THE MIDDLE CLASS IS ALIVE AND WELL   
    

Winter in Michigan
Set my wife and me on our way to get away

Paying the costs up front
    As far as we could see

Of sailing the Caribbean Sea

I knew financial matters
      That tough master
Would prevent some from joining this cruise

But as I logged the events below I missed the others
Those who could afford to play more easily than we
      I suspect they found an easier way 

Day 1, Thursday, 2/12/15

“The bus leaves at five a. m.
Park your car in the ramp across the street, level four
Pick up a white ticket
You will be issued a green one to redeem your car
Meet the bus here when you return”

“Detroit luggage drop lines are up one flight
Are your tickets in order?
Security lines start the next floor up”

Security, actually a snap and breakfast, relaxed
Our vacation flight an hour away
Easy day

Easy prey!

The Delta Gang

Across the tarmac, riding hard, caught us unawares
Herded us into corral 34-A
For three hours of flogging 
Our plane, impounded

Deltannouncement!
We have an equipment downgrade   

Who will travel?
Who remain?

    “Everyone move back four steps
    We need room to board”

Our vacation, four months to plan
Gone with a Delta yawn?

Good news — seats, new — assigned on boarding

Bad news — What did those upgrades cost?
A February Florida beach afternoon lost

“Your luggage is at carousel 12
Meet your tour rep there and follow her to your bus
That’s bus number two
See a porter to register

Tomorrow, meet in the lobby to board your shuttle
9:00 to 11:00”


Day 2, Friday the 13th
Note to Pogo:  on a Friday this month

That pushy woman with her unconvincing naivete’ took my chair
Her husband, caned and showing his age
Would get this chair here

“Isn’t it better this way?”
In a crowd, advantage Northeast

Two days later, same Northeast accent
Same woman
Cut into our buffet line

Bus trip to the port

    We, the infirm, salute you
    You, the few, who board today
    Sans fuss
    Or clumsy tote-bag delays
   
    On the way, wait to watch a drawbridge raise
    And honor 4 sailboats 

The usual . . . Rigamarole

    Public health forms
    Complete and take into the line and join a snake
    “Even numbered staterooms, here, odds over there”

    We wound our way, inch by inch, to the check-in desk
    Finally able to leave the snake
    After one last wiggle, boarding pics   

    “Meet your luggage in your room
    At three, an emergency drill
    Your assembly area, Ten
    Room keys will be scanned”

Are we there yet?

Take a breath

Leaving port
My day-one favorite
    Are we moving yet?

    Veranda anticipation

        Recreation boats in the channel
             Return their waves
        Beautiful homes
        A Coast Guard base

Gaining perspective 
    The receding waterfront gradually reveals its hotels
    Up and down Atlantic's beach

The decision to go back inside, not so favorite

Good news:
    The ride on a big ship
        Three promenade laps to a mile
    Slick

Bad news:
    Everywhere, crowded locations
    And the intrusion of conversations

We, the  largely worn,  salute you,
You who remember 
Beautiful people

Day 3, Saturday, First Day Out

Another perfect day at Holland America’s Halfmoon Cay
The Bahamas, just to our west
Clear water, blue 
And white sand, the best

Oh ye of little faith
This Michigander dragging his jacket
It’s winter, for heaven’s sake

Welcome to a gorgeous Caribbean Valentine’s Day

We walked the beach and its surround
To  the sounds of steel pans
Serenade one
From our resident musician 

The water, still interpreting the memo
Was four degrees cooler than the lap pool back home

Back on board we walked the promenade, then
Dined Italian at Canaletto
An Aperol spritz  preceded antipasto,  pasta
Sea bass and, of course, dessert


Day 4, 2/15, Sunday at sea

Coffee in the room
Early Mass, too early

At breakfast, one of many at Lido’s extensive buffet
A couple with a 50 state bucket list
North Carolinians planning to visit Michigan
    Love to help you if we can   

The promenade again
A lee side deck chair in the sun
Lured Carole  
Here’s what you do on a cruise for fun
Read, relax and mix in a lap or two

Later, The Atrium bar, deck one
Enticed Dennis with the promise of Martini Madness
Their special martini of the day
One of those not-really-martinis
Skipped the two-for-one

Formal dinner, dining room
An opportunity for dress-up pictures

Day 5, Monday, 2/16

Crowded Oranjestad with traffic creep
Jewelry shops, high end retailers, Prada, Rolex
Both sides of the street

We walked to Queen Wilhelmina Park
Enjoying its shade, a bench and Aruba Iguanas
Sunning, posing, begging,
Fighting over a chicken bone
Could that be their lunch?

Returned early for top-to-toe massages


Day 6, Tuesday

Dawn at Willemstad
Docked to the opening and closing of the Swinging Gate Bridge

Carole’s comment,  “They have cute-ed up Curacao even more” 
There were many new red tile roofs and ice cream color paint jobs

“The line for the land-and-sea excursion starts here
Show your ticket to get a sticker
Follow that woman to the bus”

We toured the city then stepped down
Into a mini submarine
For a rock and roll cruise over coral  
And colorful fish
Rewarded for swimming up close
With our captain

Day 7, Wednesday
At sea

Next stop, Panama

Do not wait until
Your fourth cruise with HAL to try
The Pinnacle Grill

For starters,
Soup bowl presentation, crumbled lobster 
The soup poured table side 
Bisque

Day 8, Thursday, 2/19/15
Emily's 17th birthday

Panama

We traversed the first of three sets of locks 
Then docked
At Gatun Lake
One of three
Water reservoirs and canal passageways

There the ship would stay
While we spent our day with Rosalba
On a railroad trek 47 miles south to the Pacific
Paralleling the canal, lots of trees
Some ship traffic

And construction
Enlarging the canal for your next trip

Panama City, modern, upscale
Marina shopping on the Pacific

Then back to the Caribbean side to re-board at Colon
For us,  an off limits zone
Once a vacation destination
Now collapsed into urban squalor
From some colossal ignore
Its residents sharing trash, destitution, fear
And razor wire

That evening we left through a harbor filled with ships


Day 9, Friday, 2/20

Costa Rica

A long bus ride from Limon west
Through banana and pineapple plantations
Into the rain forest mountains
Where a private park promised tram rides through the canopy
 
Bad news, broken tram, and minor calamity
Our highlight, after all, gone
 
Damn!  

Good news, we were not one of those stuck on the tram
In the rain
For forty five minutes

A short hike and a delightful lunch would suffice for fun
Fresh foods, green flora, none of the fabled Costa Rican fauna
Our memento, a nifty poncho
And, to be fair about it, a prompt HAL refund

“Puro Vida!”


Day 10
Saturday, 2/21/15, back at sea.

Skipped the Mariners' champagne brunch
Late breakfast and walk
Formal dinner tonight
Formal pictures, take two


Day 11
Sunday, 2/22, Last day at sea

Finally made it to a Sunday morning service
Evangelical minister and Episcopal priest
Crowded but something for everybody

Last call at the Lido pool
Carole, a mango smoothie
Dennis, an Irish coffee

Steel drums setting up one last time
Giving lessons today while poolside golfers chip
Plastic balls at a life saver target

By midnight, bags in the hallway

Monday, 2/23

Off the ship by 9 a. m.
Revisit the snakes and add one — customs

As for news about the demise of the middle class
I take note of those not among our company this time
Those with enough money to avoid fun en masse
And those who barely dare to dream 

Plane departure, 2:00 p. m.

DRK
8/3/15

LAUDS

Some can do it on the spot
For the rest of us it takes more thought
Jazzing their tunes, rapping their words
Rumbling and ricocheting like trains down rails

I wonder how it comes about
And if it ever fails.

You may be one who can do it anywhere 
Cameras, brushes, pencils, easels
Creating new images out of empty air
With marble, clay, part of a tree
Shaping things only you can see

My favorites, those who build and repair
Kids
Creative, patient, slow to anger
Comforting arms, attentive ears
And laps accustomed to children’s fears
New lives, year after year

Are these just skills to teach?
Or does a special muse infuse --
A holy spirit anoint each --
With gifts beyond my reach?

For me, sufficient it may have to be
To honor, make the fuss
Over those whose gifts
Grace the lives of you and me


Dennis R. Keefe
6/20/03, 3/13/18

SCIENCE OF THE JAMBS

SCIENCE OF THE JAMBS

I spent years pursuing truth

     Tracking facts down lineal paths
        Logic
           Inter-subjective testability

Now I turn to beauty
And telling lies

     Ideas, odd 
     To jog thoughts
     Or dialog

My two cultures in contact
Rub
    
Dollars drive our words!

     Poets do whatever to survive
     Their words?  Usually a surprise

Society's heavy weight
Dictates adaptivity!

     Until an artist's gene pokes through
     To disrupt history

Find that best environment
To help you write!

     I am equally awed
     By the road
     And by my own backyard

Rub
A genie's mist

Creativity's subtleties

     The many ways we interact

     The terse power of economy

     And how the words I evolve
     Once ensconced out there
     Evolve me
     In here.


DRK
8/26/12
5/1/15 

EDGES

EDGES

Just beyond the prairie road

corn rows swallowed a town,

         whole

         towns—

                  people,                                         

who left themselves in a graveyard.

         Ancestors, concentrated in a square,

         conveniently located for those who care. 

Nod your head as you drive by

or stop and tell the old folks “Hi.”

Our families settled here –

         then frontier –

to spend lifetimes

         carving edges . . . in the ground,

Setting out

         whom they could become

         and where they could be found…

                  safe…

         from the raiders

                  they invaded.

There was Jeremiah’s farm –

         full –

         of the grounding tools

                  that plowed and raked their lives together,

                  surrounding them with names . . . homes

                            . . . and fences. 

         Full of kids

                  straining to get out

                  and breathe America’s chances.

Then

they buried each other.

The cemetery,
a church yard once,

punctuates a sea of corn whose annual tide creep

         challenges their edges’

         integrity and symmetry.

We are halted by their sentinel:

         Plaqued words on a pedestal

         speak of a wooden church burned long ago,

         Indian wars

                  and the Farrell’s store.

We linger to honor those who spent a lifetime

         building lifelines to our future

by tending through their death-time

         their place between the edges,

         keeping them safe from today’s invaders:

                  This year, corn,
                   last year, beans,

and by taking them with us.

For here, under our feet, only part of their journey ended.

Settlers continue their settling

         into the earth,

         our minds,

         our stories.

We travel today,

         unsettled raiders,

absconding with 
then rewriting family stories,

ungrounded tools

         for carving modern edges.

Who are we?

And who were they?

What did the family do?

When?

Daddy, tell me the story again.

Dennis R. Keefe

July 28, 2005
April 18, 2015
 

THE NEWS FROM THE CRUISE

THE NEWS FROM THE CRUISE 

BEGAN

on a Tuesday

Not this or last    

but in the past,

with rumors from the net

about excursions, arrangements

packing and documents                                                           

AND WILL END

on Wednesday,

not this or next                                  

but when memory wanes

or someone says, 

“Please, there’s no need

to tell it again.”     

                                            

PREPARE

to wear . . .

what . . . on the sea to Alaska – 

to experience . . .

what . . . places exotica,

people reachable only by air or by sea?

Will it be sunny all night,

full of cold ice?

They can leave you at the dock, it was hinted,

if you misread a form

or left it at home not printed.

GETTING THERE

In Flint, 

a lady with a laptop

couldn’t keep her trap shut

talking at a business man

sitting on her left

switching to a cell phone

in her right

when it wasn’t typing

tippy, tap, tippy, tippy, tippy, tap,

        

Atlanta displayed

between Concourses A and T

life size airport art from Zimbabwe

Sculptures done

in Spring and Serpentine

stone

Young man, plaid shirt,

earnest attempt at a beard.

He, attached to a cowboy hat

not nearly as attached to him.

Naked nervous moments,

de-cap-itated,

when he stumbled through

the cramped doors

of the airplane loo.

First Sightings

On the left, looking up,

the mass of Mt. Rainier displayed

while across the aisle, we looked down

at the rest of the Cascades.

   

Kids limo’d, rock star style

long, black car, to Seattle

“No pictures, thank you!”

SEATTLE

                               

Cascades to the East

Olympics to the West

Docks to the world,

Ferries to the burbs.

            

The inspiration

to a coffee boom somehow

missed our hotel room.

Rode the elevated  to the Needle,

Monorail Ale,

and looked down at a map.

No, wait, that IS Seattle.

Lovely parks downtown

home to those without –  injured,

now insulted, by those who seek attention,

the costumed and painted

young, on parade.  

Down at the lounge –

like the hotel, big city small –

I settled for a few

minutes to check for news from the muse.

Bar tender busying, table to table.

Hotel patrons on elevator detail

pulling luggage over tile,

clackety click, clickety clack.

No use. 

An evening martini . . .

not up to the task.

Pike’s Place Market

Acres vending everything fresh

Watch the seafood fish throw show.                           

Especially fresh today,

tee shirts to go.

SHIRTS FOR PERVERTS

“It’s not pretty being easy!”

Two for ten.

We escaped and lunched

Bolivian.

TO THE SHIP

Tetris driver stacked

luggage, us ten –  ovation

in his taxi-van.

EMBARKING

A smooth sail through 

document checks,

those things you do 

to get people and stuff      

on a ship for a cruise.                              

Anxieties allayed with each gangplank stride,

able to focus on why we were here,

the excitement of what we would find inside.

A week’s worth of clothes

soon disposed to the drawers

and corners of efficiency quarters.

Time to take command –

captains of our staterooms –   

on the Westerdam.

ON THE SHIP

one of those dam ships

from Holland America Line

Our Stateroom

Efficient space – for all

but elbows,

on main deck, above steerage

and the Irish

rumored below.

PROMENADE:                   

MIND YOUR HEAD

WATCH YOUR STEP

Take a walk

three decks up,

outside.

Pools

A retractable lid for the kids’ rock and roll pool

that swayed with the sea

more than nine decks below –

a slow sideways list, or,

when the sea was heavy,

sloshy-wavy aft to fore. 

Adults in posh hot tub thrones

watching the kids encourage the slosh

–  were seen less often, swim clad,

in the brisk Alaskan air of their outdoor pool,

except for the day

they swam in Glacier Bay.

THREE LAPS TO A MILE                     

Doesn’t that couple know . . .                                      

DECK RUN IN PROGRESS

. . . that’s the wrong way to go?

                            

Blasts from the horn in the fog

                      

I hope,

out there in the mist,

you’re not near

enough to hear

this.                                                                                     

LOWERING STATION

KEEP CLEAR

LOW LIFE-BOAT CLEARANCE         

ASSEMBLY STATION

Ours is thirteen –

women and children in front –

respond when they call your name. 

Dining options

Formal, casual

sit down, buffet                

a grill by the pool,

service in the room,

coffee shops, lounges

and snacks in the bars.

Soda cards on lanyards –

their many punches

survived a week of kids’ snacks,

dinners and lunches.

Friday’s late night highlight,

a chocolate extravaganza

photo op

and finger food frenzy.

Buffet

Asian,

Mexican,

On and on,

Italian,  Deli,

Bistro, Desserts,

drinks and pastries,

all known food groups, and

a new one invented just for today.

Dining Room

We sat and “selected’

from a menu  

– not “Either-Or,” but “Why Not More?”

every dessert, multiple appetizers, and a couple of soups.

Then tried all entrees not seen before

and maybe not again.                                                

With Dutch coffee, Java smooth,

we ended, Indonesian. 

The multi-menu’d kids                      

tried Alaskan king crab and gazpacho

with their fries and cheeseburgers.

On formal nights we dressed better                       

but maintained our old eating behavior.

On the day of the baked Alaska bakers parade

we saluted the chefs

and the culinary magic they made.

Crows’s Nest

       

Glass enclosed                       

full frontal viewing area.

Pilot your own ship and check

the library’s coffee shop –

to your left

or the lounge and piano bar on the right.

Journaled from 10 decks over

the Pacific O –

Seattle to Juneau

and back.

DESIGNATED AREA FOR PANAMA CANAL PILOTS

                            

Why not? 

A ship with a life!

Ship Mates

The young or beautiful, it seems,

cruise other seas or other times.

We did wear beautiful clothes –

maybe not beautifully

but with effect. 

Logo’d tees advertised

our clan, the race we were running on deck

or where we were from

– and, of course –

our sizes. 

Even our canes, walkers and wheelchairs

we sported with pizzazz.

BLANKETS FOR DECK CHAIRS

employ a man

to bring them out

and put them back.

Shopping

Learn to vacation the American way.

Our seminars prepare

smart shoppers for duty free sales

and Alaskan gem shopping excursions.

Let us teach you about tanzanite

expose you to topaz

or upgrade your diamond

then unveil Alaskan jade

at our Northern Lights Collection.

If you’re game, take the lessons

on how to use our casino

or enjoy champagne, get in on the action

while learning the art of collecting

art;

then join our end of cruise auction.

If you’re going ashore take our seminar for

how to shop in port.

Get coupons and precious gem

certificates the shops will mount for a fee.

For the kids, free

furry pins or

plastic rings – they change colors.                 

You will find

available everywhere                     

grizzly paw salad tongs

Ulu knives, fleece,

smoked salmon

and furs.

HELP US KEEP THE OCEAN CLEAN

DO NOT THROW THINGS OVERBOARD

The wake frames

low sun over high mountains.

Everywhere on your promenade,

viewing snow capped mountains

and listening to others’ conversations.

ASEA

Daytime temp, 50 degrees

10:20 sunset

four o’clock sunrise.

GLACIER BAY

First Sightings

Water spray,

small wisps, spout.

Milling fins stir

water textures.                             

A fin, a fluke, out,

down and away.

With luck, pods.

     

Bears, only two seen           

Brown, hard to see,

yellow, browsing,

over the hill,

gone.

Black, moving

along the shore

among the greens.              

Ice chunks

float past,

increase,

hitch-hiked by puppy seals,

sense water is better

and slip over the side;

details missed by seagulls

but not by two berg-surfing eagles.

Glaciers

                                 

16 at tidewater     

100 alpine

The Great Pacific, covered in black, receded

too balanced to move.

We watched Margarie,                

groan and crack its way

between mountains

five feet a day

then send blue chunks splashing,

with mini sonic booms,

into the bay.

How well equipped are you

to wait

and watch plate tectonics

move?                                 

Juneau

                                            

Behind the docks, mountain walls,

narrow Juneau,

no roads in or out.               

They shovel snow, inches

measured in hundreds

courtesy

of the Japanese current sea.

Couponed shoppers, their first opportune,

rush to mine gold

bargains at Juneau’s jewelers,

see the capital sights

and the Red Dog Saloon.

We headed to the woods to a musher camp

eager for immersion in the lore

of sled dog breeds,

their care and developmental needs,

the time it takes to build a team

and more.

We knew the original Iditarod story

and Balto’s glory

but not Togo’s work

or what it takes to qualify,

winning sprint and mid-length races

as well as the sponsors needed to pay

to race today.

A sled dog ride, six to a cart,

gee-hawing through hemlock trails

led by Iditarod mushers

who signed our caps

then taught us to socialize dogs

– by letting us pet their pups.

Sitka

Good news, folks,

the lifeboats worked,

tendering us in to the world’s largest city –

thousands of square miles,

a volcano, mild climate,

Russian souvenirs and legacy.

A walk in the park with totem poles led

to a place doing raptor repair,

a small Russian church –

walls of icons, a sailcloth ceiling

and red Bishop’s chair.

                               

The kids wondered if the eagle on the cross

was a bird of pray.

        

Ketchikans

complain about the rain and collect

totem poles, eagles

tourists, summer merchants

and salmon in fishing boats with nets,                                                            

We learned, touring on a duck,

quack, quack, quack

between a bunch of corny jokes

QUACK, QUACK, QUACK

that they live –  on docks –

a lifestyle blasted from rocks

and meet their exercise needs

by climbing steep wooden “streets.”

Victoria

Most  went to see Canada’s jeweled

city of castles

with flowers in parks and hanging in baskets

while I stayed      

to watch a mock

pirate battle regatta

in the bay.

Dennis R. Keefe

August 23, 2008