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Tag: magpie tales

Ordinary Night

August 26, 2014 • • 6 Comments

It was ordinary:
the hill, the town,
the sky, a wisp
of cloud against
the stars. Ordinary
as methane rain
on Titan or the dry
encroaching ice
on the windswept
Martian poles.
Common as each
flower in this field
around my feet,
each one a star
to mirror constellations
above my blood-filled
head. The window
lights in town
click off, a chorus
of everyday amens,
whispered in the holy
darkness of the night.

—

Magpie Tales #234

Runaway

May 15, 2014 • • 6 Comments

Listen: She dreamt the sky
and settled a few strange feet
above this shattered axeland.
She floated there for ages
and pilgrims came and rubbed
their names with clumsy fingers
in the dirt. Their names vanished
like the rolling highway scenery
outside your half-down window,
like your tears drying in the wind
as you fled from town to town.

—

Magpie Tales #219 | Sunday Whirl #160

King of the Beasts

April 15, 2014 • • 5 Comments

In a house full of cats, strays, unwanted, feral,
a man called himself the king of these beasts.
He fed them and pretended to find them homes.
The whole place stank of ammonia and tuna.

A man called himself the king of these beasts
who made his house their lair and didn’t mind
the whole place stank of ammonia and tuna.
Every day, this king shoveled boxes and sang.

Who made his house their lair and didn’t mind?
He called himself king and lion and Caesar.
Every day, this king shoveled boxes and sang.
He loved them and believed they worshipped him.

He called himself king and lion and Caesar.
He fed them and pretended to find them homes.
He loved them and believed they worshipped him
in a house full of cats, strays, unwanted, feral.

—

Magpie Tales #215 | PAD 2014 #15: Love Poem

What the Dog Saw One Night on the Beach

April 9, 2012 • • 6 Comments

The turtles came at night
and hid their eggs; the dog,
unwanted stray, came down to eat.

When angels hatched
he barked and stared, head
cocked and ears erect.

The first of the angels
lifted her goddess eyes
to this desolate wind-scoured
world of stony hearts
setting moon, roaring sea.

The dog considered the angel
a moment (which would count
as seven moments in human time)

then he trotted back to town
and lay outside the souvenir stand
where the owner usually left
a bowl of scraps each morning.

—

For Magpie Tales #112

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Announcement: My book, Birds Nobody Loves, is on sale (15% off the paperback) throughout April in celebration of National Poetry Month. You can order it from Amazon or my e-store. I don’t know when (or if) the price will take effect at other retailers.

Small Adjustments

March 20, 2012 • • 8 Comments

First he thought it was the stars, that creaking groan and grind of tired years but with time the tension grew and he realized the problem lay not overhead but underfoot (as problems often do). Some days the gripping stuckness beneath his feet felt tighter and other days it felt looser like someone else’s shoes depending on where he walked and what he ate for breakfast. Out on the plains where the stars rattled so faintly as to be almost inaudible, he located the source of this tension, unzipped the blackland earth and studied the dull gears that moved the gears that made the world go round. He turned a wrench against the machine—so surprisingly simple to adjust, this mechanical universe—and retuned the planet’s motion relative to the earthly key of his own aspirations. That’s the way he explained his good fortune years later as he leaned back in the worn leather chair of his old age, smiling in the knowledge that he was now very close to achieving his lifelong goal of living happily ever after.

—

For Magpie Tales #109