LAWNCHAIRS by Dennis Doph

http://wagenblatz@aol.com

out there. 11

Here in the bosky dells of San Roque
I move Lawnchair #1 another way
So it is facing Northwest by Southeast
And my view, at the very least
Is of the concrete slab where once there was a shed
And one hundred-foot pine tree; then instead
I move Lawnchair #2 to face the other view
Facing Southwest by Northeast; a different crew
Of shifting whispering bird-bedizened shapes
Bearing lemons and oranges, figs and grapes
Lording it all over this abundant domain
Is Mister Max the Devil Cat whose reign
Cannot be perceived as finite or even dim
Because his reign extends over us and him.

As Max moves from orange tree to Lemon/Meyer
I sit up in Lawnchair #1 a little higher
Remembering a different self in disarray
Determined to move in any other way
Away from silence and from flowering trees
Determined to have the male population on its knees
Determined to become the scourge of humankind
You got it: I had New York in mind.

Subsequently I had time to develop different tastes
Kneeling myself at Italian and Jewish waists
Fetching forth the everlasting waste of seed
In a concrete jungle growing wildly with stinkweed;
Later in Los Angeles I grew nasturtiums on my fence
With water plundered from the Colorado many hundreds hence
Now in fast retirement I like Francoise Sagan
Murmur Bonjour Tristesse and in the hills like Nancy Reagan
I see narrow trails choked with spring mud and forest rangers lean
Up those mean trails where Ronnie dragged the Queen
And the Santa Barbara breeze blows softly over me and you
As I shift from Lawnchair #1 to Lawnchair #2