the foxtail stands tall,
honeysuckle blooms lay dead,
days grow longer still.
hot wind rattles, leaves
grasses bent to acquiesce
the truncated night.
summer cusp
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Category Archives: poetry
Learning to walk
with small hands wrapped around
a father’s thumbs,
looking out onto a horizon
of -things-
yet undefined to a young mind
move to the edges
sounds and things,
as destinations.
Mommy claps.
Just yesterday, you would have lunged
on all fours,
but today you took that step
upright,
foot slung forward
slightly sideways,
and unsure of the placement of it.
Daddy holds on,
as a stride begets another,
and wanting to drop to the floor
you hang on to the moment
and balance
to repeat what you have learned.
Tomorrow, you run.
As a bouquet
Tufts of
petals surround
the beveled rim of a vase,
spilling out into the space,
aware the rounding
is concealed,
yet within reach.
A bloom lifted
forward, caressed
in a blush of pink
and underneath,
a fluted edge
traced
with calloused
fingers.
feint
after you
draw the blinds
and shade your eyes
in elegance,
mirror my words,
and mouth them in a pallid
whisper with the dusk,
just before
the stars appear
in Lyra,
and the music
wiles.
Blues under the wheelbarrow
The white chicken
longs for
her li’l red rooster,
and cries
pooling tears
-same as the rain water-
on the barnyard floor
for a day.
***************
Inspired by William Carlos Williams poem XXII (The Red Wheelbarrow) and The Little Red Rooster, a blues standard, recorded by Howling Wolf.
A thanks to the good folks at WordPress for selecting my blog for Freshly Pressed feature and thanks to all who have dropped in via “Freshly Pressed.” I hope you like the poetry. Please feel free to visit often and comment.
Three wishes
To each of you, I wish the night
the darkness specked with pinpoint lights
creating shapes, elusive lines
drawn to what your mind defines
and wraps in warmth, all comfort due,
I wish the night to each of you.
To each of you, I wish the day
to dream of what your heart can say;
Equal dose of sun and cloud
to laugh and cry and sing aloud
the songs that ring to us as true,
I wish the day to each of you.
To each of you, I wish the dawn,
a new-found joy on lake or lawn
to greet you as a golden sight
after every day and night.
In new beginnings, each one cue
the night, the day, the dawn for you.
NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 30
And it comes to an end. This is my 4th time to participate in National Poetry Writing Month, but only my second time to successfully complete the 30 days. Thanks to all who visited, commented, and liked various poems. I think I’m going to take a little break and just lurk and read for awhile. I’ll be back sometime…later.
untold
forever, relentless
late amid a lemniscate,
the space between the lines
ever rending – surrounded
by the never ending,
closed in a space
where moonlight
skews with sunbeam queues.
banners flying underneath
the breathing of the winds bequeath
a conquest perpetually given
and in few words, love’s recognition.
NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 29
even a blind squirrel
eleven times out of twelve, what I write turns out to be something totally different than what I started with. I mean, there is much word-smithing with any poem, but most times- eleven days out of twelve- the subject matter changes completely as I scrounge the floor of my brain looking for connecting thoughts to make it sound logical, beautiful, or even nonsensical. This is funny enough – trying to make something sound like it doesn’t make sense – or even silly – by perusing dictionaries or thesauruses (or is it thesauri?). “The Sauri sought to seek the soar-fly.” – I’ll remember that for later- Rooting up old phrases, or trying to describe how old phrases get rooted up…digging and digging, poking at the word order. It is not unlike scavengers looking for food, hogs looking for truffles, squirrels looking for acorns. Most of the time, they know they are looking for food, but sometimes they happen upon other things. I’m not sure how a squirrel would react if it found a penny on the ground when it was looking for acorns. It probably wouldn’t be very useful to the squirrel (or the hog), and they would ignore it. The poet – particularly one who is looking into every detail- could easily be distracted by the penny in lieu of the acorn. Now this is not useful if one is seeking acorns, and squirrels don’t write poems, but most times, eleven times out of twelve, a better poem comes from the unexpected penny.
NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 28 (Catchup)
Icon
I heard a lecture
about Rembrandt,
and how he avoided
doing portrait commissions for
so long,
perhaps of the opinion
that he did not need to do them.
-and I learned he spent long hours
working on etchings-
something he enjoyed
more than painting portraits
even with long hours and excrutiating
detail
I’ve rewritten this poem
nine times since that lecture.
NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 27
Found: Attn Hummingbirds
An amazing
Hummingbird vine
Eat whatever you want
Rural or city
It does not matter
Anymore.
life is busy
Vibrant flowers
No obligation.
NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 26
Taps and Ratamacues 