New Poems: Fall 2020
By: Jonah Hall
Tags: Poem, Poetry On Medium, Poetry, Art, Painting

A handful of poems from the last few months. And some art.

Waiting Through the Winter

March is the third month

The eleventh is November

One plague has been ended

But the other has new members

We wait for clearance months away

While vaccines get produced

We brace for colder winter days

Though the holidays seduce

Some gather into groups unsafe

Rebellious and without fear

While others hide away from all

Isolated and minds unclear

There is no perfect answer

To this year of perfect storm

Sequester just a few months more

And avoid the misinformed.

Continuation

Is it time to celebrate

Or time to heal?

Is it time to move forward

Or time to stay present?

Is it over yet

Or has it just begun?

In a year that dissolved

Day by day

We have reached

A solution

And now we begin

Accounting for all the problems

Foundations and aspirations

One foot and the other

Each person clearing:

The path becomes obvious

Only in retrospect

All that we’ve ignored

The invisible and divisible

Whose place will this be

Tomorrow

Whose place will this be

Today

We have woven just enough

To cover ourselves

For now.

In the Balance

How is a democracy reborn?

How is gravity tested

without apples and trees?

We have never learned

The degree of mystery

Surrounding us.

What goes up

Often comes back down

Even if a yellow balloon

Drifts off over the treetops.

With good hearts

We rarely hope for death

A human instinct: value life

But with this one…

The humanity once overflowing

Now draining as we stumble

Toward November.

The year, not yet complete

A force leaving nothing

As it was before.

Excavate

Wait your turn

Monday morning

Limbo idle

Redemption center

Drop little girl

Soon little friends

Drop 1,400 cans

Into big bins

While the crew

Digs up the backyard

No gold no bodies

No bones buried

Preparing for a fence

Keep water out

And family in

Keep space clean

A diagonal line

Connecting or keeping away?

Neighbor.

Imagine again

Now tangled vines gone

Growth unwanted

She inches higher

Fence six feet, enough to cover

Towering Redwood and it’s crows

Will have us looking up

Imagine again

Mornings strolling here

As squirrels fling

Themselves onto branches

Days as they unspool

September to December

January to June

As we wait

For our feet

To meet solid ground.

Creation

And on another day

He had an idea

What about instead of resting

He spent his hours

Recording conversations

With friends and unknown friends

Trying to dig down

To the bottom of things

Or at least to dig where

Less digging had been done.

The thrill of something new

To chew on until his teeth

Cracked and splintered

To occupy and satisfy,

A new project

That may or may not

Be the thing that propels him

Out of solitary half-thoughts

And into connectivity.

The beginning is always free-form

It’s the second and third steps

That create a structure

But building anything

From the ground up

Is challenged by the unknowns

In addition to gravity

That bastard pulling down at us

When we dare to leap.

Amber

We are suspended

Without gravity

In this amber

Or so it seems

This is amber

Not oxygen only

But carbon, oxygen

And hydrogen

Mixing melodically

Until the time stops

The world pauses

The soft buzz

Of Artificial light

Illuminating us

In our fractured states.

The suspense of

Slow-motion counting

Vote by precious vote

Colors on a map

Borders seemingly real

Red and blue make purple

Pastel nation

Never together

Always only fragments

The path to hope

Is the path to freedom

And the path

Always needs clearing.

And the counting

And the mixing

And the waiting.

Of Our Nature

We are only generous

When connected

We are only generous

When listening

We are only generous

When aware

We are only generous

When thinking beyond

This moment.

Wish I

Wish I could say

I’m ready for sleep

But tonight I have no choice

Wish I could say

It all makes sense

But whose is that quiet voice?

Wish I could say

Been here before

But nothing seems familiar

Wish I could say

We’re going to be fine

But light is getting dimmer

Wish I could say

Doors open and close

But some will stay ajar

Wish I could say

Something right up close

But will you listen from afar?

Invented Senses

Not just sight

More than taste or smell

Another sense

She’s got a fever

First in a long while

Trying not to get ahead

Just needs rest

We are contained

But the winter is coming

We slow-play the days

Wait for better news

Coming in the spring.

Upon Preschool Pick-Up

Upon preschool pick-up

We learned that Brandon

Stole the fire truck

And that the teacher

Gave a big hug

Then we felt

A little better.

We coached RH

To defend her possessions.

At a red light,

Daddy turned back

To the car seat and stole the book.

“What do you tell Daddy?”

“No, Daddy!

I’m using that! You have to wait!”

She never hesitates with us,

But Brandon must be a clever thief.

Upon preschool pick-up

The dogs waited

Patiently panting

In the front seat

While Mama retrieved RH

Daddy sipped sparkling water

And yawned.

Upon preschool pick-up

We drove to the parking lot

Near the open field

Behind the Costco

Where the dogs

Are allowed to be dogs

Where RH runs

To a bench, climbs up

And unlocks her snack box

Sitting by shimmering water

Low sun blinding us

Tiny pretzels

Shredded mozzarella

Upon preschool pick-up

RH wanders her own way

Wanting into the muddy water

But this is no beach

No swimming pool

She spots a mischief dog

He slips among the muck

Sniffing ducks as they scoot

Out of range.

Upon preschool pick-up

She wanders farther away

From the pack

Eventually claiming

A gargantuan upturned tree root

As the proper place to build

An imaginary fire

She gathers kindling

Refuses to leave

Must be bribed

“Have to make my fire!”

Finally, Daddy calls Mama

Who has strolled back

With the old limping fella

And the younger round one.

Mama’s voice is enough

To coax the young one with her firesticks

Back to the dusty land at her feet then off

Daddy carries her and she’s up

On shoulders again.

After Dinner

Take dinner’s dishes from the table

Place them in the sink, rinse them

Pile them in the dishwasher

Thank the universe for dishwashers

The apartment without one

For those eight years

Another life ago…

I maintain my equilibrium

When it comes time to gather

The counter’s odds and ends

Fill the machine up

Set it to wash.

The next morning

I involve little RH

A naming game of sorts

Returning clean dishes

To their hiding spots

“Blue plate”

“Big glass bowl”

And some to their usual

Spot on the drying rack

For easy access

So much silverware

Thousands of forks

Back to their spots

In the silverware tray.

Something about

!Tupperware!

And I’m raving mad

The way nothing seems to match

The way the dishwasher

Leaves it wet and unfinished

Always needs time to dry,

Stacked awkwardly

On the counter, cackling.

We are intimately familiar

These days, staying home

Nearly all the time

The grooved circles and squares

Taunt me

I take a deep breath

My lungs fill with plastic.

Heads in Boxes on Screen

Since April

Classroom is a computer

I learn how to teach through it.

Advantage of being young enough

Old enough, resource-aware

It is not impossibly strange

After a while

But lost are the varieties

Of laughter in a real room

Lost is the silence

Of thinking time…gone in the ether.

Humor without feedback

Is a ball dropping down

Into a bottomless pit.

My job is to teach English

And I think I am

I call on students

Then click

“Ask to unmute.”

To those whose box is black

Name in white text

I say their names, asking, “Are you with us?”

They read a sentence

Attempt to find the correct verb

But there is no correct verb

For this simulation.

Floating — not in water, but deep space — comes closest

Our silent attempts

Day after night

Night after day

After I send the students

To practice conversation

In breakout rooms

Leaving me alone

To collect my pieces

I send the questions

One at a time

“How old were you

When you got your first job?”

Later, a goodnight message

To the students

Who’ve remained.

Now I send words

Through the phone

Asking a friend

If he’s ready

For the screen

And we prepare

To ponder and laugh

And guess aloud

At the mysteries.

What Went Well

Writing in the morning

After the drop-off

And after the dog walk

And after the emails

While drinking the new coffee

The writing in the morning

About the way time

Is a cosmic joke.

That went well.

Audio project

After the long pause

And after the doubts

And after the confusions

While drinking the refilled cup

Of coffee after lunch

The audio project

About viewing

The human condition

From far above the Earth.

That went well.

Evening class

After a week off

And after the struggle of motivation

And after the ins and outs of

The late afternoon and early evening

While sipping the tea

That cools too quickly

The evening class.

That went well.

Phone call

After the difficult few days

And after the psychological ebbs and flows

And after the night of better rest

While leaning back in the chair

Confiding with a friend

The phone call.

That went well.

What Sticks, What Falls

Wake quickly

Old coffee

Granola and strawberries

Blue car

Drop off hugs

Missed student on screen

Write long email about humans

And groups and splintering off

Phone appointment with therapist

What is trust trust trust

Never saw it growing up

Intimidating or intimate or irritate

Coffee Eat lunch

Employer-mandated TB test due

Bartleby prefers not to

For a world in which students share space

Not a spot on a computer screen

How would one transmit TB through Zoom?

Eyes heavy want nap

Drive park greeted at clinic prick arm

Any cough, fever, sense of sanity?

Drive home eyelids

Short nap something

Wake drive pick-up hug

Home walk block sky orange fade

Not much hungry but eat something

Goodnight hug

Should bake one brownie

Every night until the end

Or maybe muffins again

Enter garage or classroom or chair

Open meeting click

Teach or talk

Or words and screen and

How to ask questions

And how to listen

And write what you hear

And spelling doesn’t even matter now

How do you teach a language

Without hearing them

Each say the words

Echo chamber echo

Chamber echoes.

Then a friend

And the mess of life

Swept into a pile

Your dad my dad whose dad

And the lingering layers

Of the psyche

Linguini tossed at the wall

What sticks, what falls.