RodWords

Selections From 

FLOATING UPSTREAM 

November 2006 to October 2009

         FLUORESCENT SHADOW

Bathing in the fluorescent shadow

     of Walt Disney.

He breathed in dream-breath,

     breathed out stories and laughter,

     while filling his own lungs with soot.

The chimney sweeps covered in char,

     danced across the starry rooftops,

     Walt's lungs blackening unnoticed,

     here he comes, coughing in the hallway.

Flicker-lines, cel sheets, storyboards

     Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, Poppins,

Dean Jones and Fred McMurray,

     Walt commanding to see the pictures first

     Walt, demanding a better tunnel for his

     personal choo-choo train, rollicking

     through his front and back yards.

Gulping in world-sized dream oceans

    flavoring every drop, 

    grinning at set-backs, surprises,

    pages and pages of rewriting.

    Stopping the train for friends along the way.

Walt meets Bradbury at Saks

While Roddy plays Lost In Space.

Disneyland lands and faces shine,

"Come on everybody, here we go!"

I ride the ride, starry-eyed, flying with Peter and Wendy

    high over London, Big Ben chiming our names

While Walt walks his final steps...

    coughing in the hallway...

    years later

I Waltz into the evening

    of my life,

Or simply take my shower

in the fluorescent rainfall shadow

     of Walter (Water) Disney.

Peter Pan's Flight at Disneyland

PUPPEDOODLES

Behold the fuzzy, furry, foamy

shapes that move around

 in light.

Crisp, blinding stage-light.

Soft neon library light.

Clinical hospital light.

Noisy, wiggly churchroom light.

Camplight, daylight,

Puppet-light

and Laughter-flight.

Or when the stage collapsed,

or a puppet head popped off 

and rolled into the crowd,

or the mic screeched a whine,

or a thousand mistakes

(all of them mine).

As long as one child-face gave a smile

or a big-face tilted her head,

even the whole room burst out

with giggles and guffaws,

or in silence, 

a dear-heart, bandaged face

sparked a twinkle in deep-thoughts,

It was everything

I could ever ask for

in the great, grand scheme of life.

And without pride,

but some satisfaction,

how I made everybody happy

with the movement of my hands

and fingers.

         IN PAIN

The 

everyday enemy:

PAIN.

She lives in

pounding, piercing,

perpetual pain.

From child-years to adult.

Medicine makes it worse.

The Suicide Disease.

     "End this pain, dear God,

     or end my life."

Ruth, her mother

does not feel the pain

in her body, she shares

the pain in soul and spirit,

a mother's pain-free, pain-filled

agony.

Pray for Debbie. Pray.

     Debbie's pain could be yours,

     should be mine instead of hers.

Pray for Debbie. Pray and pray.

Debbie who lives

in Arlington

Debbie who lives in Christ

Debbie who lives

in pain.

         WAVE WORDS

Wave is a word for a mound of water that glides,

Turning foamy and white as it crests with tides.

A wave tumbles in bubbles, explodes with a crash,

Another bright word: we call this a splash.

The color of ocean, is it clear, blue or green?

Or a thousand new colors you never have seen?

What to call the crawler with pinch-claws that grab?

Just hope that your foot never steps on a crab!

The shoreline is birthplace for praise-sparkled psalms,

Born in the sand dunes, the kelp-weed and palms.

Step down the boardwalk to a beach wonder land,

Where God signs His name in the cool morning sand.

         FIRST SHAFT OF LIGHT

Way up in the over-arching sky,

One great coastline of cloud,

one ribboning edge of silvery-white,

a flat-surface cloud, an observation deck, formed of fluff, with

angels standing up there, at the rim.

Looking down, one angel spotted me,

sitting here in beach-sand,

struck by the morning's first shaft of light,

(warmingly brilliant, already fading) and

"Look," said the angel, pointing, "there's Rod!"

I looked up,

but the clouds had melted to a 

different formation

and

the angels were gone.

I think.

         WATER DRUMMING

Dark sky, bright beach,

moods of gloom and singsong:

storm then sunshine then storm

and with the storm: music!

Water-mallets playing rain patterns

                 on the bent-over branches

                        of palm trees.

Water-drummers thwapping a beat

         on trash plastic cans,

         tittling a riff in pool water,

         hush-brushing a

         complimentary pattern in sand

         and

         dropletting the hoods of all the cars.

Melodies in minor keys,

        plucketing everywhere.

We huddle inside, in hubbub of talk

        and clinkle of coffee cups, as

the Lord of the weather

Drums the world with rain.

         SWIM-BESIDERS

The guiders, the gliders, sweet slip 'n sliders,

Calm Swim-Besiders,

water-wet, shiny and grey,

Dolphins at play,

surface in a graceful arc

and without a splash, slipping back below,

shadows in the aqua green.

Dolphins today, with a splort of

      air, sweet glance from a 

             marble-black eye,

Dolphins came to guide our

      wave-runners back to the harbor.

Sleek, stunning, sculptural,

Animals of style, grace and speed,

Funny, in a fishy sort of way,

banana-shaped, smiles, swimming

in the bay water.

We ran with the dolphins today.

        SPLASH BUDDIES

Me and BPB,

in the surf and the splash

riding a rush of foam

from the crash to the tingle

boogie boarding buddies

shoulder to shoulder,

Thank You, Lord.

Me sees JKB

across the table at the restaurant

He is sports a musical smile,

savoring and commenting, tossed hair,

a-glide in graces,

aglow in conversation,

Thank You, Lord.

JNB, poked by me, I stop

to see her slender fingers in air

wistful, wonder-fresh, girling,

swirling in her enthusiasms,

a palm frond, stretched out on a pool-chair for sun,

a tulip, running...a rose, unfolding,

Thank You, Lord.

         HER ENTRANCE

You enter the room

Blue-sparkle beachwater eyes,

Hair, dark waves cresting, you:

Flashing like a diamond in velvet

or that one star, all twinkle,

against the black of night.

Every molecule turns to see you

Sea gulls are shamed, crabs slip in shells,

dolphins submerge, the ocean stands still,

You catch the light

and steal the beautiful from Earth,

while

reflecting

a brilliance

from above, and beyond,

all this

when you

enter the room.

         LIGHT streaming

Light, morning light,

paints the palms

floods through windows

bright-striping the carpet

checkering the bedspread

changing the carefully chosen

          colors of paint on the houses

igniting the sky to

a sight-searing white

impossible to face without

covering the face.

Light, glory light,

a symphonic loudness

in the realm of visual music

streams over the everythings,

plunging some into black-coral shadow

others into colors gold-yellow blaze 

And

all of this a shadow

until

the final sunrise.

         GULLS

Nineteen seagulls,

their bird-feet in beach sand,

digging beaks into feathers

preening and grooming, stroking and poking,

a double-flick of the bird head

accomplishing who-knows-what.

One gull prances to the back of

       the flock, turns to face his back-feathers, 

                                                                         and stabs away.

One gull up-flutters his wings

and quickly

tucks them back in.

Another gull steps forward five paces

                                          and stops, then takes two

                                               more steps forward, and stops.

A new gull swoops in, landing carefully

amidst the clan, the wave-watchers.

Another arrives, glides, lands, flutters wings,

       preens, pokes, picks, looks around, perhaps

       suspicious...

Twenty-one seagulls pay no attention

to the deep roar of the F-15 ripping

through the atmosphere, invisible above the clouds.

Under the same clouds, a seagull flies,

equally aerodynamic, excelling in splendor.

         SOUVENIR

We leave the beach, the gulls, the surf,

     the flora, the fauna, tide and turf.

To castles of sand, we say good-bye,

     we leave the land, we climb the sky.

A House in The Sky

My feathers prepared me

for

a house in the sky:

elevated from ground-level,

clouds in every window,

a garden? an air-garden

plus a porch with

a view and a

deadly drop

(unless you're covered with feathers

and wings).

My white-painted birdhouse

on a chair-leg baluster

perching me heavenward, high

high up, washed in the 

wonderful breezes!

         PUNCH THROUGH

Punch through, punch through,

The walls are paper, bamboo,

Not granite, as you've heard,

in the noisy shrieks of birds.

Or thick metal to resist

Prayer's battering-ram fist.

Sing out sharpened swords,

Demons scamper in hoards.

Slice dimensions in half,

With thy rod and thy staff.

In God's armor, attack!

Rope the earth, seize it back!

         THE TIGER QUEEN

Here she comes.

Here she still comes.

Still coming...

Very slowly.

Small, careful steps, in

     tender shoes.

Eighty-nine years old.

Mertyl J. Fairweather:

Prayer Warrior.

Spiritual tiger queen.

Demon-trouncer.

Devil-bouncer.

The unceasing

Intercessor.

Hell quivers and quakes,

Creatures fall to the floor,

Here comes Mertyl,

And that means war.

WALRUS

The walrus shirks his shoulders,

his mustache bristles,

then he winks

with a smile.

"I will help you," he whispers.

"I already have a plan."

         MR. CARDEN'S COSTUME

Mr. Carden, I noticed,

You left your costume in the car.

In the front seat, at the driver's wheel,

all nice and neat, and now, unnecessary.

The play is over,

And the Great Play begun.

You heard the call, you

passed the audition, you

saw your name on the cast list for the 

Performance Beyond Time,

The Never-Stop, Over-The-Top Show Topper,

NOW PLAYING

in the Throne Room

of the Golden Castle Playhouse.

They had your new costume,

waiting at the door.

Mr. Carden, gentle man, I remember you,

yelling from the dark auditorium,

"Project! Project!"

How funny.

You projected. Then disconnected.

Then, reconnected: resurrected.

The play is over,

And the Great Play begun.

Mr. Carden, my favorite teacher,

I came to you slipping and sliding,

bad at sports, great at faces.

You sent me forth gliding, and firmly deciding,

exciting my call to be funny forever.

Thank you, Mr. Carden,

Bill Carden, William F. Carden,

speaker, actor, teacher, director, 

destiny-into-cadet injector.

Your signature is ever lifted in

the smell of the grease-paint,

Your smile, a soft echo

in the roar of the crowd.

Your life-work, ever blazing,

in lights and curtains raising,

and now, at curtain's closing,

You join the chorus, ever praising.

The Earth-play is over,

And the Great Play begun.

Good night, Mr. Carden.

I miss you, Mr. Carden.

We'll put your costume in the trunk.

And see you in the morning. 

(NOTE: While Mr. Carden was teaching at Army Navy Academy, he ran a shop called The Costume Trunk.)