Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The Birds



The window was open a bit,
like parted lips, and from its
mouth came songs to interrupt
my dreams.

It was more than interruption.
It was an integration of
of mixed language and trills
and dreamscape.

As if Hitchcock put sub-titles
underneath their chirps and
squawks and whistles and
a foreign film rolled on.

The robins and the grackles
sub-titles started wriggling
under them like worms
in the dirt.
 
“You know Grack, why is it
we have wings and we are
sent to the soil to get
breakfast?”

“I have, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve
gotten that conversation
 reeling in my brain too.
Robin, oh, if I were a bird
I would fly away from here.”

“Sometimes I pretend I am
a rabbit…hopping down here
from worm hole to worm
hole.”

“ I I I feel the earth move
under my my my feet, I
feel the sky tumbling down,
a tumbling down.”

“Hey, get real, that’s
groceries you’re hoppin’
past friend.  Let’s see a
little neck action over there!”

“Now, now, don’t you you you
get a little feather bent over
feeding your little ones
second hand goods.  I mean
worms are are are gross
enough the first time.”

“Not the huge earth worms,
hey watch this…”

It was then I started to wake
when I saw the big
orange breast dip and
yank an earth worm like
scarves from a sleeve.
Pulling and pulling and
pulling a gewy dirt soil
freckled beast and sucked
it in like linguini.  The robin
stood among the blades
perfectly still for 13 seconds
and then cast the worm
out. 
And there it lay, divided in
three equal sections
by square knots.
The robin said nothing,
jutted out it’s chest
and nodded and
ascended like a
harrier for a moment,
and then flew away.

The grackle stood 
with its beak hanging open.
“Well,  I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be.”


Posted for one shot where poets do their poeting.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Dropped(a recycled poem)

I stumbled across a dropped call today.
I picked it up and wondered what dangling conversation
hung on its edges.
Upon scanning the area along the side of Almena road
I saw hundreds of fallen voices laying there.
I had stepped all over them like so many worms
On a rain soaked day.
The flattened words lay dead,
some hoping for a resurrection,
and some wishing they had never been said.
Idled words.
Loving words with their passion subtracted.
Crouching down, I started picking them up
like loose change on car mats.
I began to pile them my left palm.
They became a pyramid of nouns,
verbs, and adjectives grouted
together by prepositions.
Oh for a refrigerator to throw
these on so I can order them like a shell game.
Maybe there a chance I can put the sentences back together.
Maybe there’s hope to text the best words
with the purist of intentions to the expecting phones.
Maybe I can stand in the gap where the cell towers
wandered too far away from each other.
I do hate to see words lying beside the road.


Had to go to the matresses today...time has dwindled to write lately.  Peace to all who enter here.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Luci's Shawl

Prayers of thanks as I wrap
the wholly crocheted words
around me. 

It’s cool in this writer’s
cave under the stairs.

Your tight and lose knots
rest easy on my cold shoulders.

It was back on May twentieth,
early in the morning that I
was invited into moving
words with needle swords.

You wield the points together,
changing the colors as needed
until floats cascade down
in mischief on the underside.

Then flashing would rise like an
Easter morning as you knot and
untie the fibers of vocabulary.

Any time I can pull out a poem
of yours like a loose thread and
it unravels me. 

In Honor of one of my favorites
Luci Shaw 

 









Sunday, April 24, 2011


Leaning toward an
outside line
outside time

a place where
wheels roll not
and white hair
stays fresh from
being done

and visitations
come as Alzheimer's
disconnections
grace her

memories shuffled
as she used to
down the corridor



Photo by Greg Laychak
Submitted for One Shoot Sunday

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Life Interred

Before the inclusion wakes
I sit breathing,
ears open.

It is silent Saturday
when interred
life lies.


A cardinal speaks louder
than words outside
my window.

A blood breast is all
I look for,
for now.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Paddleboard


Every now and then
it's good to bend a knee
and point to the past.

Every now and then
a thin stone is all
that separates us.

Every now and then
a cement paddle board
is all that keeps us afloat.

For then as now
a life waked behind us
and we lean in.

For then as now
the surf's up and we
try to catch a current.

For then as now
a gift of flow has
offered us a ride.

Photo used with permission by James Rainsford
Poem submitted for Shoot Sunday

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Family Fusion


a dozen divergent possibilities
descend upon me
even now

even now
they upend me
a dozen veins of vision


blessings in their own right
bring life in
a minute

a minute
passes wonder
around me pulses giving


family is it's own grace
God steps in time
to appear

to appear
in relational cues
a nuclear family fusion