ronald baatz | three more poems

Poetry Dispatch No. 122 | November 13, 2006

3 More by Ronald Baatz

ALWAYS

here is a poem
I wrote for you
last year and

which I never
got around to
giving you

I hope it still
has some life
left to it although

I don’t
see why
it shouldn’t since
I try my best

to construct these
things with such
care that they

should last many years
without coming to
any reasonable ruin

just as a potter might
form a bowl
from clay or a

sculptor might chip
away at a hefty
block of marble

knowing their sweaty
toil will bring forth
objects possessing

the qualities necessary
to leap through
the ages

with a truth
otherwise
always known

THE SAME ORANGE

the same orange
has been on the
table for over

a week now
and every so often
i’ll notice it there

and i am tempted
to it eat but
the idea of it

being gone for
some reason does
not sit with me too

well
so it continues to
remain there

day after day
as though it were
an astray

and naturally I
know that some
day soon this

orange is going to
start going bad
and it’ll end up

simply being thrown
out and I’ll never
know what it would’ve

been like to eat
and i’ll have to
forgive myself this

I’M TELLING YOU

please let me get
up from this bed
I have an early

day tomorrow and
I must get home
to sleep

and stop trying to pin
me down I know just
how much stronger you

are than I am
and stop trying to put
my penis back in you

can’t you see how limp
and exhausted it is
and it has been informed

of my need to rise at
dawn so it is just as
anxious as I am to be

out the door and down
the road so please
stop sitting on me with your

godforsaken heavy ass
which probably doesn’t have to
get up until noon

from WORMWOOD REVIEW, #137, 1995

ronald baatz | the last april

Poetry Dispatch No. 105| September 28, 2006

THE LAST APRIL by Ronald Baatz

i put myself in her and i remained there
and for a moment all i could hear was a bird
outside the open window letting out with
a solitary cry. it was a sunday morning and
the last day in april, and for the most part
for me it had been a sleepless night after
a very lengthy dinner, a wild lovemaking
session and a walk downstairs alone
to take a peek at the end of a ball game
while sipping cognac. it was Sunday morning,
as i said before, and i remained still,
actually listening closely to the bird,
wondering exactly what kind of bird it was,
suspecting that she knew i was wondering
what kind of bird it was. but
i also could not believe the quiet thrill
of lying there inside of her.
my penis was painfully rigid, and i
listened to the bird, the one of
a sunday morning, the morning of the last
day, the day that came at the final
moments of april. it wasn’t
the crow outside, this much
i knew. the crow had its own sound
which i could not confuse with
another kind of sound.
it drove her out of her mind
with pleasure, my not moving.
we have this strong and silent
rapport which manifests itself
sometimes in such unhurried moments.
especially on a day
which was the last day,
of an april which was
the last april
of all known aprils.

from The Wormwood Review, #144, 1997

a spark plug
held tight in my father’s old fist
as he approaches the shed

ah! to be drunk and to lasso an alien
from the land
of short skirts

the landlord
swimming naked in the pond
forgets his battle with cancer

from a chapbook (undated), at herring cove, by Ronald Baatz

FAREWELL by Ronald Baatz

a light frosting of snow
this morning. threw some
apples out for the deer, not
from the kindness of my heart,
but because I didn’t care
to eat them myself. actually
i haven’t seen a deer out back
since late autumn, some
three weeks ago, a gnawing
sensation of depression
in my gut. don’t want to
push off for work this morning.
i feel like a child being
sent to school, and this
child does not want to go there.
this child wants nothing more
than just to remain home
and play with his tin castle
and tiny knights. to
this day I can remember
the last day I did play
with them. the sad
realization that
i was getting too old.
i can still feel it.
this I can never see
happening with poetry,
since the writing
of poetry has
always been, for me,
the simple rehearsal
of writing
that last note
of farewell,
on my
deathbed.

from The Wormwood Review, #144, 1997

ronald baatz | thoughts on a snowy afternoon in february

Poetry Dispatch No.71 | May 22, 2006

I’ve written about Ronald Baatz before. I’ve published Ronald Baatz before. It’s my intention to continue doing both. He is one of America’s finest poets, and a charter member of The Invisible Poets, Writers and Artists Society, an underground, unheralded group of mostly accomplished little mag and small press writers and artists (some unpublished as well, unaffiliated with major galleries, agents, and publishers) founded in the 1960’s by me, dedicated to the preservation of integrity and openness n the arts (no American marketing bullshit), publishers operating on a shoestring, writers and artists who mostly give their work away (because they have to), and the common community of men and women who live their lives solely to make something of them in words and images for their own good, and possibly the good of others.

The membership of the society is secret and will remain so. Only we know who we are. Recognize this instantly. And recognize and support each other accordingly. Occasionally our identity may be revealed publicly, but we are not comfortable in the light (having been denied it for so long), and return anxiously to our shadowed home of anonymity. Enough said for now.

This is the first public statement about this group, and though it has been on my mind for sometime to acknowledge its existence, publishing Ronald Baatz this morning inspired me to finally say something about working in the dark. Norbert Blei

THOUGHTS ON A SNOWY AFTERNOON IN FEBRUARY by Ronald Baatz

I watch a woman walking her dog at the park.
I’m sure i have never seen her here before.
It could be this is the first time she has visited
this park, or perhaps she has been here at times
when i was not. No doubt i appear a stranger
to her too. Perhaps to her i look as though i live
in some other town, and i was just out for a drive
and in my travels just wandered upon this park.
She doesn’t know i come here daily to watch
trees blossoming in fog, women in bathing suits
down by the lake, men fishing through ice, leaves
beautifully rotting. But since i am a stranger
i’m sure she has few thoughts about me, if any.
The only reason i am thinking about her is because
i’m sitting in front of this blank page and i need
something to write on these endless blue lines.
I’m tired of writing haiku about birds. I picture her
home with her dog. I suspect she is not married
and she sleeps with it. I see the dog patiently
sitting by the side of the bathtub as she soaks herself.
I see her nipples floating on the water, slightly hidden
by soap bubbles. Her nipples have a warm familiarity
to me. Could it be the case that in a another life
i was her dog, and that i stopped living that life
only yesterday and at that point started living this life.
I am not on any kind of drug, it’s just that it’s freezing out,
and i am sitting in this car with the engine idling
and i am writing on this piece of paper and so there must be
these thoughts. Yes, there must be these thoughts
or tomorrow i might return to being her dog all over again.
If i have these thoughts i will remain this person in this life
and, well, at least tomorrow i won’t be out there in the cold
on a leash shitting in the snow.

ronald baatz | sometimes I’m a happy poet

Poetry Dispatch No. 46 | January 4, 2006

SOMETIMES I AM A HAPPY POET by Ronald Baatz

Sometimes i am a happy poet.
Sometimes in my heart a lost and homeless bum.

Sometimes i can see my life as a clear, beautiful
crystal-cold stream, and at other times as
a distorted circle of foul-smelling mud.

Sometimes the joy of my life is unmistakable
and overwhelming, and at other times it is
the sadness and disappointment of a life
unlived and wasted, dark and empty.

Sometimes there is the love of family,
the warmth of friends, the embrace
of a passionate woman.
Sometimes there is nothing
but anxiety and fear and loneliness.

Sometimes there is God.
Sometimes not.

Sometimes i want to live forever.
Sometimes the thought of another day
is intolerable.

Sometimes i wake refreshed from dreams.
Sometimes i wake terrified from what i’ve seen.

Sometimes there are birds.
Sometimes not a wing
is left in the world.

ronald baatz | in a clay pig’s eye

 

Poetry Dispatch No. 33 | November 29, 2005

a fence between
the cemetery and the road
leans toward the road

as though the whole earth
were ringing-
that’s how many crickets

clothespins-
like skinny wooden birds
on the line

even her charley horse
brings a new thrill
to our lovemaking

a single snowflake falling-
or are my eyes
just going bad

kitchen window
held open till dark
by a wooden spoon

what’s left from breakfast-
hard toast with the word “birds”
scratched into it

our beautiful love
on such thin ice
we can’t even shiver

orange peels
in the snow
curling toward the sun

an icy evening
a bowl of noodles and thoughts
of a naked woman

by Ronald Baatz

from IN A CLAY PIG’S EYE, Seastone Editions (2005) limited edition, 100 copies

Ronald Baatz sees the big picture in small, seemingly simple poems; publishes in obscure, small presses; appears invisible in today’s world of raucous voices. Silence.
Every poem is a new awakening to an old truth we seldom find the words to say or see. His work is difficult to locate but worth the search. He lives in Mt. Tremper, NY. There he goes now…Norbert Blei

mountains disappear in fog
and i want to go right along
with them