Some of my poems
Let
us Praise Gardens
Let us praise Gardens.
Herb gardens in
south facing windows.
Tomato gardens full
of sweet red excuses
to play in the dirt.
Formal gardens with
pacing paths of
fragrance.
Japanese gardens of
quiet, sand, and stone.
Chinese gardens with
carp and thousand year
views.
And especially
this garden today,
its concrete walks
and pavilions,
only half built,
but already a garden.
And this small island
surrounded by fish and
lotus
and this tree
in whose shade I just
woke
on this too hot day
to hear new bamboo
rustling,
cicadas chirping,
and see the beautiful
bridge
back to my school
and this afternoon’s
class.
______________________________________________________________________________________
We
Must Pity the Rich
We
must pity the rich.
It is much easier to be poor.
Temps
are not tempted
to
buy jewels for mistresses
they
do not have.
Mothers
in poverty
are
not inclined to dally
with
personal trainers
while
absent husbands toil.
And
their children have no need to scurry
from
piano lessons to private tutors
with
no time to log-on and chat.
The
poor do not worry about
last
season’s gown at the charity ball
or
whether Magli or Versace’s
shoes
will draw the most notice.
They
do not worry that Gucci loafers
are
too dress down for Friday’s work.
The
poor don’t worry
about
tech stocks or dividend cuts.
They
are not conflicted
over
questionable deductions
for
entertainment and travel.
The
poor don’t agonize over
keeping
good help,
the
best holiday caterer,
the
right table in the Rainbow Room.
Finding
the best flight to Crete,
the
transfer to the hotel,
and
bickering with the guide
are
no problem for the poor.
Deciding
this year’s donation
for
the senator, the arts,
for
the alma mater
wastes
little of their time.
And
Lawyers! Accountants!
They
save so much
who
cannot pay.
Oh!
To be poor and free!
and
it seems
there
is nothing left but walking
past
stores, empty stores, luncheonettes
taxi
stands and bus stops
past
cars on the street and in the lots
past
schools
and
fields and coaches screaming
walking
into
low hills covered with trees
away
from the city
toward
that space between trees
where
light chapels the ground
where
walking simply matters more
than
books or sleep
or
maybe even jazz
even
jazz
floating
out through Newark
down
McCarter highway
past
the airport, Ikea
the
German butcher, bars, bodegas
to
my desk here on the fourth floor east
with
Trane’s favorite things
tuning
through my brain
as
if the music is all
but
we live
not
by jazz alone,
live
by walking, too
dancing,
perhaps, inside
walking
across
busy desks
past
offices, down stairs
through
cafeteria, library, vestibule
to
sidewalk, street, road, path, field and scrub
dry
stream bed and deer track
into
low hills covered with trees
a
walking
long-step
slow-step
dance John
McDermott
__________________________________________________________
Squirrels
generally
are
not good topics
for
poems. They are not
heroic,
sad, witty or joyous,
and
they lack much
as
metaphor.
Okay,
they
store for winter,
but
most of their seeds get lost,
grow
into unwanted tiny
trees
in my lawn or go
undiscovered
as former
owners
dig hundreds of holes
in
fruitless, nutless, search
in
only wrong places.
They
eat my corn and cucumbers,
and
dig my bulbs. Is that
a
metaphor? They sabotage
my
trash bags to tear
when
lifted. And their babies
make
a terrible
high
squeaky sound
and
bleed all over the room
when
my cats present them
as
bedtime trophies.
Squirrels
are not poetic.
I Lead a Small Life
I
have seen the Great Wall,
and
it is a great wall.
Am
I the same man?
I
have seen the gardens of Suzhou
and
the gardens of Kyoto.
and
I did not want to leave,
but
I did,
and
I teach in New Jersey;
I
teach in Elizabeth.
I
lead a small life.
I
spend my days
in
a small world
with
no Magellans, DaVincis.
I
watch TV, feed my sons,
grade
grammar tests and kiss my wife.
cut
the grass and paint the house.
Life
in Nanjing
became
a job
after
two weeks.
I
bought noodles,
exchanged
meat and grain coupons
for
the makings of dinner,
watched
my son learn to crawl and walk
in
his Chinese shoes and clothes.
I
got my shoes fixed, bought goose
or
got pants made from people on the street.
I
biked to the shops by the drumtower
past
women pulling loads of re-rod
or
tractors pulling wagons of pork carcass,
learned
Chinese from Abdul, Sharif and Bista
who
wanted to adopt us as their missing families
and
found China as strange
as
my foreign students now find Jersey.
Adventure?
Mostly,
no.
Happy? Yes.
I
loved that small-lived life
as
I loved
my
small life in Osaka.
Loved
biking to my schools and my students
through
the New York/Osaka-style hurry
to
the frantic peace that is school everywhere
or
walking back from a school to the subway,
to
meander through a canopied sho ten gai ,
dawdle
by the shops selling clothes, pickles.
Maybe
pick up some chicken,
kimchee
or beans for dinner.
Sit
with Nick on my lap,
watch
Power Rangers with Pat,
prepare
lessons,
talk
to Mila about the day or her art class,
and
unroll the futon to sleep beside her,
or
sit up
with
a cup of sake
when
Jersey seemed too far.
And
this smallness sufficed,
along
with talk in the teachers’ room,
the
students’ shouts on sports day,
the
rice balls and can-coffee on the way to work,
the
night school students needing Ms. Goto’s love,
and
Mr. Okamoto’s smiles.
Who
knows something better?
And
still, in Jersey,
I
lead a small life,
with
no treks across the Poles
or
trans-Pacific solos.
I
have explored the clay
beneath
my garden
and
subdued it
partially
with
mulch.
I
have walked the malls
and
climbed the hills of Jersey
where
thousands went before.
I
have watched my mother die,
coached
kids’ soccer
and
programmed a VCR.
And
I’ve come home from work
and
kissed my wife
and
held my kids and read a book.
And
smiled.
John McDermott
mcdermott2000@comcast.net
and
it seems
there
is nothing left but walking
past
stores, empty stores, luncheonettes
taxi
stands and bus stops
past
cars on the street and in the lots
past
schools
and
fields and coaches screaming
walking
into
low hills covered with trees
away
from the city
toward
that space between trees
where
light chapels the ground
where
walking simply matters more
than
books or sleep
or
maybe even jazz
even
jazz
floating
out through Newark
down
McCarter highway
past
the airport, Ikea
the
German butcher, bars, bodegas
to
my desk here on the fourth floor east
with
Coltrane’s favorite things
tuning
through my brain
as
if the music is all
but
we live
not
by jazz alone,
live
by walking, too
dancing,
perhaps, inside
walking
across
busy desks
past
offices, down stairs
through
cafeteria, library, vestibule
to
sidewalk, street, road, path, field and scrub
dry
stream bed and deer track
into
low hills covered with trees
a
walking
long-step
slow-step
dance
John McDermott
McDermott2000@comcast.net
It's
time to clean the cat box.
The
kids are shouting in the hallway.
There's
laundry on the floor,
and
garbage goes out tonight.
Forty-six
students are waiting
for
me to grade their tests.
The
grass hasn't been cut in three weeks
and
I balanced the checkbook two years ago.
I
want a cup of coffee, but the cups are dirty
and
the spoons are in the dishpan
under
the dirty plates.
The
teflon pan is burned to black,
and
the scrubby thing is lost.
The
kids have got to get to bed
and
I have to grade those tests.
Forget
about the living room.
It
can wait another week,
and
so can the bath.
It's
time to clean the cat box.
John McDermott
McDermott2000@comcast.net
Serious
You
are not serious,
they
say.
This
is not poetry.
I
walk by this stream called river
choosing
not to fish
smelling
the delicious rot
of
fallen leaves
hearing
basketballs and shouts
breathing
slowly
maybe
smiling.
I
am not serious.
This
is not poetry,
but
I am fishing.
John
McDermott
McDermott2000@comcast.net
Going Home
After
a week of fishing
my
knife is still sharp.
I
sit by the road peeling an apple
hot
from sitting on the dash,
cut
broad strips of red skin
three
quarters round
eating
each as it comes loose,
then
slice chunks--
two,
three bites each
till
just the core is left.
I
fold and pocket my knife,
gnaw
the last meat around the core.
Apples
taste better this way.
Poetry Dinner
Talk of meat
will not feed this crowd
any more than
the smell of bread.
If your words feed
hopes
or hearts,
okay,
but know
I
won't feed them.
And
they will go to sleep
hungry.
Your
words fill bellies
like
checks in the mail
pay bills.
Poems and promises
are empty casks
and
dreams of spring.
Fools
get drunk on such.
The
recipe
is
not the sausage.
Enough
with words.
It's
time to grind
John H. McDermott
Today is October Twenty Seven
with
blue skies in the east
and
big white clouds
moving
in from the west
with
a good, cool breeze for the players
blowing
past the soccer shop tent
and
the hot dog tent
across
twelve fields of girls’ teams and boys’
seven
to seventeen
from
Union and Middlesex counties
Central
Jersey,
between
Trenton and New York.
And
the games have begun.
All
day, from eight
past
lunch, till four,
though
nothing ends on time.
Ten
towns, sixty teams
in
red and gold and green and blue shirts
using
brand new tournament balls.
Twelve
sets of kickoffs,
passes,
steals, shots and saves.
October
twenty seven, just right
for
an autumn day.
Fall
enough to zip your jacket,
leaves
turning and falling
beyond
still green fields newly lined,
players
calling for the ball
and
parents hoping
from
their row of collapsible chairs
along
the side.
Almost
all the parents are here
with
hot chocolate and cheers
.
on
this important day.
Almost
all are here, for
today
is October twenty seven,
Round
Robin Saturday.
It’s
not September eleven,
and
it’s not September ten.
John
Mcdermott
I
think this place called Jersey
was
born in February.
I
don’t know the year, don't care.
They're
all the same.
It
was maybe colder, more snow,
but
the gray clouds hazing the sky
certainly
were here for the event.
No
TVs, no mics, just clouds.
Wolves.
Mammoths.
Earth
moving tractors.
Long-haired
cats with long teeth
or
lizard cousins
knew
this birth, this feel.
The
feel in our knees
and
in our hearts
of
impending snow.
The
smell of the dense gray sky
warning
the same warning of snow
we
still know so well,
snow
that might never arrive
or
more likely turn to the cold gray rain
that
stings the face and wets through every coat,
wool,
fur, skin, or scale.
Look
around.
This
state was not begot
as
humid tropic
or
limpid ocean ooze.
It
was birthed direct
to
ages of ice, mastodons and turnpikes.
Born
direct to empty trees, shrubs and
gray-yellow
grasses—
not
dead and not gray,
or
not all gray.
But
colors seen only by eyes trained
to
Jersey tints of gray.
Beautiful
in their grayness, but not true,
never
the true dead gray
of
pin striped suits worn each morning
to
that small island east
Have
you looked, truly, and seen
the
hundreds of gray shaded
reds
and browns and tans?
Gray-purple
of pods not fallen
gray-orange
of creeping vines,
colors
slighted in warm islands
with
gaudy neons
all
orange and flowery sweet.,
lands
lacking true sense of Exxon,
of
Hess.
Of
gray inner cities belted by gray highways
to
hold in gray hopes.
Do
you know the
battleship
gray
and
piedmont gray/gray-blue
of
glacier-born mountains
of
ice tossed rocks and falls that yield
to
creepers, climbers, vines and scrub
to
grass and pasture hard-won.
Icy
rock
that
yields to trees silhouetted almost black
reaching
for unseen sun.
Leafless,
for
leaves would hold February snow and ice,
and
weigh the branches to creaking death.
But
alive, inside
storing
sap and life
with
water drawn from each thaw,
tasting
the sweet snow melt.
For
February yielded then, yields now,
to
green life, slow-bought,
shading
the gray, the cold born rock
with
life tints serious, strong, and
cold
conquering
Jersey
greens,
Jersey
blues,
Jersey
reds, and
so
many Jersey grays.
John
McDermott