life: acoustic & amplified

breaking the mold…feelin’ dangerously cheesy

Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.      – Chesterton

In the pantry the dear dense cheeses, Cheddars and harsh

Lancashires; Gorgonzola with its magnanimous manner;

the clipped speech of Roquefort; and a head of Stilton

that speaks in a sensuous riddling tongue like Druids.

O cheeses of gravity, cheeses of wistfulness, cheeses

that weep continually because they know they will die.

O cheeses of victory, cheeses wise in defeat, cheeses

fat as a cushion, lolling in bed until noon.

Liederkranz ebullient, jumping like a small dog, noisy;

Pont l’Évêque intellectual, and quite well informed; Emmentaler

decent and loyal, a little deaf in the right ear;

and Brie the revealing experience, instantaneous and profound.

O cheeses that dance in the moonlight, cheeses

that mingle with sausages, cheeses of Stonehenge.

O cheeses that are shy, that linger in the doorway,

eyes looking down, cheeses spectacular as fireworks.

Reblochon openly sexual; Caerphilly like pine trees, small

at the timberline; Port du Salut in love; 

Caprice des Dieux
eloquent, tactful, like a thousand-year-old hostess;

and Dolcelatte, always generous to a fault.

O village of cheeses, I make you this poem of cheeses,

O family of cheeses, living together in pantries,

O cheeses that keep to your own nature, like a lucky couple,

this solitude, this energy, these bodies slowly dying.
🧀

O Cheese by Donald Hall

why is it so hard to see you get in that line?

the one where you wait to fly away…

my heart is so full of you. 

I’m so very grateful for you,

for these days, 

full and joyful.

Over way too fast. 

There’s so much more to do,

too share,

talk about,

explore. 

You,

so handsome,

funny,

brave,

smart 

and practical. 

Always thinking,

finding yourself,

ready for more,

standing so tall 

with your quick smile,

and quick frown. 

I think about you little, 

eating cheese off your bed –

you were always a wild animal,

always manufacturing a tail from some found source. 

You were always so much more than that – 

you were always art,

always real life,

always finding God in the clouds,

always quick to find the silly,

my beautiful son. 

I laugh through my tears 

at the sheer gift of you. 

I love you pure,

to the deepest depths of myself. 

I can’t possibly comprehend it, 

but I know, somehow,

God loves you even more than I do. 

Breathe in, breathe out.  

Let go…

Fly free, be well, live full, and come back soon – 

my only prayers 

👦🏼

AL/Mom

When the news came in over the phone

that you did not have cancer, as they first thought.

I was in the kitchen trying to follow a recipe,

glancing from cookbook to stove,

shifting my glasses from my nose to my forehead and back,

a recipe, as it turned out, for ratatouille,

a complicated vegetable dish

which you or any other dog would turn up your nose at.

If you had been here, I imagine

you would have been curled up by the door

sleeping with your head resting on your tail.

And after I learned that you were not sick,

everything took on a different look

and appeared to be better than it usually is.

For example (and that’s the first and last time

I will ever use those words in a poem),

I decided I should grate some cheese,

not even knowing if it was right for ratatouille,

and the sight of the cheese grater

with its red handle lying in the drawer

with all the other utensils made me marvel

at how this thing was so perfectly able and ready

to grate cheese just as you with your long smile

and your brown and white coat

are perfectly designed to be the dog you perfectly are.
🧀

Good News by Billy Collins

photo sources found at http://www.pinterest.com