Dog Days, a collection of poems by Michael Broderick
Video footage arranged by Michael Broderick
biplane
I am the field corn
scattered along
Faddley road.
I am the naked
stubs
of fresh cut
wheat.
I am the parched
white cedars
standing guard
beside the green-
metal farm
gate.
I am the crooked
neck of a
heron looking for
darting minnows.
I am the ragweed
nodding
towards the
morning sun in
fields of aster.
I am a small prop
biplane
puttering,
puttering,
puttering
down the blood-
red tarmac.
I am the black rat
snakes
nestled in the
hollow of
a sycamore tree.
I’m a late august
pumpkin
hanging from
a fence post.
I’m the early
morning fox
with a halo, halo,
halo
of ghost moths
crossing Wise
Hollow Road.
I am the crook’d
neck
heron looking for
darting
minnows.
I’m the jet spray
of
a sprinkler over
the chocolate
infield.
I’m the Flying
Rabbit
sign swinging,
swinging,
swinging
against a blood-
red sky.
dog days
In the dog days of summer
the eternal summer
enmeshed within the fabric of being
in the deepest dark corner of my mind
there were the dogs, and the days,
the days of dogs,
and the endless dog days of summer,
the summers in Ohio.
There was light.
In the dog days of summer
just as the sun set, and the cold moon rose
as wild dogs bayed, and the neighborhood curls prowled,
as the coyotes searched for easy pray
in the dog days, in the long days,
in the eternal summers of my youth,
there were wolves, and claws, and fangs,
and my mother taking down the
Just before sunset.
Her and a basket
and the dogs, our dogs, in the hottest
Hot parts of late summer. The dog days,
the lost days, lost summer dog days of my youth.
We’d run around the backyard catching
fireflies to put in a jar
like a bioluminescent lamp to protect from
the darkness,
and my mom in a dress of fireflies, and the head of dog,
in the dog days, in the darkest of dark nights,
she alone the dog god Prometheus.
In the darkness, the darkness of night,
the darkest of dark in the dog days of summer
the doged, dogged, dog days of summer
in the darkness in the deepest darker corner of
my mind. The dogs barked and there was a light,
a light shone.
A small flick, flick, flicker, a flickering speck of
light as my dad fumbled with his zippo to
light a sparkler half damp from dew
a small light, a flick, a flickering, a flicker
a beautiful arc of light and
the smell of leaves and sulfur.
In the evening, in the darkest days, in the dark, in the
endless dark of summer, my dad stood with his
in the crux of his elbow
with our dogs at his side.
In the dark, in the darkness, in the hot
hottest dog days of the summer
like the ancient jackal-headed god Anubis
god of the dead, keeper of tombs,
the dogs, the dog days of summer,
the death dogs,
there he stood head of jackal
and robe fireflies and burning embers
like the king of all things, like the creator gas, and
matter, and forms, like an eternal summer,
A half-drunk Prometheus
Ablaze in the last dogged sunset.
There was this moment
Maybe not even worth
mentioning.
A cool fall night.
Wren
under a
street lamp and
stepped through
the long shadows
of sycamores.
The early dawn of
winter sky
and I saw the
two
shadows.
Lithe.
The hum of the
sodium lamp.
I was dressed up.
Wren skipped
beside me.
While we held
hands.
It would be this
one.
If I could.
I would hold on
to.
This.
each morning
Each morning
I watch the dog
eat and wonder
what I’m
doing with
my life.
We had a cat but I
can’t
remember
it died in a chair
my in-laws
gave us.
It left a
death stain.
Amy liked the
cat but I didn’t
I buried it in the
backyard in a
drizzle
kids crying and
no beer in the
fridge
The ground was
wet
like a
sponge
today the ground
is
dead things
would drift like
flotsam in the
backyard
waiting for a tide
that would never
come.
I don’t want
to do the things I
must do
not
today, or
tomorrow, or
next week, today
I want to walk
away, to take on
anew,
not to be reborn
but to drift
to elude capture,
and never that,
human, again,
not that
ever,
to seek new
forms, to
burn away
in the last sunset
flying
against an azure
sky, as a bird a
butterfly or
bat in search
of nectar.
sundays
On Sundays like this, I’d call my dad. Or not. Mostly, I wouldn’t call. I would sometimes. I’d call. Hey, Dad, it’s Mike. Michael, he’d say. Happy to hear from me. Each time. Each time. We’d talk. We’d navigate the awkward silence and pretend we always talked. It’s just what we did. Talk. Each week. But we didn’t. I guess. I didn’t. I wouldn’t. I wanted to, I really wanted to, but just the thought. I don’t know, the thought of it and him. And mostly him. The thought of him. The thought of him sitting there alone. Or with his dog. My grandma’s dog. The dog she left when she died. The dog—Tess. The thought of him. Alone. With Tess and a bunch of empty beer cans. I had to hit it just right. Before dinner was good, Dad, I got to go. Dinner is ready. It is. Ready. So, Okay. Well. It
was good talking to you. Michael, it’s good to hear your voice. I love you, Dad. Yeah, you, too, he’d say. But he meant it. He did. I did.
That wasn’t too bad, but you had to hit it just right. The timing. The time of day. You had to know the time to call. Maybe not so much the time, maybe it wasn’t the time but the rhythm. It was the rhythm of things. Like at night when I sit in the backyard and watch the chimney swifts give way to the little brown bats—it’s not so much the time of day, but this seemingly endless rhythm of flight. And I know this. And I knew this. But sometimes, I’d call early. I’d call early. Goddamnit, why did you call at 3? Hey dad, it’s me, Michael. I’d hear a pause. And the clinking of ice in glass.
My dad would call on my birthday. To talk. He’d send me cash and a handwritten note. I kept a handful of notes at some point when I knew. When I knew time was short. And it was. I’d call on his birthday, too. I would. Or I’d want to. I’d try to. Call. To talk. Because that’s what we’d do, talk. We’d talk. So, I’d call on his birthday. Happy birthday, Dad. He was born on a cold February day in Pittsburgh. The day after Valentine’s Day. He missed the day of love by one day. He was married once. For a while. To my mom. But now he lives alone. With Tess. The dog. My grandma’s dog. Tessie.
He called to congratulate me. He left a message: You did it! The first Broderick ever! Man, I’m so proud. And he was. I was. I called him back. I did. I was excited and proud. And
fuck it, I was calling. Because that’s what we do. We talk. We talk and talk and talk. And it could be bright and brilliant and true. So I called. And it wasn’t. He was drunk, and I got off the phone. Dad, I got to go. Yeah, sorry it was so short. Dad. Yeah. I know. I got to. (He was drunk) I got to go. And I didn’t know. How could you? You couldn’t know that it would end like this. The call. The last time. The last call. Like this.
So, on Sundays. On Sundays like this, I’d call my dad. Or not. Mostly not. Mostly, I wouldn’t call. Couldn’t call. Couldn’t. Call him. I couldn’t. I didn’t. Call him. On Sundays. On Sundays like this, I’d call my dad. Or not. Mostly, I wouldn’t call.
rose
You haven’t left
yet.
But someday
you will.
I’ve watched
it
play over,
and
over again.
The sky
holding the moon
like a jailer
in the smallest
corner of the
room.
A curtain of
summer teeth.
And the light
shines.
On dry knuckles
reaching to
put a kettle
on to
boil.
sparkler
in the end
it can all go
so quickly
it can
like a front porch
confetti popper
or a 4th of July
firecracker
but, if you catch
it just right
bang, just
like that
it can go so
slow and sweet
like a jar of
fireflies
or a stringer full of
sunfish
or a defiant summer
sparkler.
fire
I lay gently
on the earth
like a raft on a
placid sea.
Under a blood
red moon, I dissolve
into the spaces
between the
stones.
The fat of
my body collect
into the base
of my skull,
forming a simple
ivory lamp,
which floats to
the surface above
the waves.
You take a
lock of my hair as
a wick,
lay it into the shallow
skull-cup,
and find fire.
while The cold
moon shines,
the hairs
of my body
become grass, and
blow in the
late autumn wind.
mountains
I remember that time we walk quietly
touching the lichen and stone
casting long shadows in an old graveyard
Looking for mushrooms and eating grave violets,
each one more delicious than the last.
When you’re not at home
mountains and mountains
between us
I sit quietly on the couch with my best friend
with that old cat and listen to her purr
wishing I could be a purring cat, too
when you’re not at home
mountains and mountains between us
I just sit out back when its sunny
try to take in the beauty of the flowers and warm air
and the days that seem endless
are not endless, and the
days that seem endless are no more.
vivian in blue
My mother’s name was Vivian but everyone called her Mickey. She loved Mickey Mouse. She was 39 when she died and left me and my four-year-old aunt to fend for themselves. My father, Frank, was a terribly wounded man. At some point, the was institutionalized. He woke up one morning and couldn’t go to work. He sat motionless in his chair
he stared tracing patterns on the smoked stained ceiling. It was angels speaking in archaic tongues and cigarette resin. It was god himself seeking retribution in flesh.
Folks in white jackets came to the house and carted him away to the Dayton State Mental Hospital, where he received round after round of electric shock therapy. (As luck would have it, my ex-husband would die on the same grounds in a hospice unit 55 years later. Just me and my son by his side when he died.) In the end, my father couldn’t remember my me or my sister, we were just echoes upon echoes in the hollowed out spaces of his mind. He’d just parrot our names: Kathleen? Marta? I was the one who had made the call to have him taken to the mental hospital all those years ago. I was only eighteen-years-old.
My dad was married within a year a mom’s death. We moved to the east part of town, down the street from chicken slaughter house. At night, under the dim hum of a box fan, we could hear the
muffled cries of chickens waiting for slaughter. In the morning my sister and I would get dressed and walk past the chicken house to St. Anthony’s. We lit candles and watched the smoke rise in ethereal whispers. We were told stories about a god who rose from the dead, but all we secretly hoped was that folks who ain’t gods could rise, too.
I’m 76 now. I was married. Divorced and remarried. My children are grown. Scattered like dry leaves in the wind.
After my mom died, I dreamt that she asked me to climb a ladder to heaven. With her. To be with her. I said, I couldn’t go. I had to stay here, but I wanted to be with her. There. Now she’s been go so long, I don’t want to follow.
saturn
It was the weight of
things, or perhaps the
way around
things.
Far away from the
light
and possibility
of life
in the far off
reaches of the
stealth ocean
moon
they fused into
the rings of
Saturn.
There they stood
shoulder to shoulder
in the icy frost of
the outer most
rings,
looking up towards
the columns of granite and
stone
a small speck of star
light
and a woman waving
from the rooftop in her
hospital gown.
soccer
I didn’t know
today
like that
you’d slip away.
I’ve gotta stop
and get this one.
Just one more
shot of the
Upper 90 Soccer
sign.
You touched
my hand
as if to say
go ahead get out.
It was raining
and I struggled to
see droplets run
down
my glasses and
the camera lens.
I snapped the
top button
on my jacket
and shrugged
off the rain.
I saw you
in the window
for a moment.
You turned up the heat
and scrolled through
your phone.
I couldn’t see your
eyes but
just your hair
hanging down into
your lap.
Like a cat
ready to run.
before the gray
The countryside is a confused and majestic ancient order. Lines in the fields meeting at odd angles. A contrivance of tiny boxes in different phases of early winter death. The leaves drop and bleed into the hillsides and fields.
Awash in last color. Before the gray.
In mid-autumn, the hillsides are ablaze in muted tones. A downy hay covers the chocolate dirt and red clay. All buffeted by an early winter rain. Golden rod falls like dead soldiers: distant prairie eyes, faded blue jacket, and a painted red sash.
Awash in last color. Before the gray.
The Appalachians have a deep and dark beauty. A haunting landscape of black-headed vultures and murders of crows. The cows in the early winter fields mimic the fish crows moving overhead in the sycamores branches. The pin oaks and chinquapins cast shadows over half-eaten acorns.
Awash in last color. Before the gray
This is the place. The season of my return. This. Now. The long hot summer hidden behind pulled window shades, wood smoke, and oil lamps. The rhythm of this summer. The rhythm of all my summers. The forgotten moments, the smallest of small pleasures, collapse in the dark sorrow of winter and loss. Of home. My home.
Awash in the last color. Before the gray.