hatchetface's Open Salon Blog

Somebody

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:03:02 -0400

It was the smell I noticed first

Not just the fishy smell of algae and the earthy smell of old leaves

but the one with the top note of death and the body of absolute corruption

what was it there under the bridge up against the log?

somebody?

some body?

If it was, who would I tell?

I saw bodies being pulled from water. Remembered it.

I kept going

the next day

men with hats

men with suits

men with baggy jackets and pants

men with cars and boats

men standing around a brown pile on a dock

standing and pointing until it was time to lift the tarp with the brown pile onto the stretcher and take it away

They took somebody away but what I saw did not leave.

like the early Spring the memory had arrived too soon

before somebody was carried downstream and before what hung in the air was carried downwind

The familiar whiff of a memory of what I’d never seen

the memory of a Spring yet to arrive.

body1

body2

body3

Herring Run

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:10:35 -0400

It was once believed that a leaf falling into water produced a fish

Where they really come from is the sea

following the path in the water, left in parts per billion

outswimming things with teeth into the place where the marsh opens itself to the river and calls them into the stream

up the ladder

live silver flashing from the side

dark slips of shadow from above

billets of mercury

heavy on the front end like an “ale wife”

the townspeople thought they knew them well enough

that they could help them home

a memory of when the harvest mattered enough to

net them and carry them up to the next pool

they are best left alone

only they know the way in

to live in soft, dark pond weeds again

to be reborn in the spawn and return to the sea in secret

falling from our branch into the stream

floating down to the sea

which of us knows?

what is it we know?

that we all know and have always known

the way back

http://www.patriotledger.com/features/x90197766/Volunteers-to-clean-Weymouth-s-Herring-Run-Park?photo=0

This photo is of the old iron ore smelting plant on Iron Hill Road in East Weymouth. Massachusetts. The herring ladder runs right past the side, up to a tunnel under a street, and eventually to Whitmans pond where the herring spawn. The building housed the Herring Run Pottery, owned and operated by my father from the late 50’s to the early 70’s.

http://carolsmith.zenfolio.com/img/v14/p281254807-3.jpg?sn=

This photo is by an amateur photographer named Carol Smith whom I don’t know but whose work is terrific.

Sleeping Weather

Mon, 6 Sep 2010 23:09:16 -0400

Does this weather make it easier?

Sleeping was seldom difficult

in a chair while in college

on a subway train

on my back when my leg was in bandages and my knee in tatters

in East coast Summer heat, tortured by mosquitos

in the same room in January, with frost on the inside of the windows

in snow, in a tent, with a Summer weight sleeping bag and no mat

under a hedge in a churchyard in Boston after missing the last train

on a ferry from Brindisi to Athens

on a flight from SanFrancisco to Sydney

None of that scared me

but it was fear that kept me awake

when I couldn’t do my homework, in Montessori school and in grad school

being publicly stupid and weak once again as the school year began

knowing that I would hurt her even more than I already had

Sleeping weather is what they call this

When the cool of the evening makes you pull up a blanket for the first time in months

and the smile on your face is the one the cat wears when she sleeps

A stray can sleep anywhere with a smile on its face

what it can’t do is go home

I pull her and the blanket closer

we have both strayed

Magicicada

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:07:53 -0400

It’s not the heat that brings them out

It’s written in the genes no doubt

that’s what the buzz is all about.

A sound like nothing else you’ve heard.

A life’s tale told without a word.

A number, prime, of years has passed,

up from the ground awake at last.

A life, into the air is cast.

They’ve only just begun to live,

all the life they have to give.

Good design is timeless still.

No need to change what works it’s will

on creatures even time can’t kill.

Lacy wings as strong as steel,

bulletproof from deck to keel.

A timeline reaching back, unfurled,

revealing from a capsule curled,

a face that’s from another world.

The term bug eyes was meant for them.

Bejeweled, a living diadem.

Years in the earth for days in the air.

Is this bargain really fair?

Too close, too like our own to bear.

Sleeping, waiting to be born.

For time gone by, no need to mourn .

June bug, Hot bug, buzzing thing,

Magicicada on the wing.

The song of life, time now to sing.

Know them now before they’re through.

A few more times then we’re done too.

The Mower

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 21:07:11 -0400

When is the time right to do this? To cut?

And what if I left it? Spared it the blade?

It wouldn’t care as it basked in the heat.

waiting for nothing as it strives to grow

upward, outward, greenward, a green word; rain

This is the knot, a weed or not a weed?

And if not grass what is it but a weed?

Those growing the fastest are the first cut

Impertinent upstarts hammered by rain

leveled all at once by the sweeping blade

To dare the edge of fate. Ever to grow

ever to know the way up through the heat

How was it I ever withstood that heat?

Like my grandfather I grew like a weed

learned that growing up didn’t mean to grow

Like a weed I reached out to feel the cut

of the edges of a voice like a blade

Shedding more tears than blood in a warm rain

No amount of crying will stop the rain

No amount of sweat will lessen the heat

Only putting a keen edge on the blade

is what enables the mower to weed

out the ones that don’t make the cut

and let the things that really matter grow

It was my calling to help things to grow

My power was in calling down the rain

With the compassion of a scythe I cut

through all the vines that held me near the heat

Freeing myself, a solitary weed

Finding the cutting edge of my own blade

To know and care for each and every blade

of grass was far easier than to grow

apart from that place the way a wild weed

is scattered afar by the wind and rain

When I remember working in that heat

I will know when the time is right to cut

From the cloth, from the earth, cut by a blade

forged in the heat of Summers past to grow

in the rain the way a weed grows. Apart.

_{http://ventnorpermaculture.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/the-south-somerset-green-fair-and-scythe-festival/}