Ron. Lavalette's Blog
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Apr.24.2009
Two Pages, Graveside
I think they must have been lost in the flood, a half-century ago and, she, too, was swept away later, late at night, a year ago, gone on into the swell to meet them there. Now the green earth is filled with sun, light everywhere, warmth floods the outstretched lawn deep in...
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Apr.21.2009
I'm doing a reading tonight at the (very ) local bookstore, part of its National Poetry Month Celebration. They usually get 30-50 people. I'll probably have time for 8-10 pieces; a couple new ones and some I haven't read in public in a while. I thought it interesting to note, as I selected the...
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Apr.19.2009
You can call it whatever you want, put whatever label on it you like, but no amount of obfuscation makes the end result any less bitter. You can close your eyes, vow to keep your mouth shut, turn and turn and turn away from the truth but, in the end, there's really no escape: he was only seven...
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Apr.18.2009
They were hard people, living in a mean place down by the mineshaft's mouth.
They were hard people, and it was hard to tell if they minded living in a mean place down where, no matter where you stood in town, no matter what time of day or night, you could hear the pile-drivers pounding in the the...
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Apr.15.2009
Catching The Dalmatian
Just before he wakes up he reaches
for another jumbo shrimp. The cooler,
nearly depleted, is a mix of slushy bait
and warming beer. He snags one or
the other –he can’t remember which—
and wishes the odd lights at the bottom
of the dark pool weren’t so…what?
Hypnotic?...
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Apr.11.2009
COVENANT
There is nothing bilingual
about the sunshine this morning,
nothing open to interpretation, nothing
equivocal. No. This morning
on the lawn --if brown can be a lawn,
if lawn can be a mat of fallen leaves--
this morning, then, is frost alone,
no snow anymore, but just cold
and glaze, and...
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Apr.10.2009
No Exodus
Older now, our sweet little Debbie, sweet as
ever but not so very little anymore, gets stuck in
Aisle Three, lost amid all those pre-fab pastries,
under the Muzak moon’s empty promises
(all that arrangement and artifice but none of the
art); not a single whole grain anywhere in sight,...
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Apr.09.2009
EVER AND WILL
Ever looked good out on Main Street, his feet a foot above a fiery sidewalk, his wings wide, his eyes glazed. He’s higher and wiser than most, his lowest moments behind him now, dim memories, all the earth unfolding upward, lifting him upward as well, a raging angel.
Will had held a...
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Apr.08.2009
I was a fireman in Drainville but the problems were all in the paperwork-that, plus the lousy equipment kept breaking down so that we'd all wake up with our ears on fire, our heads pounding with the roar of smoke, the fine but useless mist of futility still dripping from our grimy coats.
Mostly,...
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Apr.08.2009
It's Wednesday morning, but it's got that Friday kind of feeling-without that "Thank God It's Finally Here" quality to it. These days, it's possible to be out of gas by noon on Monday and have to get through the week on fumes and promises.
And here on the homefront, away from the...
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Apr.07.2009
That's it and he just can't do it anymore, worn out from hauling all that belly around all the time every day and can't sleep at night either, most nights, for lack of air. Instead he stays in bed till he can't stand it anymore, gets up and goes into his office to sleep at the keyboard. He lets...
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Apr.05.2009
Oh I am about three briefons short of a mo this morning. “Arf a mo, there, mate, if’n ya don’t mind,” he said. Plus I’m a mucous factory waiting for my cuppa coffee.
There, that’s better.
I lost track there, momentarily, of which was the sugar and which was the cup; had to stand & reason...
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Apr.04.2009
He salted and peppered his English muffin in the morning, remembered how—30 years ago, in college—he used to lope down into the basement café and order a grilled hard roll like it was a meal, pepper it almost black, and wash it down with coffee. The coffee was always fresh, owing to the huge volume...
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Apr.02.2009
Today he feeds the ravenous seagulls down beside the lake, shares his lunch hour with others that most other people disregard. He thinks about Richard, living alone in his shack made of watermelon sugar, thinks about Robert risking his life by having his teeth cleaned without the benefit of...
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Mar.30.2009
(Every morning the coffee stream miraculously crests at the 10-cup mark, and the man uses each last drop to sandbag himself safely away from the harm of the day.)
Another morning up at four, after having once again perfected the float: the stepping off into air and the gradual return merely...
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About Ron.
(Sample published work at: EGGS OVER TOKYO)(Live blog at: SCRAMBLED, NOT FRIED)(Prose-ish at: SIX SENTENCES) Ron. started reading and writing poetry seriously in the late '60s, when a floral-necktied student teacher dumped a bunch of books on his desk, one of...
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