Knot-Dreaming

When I tuck in for the night.

I can’t fall into sleep

without my ankles crossed,

feet clenched like field birds:

hidden tense, twitching

under a grass blanket;

ready to burst forth to

anywhere but here.

At the other end of

my twisted rope of spine,

there sits a mind

just as knotted,

just as tense and twitchy,

waiting for something to trigger

its flight into an unknown place:

a hoped-for dream.

That escape never comes.

It's always the same snarled darkness

until the alarm kicks us loose--

flushes us from cover like

a spaniel raising a covey of quail--

into another day of blind flight,

toward another night of

knot-dreaming.

Down at Dawn

By Joseph Hesch

I saw the green-capped marine

by the dusty roadside,

a disheveled pile of khaki

drab on the ground by his side.

He frantically shifted his gaze

down, up,

down, left,

down, right,

down.

In-place he paced, amid

frenzied fight-or-flight indecision.

They never saw their attacker coming,

nor even where he went

in the dawn's dark shadows.

He cannot (can he?)

leave behind the crumpled mass
that was his partner, his comrade.

I'd heard that mallards are like this,

but I, myself, never saw it before.

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For those visitors who have read the story "Tagged" on the Stories page and would like to drop a comment, I have enabled comments on that page. I appreciate the feedback you give me on my poems, and will also be happy to hear from you about this story and others that I plan to post in the future. So, if you have a thought to share about my short story, feel free to leave a comment on the Stories page.

The Space Between

By Joseph Hesch

The high-pitched metronomic peeping

 of the frogs ceases,

though isn’t yet replaced by

the arias and white-noise cheeping

of the robins, wrens and flickers.

Before the evening performance

curtain of mist falls on the water

and the dawn’s footlights know enough

to glow, there exists

but a mere moment where nature rests.

It’s as if the new day is coiled,

waiting to explode in light, hiss in heat,

holding back its grand entrance

to increase the tension in an audience

of flower, animal, and man.

I often wake during that instant,

my senses empty of the outside and

no longer full of the dark imaginings

of the inside, and I wonder

for that same moment,

have I crossed over?

It's such a hopeful thing, this.

On the Beach

By Joseph Hesch

I’ve spent life with damp big toes
and dry hair; never dove in,
never got those pruney fingers,
just the guilt and jealousy
of watching you happy amphibs
while I itched from sandy shorts.

I’m told it’s an itch that can’t
be scratched, the only relief
would come from standing tall and
striding into the waves: waist deep
would be enough, I should think,
to get that feel of real life.

That’s also deep enough to
drop the shorts and let currents
do the work of pulling sand
and inhibition from places
I hid, not because I feared
getting in, more getting out.

Tagged

By Joseph Hesch

I painted my name on a bridge today.

Tagging, the kids and cops call it.

It’s a young person’s game that

guys of fifty-something years

probably should not do.

And they definitely shouldn’t be caught doing.

Not that the aforementioned cops

wouldn’t have an easy time netting

an old dude gripping the outside of an overpass

and his breath

with one hand and exhaling urban art

out a can of spray paint in the other.

I painted my “Jo-Ho wAs heRe” in red and yellow,

not because they’re my gang colors, but

because black, white and gray are what my life

has become – the stuff of row upon row of

blurry obituary gravestones on a newsprint field.

The Great, Mediocre or Poor American novel

never sprung from my mind and fingers, nor did

anything else of note or semi-permanence.

So I decided to autograph the bridge where

each day for fifteen years I’ve rat-raced past

“Bobby & Lou ’72.”

Thirty-eight years of notoriety seems

like a lifetime -- and an instant -- to a guy

who life tagged in black and white and gray

too long ago. Yeah,

and I willingly held its hand and

slipped it the cans.

Tag, Life, now I’m IT.

The first line of "Tagged" came to me one morning on my commute to Albany. It's the first line of one of my favorite songs by my favorite band, Over the Rhine. The line banged around in my head as a "what-would-it-be-like" idea and I just ran with it, listening to its vacuum sucking up dust and sensation around my brain. (While I should have been doing the straight job, I must confess.)

The poem happened pretty quickly, as most do. I liked it right away, as most don't, and submitted it to Boston Literary Magazine, whose editor, Robin Stratton, selected it for publication in the Spring 2010 issue.

As I said, I liked the concept and that line, so I used them as the first sentence and theme of  a short story. As a writer, I don't waste anything! Wonder of wonders, the story "Tagged" was selected for publication as well, this time by Foliate Oak Magazine.

On May 2, 2011, I came home to find a manila envelope in the mail from Foliate Oak.  Inside was the publication, "The Best of Foliate Oak - 2011." In that publication was the story "Tagged." So, in honor of the little line that could, I give you "Tagged."

Waiting Room

By Joseph Hesch

Each new one shuffles in, poking a

silver-fringed or bald head inside the glass

to murmur or cough a reply to

“Any changes in insurance, dear?”

Around the room, rheumy eyes lift

and drop again, while the latest visitor scans

for an open seat, with no one on either side,

because you can’t be too safe these days.

This room is full of folks poring over

publications they normally wouldn’t pick up

to swat a wasp.  But there’s not much else to do

except sit and fret about their ailments

or to fume over the fact

their appointment was scheduled

for a half-hour ago.

Perhaps they could look around,

trying to determine what one another's

troubles might be.  But it would take

a mighty diagnostician to ascertain their problems

when all one can see are the tops of

forward-leaning heads, and all one can listen to are

quiet coughs or the buzz of even quieter conversation.

Me?  I don’t want to know why they’re here.

I'm waiting for the Over-50 exam, which is

to medicine what the Early Bird Special is to dining.

Besides, I’ve got my own problems.

According to this magazine’s menu of maladies,

I’ll be having a delicious, malicious, pernicious anemia

…with a side order of andropause.