...Darkly Defined...

The dog's barking.

It's late at night

and the dog

is at the end of the yard

barking at… the neighbors?

Perhaps not at the neighbors directly, 

though that doesn't mean 

they don't hear him.

Maybe he doesn't need

a reason to bark.

That is, nothing other

than the exhilaration

of being outside and hearing his 

vocal iterations reverberate

off distant structures.

Distant structures 

define him.

Right now,

there's a square box

at the end of the room

presently flashing images at me.

And though I’m not barking at it, 

this doesn’t mean it has 

failed to define me.

I step through the door in my bare feet

and head out towards the 

   sound of my dog.

There's no moon tonight

and as the light from

the living room fades away,

I find myself in 

deep pitch blackness.

My bare feet leave the harsh concrete

and the sensation of grass

overcomes me.

Would I have noticed 

the cool faint moistness

were it not for the void of dark?

No moon, but yet there are stars— 

   stars all about me.

Indeed, they glow beneath the 

soles of star-lost feet.

As my eyes adjust to the darkness,

I find myself striding cross 

a large patch of clover.

A patch of clover that's all in bloom.

All abloom and glowing beneath 

those distant stars above.

Who is "barking" now?

The stars?

   the clover?

or my dog?

Who and what is being defined 

at just this very moment?

I hear the rustling of 

branches and leaves

and just before me,

the dog comes trotting 

out of some bushes.

I stoop down,

scoop him up,

and quickly head back

towards the house.

I haven't time to think about this.

I must get back to the TV.

Otherwise,

I might pause

to stop

and bark.

Ó97 Jack David Hubbell

  ...Subterraneans...

It was a large sparse room

with thick benches built into its

wood paneled walls, and there 

above our heads was a single

un-shaded light bulb of

phenomenal wattage.

Beyond the bulb, 

and far above us,

continuous crashing crescendos 

rained down from origins

that seemed miles and miles away, 

and yet sustained their 

tremendous volume

with an abrasive oppression 

that consistently crushed 

normal motor-neuron functions

into numbed submission.

This was Hell,

and my mother 

had placed me here.

Oh, and I was not alone.

Other mothers had placed

their offspring here as well.

There was you, 

and there was them.

You felt your mother 

had dropped you off

into some sort of Darwinian

survival-of-the-fittest 

laboratory test.

The lab test administrator

was this harsh old woman 

with scowling eyes,

who was absolutely impervious

to your lamentations.

She was the designated baby-sitter

assigned to the downstairs 

child-care room of the 

local bowling alley.

During this period of my youth,

my mother was a member 

   of a bowling league.

As luck would have it,

she, and many other bowling mothers,

could escape the cost of a baby sitter

by simply bringing their children along

and shunting them

down a narrow flight 

of concrete stairs, and into 

the wood paneled room at their end.

There was very little if anything in this room.

A small assortment of worn out toys

had to meet a ration of 

one to every four kids.

Oh, and the baby-sitter was 

not concerned with equity.

She was only there to see to it

that battles for toys 

did not become lethal. Well, 

didn't draw blood anyway.

Of course this wasn't all simple lack

of forethought and consideration.

The room was a giant wooden petri dish.

It was applied Darwinism

designed to instill Machiavellian insight.

We weren't supposed to get along.

Indeed, this was all 

preparation for future existence

within the world of grown-ups.

Cliques were established. 

Alliances made.

Political cut and thrust mastered.

The crashing bowling balls and pins

above our heads screamed,

"Annihilate! Annihilate! Annihilate!"

This was to be our anthem;

absorbed in preparation 

for the corporate world.

It was supposed to have been

survival of the fittest

but unfortunately the test had a flaw 

in that the unfit survived as well;

I was to be one of them.

Ó97 Jack David Hubbell

  ...Skilled Labor...

Such talent.

Such dexterity.

To handle so much

with such ease.

He's the man in charge of

all the shopping carts at

the local big chain food mart.

Is this what they call

"unskilled labor"?

Are they sure they

defined it properly?

He has a very special strap

with equally special hooks,

which he uses to lash

all the carts together.

It's a sophisticated strap.

He had to learn how to use it.

At this particular food mart,

not all carts are the same;

not all slip together in precision.

He has to know this.

Gathering all like carts,

he slams them together,

front to rear, front to rear.

He has to know this.

With his special strap,

he now lashes them together

like the parking lot cowboy he is.

Strays gathered, he now pulls them

out of their temporary corral

and begins herding them

towards the store's doors.

It's not just pushing.

There's a certain balletic grace.

The initial push

requires a lift of the left leg

which appears to be

the same six inches each time.

The carts all buckle

and twist together under stress.

The back wheels of the last cart

lift off the ground,

and oddly enough, so do those

on the front of the lead cart.

He is now propelling the

multi-jointed, multi-wheeled,

chromed steel exoskeleton

of a giant shopping centipede.

He has to know this.

He steers it down a long line

of four wheel vehicles and

past a multitude of mass consumers

who, by their facial expressions,

have failed to fathom

the amount of wheels this

one lone individual is in control of.

His expertise will never be appreciated.

It's the one part of his job

he has yet to learn.

Until then,

he's the luckiest man 

in the world.

Ó97 Jack David Hubbell

  ...Van Gogh Mono...

Can I get a witness

to my mental fitness?

Does the wall

upon my clock

drip with paint?

Is my total being

what the Tic Toc Man is fleeing?

Does the harlequin

within me

see its fate?

Does the pendulum that's swinging

see the fluid time it's flinging,

'cross the landscape

that makes up

my mental state?

I see my world turn yellow

with a charcoal lifting halo,

for the arc

across the sky

has brought me hate.

Is rejection what I'm fearing?

to be shunned and pushed away?

I've got problems with my hearing.

Cut my ear off yesterday.

Van Gogh

hears

in mono.

Everybody samba!

Ó90 Jack David Hubbell