Tag Archives: poetry

Preparations

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When I prepare the yard for winter,
the time when all is stark and lost,
the dead have wilted, scruff and ragged –
and I remove the chaff and croft.

As I gird the garden, whether
further growth is wont or not,
bedded mounds of soil and leavings
cover greener, fledgling thoughts.

Seeded verse on sorted papers
things that sleep beneath decay
seedlings of the spring and morrow
beauty fit for flow’red cliche’

Here I leave the hopes of summer
warm enchantments, an enclave
hidden from the weather – bitter
though purposed to save.

something, about very

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As if it is more than she first breathed,
a life beyond the ocean’s crest
or past the highest tree.

She feels her wants, and gathers what she needs.
Marked assumption, close and firm, and pressed
to carry passions free.

An apple redder than anger’s seed
or simple care to disentangle tress’s,
the golden, ornate key.

Silken girl,raging whorl is she
who’d rather give the world waking regrets
than silent repartee.

As if it’s greater than the sum of her marquee,
but most of all in her largesse,
the inspiration given me.

Passage

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October leaves me in thatches,
between the warm beaches
and pale wintered branches.

I remember the autumn,
the slow scale of mornings-
the decorative fallen.

I see her in color,
the amber-crisp sunlight
that touches to cover.

For moments, I tarry-
enveloped and yielding
to her fay and fairy.

I reach for her hand
and she vanishes,
my visions are damned

in the moment between
burgeoning summer
and winter’s pale serene.

non-sequitur moment

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I don’t speak Gaelic,
and I’ve never been to Venice, either,
she said -between bites of her sandwich-
not looking at anyone in particular.

And I thought:

It must take a long time to get there by rowboat.
The ocean is only half-filled with water,
though there is plenty of time,
plenty of it.
plenty…

It is only 8 miles across the straits of Gibraltar
where the big rock is.
(Well, there is probably more than one),
and they keep getting reshaped and worn by water.

Maybe water can reshape me
or move me out to the sea.

Stones don’t move themselves;
they just get reshaped by water.
Running water.
Falling down.
Breaking it apart.
Lots of water falling down and crashing into crags and crevices.

That’s why rocks crash into the sea.

The ocean is half-full of rocks, I said.

And she nodded with fluid regality
-between bites of her sandwich-
like a queen or princess.

****
Originally published in Soundzine | February, 2011

Building

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Knocking about the blue Mylanta bottles
we built forts and cities
in the shadow of a giant.
A bear of a man
– his friends called him Bully-
loud snores elevated
from his vinyl recliner
distant thunderclouds-
our war sounds a reminder.

Matchbox cars in play,
my brother and me,
with little green army men
their guns raised high above their heads.
We stormed the blue bottle castle as he slept.
The laughter of Korman and Conway
floating through the room.

He took us crawfishing once-
and to pick pecans.
He was Santa one early Christmas morning,
and I knew it.
But, I never knew what he liked to do,
or his favorite color, whether it was blue.
He built things,
but he tore them down too.
He helped Daddy build our carport,
but he was drunk most of the time,
so Dad sent him home.

He was just a big grandfather man
asleep in his vinyl chair again,
like a giant slumbering in his lair
in the mountains high above the cities fair
and fortresses of blue Mylanta.

*********
I wrote this poem in 2006, and just recently found it again. I reworded a few lines to make it less prose-more-poem. Relationships are sometimes complicated. My grandfather passed away many years ago- just a few years after these memories. And I’ve found that I never really knew him. But I think of him often.

the last

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As it happens, I get lost in the sky
where sunsets stroll away.

A peaking light around a corner
beyond the frontier of yesterday

I look to the last remains
even when the shadows begin
and wrapped from behind in covers
I gaze toward a fading din.

I dream of passion reds
that trail to orange, bleed to pink.
Turning around in silent awe
to indigo in a wink.

And there the fire ignites upon
this early autumn eve,
a lover of the colored sky
embraced without reprieve.

the creation of a rain storm

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Beyond the clouds
the red flame torrent ranged
from feature to embellishment.
The recall of a wind stroke
in the waning moments of August.
The resonance of a rain drop
after impact, with cause
to wipe it away – like tears.
Then to bring them
all to bear, in congregation
that wears and chases the dirt and seed alike.
That moment, ignites
the clean and growing rhythm
in the foreground.
All created without a sound.

Notions

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In a gift for someone that I once knew-
A few moments wrapped
in crisp paper with string.
each one a mating of calm and called.

Intent on these penetrating emotions-
they are patterns of poetry from memories
underneath the neat taped corners.

They could be jumbled and incoherent,
but I prefer them pressed and bound
and self-contained.
Thumb-pressure creased,
Holding the pieces
firmly together.

Notions of affection
convened for her disposal
will be mailed
in the morning.

***********
A reworking of a poem that I first wrote in 2006.

present perfect

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I do not wish to know
tomorrow’s faint and slow
ascent, nor do I care to see
if yesterday was lithe with glee –
Wasn’t last year so obsessed
and burdensome?
We can attest.
And back ten years, if sighted, could
we not have worried where we stood?

To keeping in the ‘now on scene’,
I hope that all my words are keen
and opening new each day
-as morning glories say –

that past affronts have gone to sour
and I embrace a blooming flower
that opens with the sun.

And here I have begun.

I find it in the feet of bell tones

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I find it in the feet of bell tones,
after sorbing the sound as struck and deep.

I see the auric crest at the tip of leaves
in the moments of late summer’s wanton eve.

I feel the arc that bows in honor
of poetry heard, and hopes that won’t cease.

I hear it in the intake of calm
from the instant of lighting, the droning that sleeps.

It caresses the silence just beyond music,
and lingers on fingertips framed in release.

It walks in the tawny remembrance of noon-tide,
and ploys in the finish of our masterpiece.

And sounding the whisper of midnight and morning,
the tolling of hours when time passes, sweeps

away the cache of conflagration
leaving morsels we should keep.

I find it in the feet of bell tones,
with sounds that amble soft and sweet.