46 For Skyhooks

The Arsenal

I thought I wasn't going to be able to write a poem for the Skyhooks meeting tonight, what with all the tax problems and school stress and I don't know what all.  But I sat down a half hour before the meeting and the muse whispered another poem about Venice into my waiting ear.  The metaphorical shipbuilding refers to an event in Venetian history in which a visiting ambassador was shown how the assembly-line work in the Arsenal could produce a grand, fierce, Venetian war galley in a single day, from boards to boat.

 LIKE YOU, VENICE

I once ruled my corner of the earth

showing ambassadors of larger powers

that I could build and furnish fighting ships

in less time than they took to write a letter home

and now I seek no greater later years than yours --

filled with tourists weak with admiration

at my ancient spirit, picturesque in ruin,

but still working, still living, still enjoying

every morsel even as I slip into the sea.

(c) Kake Huck 2014

Last Year #5: In praise of the surface

After a few thousand years of teaching interpersonal communication I finally learned that "depth" is no more important than "breadth" and "likability."  I have been part of a "crew" that I consider my "peeps."  I don't know their deepest, darkest moments nor do they know mine but there is a way in which that's not important.  Here is a poem I wrote (part of the collection Sentenced to Venice) in praise of the beauty and viability of superficial, "collegial" relationships.

IN PRAISE OF THE SURFACE

for the Winestyles group

Those who know me only here

like this, wine glass or whiskey in

one hand, cicchetti in the other,

may think another self somewhere

abides, heavy hulled and riding deep

in ancient waters, soul of a poet or

philosopher, but I know better that

such depth can run aground, get

stuck, get cracked beyond repair

among these islands, these lives

thrown down together not by

design but fortune, while

craft that glide across experience --

flat bottomed gondolas, curved prow,

enamel shiny, a single oar both power

and direction -- can skim and turn

and slide above life’s muck unhampered

by uncertain measure of the water

waiting black beneath our feet.