Robert C. Knox Verse-Virtual 2015 November

November 2015

I am a husband, father, rabid backyard gardener, and blogger on nature, books, films and other subjects based on the premise that there's a garden metaphor for everything. Still utopian and idealistic after all these years, I cover the arts for the Boston Globe's 'South' regional section. My poems have been published recently by The Poetry Superhighway, Bombay Review, Semaphore Journal and other journals. Some poems were also accepted for the upcoming anthology "Peace: Give it a Chance," and a collection of poems (titled "Gardeners Do It With Their Hands Dirty") will be published in 2016 by Coda Crab Books. "Suosso's Lane," my novel about the Sacco-Vanzetti case, was recently published by Web-e-Books.com.

THREE POEMS FOR MY FATHER, AND ALL THE REST

A Row of Stones: Calverton National Cemetery

It looks like all the rest
slotted in this final postwar census, this straight-line campground of eternity,
a parking lot for identical souls
a computer punch card, names in the phonebook,
the roll call for hereafter,
the Levittown of the life to come

It looks, almost, like the line-up of all the local men,
stretching from here to God,
who once were young on any given day
Dress them in Army green
and lay them down in straight lines without number
on the battleground where future always conquers past
in an age we thought would never end

His gravestone looks... like all the others,
laid to rest exactingly in lines identical and perfectly straight,
the Army way, the regimental way of passage,
this permanent occupation of a grassy plain 'out East' on the island
where he planted his back-home, postwar fortunate flag
never to wander, really, plowing the highways on the city commute
never to leave the good ol' USA
and never, he said, to stand in line again
(I won't tell him if you don't)

They made it home, those who lie beneath these stones
facing straight ahead,
comrades to left and right, messmates, men of a generation
who did not fall in wintry France
nor plunge to doom from the infinite Pacific sky
but passed in cooler times,
doing their bit for the world that came after,
the world that they made safe for us

I number his grave goods, now the hour's long past,
bowling league trophies, pool hall cue
German rifle (Mauser, maybe) shot from the hands
of an enemy patrol in the Nice Triangle,
barkeep paraphernalia, little mixer sticks,
cut glass bowls for lemon twists
barbeque apron, cotton hat and silly stenciled T-shirt
"Who invited all these tacky people?"
paintbrush, hammer, handsaw,
pen and pencil, adding machine

Space, I wonder, in the final straight-line muster
for an old Dodge Dart, most enduring companion of the road,
the ashtray almost always full

Interpreting Silence

A generation's survivor
No one will ever know what that childhood was like
Vegetables, but no meat
A father, but no mother
A place of business (what sort? a saloon?)
but, eventually, no home

Returned from the greatest human catastrophe
since the Black Death, or Genghis Khan,
the soldier built a life in the image of his life and times
No standing in lines, no travel beyond the Sisyphean climb
of the daily commute,
a few bucks from the GI Bill
bridged in just the right places

Unfailing courtesy, ideal worker,
tolerant boss,
reliable tipper and a friendly word
Night-school texts locked up in the attic,
'freshman' essays marked up in red

A good soldier through life's four quarters,
happy to survive the wider catastrophes
that laid millions low
Accepting all parts from the playwright Chance

performed with grace, a sense of duty
Personal reflections withheld till the curtain falls

Four Brothers

Heroic faces in fading pics
A look, we know, that oft deceives
Four young brothers, a hand with tricks

Last days before deployment grieves
Four volunteers, four uniforms
Each his own story open leaves

Four lives blown by terrestrial storms
Bodies sewn in earth on distant shores
The war they fight no tale conforms

The call they answer is their own
Their dangers faced, their duty done
Back pay, demobbed, some welcome home

Civil lives lived one by one
Yet wounds may linger, old ties fray
Four lives fade: smoke rings in the sun

Life's costs they paid in time's own way
Down-paid ours too: four Dads to thank
In each heart a Veterans Day