Hear the Wires Sing

by Tom Hatch

These towns are from my childhood
Down from the grapevine north into the valley
Bakersfield, Fresno, Buttonwillow of my trips through
those places telephone poles
Telegraph poles, Burma Shave, a sign fresh squeezed Orange Juice
For miles then it was closed no juice the disappointment
Grabbing my young chi so little optimism faded
The floor board became hotter than my memory could remember
Through the cotton and oil fields
The dry air not stopping heat off the
Road of eating whole juicy tomatoes
Sitting in the shady grass past the culvert
Instead of fresh orange juice
Killing me with all its barrenness
It makes me weep now because it’s OK
The tomatoes were good the river of nostalgia
Then later 7-UP bubbles in the back of my throat
The smell of hay the Mexican workers
Deep valleys on their faces
Hard working field hands holding
Sweated straw hats covering their squinted dark eyes
Hoping for the sun to set into a cool night
You could see it in their posture all over again the next day
Even as a boy my respect for them I hang my head in the heat
I laid those thoughts although they probably never knew it
The coldest water ever, ever came out of the drinking fountains
Next to the Coca Cola machines in all the two pump gas stations
In the San Joaquin as a boy in the shade of 100 degrees
That was a summer a gentle breeze
Listening to the high tension wires sing

The Coyote

by Tom Hatch

The coyote chases the road runner
To far off a cliff
Realizes his mistake
Looks around looks down
Expected to fall
He tip toes back to the cliff
Standing there laughing and
Giggling looks over
The edge of the
Cliff
Thinks he has gravity licked
Tip toes out from the edge/verge
over into the air zip
He falls like an arrow
Shot up in reverse down
A cloud of dust ascends
Chuck Jones grins
And Mel Blanc goes beep, beep
A user of Acme products
Never to succeed

Daylight Savings Time

by Tom Hatch

I am on this train again the Monday morning
After the Sunday when daylight savings
Time is withdrawn from our daily account
So it is lighter this morning than last Monday
Looking out the window a chain link fence
Moves past at maybe 40 MPH
Gliding through the brick yard sort of Lego town
Cement mixers, bricks, flag stone and
Drainage pipes for a patio up north next spring
Opens onto the Norwalk river looking east
The crewing teams are practicing rowing slicing 5 inches
In the white parting water this is passed to the next
Station boarding more fellow commuters
Aw there she is amongst the sleep walkers
A beauty sailing up the isle
I have an empty seat next to me
She keeps walking as a look of cold across
Her face a snub to the empty seat out the window
A lighted sign on the side of a building "At Your Service"
With the "E" burnt out dark holes left cracks
in the cinder block then the chasing view opens
To Long Island Sound my eyes
Journey to the distant island
As an on coming train a brush stroke of
Blurring light blue and grey an exhale thinking
Of the beauty snubbed as we pass
Over the state line of months till
We deposit DLST in our daily account again.

The Predawn Hike

by Tom Hatch

We set out as we said the night before
Predawn off Tudor Road to Devils Den
The almost shadowless trees across the trail
The air being watched through eyes of Uncas
Or Magua they do not know us their arrows
And muskets pointed at the sound of our way
seen behind
Birch bark and pine I swear I smelled gunpowder
And heard Hurons
From my youth pop gun caps pop
Shredder red paper like blood on the ground
Pulling my son into the dry creek bed
Shimming elbows to trunks
We climbed up two different pines I
Hoping to see all the tomahawks and knives
Ready for our scalps
The dream of youth The Last of the Mohicans
High up in pine trees my son staring at me
Twenty feet off the reality of ground
Like what is this all about?
The sunrise shone embarrassed me of my
Youthful thoughts
Finished our hike covered in sap
Camouflaged with pine needles
Stuck to the view of the Saugatuck reservoir
A half mile away
the sun in control
The tiny sight with binoculars enlarged
Two Narragansett dismounts side stepping pacers inch
By inch into the water rippling blue (Danube)
In a waltz disappearing away from
The shore my youth
I stared into his youth he throwing rocks over the
High cliff of his days I sat and watched
As the two black horses extinct as my
Youth disappeared like the Dodo bird
That could not fly but walked away

The Stone Yard II

by Tom Hatch

The stone marble from the mountain brings its goddess into town with its wavy veins of soft carrara and loving crystal white Thassos they kiss

There soft slabs leaning next to each other cuddling their cold from the winter and the mountain quarries from where they came trying to shuffle. As deck of playing cards weighted down becoming valleys where Thassos and his sister Europa played under husky dog blue eyed skies kidnapped by Zeus a disguised white bull

Europa gave birth to the stone yard goddess from a middle metamorphic earths slow

Inception and labor pains for millions of years the goddess grows with husky blue dog eyes sliced from the below brought to earth to a modern age.

Discovered slowly crossing the ocean in a shipping container from the Aegean Sea this woman goddess comes from the Greek island of Thassos  the container lined interior convinced in blue velvet with white Thassos marble floor her home and bed as she awakens from her mother’s rape by Zeus his no rules on incest there is no incest rules when it comes to gods fair game is under every foot 

Sleeping out of the cold stone as a bed waking mornings, walking the stone yard floor try to be human it is not easy as most notice she is the goddess quivering to be one of us. Her husky dog blue eyes we do not trust

Visit there and play with her as a human not as the million year old goddess that wants to pull you into her, into stone.

The Piano Player Said

by Tom Hatch

The piano player at Bemelmans Bar in the Carlyle
Sometimes he played the 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM spot
Told me he would see this little middle aged women
Coming and going through the bar
Past his melodic piano after awhile
They would nod to each other
As he played the treble keys
The theme song of Dr. Zhivago or
Some Cole Porter
Squeegeeing with great talent
Lennon and McCartney A Day in the Life
They said hi one day the next day they
Spoke she stopped in at Bemelmans
To use the restroom a
Clean one as she said a clean spot when needing
To pee while on a shopping spree
Another great spot she said was Frank E. Campbell's
Funeral Home on Madison and 81st
Famous for funerals since 1898 for
The likes of "Fatty" Arbuckle, Candy Darling,
Dominic Dunne, Jackie O, to a recent
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and J. Lennon get the picture
She went up stairs to pee
During another Madison Avenue shopping spree
A funeral was on she tried to make it
Out before the final tear and farewell
Missed it by seconds forced
To wait in the exiting crowd
Handed a guest book she signed
with name and address
As the others did
Six months later she got a check
In the mail for 20 grand thanks
The dead guy wrote
For coming to see my send
Off to the promised land

A Dance at Harry's Bar

by Tom Hatch

Champagne, good food, the piano player

Playing our song, a cool, not to cold February

Night, Rome, Italy at the top of

The Via Veneto, Harry's Bar

We had no choice in the matter

When will we be at Harry's Bar again?

She smiled at me I knew it was the time

We were tourists on the ball at Harry's Bar.

Dancing at Harry's we took control

Of the open floor gliding our steps and twirling

Like the wind she in my arms

Then a release her hands over head she whirls

A roulette wheel “all my money on lucky red 7”

The two of us in total charge we knew the rules

We invented them.  It was a spotless finish as

I held her close

Then some applause and shouts of

“Inamorato, inamorato”

As our ten year old boy

Eating his tiramisu shaking his head

Turned bright red as a knocked

Over glass of wine puddling

In the white linen tablecloth 

North to South

by Tom Hatch

The platform was crowded as Monday's are.
The train pulled in a clamoring for seats
I had to sit facing north the train is going
A melancholy south
Riding backwards all my sins are coming out
From my past colored black and some sepia tones
it is hard to breath as the air
Wants to leave my lazy lungs as I am facing north
Going south but it feels a little cleansing
As my new thoughts for today are hitting me
In the back of the head I should do this more often
As my sins leave my stretching body into some poor
Soul facing south going south in the car following behind
He is sound asleep as commuters do
Waking soon to be angry with my sins laid out
Like a lost game of black, white and red solitaire
In the upstairs hotel room on a bed
As the gunslinger waits for the
duel to begin in front of the saloon
Making for a bad day

Sister Saturday Morning

by Tom Hatch

He was walking down the hall
A second after dawn
He heard and saw that I was awake
Tapped on my door
Are you ok dad, he said
I'm fine, I said
Just watching the sunrise, I said
It is not really rising dad he said
I know I said
Can I have a hit off your bong
I said
Ok, ok,...pull trust me
He said take the hit
I did then said, see you next week
(it was a Saturday)
Sitting in the snow the
Sky a bit brighter
Colors bright
Lovely then the thought
Dark thought sister was gone
My brain zig zagged then dropped
An inflamed fire escape
Done feeling the waves
Into low tide trying
To sooth the pain

There is the masking tape
Of ripping the colors off
The corners holding my
Shoulders together
Knowing thinking of
Her searching the forest of my life
Everyday she will be there
In a niche in my mind the happy part
A spark-plug missing from the V8
If there are angels they sang
Listening to Social Distortion "When The Angels Sing"
I cry

Why Do I Pray My Son

by Tom Hatch

He told me they laid down
Between the train tracks
Pissed his pants and cried
As the massive engine and cars shot over inches
From his tears
It was a fifteen second rush he was fifteen
His stillness saved his life
His fear moving to something
Worse this is why I pray
His dares never ending
His inhale and exhaling
Brain is on a loose thread
A needle has been in his
Forearm teasing overdose and death
This is why I pray
Tracks and trains are both
Real and a metaphor
This is why I pray

Sword in a Box

by Tom Hatch

We started out on an early 6:07 train to Manhattan
He fell asleep before the Connecticut suits
Got on at Darien it was earlier than his
Usual time of morning the sun low enough
Streams in across his young teen face burning
Into his thoughts of a young man
He will eventually be revealing his uncertainty that
He does not know it all as he seems to now
At Grand Central he became that boy again entering
Into familiar but not often enough familiar to awaken
Excitement that same sun bright steep angles
Down through the long hazy air
Hitting the marble floor of the terminal
Squinting hazy Asian eyes thousands of humans
One thought getting to work I had one meeting
This morning then free all day with Nick
I needed a shoe shine the best in New York
The shine at Grand Central the Honduran young men
Flapping their rags and beat their shining cloths
Into loud slaps and snaps echoing down the long hall
To Lexington Avenue where he waited for me
On the street we started walking but he
Wanted to take the subway as we did a few years ago
Taking him to school on East 84th St. he was my little prince
He did not beg to stand in the front car anymore
As he looked out into the dark tunnel lit by his smile
Holding him up on my knee to see out the window
Standing today lanky head down as the train
Moved swaying him gangly looking about
Cautious and curious at the funny ads
Dr. Zizmor will fix your skin, Fitzgerald and Fitzgerald
The fighting Irish lawyers have won millions in judgments
Call them now they will find some one you can sue
And the hammer toe repellent before and after pictures
Our destination is to walk the length of Mulberry Street
SoHo, Little Italy crossing Canal into Chinatown
Out of the subway onto Bleeker and Lafayette
Crossed Houston the Puck Building where Superior Ink
Was manufactured for almost a hundred years
Ended back almost thirty years ago the bums slept there for the
24 hour warmth the inks pervasiveness covered them as well
In black making their eyes white, hollow each blink was a motion
Picture kind of sadness as a Lewis Hines still pictures or Walker Evans
Pointing out the building across Jersey Alley I had a
Loft there at that time in my life art was my mistress
Young and beautiful she was my warmth only to leave me
Cold, broke and broken after many years we walked
Down Mulberry where John Gotti and his men strolled in front of me
As I took the dog out in the early evening between Prince and Spring
D&G bakery was gone the oldest stone oven in the city
Rocky’s red sauce on this warm noon we passed along
Umberto’s, Ferraro’s, Vincent’s Clam House moved
Onto a side street Nick’s hunger was playing a slow pace
Ended up sitting out on the sidewalk at Il Cortile
The mixture of tourists and old Italian neighbors was the stage
Watching as our food came to us under the shade of an
Umbrella of goodness sort of took us back to Rome
For a minute
From a few years ago but not quite the same
We intersected Canal into Chinatown the open
Shops of fish and flattened creatures pressed upon
The windows dripping with grease, in water tanks
Turtles and large fish he found some ancient coins (he thought)
In a store as we finally merged with the smells
We bought a Samurai sword he danced holding it
Like the bamboo snake we purchased as well
Leaving the store with the sword inside a box
The street the heat and pungent odor the thought of
A sword in a box we are meeting his mother later
Uptown with his grandfather and friend for her birthday
His happiness winding the back lanes of Chinatown
With the sword in the box
Coming upon Doyer Street I showed him were his mother
Lived when I first met her he took a picture of an aged
Chinese man crouching in that front doorway
Turning around across the one way narrow street
A US Post Office also written in Chinese
The explanation of a sword in a box
At her birthday dinner disappeared $6.50 and some added tape
Now being mailed home to be explained another day
Nick and I saw eye to eye about the weapon in the box
Entered the Chinatown subway station on Canal Street
Leaving the busy hectic sidewalk above
Down to the uptown train a Chinese girl his age
Sitting diagonally in a pink sundress blowing pink
Bubble gum across from him watching her
Pink sundress light skin blowing her pink bubbles
This a suspended moment in the Chinatown subway train.

A Breath Apart

by Tom Hatch

Sitting down across the car a place
A young stare is her nervous peering to the floor
Not seeing the debris and dirt as I do

Her legs are long her feet are splayed with
Those dancers’ shoes a current of her life

Her nervous look at a hansom boy sitting next to me
Not a wafer of space between us only time
A still water fall falls black down into her bangs is spring

Her white skin a canvas painted young pretty anxious face
A full of life magic purse sits on her lap the train stops

The doors open with the youth of young men laughing in circles
She spirals their attention they freely give to her

What could be better taking turns
I told myself an incomplete thought about time
Spinning their heads in her direction

Long fingers fumble into a plastic bag
New hoop earrings with today's price tags still on

Silver circles adding attention to her long neck
The young men and hansom boy lingered locked in looks

Knowing where they are to be placed
I told myself a breath apart youth and age
She pulling the price tags off with feminine aware

Tilting her head to the right freehanded
Hearing her breath apart that I know
Clasps the ring into the pierce in her silent ear the audience

Sees the next tilt to the left with ease the ring is in
Youth does not know age
She looked up at all of us with an apprehensive smile

The young men offered their approving grins
She sits up tall with a comb down straighten up her bangs

In a glance in the darkened window a glass darkly
Before the station light enters in
The train stops the doors open for her departure

The young men, the hansom boy and youth follow her
Into a forest of trees in full blossom a breath apart
Fresh nasturtium colored air the doors close

I am a dark winter sitting alone except the Beautiful
Studious Chinese school girls doing there silent
Homework at the other end of the car
They are a new light

My Sister's Text

by Tom Hatch

She was diagnosed with cancer
A couple of years ago
Given different names that meant
They were not bad, "bad" could be
Dealt with, with given treatment
Names that were not bad, "bad"

On her email, texts and Facebook
Keeping us all abreast of
Her treatment and condition
Good, ok good, wow in remission
Lately her written font was getting bigger with every
Message sent
A little new spot
Was plucked from her vulnerable body once young
More treatment keeping
Praying fingers crossed
She has the faith that is inspiring
Somewhere up there with
Job that we always said we
Would read together
Then one day, that was yesterday
(it will always be yesterday)
She sent me a text "call me
I cannot write about my
Prognosis anymore it is getting
Complicated" the font
Got so big
It could not be seen on a page
Only negative space between the
Letters of e and a as in death

It was like a beautiful spring
Day the blue sky darkened
Running for cover in a foreign city
Where I had never been
To an awning sheltering
Myself from that call
Waiting for the rain to stop
It did but not to a sunny sky again.

I made the knowing call
Her liver is going
It is like a bag of cement
That sat out in the rain
Curing
Her death we cried
She did not cry for herself she said,
"But for dad he is overwhelmed
With grieve". But maybe that was
Her way of crying for herself I worded
With my mouth no sound

To sis this is the open door
To Christ and God and heavenly sights
that is her faith
I will hold that faith for her
I cannot say that about myself.
I have no heaven and only death

Sculpting a Day from Yesterday

by Tom Hatch

Given a chisel and
A dark morning carve out
A day not a tomorrow
Stone chips and dust
From yesterday's mistakes
And misfortune on the floor my
Beret tilted optimism
Tasseled green looking
Over the carved shoulder of white
Alabaster, Thassos crystals in the air
The curved nap of neck dawn
A torso morning mounting light
Refinement on a polished
Thigh from knee the chisel
Kissed a navel weeks ago
Enjoying again today
Trying to carve a sigh before noon
Ignoring other white cubics of the same for
Future tomorrows
Concentrating with eyes and hands
The breath of every moment
Carving a nose for evening
Finishing with the mouth
To sniff the wine and sip the days nectar

My Road

by Nick Hatch and Tom Hatch

It was an early day at the farm
and I decided to wake up before the sun
as I had a long walk ahead of me.
Rubbing my eyes and wiping the “sand”
Off my face, I joked to myself that
Mr. Sand Man had visited.
I leaned forward and looked
out my bed-side window,
noticed the heavy mist in the dawn
That was densely packed in.
Because of it I couldn’t see more than 20 feet
As the sun lightened the morning
I hopped up and touched my toes
and did a little jig,
just to get my blood flowing.
I slipped my shoes out from
under my bed, placed them off
to the side and got dressed.
I didn’t have my favorite
dark green shirt so instead
I grabbed the long-sleeved black and orange
"Princeton” labeled shirt.
Given to me with high expectations
Some sort of "birthright" shit
I didn’t think it would be
much worse to wear it
Expectations or not
as it was wet and cold
Outside for that matter.
Once I slipped that on,
I grabbed some clean underwear and
socks…then put on a pair of traditional
Levi blue jeans, same thing everyday
I said with a sigh. And, yeah…
If you didn’t already get the picture
my family always
Has plenty of pressure on me.
I slipped my shoes on and walked
outside to look at my road that
I had to walk down is pretty creepy.

Adieu My Mother’s Voice

by Tom Hatch

Not wanting it to be that way
But a soul can only stay in a body
For so long from the first breath to the last
Many words are said maybe some of regret
The ones that stand out are the voices and
Words of love on this thought
I smile, but oh! My heart is breaking
Adieu my mother’s voice
Boarded a chariot of sunshine
Lifted with the fog she is gone

Herbs

by Tom Hatch

My son gave me a book
About herbs
The smell of the basil,
Cilantro, tarragon, rosemary,
Oh the fennel or is it anis
The cilantro turned into coriander
Pulling the weeds in the bed keeping
The garden neat the smell of earth
Then opening the book
The smell of fresh ink
He signed love you
Dad and your herbs
As the suns burns my back
On my knees

The Coming of God

by Tom Hatch

The train is moving along
North or south the clip
Wiggle side to side, up and down
Tipping onto the smooth trestle
The trees, the houses, the bushes
The ground opens to a view of
Long Island Sound
All eyes it seem to peer up and out at
The blue water, the sky the open
Air distant cumulus clouds the distant land
The coming of God it seems
For a moment then
Swallowed back into
The trees, the houses, the bushes
Solid ground, wiggle side to side,
Up and down
Eyes turn back to sleep
Reading newspaper
Computers, iPhones, etc.
It was only God for few seconds
So we go back to being mortals
That we cannot help ourselves to be
Passing over water on a bridge

It was an unfamiliar day

by Tom Hatch

He had to get in early
Went to a neighboring town's
Train station that had earlier options
The trees high across
The tracks reminded him
Of his childhood in
LA. they resembled
Eucalyptus trees
The sun was dry like
So Cal but he was in So No Ct.
The light reflecting off
The burnished tracks and
Many sun glasses
That he felt were
Staring at him
Popping up from button
Down collars
He thought that was why
People wore dark glasses
So that they can stare no need
For self conscious blinking
To moisten dry eyes
He sat in a backwards facing seat on
The moving train he
Hated the way
The passing power
Lines out the window unspooled like
Playing a big fish
That will never
Be caught

Baby Blue Leisure Socks and Hand Bag

by Tom Hatch

Briskly a brief cased suit runs up the aisle about to miss his stop
knocking over another’s cup of coffee brown as an early morning
commuting deltas starts to flow under the rows of seats as the coffee's
Current spurned by sighs, nudges and "not again"
lifting away from the floor shoes
brief cases and bags
this is like a bleeding wound
the pulsating blood meandering
like an ancient river by
the movement of the train
causing an ox bow like lake
on the linoleum terrain
baby blue leisure soxs in
tasseled loafers jerks up
Squealing an accountant
finding errors on a spread sheet
a woman across the sail head phone texting
looking at her Vogue a picture
of Drew Barrymore in an ad
unaware of the river moving
on the floor is her
baby blue hand bag
stained bottom
coffee
brown
Drips