http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss alessi@sover.net Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:00:50 -0500 Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:01:00 -0500 iBlog 1.4.6 Al Alessi Late Innings Poetry by Al Alessi I'm committed to one poem a day, starting May 5, 2004. Call it a yoga, call it what you will, but I hope you enjoy what you read. It's life in Vermont, it's politics, it's family, it's whatever makes life. Click a feedback button and it sends me an e-mail...I'd be honored to hear your thoughts in general or on any specific poem. Al Alessi alessi@sover.net Late Innings Poetry by Al Alessi http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224140027/index.html you are resiliant
and resourceful
and generally right
your children i hope
understand the strength
feel the love
comprehend the wisdom
you share
every
single day
whether tired
beat
or sick
you bounce back
and give more
and then more again
as mentor or friend
i hope they see it
but know that i do
and i’m amazed ]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 14:00:27 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224140027/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224135820/index.html you are like an angel
no, wait, I think not
a goddess then
and yet on second thought
a saint no please
that is not you
not so exhalted
if I must be true
your taste in men
is clearly suspect
so how is it
that I can expect
such perfection from you
and I don’t
when you love so patiently
this nearly untrainable dolt
there must indeed
be something within you wrong
for your love towards me
to last so long
the opposite is not
the same you see
it is my great good fortune
that I can be
your man for all these years
and more
forI am blessed
to be allowed to adore
not angel or saint
but woman through and through
how rich it is to wake
each morning with you

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:58:20 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224135820/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224135707/index.html To Debra on our Twentieth

we found the indigo bunting
on our private south woodstock trail
i said i would not fail you
when we travelled that path again
and in the pale leafy moonlight
we stepped into a piece of paradise
silver sliver so sweetly serene we laughed
it has been harder to find our way
through the trails of our trials
tear strewn too often at times to see the way
mother and father husband and wife each day
together now for twenty years of life
you work too hard and sit too little
i sit too long and work not enough
perhaps that’s our intended dance
i say stop and smell the roses
you say they need to be trimmed
i have learned from you
i have changed slowly like an aquarian sloth
i have given up my boyish ways
become at last the man i might have been
far earlier in my stubborn existence
my resistance might have perplexed
a less temperate woman
not raised in the ways of this land
you trimmed me and fed my soil
my roots feel solid at last
and even our private agonies and salted tears
for the young souls we delivered to life’s door
can not rust the bloom of your love for me
and mine for thee
i hope i have nourished you in return
lightened the fears that dwelled within
we came to each other not broken
but the glaze was surely cracked
like fine aged pitchers handed down
from those who cast our clay
and, like most, knew not the true potter’s trade
i have not succeeded as i had once dreamnt
someone of greater reknown in word or song
but i have arrived where I did not in truth aspire
or consider an end to all my desires
a partner and friend and lover like no other
for twenty full years in the hills of Vermont
now most content to garden by your side
trowel in hand compost by the shed
bee balm smells swell as we weed
we add paths and ponds and all is well
our own fruit has seen that too not by word
but by deed they have seen and lived our love
with ups and downs not some perfection beyond their ken
but we have lasted sweet lady with true affection
our willow vale is small not big
i am your gardener and you may tell me where to dig

]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:57:07 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224135707/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224131957/index.html we were dressed to visit friends
the plans failed and it’s now dinner for two
just me and you
softly talking and making plans
woman and man plans
feeling oddly ancient but spry
glimmer in the eye 
love is so much more 
than we ever can define
quiet peace by fire place
as rumors of the pending storm swirl
the cardinal couple 
not natural to our winter 
just outside the kitchen window
do they wonder from 
whence come the seeds 
we wonder if they do
me and you as we sip coffee
in the chilly house we try to heat
with a stove too small to warm it all
our flame must flourish
with kindling and tending vents and ash
against rough weather
we convert cast iron to our sun
about which we revolve 
on occasion in mute appreciation
each piece of wood handled five times
from stack to barrow to cellar to canvas
we move our woodcutter’s tree 
until we feed the orange glow
and so it goes
our life’s flame fed
many steps and colder nights
there will be in our winter
it may one day be all we can abide
one piece of wood at a time
a little heat
silent 
sweet








]]> Sat, 24 Feb 2007 13:19:57 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E20070224131957/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E637626801/index.html And so one more little step for mankind womankind
and all the other kinds of kinds
The kinders are moving on and up
No more health insurance
On this specific day it says so
You're not ours in that way any longer
It's not a big thing if you stay healthy
If you grow stronger from your tears
Those years we would walk through town
My little backpacker
Sometimes on my back
Sometimes by my side handinhand
Dark confident curious eyes
Asking your thousand thousand questions
Why does it rain? How do birds fly?
Why did Humby die?
I'd answer endlessly with as much detail
As I could hope a little one could absorb
We'd walk on logs or curbs
sharks to one side alligators to the other
Oh, nooo, you're dead, I'm dead
We fell into the sea
We lost our balance
We invented the little French girl
Toula Balance
You told the postmaster that's your name
"I'm Toula! Toula Balance!"
For Toula everything was balance
The dance of opposites,
dark and light day and night
Life is a battery with a plus and a minus
Poles that keep the flow
Flowing and our wisdom growing
Tiny Toula understood
We’d climb Mountain Pig
Visit Grandmother Tree
and leave our gift of leaves and ferns and flower petals
knowing it was all balance back to the roots
old man to dust, sun to horizon,
darkness to wisdom, on it swirls,
the spiral within which, somewhere, is my love endless
for Toula and thee for she lives still
deep within, can you see her and bring her home?
Can she walk the log and not fall?
Call her, she will come, she will dance
The sweet warm true Toula Balance ]]> Tue, 19 Jul 2005 23:45:41 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E637626801/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1448815657/index.html





we are so bad at this
no, wait, i am so bad at this
special days and celebrations
great and small
i’m always late and unprepared
for all of them
frozen in indecision
what can we do for two days?
where might we go for a week?
can we afford it?
what else do we need?
i’m beat so home sounds good
doing nothing much sounds good
what i like best doesn’t cost much
but i want you to know
yes i want you to know right now
thank you woman
for all the love and patience
you’ve shown this flawed piece of manwork
twenty years is plenty for all the cracks
and fissures to show and they have
yet still our love is strong and
still it strengthens
i’m beat by our offspring
love them so dearly
and clearly we have missed something
along the way
love was not enough
i’m beat by knowing my fathership
has left them missing something
they need to see
but i think we’re pretty okay you and me
two of woodstock’s beautiful people
someone said and they were half right


]]> Thu, 16 Jun 2005 07:35:39 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1448815657/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E280145723/index.html we wake as we do every day to the news of the world
interrupting the news deep within
commentary shared by curling toes into ankles and calf
and build up our gumption to set forth from fleecy comfort and warmth
and make our coffee fumbling with the percolator
and raise our children from their slumbers
and turn up the heat to beat the February airs
i check the outside temperature
see if any coals remain from last night's fire
if brave i run en robe to the newspaper box
it's the same old day over and over again
not like the truly wealthy you and me
a trip to Paris or Martinique to break the blahs of mid-winter
is out of our league as we are besieged and encumbered with more
than our paltry sums can withstand
and yet we endure the tired repetition without dereliction
for we have our sweet love
and Valentines Day will be like all the others
for we have our sweet love
and that is more than enough



]]> Sun, 13 Feb 2005 15:59:58 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E280145723/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E446097846/index.html have I forgotten how to write
and do right?
it's just one day perhaps another
to the end my friend
i feel the laughter now and then, and rhyme
i sense a mission is upon me from time to time
a calling to the higher place
the eight=fold path
truth and justice and honesty flow forth
like a fountain in the mountain village square
sustenance nourishments no charge
the joy of life its own reward
but more often i'm pulled backward
by base desires and and little fires
that give no warmth in the death of winter
can i pull the plug on the satellite dish?
can i focus just long enough on my deepest wish
which is to know, to hear, my deepest wish?
today is a slushy day
neither rain nor snow
a good day to start again on the whim of a friend to ask
if i remembered how to write
i might recall after all
i'm warmer already ]]> Thu, 10 Feb 2005 22:32:20 -0500 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E446097846/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1019785050/index.html it's not neat, the world, it's messy
lava flows and flood debris
scree slopes and fungi covered logs
a village of huts skin covered
ready to move in the spring
predators and blood suckers
one of a kind snow flakes and sun sets
only the bodies of heaven purvey precise
and even they wobble
and even the moon drifts each year a few inches
away from the tides that collide
with rock strewn seaweedy shores
crabgrass pressing through a crack in the concrete
and yet not a thing out of place
meant to be this way this disarray
an endless mess
punctuated with love ]]> Thu, 15 Jul 2004 00:03:25 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1019785050/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1400698226/index.html we all know where we were
millions of us made aware in a blinding flash
of jet fuel and flame
only dallas and the assassination
of the president of our nation
can compare in my lifetime
both were crimes that echo on
for decades to come
some for the crime itself and some for the the facts
stacked house of cards
the construct around the event
who knew who said who asked who lied
we will not know the truth surrounding jfk
not in my lifetime perhaps never
they were clever the smoke worked
but nine eleven will out by will of survivors
drivers towards the truth
and moore has clarified the questions
millions asking the questions that we hoped
our free press might ask
our ultimate repository of freedom
the press now the media might ask
about these links from saudi to bush
this cushy embrace this censored case
but the media is not where we thought it was
it is us our internetworking logs
millions of journalist making sure the facts don't slither by
as young poor boys and girls in fatigues die
in the winds of babylon
it's being called propaganda
this one lone voice that looms forth and challenges
all the lockstep statements of the corporatii
that is not propaganda
that is the voice that throws of our blinders
to let the light in where it has been so dark
we are the victims of propaganda
moore has helped provide the key
to rise free above the unquestioned
the work is now our destiny
it is not easy to mutiny
i cried when jfk died hard and long
i cried when the towers burned and fell
what tears will fall if our nation should die and fall
there is an answer i pray to whoever hears such prayers
that should i might never hear at all ]]> Thu, 08 Jul 2004 23:10:04 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1400698226/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E353611499/index.html she is asleep now in her bed in the tiny room she chose
filled with her art and her books and clothes
it is silent the house yawns under clear cool skies
i am lost and battered again my heart breaks and cries
fathers are too fragile or perhaps it is just me
i can not see clearly for i made choices as well
and lived to recover and learn and avoided the pits of hell
what is different from where i stand with my grey hair
i compare contrast where she might be here not there
she runs from not towards now confidant in her rejection
proud that she drifts without aim or direction
convinced i see her in a lesser light
evidence in her mind that i think she can do no right
yet i am trapped by just the opposite view
i see only her potential all that she can do
but i've shared what i could the die is cast
fathers have their time it does not last
i can only step aside and watch her wend her way
once a god i now stand with feet of clay
i'm just as lost some days perhaps more
i have few choices i have closed most doors
she will not exult in a single gift granted
she sees the world darkly and bitterly slanted
that was a gift i did not mean to share
we give what we have that now is too clear ]]> Wed, 07 Jul 2004 23:27:42 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E353611499/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E911021035/index.html i miss the food in provence
the way it was honored and respected
and came first not a quick pit stop
in the drag race of life
but a leisurely love of qualite
food first
you can continue without movies
or cars or soap operas real or televised
but a place that puts food in its proper space
has its priorities correct
and much good flows from that choice
if a choice it is
americans can not guess how it got to be that way
you can't get there from here
it's all intertwined
the wine the lavender the olives the bread
the open air markets and cafes
they lean upon each other
and the citizen supports them all
fresh croissants every day
at bruno's little cafe
if no one pays for them he would stop
but it is inconceivable
and so twenty arrive every morning
ready for my liberal elite latte
and my brutal effort to chat futbol en francais
bruno is patient
and the shutters against the stone houses
matching the doors
i miss that as well ]]> Tue, 06 Jul 2004 00:42:14 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E911021035/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1414660236/index.html i write alone i ride alone i read alone
i see movies alone
hear music alone
watch satellites slide across the sky alone
hike the trail alone
mow alone and then rake
contact with others is illusion
yet a pleasant collusion
a needed intrusion
a loving infusion
with accompanying confusion
which teaches me to remember
i write alone all over again
i am my own tap root
there is no sharesies on that
we can mingle above the soil
morning glories intertwined
willows bending with the wind
but hidden from the sun
where the transfer of needed nutrients occurs
we stand alone
we flourish or starve or are uprooted
whether or not the soil is suited to our souls
whether or not we have life goals
i stand alone outside my house
parts are over two centuries old
parts are not quite finished
a few dozen fireflies flash about
one flies high above the trees
experimenting in the warm southern breeze ]]> Mon, 05 Jul 2004 22:38:12 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E1414660236/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E271123304/index.html dream then of an america still a light to the world
still based on the principles of the declaration
so radical and bold in the flow of a world
of kings and despots and powerful lords
a break from the past for all time
and the world has loved and thanked our land
for the gifts bestowed by a few score men
two hundred twenty eight years ago
words spoken and written and acted upon
so it must be asked
who hijacked this great experiment?
torture of prisoners is not corporals
not sergeants not even generals
not even an administration so foul
we slid this way a long way to reach this point
we closed that joint in the philippines
and hawaii oh say can you see
the grasping hands of the greedy
every generation has them
they rise to the top and scum up the pond
clemens fought them tooth and nail
could you have a better champion
but he lost and we raised the sail to american empire
it has all followed from those first steps
our secret fingers placing guns in the secret hands
to assassinate any voice that might resemble
the voices of our founding fathers
ask the cubans to tell you something good about batista
ask nicaraguans to tell you something good about somoza
ask iranians how they came to have the shah on the peacock throne
our agents spreading autocracy oligarchy plutocracy and
even monarchy with absolute power
so who flicked the switch on the light of freedom
we can point to specific derelict men
but it's you and me for a hundred years
too bored by reading the mundane facts
too seduced by the pleasures wafting before us
to ask how our declaration of independence
and our constitution
came to bear the bullet-riddled fruit of allende
yeah yeah we beat the germans and saved the world
and we honor always those who did so
but our story from clemens time to ours
is not one (truth someday be told)
of advancing those thoughts and ideals so bold ]]> Sun, 04 Jul 2004 00:42:31 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E271123304/index.html http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E237773835/index.html you can lead a horse to water but it may be brackish
and the horse is not so stupid as to drink
deep draughts from the bitter pond
i was never a whisperer to horses or dogs
much less girls or humans of any kind
i could never speak so softly or listen cleanly
i had a malamut once with blue devil eyes
shogun
i was admonished by the man on his steed
as i chased my disobedient dog yelling and angry
i caught him and slapped him
he said you'll never train him that way
i knew he was right
flooded with the darkest self knowledge
i knew it was not in me this empathy
and not in this life would i free myself
this knee and this jerk thing have not worked
why did i think it might be different with
the life form i love as i love no other
i broke those bonds first
the watering hole has my tears
she will not drink nor should she
it will balance out in time
i move away from any dreams i had
i will be quiet now
love must ask for nothing
i've rode this disappointment nag long enough
the solitary man must find his own way
his own center
sadness says the world is not right
clouds the sight
brings the night
my dog ran away disappeared one day ]]> Sat, 03 Jul 2004 22:22:38 -0400 http://homepage.mac.com/alalessi/iblog/C1574266416/E237773835/index.html