Ghosts

 

In October of 2018, Arizona writers lost one of our own; the poet Tony Hoagland. We grew up together, those of us living in Tucson and attending the University of Arizona writing program. This was back in the 80’s. We took our holiday meals together. We read each other’s bad first drafts. For Tony, it was the beginning of a life devoted to poetry. Here’s a couple poems from that long ago in Tony’s first collection, Sweet Ruin, published in ’92.

The Word

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list

of things you have to do today,

between “green thread”

and “broccoli” you find

that you have penciled “sunlight.”

Resting on the page, the word

is beautiful, it touches you

as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present

he had sent you from some place distant

as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,

among your duties, pleasure

is a thing

that also needs accomplishing.

Do you remember?

that time and light are kinds

of love, and love

is no less practical

than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?

Tomorrow you may be utterly

without a clue

but today you get a telegram,

from the heart in exile

proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,

the king and queen alive,

still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them

who can find the time,

to sit out in the sun and listen.

Walking the Property Line:

The moon shines down from the black November sky.

The tide rolls in like a sweeping, white-ruffed arm,

erasing all the pages that have come before.

The evidence accumulates that nobody is watching over us.

and gradually, as the streets and houses drift towards night

all the words inside them close their eyes;

the sentences coil up like snakes and sleep.

It’s just me now and my famous aching heart

under the stars – my heart that keeps moving like a searchlight

in its longing for the love of other people,

who, in a sense, already live there, in my heart,

and keep it turning.

Bread and circuses

 

A Stench On the Potomac

Upon the banks where thick Potomac flows,

A spectral Stench through marble hallways blows.

The "rotten" scent that Elsinore once knew,

Now clings to laurels of red, and white, and blue.

A capital of gilded speech and performance,

Where power carves a logic of its own.

The pillars tremble under broadcast light,

As ancient mandates fade into the night.

No ghost on ramparts needs to call the name,

Of systemic corruption or ego's hungry flame;

For when the foundation begins to bend and break,

Something rotten breeds in the Washington dark.

While the populace toils under the illusion

Of weapons of mass distraction.

Every Move you Make Every breath you Take

 

Every Move You make Every Breath you take

The air in the country is changing. It is a hard thing to see, but you feel it in the way people move and the way they stay quiet. It is the feeling of a hunt where everyone is the prey.

First, there is the watching. They call it surveillance. It is in the glass in your hand and the glass on the buildings. The telescreens do not blink. They watch you eat and they watch you sleep and they watch you work. It is a clean kind of watching, efficient and cold. There are microphones in the places where people used to talk. Now, they do not talk. They look at the ground and they keep their hands in their pockets.

Then there is the policing of the mind. The Thinkpol do not always need to break down your door. They are already inside. You think a thought that is not the right thought—a thoughtcrime—and you feel the fear. It is a cold fear that sits in the stomach. You learn to kill the thought before it breathes. You do it because you want to live. It is a hollow way to live, but it is a way.

They take the words and they shave them down. They call it Newspeak. It is a language made to make the world small. If there are no words for freedom, then no man can be free. You learn Doublethink. You hold two ideas that are not the same and you tell yourself they are the same. It is a trick of the mind. It is a way to stay safe when the regime is heavy.

The trend is there, growing like weeds in a field no one cares for. It is a fascist thing, and it is very quiet.

Winter Solstice

 

The Winter Solstice 

The moonlight strikes deep in the heart of the frost,

Where the hours are long, and the light feels lost.

The year reaches down to its darkest point,

Tracing the edge of a jagged, cold line.

But even the dark must bow to the dawn,

A limit is reached, and a veil is withdrawn.

For darkness, though vast, has a point where it wanes,

A rope that snaps for the morning’s own sake.

Just as the orbit returns to the flame,

Your spirit remembers its ancient name.

The resilience you thought had been buried in snow,

Is waiting for rhythm, for permission to glow.

You survived the season that tried to turn stone,

The ice in the marrow, the chill in the bone.

Now watch as the night  begins to give way,

Softening fast in the light of the day.

You are not the shadow; you are what is true.

Welcoming the beginning of a year born anew 

should of seen the signs

 

The Dictator's Treadmill

The belt spins fast beneath the feet,

no pause for breath, no safe retreat.

To step aside means iron bars,

A concrete room beneath the stars.

So what price is paid to hold the floor?

He breaks the law to write some more

. He’ll burn the world to keep the pace

and die running in the exact same place.

Somebody opened Pandora''s box

 There is something called the Dictator's Treadmill: once you get on, you can’t get off, because falling off means ending up in jail. What options does the leader have, and what is he/she willing to do not to fall off?