Well-Worn Shoe

How ever
could I have slipped
into the well-worn shoe
of comfortability?

How ever
could I have lost
the tingle in my taste
for your you-nique-ness?

How ever
could my heart
lie sleeping safely
in accustomed rhythms of routine
Lulled to
slumber
by conscious efforts
to control and quiet
the steaming inferno
that so nearly ago
was stoked with only
a hint of
your ardor-igniting image?

So yesterday
was it?
that we tumbled
at every chance
into the embrace of
promised trust, acceptance
titillated by refrains of coming
kisses
climaxes
and love thoughts
love talks

How ever
could I have exchanged
the dynamo of our love
for the siren song of respectability,
false modesty
adorning deepened desire to control,
in fear of being lost,
adrift in the flood of passion and
lusty dream-fulfillment
choke-chain
gripping adolescent fantasia
about pusling neck
restraining
   retraining
     refraining
from pleasure's caress
Focusing instead on projects
Agenda
flimsy newsprinted stories
of fleeting trivia

How ever
could I have bargained
with eternity to gain
tiny bits of temporality
in a self-swindling
swapmeet?

8.6.87
©Steven B. Eulberg

QUESTION

Do a Faux Pas Prince
make faux pas prints?
If so, and the pinter has fo' paws
with which to print
(I pause
to ponder)
then fo' paw prints
the Faux Pas Prince
do make.

©4.28.88  SBEulberg

Callouses

Callouses
it seems, grow
not on fingers
but feelings
to protect
not the fullness
of blisters
but emptiness
of longing.

7/11/86
©Steve Eulberg

Sittin by the Ocean

Sittin' here by the ocean
Wish' by the sea
Waitin' for the waves
to wash all over me

Sittin' here by the ocean
Waitin' by the sea
Wishin' for the waves
to carry me away.

7/28/01
©SBEulberg

The Way My Father Lost Me

Hear I anguish here
Here I hear my fear
O Zachary
I do not want
to lose you
the way
my Father
lost me.

11/0/03
©Steve Eulberg

Holocaust Museum June 2003

(Our family visited the Holocaust Museum on two different days while in Washington, DC, just after "Mission Accomplished" showed that saying it is so doesn't make it so.)

7-1/2 tones of hair
from "liberated" scalps

The mobile killing squads
the systematic brutality

when we are scared
we readily surrender
our freedom
even our hope
for the illusion of safety.

This time,
the most touching part of the story
is to find there wer emany who resisted,
who fought,
who secreted,
who transported
Jews to safety--
The Danish flotilla,
the clergy,
the small towns....

Will my beloved little town
protect our own?
Will my neighbors band together
for the safety of the targeted?
Or will we feed our fear
by eating each other for a
breakfast of anxiety?

Breakfast of exterminators
tempted to ban
banish
dismiss the undesirable
or
make another place at the table?

Listen! Organize carefully
so we never have to face
what Maja's parents
recall in Germany.

Ask the bigger question
let your curiosity hear the buzzing alarm
and arise
the burning of books
which is unable to stifle the ideas they contain
does close the minds
of those who kindle and feed the flames.

The apathy and petty disregard...
Are we standing aside ignoring
another holocaust?
Are we beginning and conducting
another move for Lebensraum?

A glimmer of hope as the lockstep is picked:
Arizona says, "We will go Orange
only when the threat is close to us
at our own door and not before."
Other states are bound to agree.

A bird in a bush
A bush-free bird

Gone Bush

Goin' bush
walkabout in a bushy state
shrubness

King George's I & II
The rain is coming down
The reign is coming down
when conditions are right
the reign will always fall
will always fall.

King or Queen
Duke or Earl
Lord or Lady
Empress Impressive
Emperor Oppressive
Presidential precedent
the reign will always fall fail
will always fail

7.03
©Steven B. Eulberg

Fog Rolls In

Fog rolls in with authority
mysteriously steps back
affording us a mystical view
of the silvery water
that has no horizon

above the fog
a footlit display
of puffy clouds
and the blue sky

8.02.01
©Steven B. Eulberg

Radical Change

"There are two basic ways to experience a radical change: to undergo a nervous breakdown, and to fall in love. And love is preferable. love, if we can move beyond projecting onto another person and see them as they really are, also makes us more aware of who we are."

Kathleen Norris, "The Cloister Walk" (Riverhead, 1996)

Strange Footprint

"We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised prodound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."

From Arthur Eddington, English Astronomer, cited in Dennis Overbye's thoughful and well-written book, "Einstein in Love: A Scientific Romance" (Viking, 2000).

Butterfly, Flutterby

Butterfly, flutterby
delicate, fragile
weightless beauty

so unlike me

your mechanics for flight
mine for swimming

neither at home on land.

Lake Michigan, 8.3.01

©Steven B. Eulberg

Randomness is rampant

Randomness is rampant
we assume
Yet light chooses how to appear
depending on how
the observers expects it to act

Photons "choose"
through which slit to slide

Seems incredible
until I consider us on the road
driving like blood corpuscles on
the capillaries and arteries of US highways

We have purpose--
a final destination, many days hence
but along the way we stop
for gas
for restroom relief
for food
for ice
for drink
for exercise

But to an outside observer
all of the other travellers with us
follow a flow and pattern,
perhaps predictable,
always purposeful

8.08.01
©Steven B. Eulberg

Hearkening

He is now treading tenderly
traversing nightly
the pathway of my dreams

At odd moments
my name rings out
in his young, yet-unfeebled voice:
"Steven"

Not angry
nor hurried nor proud
just
"Steven"
a matter-of-fact attention-gatherer.

And I stop, mid-thought,
turning to look over my shoulder
around the next corner
in the midst of my waking reverie
or my busy slumber

And I hearken to the voice
that calls from a self-imposed distance
a gap seldom spanned
a chasm created by
a long train of estranging shovels-full of resentment,
of misunderstanding, of fear, defensiveness and regret.

I hearken and linger
Longingly fingering the memories of his guidance:

-The antiseptic whiff of isopropyl that chased him home
from his daily doses of patient visits
and lingered on the new one
of thick, double-book, storybooks that he
had mail-ordered for me to read
(The Wizard of Oz!)

-The aroma of freshly cut lumber,
the eye-blinking grit of sawdust
spit from a whining, woodshop wheel.

-The ache of sun-burned skin
(chilled by his prescription of
icy dill pickle juice)
from a stooping day of picking rocks found
by his riding roto-tiller.

-The sting of sweat
on the raw pink skin
beneath a newly-torn blister
and that same voice,
in then-seeming harsh reassurance,
" 's good--it'll give you a callous."

I hearken with wistful sorrow
and run my fingers over the stumbling surface
of one of his impressionistic carvings
fashioned in the community room of the
Community Nursing Home
(his favorite stroke-limited, physical activity
at his last physical address)
in what my sisters and I refer to as his
"Picasso Period."

I hearken and I pause
trying to fathom
whether I can or should
begin to smoothe surfaces
he began to shave
Before sealing his sculpture
from the elements and the ravages of time
that no longer age his body.

Am I, the surviving son,
capable of completing his work?
Am I, the estranged son
able to carry forth his vision
in even such a private way?
Am I, the eldest offspring
willing to step into his
place in the harness,
yielding him,
these many months,
finally to his cremated rest?

My name, in his voice,
is what I now hear
and what I couldn't hear
because he couldn't then speak
in the final post-stroke telephone "conversations"
we held--
me speaking to him
(wondering what words could hold us together
over long miles and rapidly shortening time)
as the nurse said he gripped the phone
with unusual remaining strength

I hearken now to the silence
I heard then, searching for
what he was longing to say

and I begin to anticipate
his return as tonight
I slip beneath my covers

This time, when I hear
my name in his voice
I'll hear his name in mine
as I often hear my own
in the voice of my son

"Hey Dad...want to play a game?"

11/08/03
©Steven B. Eulberg

Feathery Fingers of Fog

Feathery fingers of fog

flow furtively
featureless
fall back

pierced by the prodding sun
whose gaze washes
yet fails to penetrate
until

a fading fence fully embraces

a literal
and figurative shroud

©Steve Eulberg

Simeon

As his bald head bends,
white-crowned,
to smile with
grandfatherly eyes
upon the gurgling antics
of his grandson,
what thoughts amble or scamper
behind his experience-honed eyes,
years-worn with care
for the well-being of his ones,
dearly loved,
as he surveys,
with bittersweet anticipation,
the coming years
for this, the youngest of his progeny
knowing full well
that his life will end
before this wee one's
has scarcely
begun?

©2.21.82 Steve Eulberg

A Summer Haiku

Robin's egg sky with
Eyebrows, snowy-white, looks on
summer bright greenness.

CU©1979 Steve Eulberg

Reaped, Have I...

Reaped,
have I, far
more fruitful
harvest from en-routes
than ever
I gleaned from getting-theres.

CU ©1979 Steve Eulberg

Just a Routine

Just a routine
the dogs love to keep,
dragging me down to the
park in the dark,
a team of Belgians
on harness, not leash
At least until
the fleeting fancy strikes:
Perhaps these dogs are
part of my spiritual discipline
(which heaven knows is a bit flabby)
for they beg and whine
wiggle and wag,
yipping excited, hinting demands
until the comfort
of my easy chair,
and the warmth of home
are traded for winter wraps
and the brisk bite
of clear January night.

And lost in meditation,
punctuated by obedience training at crosswalks,
I am startled by the two,
slow-moving silhouettes,
bent in conversation.
At first,
fear for myself,
then,
as the dogs are released,
fear for them
(for the watch in the dog
ticks hearty warning)
Calling and whistling I move away
but not before catching a snippet:
"love..."
"charity..."
spill forth as the two lumber
slowly, one limping, the other matching stride,
up the hill
a pilgrim pair
finally out of reach of streetlamp's fingers
returning to shadow
leaving only the hum of
interstate traffic
scudding through the
sparkling star light
as punctuation
to my meditation.

Though I walk singly
in meditation
I am never alone.

1/12/89
©1989 Steve Eulberg

A Single, Lonely Toothbrush

A single, lonely toothbrush
hanging up above the faucet
the well-worn single tube
of paste alongside

One set of towels and washcloth
suspended over the bathtub

An empty shelf
upon the wall

I'm really not a fan of 'em
will hardly ever use one
"for ecology to be preserved," I say

But now that you are not here today
I must conclude that I

would rather hear the whir of you
Blowing your hair dry.

10/29/86

©1986 Steve Eulberg

Salvaging Death

Saturday's excursion
to the salvage yard—

walking back over muddy trails,
amid stacks and piles
of old, worn-out,
mostly-wrecked auto hulks,
shells of once-finely-tuned machines
through and between which has grown
the green of weeds
and the incessant shrill cry of crickets
who are background to the periodic
dip and sway of the doppler-like
fly buzzings,
together weave a shroud
with the muggy, musty mud-smell
of August

—with Tommie,
a red & yellow-eyed,
tool-toting attendant

We toss short comments between
strides and breath, seeking
conversation and contact

With the week's experience of
funeral and funeral home
I am immediately brought to
view it all as a graveyard

When I say so, Tommie muses,
in fashion that quickly reminds me
of the Greek way of expressing indirect question:
"Makes me wonder did some
die in 'em."
"Shore does,"
comes my reply.

And our search continues
for a VW door handle.

8/19/86

©1986 Steve Eulberg