Cul De Sac Song                                                                                                 

Lawnmowers pace and rage like preachers.
Weed eaters slice the heads off grass.

Neighbor Dave throttles his new
Harley so you can hear its hymn.

Behind the motors are the heartbeats of babies
that suck at empty bottles like gerbils.

Tired toddlers are wired into strollers,
heads lolled forward in prayer.

TV screens kneel before the kids, blue faces
bloodless like napping vampires.

The children pick at scabs from curbs and driveways.

The street smells like stale beer and lilacs
and water sprinkled on the cut heads of grass.

Suburban Haiku Triptych

Wet leaves in springtime
leap from gutters like suicide.
Power washer sings.

*

Winter oil freezes.
Plug in battery charger.
Extension cord, where?

*

In fall, ear hair grows.
Liver spots, thin urine stream.
Schedule prostate check.

He and the Wife sit on the Deck on a Cool Fall Evening
and try to Ponder their Place in the Universe
but Fall Just Short once Again because the kids are whining
from inside for something to eat

When the sandbox sand is all kicked in the grass,
when the lawn forgets to get mowed,
when we sit on the deck and listen to the empty swing,
when we feel ourselves bloated with no light beer in our hands,
when the hush of silenced powerwasher and air compressor
remind us of regrets
when the tablesaw quits spinning and dog stops barking
as another season ends
we will savor untrimmed hedge and melted citronella candle
and rejoice over empty street and driveway and lawn with the ghost
of plastic pool, leafbag, gas grill, extension cord,
bungee cord, lawn mower, flower box, power washer
screaming kid, coughing crow, bird bath, bird feeder,
weed eater, leaf bag, cut grass, flower row,
trimmed hedge, hottub, fire pit, mulch pile,
weed whip, cocktail, patio table, lawn edger,
jogging suit, halter top, baby buggy, bike helmet,
tag-along, sprinkler system, garden fence, fertilizer,
Chemlawn, lawn chair, ice cream truck, rooftop,
nail gun, tarped boat, parked camper, locked gate.

Sealcoating in Late Fall

You walk to the end of the Cul De Sac
to haul in your son for dinner.
You’re having lasagna that comes in a plastic tray
inside a cardboard box the way a coffin comes in a vault.

You prick a fork into the clear plastic cover
and slide it into the oven
and while the food melts
you walk toward your lad who’s jumping
in a rectangular leaf pile in the state patrol cop’s yard.

He flips around with the cop’s daughter,
their blonde staticky hair attracting leaf bits.
The cop wears his raking uniform:
blue flannel shirt and brown gloves.
His cru cut flattens the underside of the clouds, holds them up.
He rakes vertical and horizontal, carving out tic-tac-toe squares
in the grid of leaves,
plusses and minuses and equals signs.

Across from the cop, a guy power-sprays a liquid coat of tar
onto Bob Anderson’s driveway,
plugging up the cracks before the frost and ice claws them open again,
the air compressor hum launching a brief breeze that sprays leaf bits
into the new tar, preserved, and the cop winces when he looks over.

He knows a guy should never sealcoat in late fall, but what can he say?

Blackbirds with Paul Bunyan chests screech overhead
like kids on waterslides
and they dive into bird feeders
the way seagulls dive into Wal Mart parking lots.

The cop looks up from the lawn and says to you,
“How’s it going?”

You feel the creeces carving at the corners of your eyes.
The crow’s feet rake your temples the way the cop lines in his lawn.

“Pretty good,” you say.

Later, you fork your lasagna without prayer,
considering how to carve at the flat rectangular noodles
that lay over warmed meat like coffin flags.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

I asked my son what he was watching on TV
and he said “Classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episode.”
“The old TMNT,” I said back. A cool dad.

Next, I made peanut butter toast in my underwear, just one slice,
slathered with peanuty goodness. The coarse grain of the bread
on the roof of my mouth made me want to watch cartoons.

Then I had a moment of gratitude to myself
for having laid out my jeans and sweater the night before,
glad I didn’t have to make a choice.
I hugged my son for it and he karate chopped my shoulder.

Before I left the house, I found my wife and daughter
in the basement office watching The Princess Diaries
on my wife’s laptop computer. I said I had to get going.

The first real toy, beyond rattles and chew toys,
I ever bought my son was a giant TMNT action figure,
Donatello. We sold it at our garage sale for a quarter.

The doctor told me I should eat low sodium peanut butter
so my kidney doesn’t fail because what will my kids
laugh at if I’m not around to be laughed at.

There are times when no clothes await me.
I’ve had over 2,300 dreams in which I have been pantsless
in public places, mostly in academic settings.

The saddest moment of my life: when I was driving
through the Superior National Forest and my son
was watching Scooby Doo and the Harlem Globetrotters
on the DVD player just as the coyote crossed the road
and I braked and watched it take a shit
between the center and yellow line,
and as it shit, it looked sideways at me.

“Look,” I said to my son.

“Huh?” he said, and then Meadowlark Lemon said,

“I don’t know about the rest of you cats,
but that sure scared the bejeepers out of me.”

“Me too,” I thought, but I didn’t say anything.

Epiphany on Northdale Boulevard

Confused by brake repair and oil change shops
a strip mall with a tailor who hems up the slacks
of short businessmen who want to look taller
to the people they sell to,
a video store with no videos,
a dollar store where nothing is a dollar,
I see a farm with a couple shacks
in a square space of tangled weeds between the Wal-Mart
and the Christian bookstore the size of a hockey arena.
No one lives there now but angled wood and broken glass 
and drivers think as they drive past,
Wow, when whoever owns that place decides to sell,
they’re going to make a fucking killing off it.