Thinking of Issa on Lake Norris

A big frog and I
watch each other closely,
neither of us moves.

My friend's reclaimed
his marriage bed, and happy
for a futon in the next room,

I watched stars move
Beyond the window’s end,
then at the first hint of light

I concocted a cup of coffee
and started down the hill,
slipping in Tennessee

mud, and landing
just right to see blue
proof of beauty. And truth,

that frog I told you
about: he had been talking
to himself until he noticed

me. Then we sat dumb
together. Today I can
think of any number

of things I wish I had said.
I think hard for what
he might have said to me.

November's Moon

It is only the first nip of winter
but no one is ever ready for it.
I walk outside and stand close
to the building, out of the wind,
and think of all the others,

heads down, hands rolled into cold fists,
holding on to the useless burn of a cigarette.
Addictions bring us here, bad habits,
unrequitted love. While they suck heat
and blow the smoke at their shoes,

I look up into the night, my hands
crying in my pockets, to find
the beaver moon you told me about,
as round as the face of a clown,
and full, in the deep black sky, with you.

Sin

    "These foolish ducks lack a sense of guilt."
    —John Logan

There is no denying another
spring. The sun
is bright, the day nice
enough, I guess;

but I still feel a chill,
and I know the creek water
is cold, no matter the ducks,
their stoic, stately passing.

I would stoop to pick
a blade of grass
but I'm afraid
that I'd cut my hand. Again.
It's too soon
for sitting on this bench.

Useless

I can sit for hours,
I’ve done it before,
watching blue shadows
move on the moon,
worrying over words.
Tonight my mind slips,
the country is clumsy
with war, everyone’s tripping
over their own two feet,
letting things fall
right through our fingers.
I consider what I have:
no matter how tightly
I weave my words together,
they will not hold
anything that matters.

Versions

Autobiography gets in the way
like a shoe left on the stair;
it's easy to see, there's no danger
of tripping, really, but your arms
are full, they always are,
so it stays there, sticking out,
not exactly a treat, but there.

Make it, why not, mythology?
Let it float like a balloon
sucked fat with gas a few feet
over your head. You can move
around under it, hardly notice it
at all, except maybe for the string
hanging down on your face like a scar.

Louis Mckee has poems forthcoming in APR, 5 A.M., Chiron Review, Pearl, and Rattle among others. RIVER ARCHITECTURE, a selected poems, was published in 1999, and a collection of his newer work, NEAR OCCASIONS OF SIN, appeared in 2006. Adastra Press has published MARGINALIA, a volume of his translations from Old Irish of monastic poems. STILL LIFE, a chapbook ofpoems, is just been issued from Foothills, and JAMMING, is a prize winner and forthcoming from TLOLP.