R.S. Carlson
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R. S. Carlson, a professor of English at Azusa
Pacific University, Azusa, CA, served with the US
Army in Quang Tri Province, Viet Nam 1970-
1971. In recent years, he has made several trips to
China and Southeast Asia with various aid
agencies, and has led intensive English workshops
for Chinese teachers of English in Guangdong and
Xinjiang provinces. His poetry has appeared in
Poetry/LA; Northwest Review; The Texas Review;
Birmingham Poetry Review; Poet Lore; The Cape
Rock; The Hollins Critic; The Nebraska Review;
The Hawai'i Review; Phase and Cycle; The Lucid
Stone; Lynx Eye; Viet Nam Generation; Sunstone;
The Panhandler, Limestone Circle, The Listening
Eye, Praesidium, The Chaffin Journal, Slant, Illya’
s Honey, International Poetry Review, Poem, and
other literary magazines.
Pacific University, Azusa, CA, served with the US
Army in Quang Tri Province, Viet Nam 1970-
1971. In recent years, he has made several trips to
China and Southeast Asia with various aid
agencies, and has led intensive English workshops
for Chinese teachers of English in Guangdong and
Xinjiang provinces. His poetry has appeared in
Poetry/LA; Northwest Review; The Texas Review;
Birmingham Poetry Review; Poet Lore; The Cape
Rock; The Hollins Critic; The Nebraska Review;
The Hawai'i Review; Phase and Cycle; The Lucid
Stone; Lynx Eye; Viet Nam Generation; Sunstone;
The Panhandler, Limestone Circle, The Listening
Eye, Praesidium, The Chaffin Journal, Slant, Illya’
s Honey, International Poetry Review, Poem, and
other literary magazines.
At Dusk in Urumqi
Two
white chickens
peck
be-
side rusty cart
wheels.
The
trash cart needs
paint:
dust-
y hens need
rain.
R. S. Carlson
Skating Lessons
(In a far province)
The eighteen seven-to-twelve-year-olds
wait fitful in the line coaxed behind the
back court line for volleyball
painted on the public playground.
The nets are down. The skate coach and
his three teen assistants set down
a dozen turquoise plastic cones
across the volleyball court grid.
A seven-year-old in bicycle helmet
and black-and-orange shin guards and elbow pads
wobbles out of line.
The coach barks instructions to the first child.
The intention is slalom:
The teen girl in the golden T shirt
flows down the court, her torso swaying allure,
feet scissoring back and forth around the first nine cones
and she flips around to smile the example,
to the stiff-kneed beginners
facing the task of moving feet
on rollers their musculature hasn’t learned to trust.
The coach barks, and the first child shuffles ahead,
obliged to avoid the first cone.
The second child, in shocking pink and white stripes
awaits the next bark. The first child falls on the third cone.
The golden teen sways through the slalom
back to front
to pull up the fallen child
and reset the third cone.
The coach barks from the side of the child-line.
The second child’s pair of pastel pink skates
lurch from the starting line beneath the doting gaze
of the moms and dads who bought the elbow pads,
the knee pads, the bicycle or motorcycle helmet
protection for their uneasy young who --
still disbelieving they can override their fears of falling --
jerk-step for speed rather than glide,
and scuff wheels sideways
rather than swerve,
sway, and cross ankle over ankle
for a turn.
The teen boy assistant,
still learning to bark,
lessons the beginners
in freeskating a circle.
With a thin branch stripped from the mulberry,
the teen lashes at calves bare between shin guard straps
whenever any child within whip-reach
fails to turn with the prescribed lean and crossover.
When opportunity stumbles, the young expert
displays his acumen as coach
and races to the clumsy third-grader
to kick him while he is down.
Evening by evening, the parents dote.
The coaches – old, young, smooth, raw –
urge grace, speed, craft and art
on beginners still too stiff to lean into their future.
R. S. Carlson
The ‘If’
When she locked the door and closed the drapes,
she flipped the switch for the entry light. Sparks
sputtered in the switchbox. The light outside
flickered weakly. She flipped the switch back
to “off” position. Another thing to fix.
Another line to add to the list of all
that he would do if he were here, but she
was getting used to doing by herself.
Perhaps Denise next door had worked with switches.
The switch plate covered a double switch array,
but what was in the box behind the plate?
What kind of screws secured the plate, and what
arrangement of switch and wire sat in the wall?
The plastic still looked ivory at the stem
that fingers rubbed with every use, but grime
of some kind – dust, or maybe ash – darkened
the edges of the switch that disappeared
into the slot in the plate, grime that she
might notice some cleaning day.
Tomorrow
she’d browse the tools to see if she could find
his set of Philip’s head screwdrivers
and get one small enough to fit the screws
cinching the face plate.
Otherwise,
she’d have to check with Gwen, Denise,
or Sue to see if they had what she needed.
…Just one more thing that he would fix – if
he was home…but now the date of return
was changed again --to “Indefinite...”
So she, Denise and Gwen and Sue and the kids
just breathed the weeks and months of living with the “If.”
R. S. Carlson
Two
white chickens
peck
be-
side rusty cart
wheels.
The
trash cart needs
paint:
dust-
y hens need
rain.
R. S. Carlson
Skating Lessons
(In a far province)
The eighteen seven-to-twelve-year-olds
wait fitful in the line coaxed behind the
back court line for volleyball
painted on the public playground.
The nets are down. The skate coach and
his three teen assistants set down
a dozen turquoise plastic cones
across the volleyball court grid.
A seven-year-old in bicycle helmet
and black-and-orange shin guards and elbow pads
wobbles out of line.
The coach barks instructions to the first child.
The intention is slalom:
The teen girl in the golden T shirt
flows down the court, her torso swaying allure,
feet scissoring back and forth around the first nine cones
and she flips around to smile the example,
to the stiff-kneed beginners
facing the task of moving feet
on rollers their musculature hasn’t learned to trust.
The coach barks, and the first child shuffles ahead,
obliged to avoid the first cone.
The second child, in shocking pink and white stripes
awaits the next bark. The first child falls on the third cone.
The golden teen sways through the slalom
back to front
to pull up the fallen child
and reset the third cone.
The coach barks from the side of the child-line.
The second child’s pair of pastel pink skates
lurch from the starting line beneath the doting gaze
of the moms and dads who bought the elbow pads,
the knee pads, the bicycle or motorcycle helmet
protection for their uneasy young who --
still disbelieving they can override their fears of falling --
jerk-step for speed rather than glide,
and scuff wheels sideways
rather than swerve,
sway, and cross ankle over ankle
for a turn.
The teen boy assistant,
still learning to bark,
lessons the beginners
in freeskating a circle.
With a thin branch stripped from the mulberry,
the teen lashes at calves bare between shin guard straps
whenever any child within whip-reach
fails to turn with the prescribed lean and crossover.
When opportunity stumbles, the young expert
displays his acumen as coach
and races to the clumsy third-grader
to kick him while he is down.
Evening by evening, the parents dote.
The coaches – old, young, smooth, raw –
urge grace, speed, craft and art
on beginners still too stiff to lean into their future.
R. S. Carlson
The ‘If’
When she locked the door and closed the drapes,
she flipped the switch for the entry light. Sparks
sputtered in the switchbox. The light outside
flickered weakly. She flipped the switch back
to “off” position. Another thing to fix.
Another line to add to the list of all
that he would do if he were here, but she
was getting used to doing by herself.
Perhaps Denise next door had worked with switches.
The switch plate covered a double switch array,
but what was in the box behind the plate?
What kind of screws secured the plate, and what
arrangement of switch and wire sat in the wall?
The plastic still looked ivory at the stem
that fingers rubbed with every use, but grime
of some kind – dust, or maybe ash – darkened
the edges of the switch that disappeared
into the slot in the plate, grime that she
might notice some cleaning day.
Tomorrow
she’d browse the tools to see if she could find
his set of Philip’s head screwdrivers
and get one small enough to fit the screws
cinching the face plate.
Otherwise,
she’d have to check with Gwen, Denise,
or Sue to see if they had what she needed.
…Just one more thing that he would fix – if
he was home…but now the date of return
was changed again --to “Indefinite...”
So she, Denise and Gwen and Sue and the kids
just breathed the weeks and months of living with the “If.”
R. S. Carlson