Hobos in a Clearing in Wyoming
We reached the crest of the hill at dusk.
Below us like the camps of infantry
Burned the scattered fires of forgotten men,
Each a separate picture.
They lived in the open or in
The opulence of tarpaper lean-tos against a tree
And migrated as punctually as geese.
They wore black–perhaps it was the soot of freight trains–
And squatted on their haunches like crickets
Beside the snapping flames.
Cicadas chirped in the grass.
Streams of smoke trailed off high into the trees.
Embers flickered and faded, flickered and faded
In the harsh bite and sparkle of a sudden wind
And glowed bronze on the men’s untroubled faces
Late into the night.
Bed
Danger in the air today.
Madeline woke to morning fear,
Passed into afternoon fear,
And came to evening fear.
Unspeakable really-
She’s going to bed.
As always her friend
Called at noon.
If Madeline answered she was still alive.
Then Madeline was hungry
And went down to the kitchen
But didn’t have the strength
To make a peanut butter and jelly
Or ham and cheese sandwich
And heard voices in the walls so
She gave up and now
She’s going to bed.
She tried especially hard today,
Did her best
As long as she could
As she promised
She would
And now
She’s going to bed.
She is sorry
She let her friend down
(He cares so much)
But nevertheless
Bed is where she’s going.
She’s left her friend a note
Because she has no one else
To write notes to before
Going back to bed.
Danger inside Madeline too so
Bed is where you will find her.
Bed is where she will be.
Bed is the place she is going.
Lady at the Fair
At the history museum in Chicago
I turned into a gallery and
I saw your life size photograph, you
Coming toward me
Holding a parasol in the rain
At the World’s Fair in 1893.
What I wonder
Do you mean to me now.
What do your long lace gloves
Flowing textured white dress
Plumed floral hat
Pleasing face
Parasol
And eyes meeting mine
Signify to me?
Why does the memory of
The image of you in that picture
Take hold of my heart?
Why do I feel
Affection for you
(I don’t know you)
And wish I too at that moment
Was turning that corner
Under those rain clouds
Onto the fairway
With you whoever you were
Close to me
That day a century
And a quarter ago?
Friendship
My dog and cats are dead now
But the squirrel who loved them
Comes every morning to sit on the fence
Awaiting their return
Morning Glories
Sitting on a window sill
Watching people
Exchanging stories
Over white and purple
Morning glories
On the flanks of the hill
Woman Sitting at a Table in China Town
I saw you
Looking at me
Knowing I had
Looked at you
No chance ever
To see you again
Or you to
Look at me again
With your dark eyes.
You, who had I
Known long ago,
I would have run
My finger over so carefully
Then cupped in my hand
Like an orchid.
Fish
Down on the docks of Puget Sound
The air is pervaded
By the smell of
…Fish.
The trawlers, the warehouses,
The cutting houses, the waves and wind–
Everything–
…Fish.
And all the people there,
Are the color of
…Fish.
After work this fish population
Assembles in schools
In restaurants along the water
Where they eat
…Fish.
And when you walk down the street
Afterward you realize,
Laughing, in high spirits, that
You too have become a
…Fish.
Wolves In The Rocky Mountains
We sat at a table in the inn and ordered coffee. The utensils were gold. From the windows we watched through the falling snow eight stalking wolves winding down the mountain in single file, slowly, like liquid through the spruces and evergreens. It was getting late. We had stayed too long. We didn’t want to stay around until dark when at that elevation it would be really cold, and the wolves were on our mind. We paid and left.
Looking over our shoulders we saw the wolves streaking among the trees and circling and wheeling around and teasing and tormenting a young deer they had separated from a herd. We could hear the wolves and the deer breathing and see the wolves when they weren’t attacking the deer playfully burrowing their snouts in the snow. There was nothing we could do to save the deer. We didn’t want to watch.
Lovely Ambition
I think I will write a masterpiece
After lunch today.
My readers will no doubt sigh and say
“This poem’s well-nigh beautiful,
The play of language across the page,
A rage of genius.”
It will not be frivolous and light
As other poems I’ve read,
But of love, birth, and death,
The major topics so to speak.
But first I’ve an appointment to keep–
Laundry in the corner piled steep.
I will begin with the delicates
As I am prone to do,
Then pen my masterpiece
In the afternoon.
Waitress in a Café in Kayenta Arizona
Fingers like sausage links,
Face round as a tire,
Hips the breadth of a moving van,
Elaborate, beauty-shop hair,
Said her name was Anita Valaquez.
She said:
“Shove over handsome” and sat down.
She said: “I know you’re thinking just look at that woman,
She’s got an ass you could set a table on.
But that’s okay with me. You can’t argue with reality.”
Then she said: “Got a minute?
I want to tell you kids a story.”
Woman Suffering Badly In Diversey Parkway Apartment
Day by day, event by event,
Milestone to milestone–
New Year’s Day, Independence Day
Birthdays and anniversaries-
Year by year and slowly
Like jelly tumbling from a jar
Illness interminable
Pain unceasing
Friends departing
Lonely.
Watching her soul dying
She asks
“Can one return safely from hell?”
The Snow Fort
As a boy
I built a snow fort
Under my porch
Working all day
While others played
And hosed it down
So it would survive
And I was proud
It was a sturdy structure
But not sturdy enough
I suppose because
When I went to admire it
In the morning
It was shattered
By whom I would never know
I wondered and often have
Why someone
Would be so cruel
As to destroy
A snow fort like mine
And never built another
The Joys of Puttering in Closets
Old clothes
Are the best clothes–
Ketchup on sleeves,
Rips on knees,
Mustard on trousers
In the shape of flowers,
Frays where frays belong.
Ah, there is nothing wrong
With wearing old jeans
Tearing along the seams.
Woman in the Garden
We are all so complicated and sealed up
In the little disguises we wear
That we can truly know in one lifetime
Only a person or two, and they not always
But only in momentary bursts of understanding.
All the others we reduce to a few strokes:
That woman in the garden is lovely, has a lovely smile,
Owns a lovely dog.
Summer Scene
Monarch of the
clothes pin
servant of the
breeze;
white sheets
muttering,
white shirts
fluttering
on the
line.
Mother at her
dearest
on the gray -painted creaking
porch
on a sunfresh
afternoon.
The Lessons of Birds
One cannot help but suffer desolation
As dreary as the land itself
Standing alone in barren places
And feel the sincerest admiration
To see rising from a yellow hill
A large black bird whose wings open wide
And show a bright vermillion underside
That cries loudly with delight as it takes flight
To live most admirably it seems
One’s soul must be to desolation
And barren places
As a bird ascending joyfully
From yellow hills
Mom
She bends over
The washboard
Exuding love
Uneasy with words
She has no other way
Of expressing it
So she scrubs and scrubs
Old Man in Shorts In Wilmette Illinois
Odd to see
An old man
With knobby knees
In Bermuda shorts
Thumbing a ride
On a busy street
At three PM
Butterflies
Butterflies you and I
Fluttering over a garden–
Our little world–
Flower to flower
One person then another
In search of that one who is to us
Though perhaps to no one else
The loveliest
And when we find that flower
That is enough
Sister and I Impatiently Waiting for a Bus
Slush
On the street and sidewalk
Soft and hushed
Down the street
Before the red brick fire House
Clanking chains lashed
Around softly humming tires
Splash past
A warm Christmas Eve
End of day
Grandma and Grandpa on their way
Friday Calls
813-629-5162
813-629-5162
813-629-5162
Every Friday night
813-629-5162
But now my mother has died
And O, I’ll never hear her voice again from
813-629-5162
We say goodbye to life in increments
We say goodbye to life in increments
A daily departure
And others in our absence
Ask when and how we went
We can’t return
Even if we wished
All hope spurned
Plot finished
Hiking Along the Timeless River
“We felt we were above the world, above reality, in pure, pure ecstasy.”
Then the river in the forest was back with us, coursing in its channel from north to south, country to city, undulating, serene, immortal, as though on our return that night it would sweep us along in its steady current past what had ever been and was ever to be, immune from time. Overhead the trees cast long, thin shadows that swayed on the moving surface like dancers. Sweat flowed in streams down our backs and we were as optimistic and happy as the wind was hot.
My father took off his knapsack and rubbed his shoulders where it had cut into them and reared back and flung a twig into the air and far out into the river. Then we took off our shoes and socks and put our feet refreshingly into the ceaselessly passing water. Laughing, we splashed each other.
We felt we were above the world, above reality, in pure, pure ecstasy. We lounged back on the bank, contented, centered, listening to the river wind, and gazed up at the eternal sun displayed in the sky like a burnished coin while below it the timeless river flowed on, bearing Dad’s twig swiftly away to eternity.
© 2020 David J. Rogers
For my interview from the international teleconference with Ben Dean about Fighting to Win, click the following link:
Order Fighting to Win: Samurai Techniques for Your Work and Life eBook by David J. Rogers
Click on book image to order from Amazon.com
or
Order Waging Business Warfare: Lessons From the Military Masters in Achieving Competitive Superiority
Click on book image to order from Amazon.com
or
and he suddenly was rich. On the other hand, when Ernest Hemingway was young and poor in Paris and unable to support his family with his stories he would catch pigeons in the Luxembourg Gardens when the gendarme on duty went into a café during his break, and then take them home and cook them. Some writers, like painters such as Pablo Picasso, love being rich. Picasso said he wanted to work without material worries “like a pauper,” “but with a lot of money.”
What do geniuses talk about? 
One of the problems superb writers face is that they–and no one else–are the best judge of their work and yet they must endure sometimes ignorant, amateurish editors and critics. Henry Miller found himself being abused by editor after editor he submitted work to. He snarled, “Who are these shits? Where do they get off saying such things to me?”
Sherwood Anderson died after swallowing a toothpick with a hors d’ oeuvre at a cocktail party. Katherine Mansfield married a singing teacher eleven years older than herself and abandoned him the morning after their wedding night. George Bernard Shaw said, “Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.”
ready to start writing. Ernest Hemingway had to first sharpen all the pencils he anticipated using that day. Edgar Alan Poe petted his cat before he started. 
Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, went a year without talking to anyone. Truman Capote’s advice to young writers was to socialize and not “go up to a pine cabin all alone,” because “You reach that stage soon enough.” Voltaire preferred the company of his mistress. He wrote in bed using her back as a desk.
Maurice Valency thought that failure is very difficult for a writer to bear, “but very few can manage the shock of early success.” P.G. Wodehouse said that success comes to a writer rather gradually, and that it is something of a shock to him or her to realize the heights to which they have risen.
Playwright Lillian Hellman said writers are “fancy talkers about themselves.” She said that if she had to give advice to young writers she would say, “Don’t listen to writers talk about writing or themselves.”
American Chekhov.” Another critic considered Carver “one of the greatest modern short story writers.” Poet Hayden Carruth wrote, “Among the great American writers of the 20th century, no question, Carver is the most endearing. He carries our humanity into the 21st.”
college class at Chico State University by John Gardner (1933-1982). In years to come Gardner, then twenty-six, would become an important and influential person in American literature. Carver said that a good writing teacher is something like a literary conscience, a friendly critical voice in your ear, and that after being taught by Gardner, all his writing career he sensed him looking over his shoulder when he wrote, showing approval or disapproval over words, phrases, and strategies.
Gardner thought that a novelist needed “an almost daemonic compulsiveness.” He was energetic and charismatic and his students responded. One student said “he was born with a quicker ratio to the passage of time than the rest of us.” Carver said that Gardner’s teaching “went right into my blood stream and changed the way I looked at things…He took my stories more seriously…I was completely unprepared for the kind of criticism I received from him.” He considered Gardner the teacher who first inspired him and intimidated him, teaching him to be tough on himself.
In Publish and Flourish, Tara Gray advocates a writing program of a short 15-30 minutes rather than waiting for large blocks of time longer than three hours. Her interest was mainly academic writing and her little book was aimed at academics writing scholarly articles. But the research findings she cites and her prescriptions are pertinent to any writers who don’t have the luxury of lots of available time.
Form a pact with a buddy. You’re more likely to achieve your writing goals—or 
If you need to do research, keep your research minutes to the barest reasonable minimum and your writing minutes to a maximum. You needn’t write for long periods to be more highly productive than you might expect.
finishing, you’ve developed a bad habit and you’d better do something about it.
start another contrary, more fruitful habit. To break the habit of consistently not writing, you develop the habit of writing regularly. To combat the habit of quitting too soon, you make yourself not quit.
You’re not a child or hedonist, a worshipper of permissiveness and pleasure who doesn’t have any will power. There are many writers who write not the traditional four or fewer hours daily, but put in eight hours a day, much longer than the majority, considering themselves no different than their parents who worked eight hours a day and the majority of the work force who work eight hours daily.
It takes longer to completely absorb yourself in an ambitious project than in an easier, less complicated one. And during that period, distractions seem to come up out of the ground. Any intrusion on the delicate world of a creative mind can make that world disappear. Every intrusion not only robs you of time, but also of the time it takes you to recover. If you set a goal of working a three-hour session and have three interruptions you may be busy for three hours but only do fifteen minutes of actual work. If you try to do four things simultaneously, you’ll probably only finish one, at most two.
Don’t let a 
work that leads to the fulfillment of your gifts over the avoidance of work.
Actor Lord Laurence Olivier aimed at perfect performances, as did Peter O’Toole, Olivier’s successor as the world’s greatest actor–the perfect performances in the perfect tragedies as the perfect characters–as Hamlet, King Lear, Othello, or Iago. One night Olivier felt that he had achieved perfection in a performance. Others in the cast also told him he had. He said, “What I’m thinking is I’ve done it, but will I be able to do it again?” Perfection is difficult and rare. It is hard to repeat. It is a concept that grows in importance to artists as their skills and accomplishments ascend to high levels.
It is true that serious dancers currently and throughout history have aimed at perfection, but other artists–usually the best in the art, those that are aware that they have a significant talent–also aim for perfection in their work, I believe. Those who do aim for perfection in their novels, musical composition, and paintings and other art works let it be known through their 
When they are watching the performance of a play what the audience hopes to see more than anything else is a virtuoso performance they will not be able to forget however long they live and how many plays they see. The virtuoso performance is the single most exciting and popular feature not only of drama but of any art, and the most thrilling feature of a virtuoso performance is not the possibility that the artist may fail. Rather, it is the spectacle of succeeding in an extraordinary way–a performance that is perfect because it has no errors. All the time I am listening to music as I do all day long or reading a narrative I think is great such as James Joyce’s short story “Araby,” and Frank Sinatra’s rendition of “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning” I am thinking, “Keep it up James and Frank. Don’t fail. Continue being great until the story or the song is finished and perfect from the beginning to the end”
The days and nights of everyday living of the artist seeking perfection must be filled to the brim with their art. More than likely, the artist has grown up with it, seen it mature, and watched it take over a good part of his or her being. Short story master Raymond Carver reflecting on his career put it this way: “conversation was fine, camaraderie was fine, making love was fine, raising a family was okay, but interfered with writing.”
Why what I’m going to say now is true, no one has been able to figure out, but almost all people relax their efforts when they get close to achieving even their most important goals. They struggle and struggle and then seem to get lazy and disinterested. They are like a sprinter who runs fast to the tape and slows down or stops. But good coaches advise runners to “run through the tape.” Whatever you do, don’t relax just when you’re getting close to success, but persist in applying your utmost energy
Why are you and I so afraid of failure? Many people live in terror of it and feel they must never fail, but always succeed, trailing clouds of glory. Yet failure can be a blessed life-changing event. If you experience only successes, you come to expect quick and easy results, and your sense of confidence is easily undermined if you suffer a setback. Setbacks and failures serve two useful purposes: Not only do they show us that we need to make changes and adjustments in order to gain the success we are seeking, but also they teach us that success usually requires confident, persistent, skilled, focused effort sustained over time. Once you set failures aside and become convinced that you have what it takes to succeed, you quickly rebound from failures. By having courage and sticking it out through tough times, you come out on the far side of failures with even greater confidence and commitment.
The effect of 
Confidence is needed if you are to be successful as an artist. Make it a point to never lose confidence. If you find yourself losing it, use affirming statements, such as “I can do this; I believe in myself.’
The most successful people have high career aspirations, are confident, and generally attribute their success to high effort and failure to lack of effort.
Creative people who are the most likely to ask for help are those with a high opinion of themselves, while those with a low opinion of themselves are the least likely, although they may be the most in need of it and would profit from it. Asking for help shows that you’re serious about reaching your goals. Useful feedback can help you evolve and reach high levels of satisfaction and achievement.
davidjrogersftw 