stick,
dirty fuckin' hair -trigger Harry,
nice and precise,
anyway you slice it.
This coffee is definitely on the cold side.
Done here. Program Danny Boy
to head home. I'll
nuke the rest of this cup,
Then I better stop, if I expect
to get any sleep tonight.
Can't drink it after 3 .
Wonder what time it is over there.
Good job, Danny boy.
There ya go, ease on down,
nice and easy does it.
Shut down your jets now,
let the crew hook up and
and haul your ass to the hanger.
Just like a stud horse,
you rode hard, now yer put up hot.
Speak of hot,
that's what I'm talkin' about!
A little strong though;
kinda leavin' a bad taste in my mouth.
Guess it has a shelf life.
Do I still wanna buy a bag?
Why not, won't hurt a thing.
The way we drink the stuff here,
won't be around long anyway.
Gotta have it. Keeps us wired for sound -
on auto pilot."
Definition: a male bee, as a male honeybee, which serves only in a reproductive capacity, has no sting, and does no work.
"Gotta have some of that.
thats where it's at"
buzz,buzz, buzz
Why, oh why?
just becuzz.
Some love to fly,
but, my, oh my, I
fly to love, I
love to love.
buzz, buzz, buzz,
just becuzz.
Don't need to know
no reason.
It's what I do.
Now's the season
of love,
love sweet as honey,
the reason
my season is oh so sunny.
Let workers work
their wings to the bone,
I'm a drone,
and drones, well ...
drones just don't do that,
don't carry loads as fat
as that.
I tilt my hat
to those who do.
They deserve a word or two
of praise
for all the work,
all the days
and days of work they've done.
But my job's fun,
It's not my place
to work, or run
a kingdom, let the Queen make rules,
I'll just make love.
I'll set the pace'
and put in place
a wide array of subtle tools -
a wink of eye, a touch of hand -
to woo my Queen
who rules the land.
See, I 'm one hellova lucky man -
bee, that is.
That's my biz.
buzz, buzz, buzz.
Definition: ... sustaining a single low tone, such a tone.
The dulcimer haunts him,
rings Appalacian songs
that roll like mist across
countless hills, between
forgotten people
who scrape meager livings
from rocky ground,
piecing shacks on lanky stilts
on difficultly-angled planes,
just hanging on,
hanging in there,
fragments of a people, sharing music
like a kindergarten's rope that
kids hold onto when crossing the
intersection and taking a field trip
in the community. The community
is woven into a rope of stories
droned out with a poor
man's bagpipe, with twangy chords
(vocal chords and dulcimer chords),
salty dog love tales, like dog's tails
swinging, singing hardships into
artful, heartful expression,
into soulful mists,
mystical half-knowns of droplets felt,
of lives lived,
forming one song that echoes through
hallows, across patches of
land and landscapes of being.
Bluegrass songs
stream
on the internet,
enhancing the workplace
where the young enlisted man,
stationed stateside,
is charged with operating
technologies reaching abroad -
a bird, a mechanical bird,
or big bee, a stinging bee,
or sword without the grasp
of human hand and heart,
an over-extension.
The only reason
it is bluegrass, is that
the young man likes it.
He was raised in eastern Ky.
The music reminds him of home,
clear across the country.
It brings a familiar touch, tone,
to his California post.
He especially likes the dulcimer's
drawn out, low, slow, buzz -
only hearing it peripherally,
almost subliminally, as he sips his coffee
and adjusts the monitor.
That night, after work
(after stopping by the nearest Starbucks
and buying something,
and after watching the Simpsons,
and American Idol,
and going to bed a little late
because he drank coffee at 3:30 that afternoon,
and finally getting to sleep,
a fitful, fragmentary, sleep,
but sleep, nonetheless),
he dreamed of grandma and grandpa.
© 2009 Darrell Moneyhon
Where the Yard Was
Where the yard was
is now a Great Lake
lapping up the soil
wave after wave after wave
with its thirsty tongue.
That’s the story he told
as we stood there
looking out his window
at Lake Erie in winter,
cakes of ice jammed sideways
against the shore,
clear evidence of the phenomena
of which he spoke.
When they bought the place
many years ago,
the previous owner said
there was once a grassy yard
between the house and the water.
But the currents had worked
their way up under the house.
The present owner told me
they bought the house cheap
because they had to have it moved
inland one hundred and eighty feet,
then had concrete debris
from a local highway project
dumped on the banks
to slow down the erosion.
He stood there tilting slightly
from a stroke a few months ago,
or perhaps from the wine
I smelled on his breath.
His wife, he told me, has to contend
with the early stages of congestive heart failure,
“water on the heart”,
as though her heart had been overtaken underneath
by waves of grief - the recent death
of their daughter, Mary,
and not long before that,
their son, Tim.
I looked out the window,
through the panes,
looked at the Great Erie Lake
as I listened to the man’s story.
I felt something tugging at me.
Had the waters made it to my foundation,
as they had his wife’s heart?
Had they taken a swath of my mind,
as they had taken his,
slurring his speech a bit
while the story poured out?
Great waters filled his glass of wine
and made him tilt
like the cakes of ice
jammed against the shore out there
where the grassy yard once was.
© 2007 Darrell Moneyhon
...Moon...
By the time grandma covered
the bedtime story,
the sheets felt warm,
just right for sleeping.
She ended the story
the same way she always did,
standing at the doorway,
saying, "Know how much I love you?
From here to the moon."
Years later,
when she had a stroke of genius,
at a doorway
ending the story
(this time lying on cold tile),
she said the only word
she could get out -
"moon".
Just right for living.
Looking back, hearing her last word,
he feels warm again.
© 2009 Darrell Moneyhon
