I’m honored to have two poems, “Winter Solstice” and “In the Time of the Automobile” (both from my upcoming collection Birds Nobody Loves–More to come stay tuned) in the inaugural issue of Curio Poetry alongside the work of several other fine poets. Thanks to editors Joseph Harker and Tessa Racht for starting this journal and including some of my work. Now, go check it out.

moonlight sparkles in
grey hair and
bourbon ice

beneath pine trees she
severe counts satellites
on silent skyways

falling stars
fading shine

the sky’s last synaptic glow
strange and waning

the highway fell
silent last summer
no cars since then

her mind wanders
revisiting the cellar
each jug of potable water

she calculates
consumption, her husband’s
weight beside her

bourbon ice (luxury
for special nights like these)
grey hair
moon-sparkling knife

the broken highway
heat lightning
bones in moonlight

–

Another poem about water, or rather, the lack thereof.

Afternoon temperature. In the shade.

Slow & Coiling

drought doesn’t rage
like hurricanes or tear
the world like twisters

it’s a slow dismantling
of yellowed ecosystems
ash blown on wind

blind salamanders
blocks from a jenga tower
pulled one by one

cracks snake the earth
the quiet collapse of cattle
roaming mudpits, abandoned

fawns starving on roadsides
constellations of vultures
summer’s stars dark and full

silent silent sky
smoky whispers of a thousand
cigarette wildfires, sirens

a lone bat loops the dusk
where swallows and kingbirds
once flew toward trees

songless losing leaves
months before their time
tree rings tell futures

constricted bands
a snake coiling around
this thirsty dying land

bring water, electrolytes
this night will burn

heat and light
have come untwined

out on the porch
I call back the dogs

swift feet, darkness
panting shadows

sweat beads my forehead
the stillness of trees

leaves roasted
beyond autumn gold

pray for rain, ask
in secret for hurricanes

they claim this red moon
only reflects

No one puts stock
in ghosts anymore.

But everyone has a story
that begins with I’m not crazy.

Maybe it’s the bridge on 97
or the creaky floorboard upstairs.
The chair they’ll swear was rocking,
or totems of the dead discovered
in strange forgotten corners.
Lights on the Devil’s Backbone.

Ghosts love these stories.
They know

there isn’t any darkness
more forsaken
than the end of memory.

–

This was inspired by Dave Bonta’s “If there were such things as ghosts”. Dave invited others to add poems to his post’s comment thread and the result is a wonderful mix of ghost poems. This is the one I came up with.

We’ve been in triple digits most days lately. Too hot to do anything, even walk down to the neighborhood pool. Seems almost too hot to write so here’s a rerun from 2006:

Chlorine bubbles
Teenage lifeguards
Lap lanes
Sun
He can’t hold his breath that long
She swims, swims, swims
Swim
She can’t hold her breath for him
Holding hands
Holding breath
Chlorine water bubbles
Break like glass
Smiling faces break the mirror
Sun
Swim
Summer
Ten more laps
Five
One
Holding breath
Holding sun
They hold each other
Swimming
Only Labor Day
(so far away)
Dispels the dream
Of swimming, sun and
Water love
Chlorine swim
Sun five
Breath one
He will hold his breath for her,
Offering it like sunshine gold
From wrinkled hand
Swimming, she accepts
Breathes the breath
Of summer sun

Legend says
this land was sculpted by golf pros who only knew how to make a buck.

Legend says
there is a secret zodiac of yet-to-be trademarked corporate logos.

Legend says
the northwest passage was built by Bigfoot but is now owned by crows.

Legend says
there was a cat who joined the circus to run the big humans act.

Legend says
trees are the heretical thoughts of stone, but no one understands.

Legend says
the woman on the lake bottom sold her sword business for a taco stand.

Legend says
there was a man who named three oceans and drowned in a river.

Legend says
all night, the cities beneath the plains hum that tune stuck in your head.

Legend says
the Loch Ness grebe got lost on migration and settled in Oklahoma.

Legend says
everyone has three teeth and a tongue that aren’t attached to them.

Legend says
a man rode out of town and returned with an elixir made from cheap tequila.

Legend says
words are keys, but the doors were all busted down by thugs years ago.

Legend says
I don’t want to go to bed; tell me another one.

—

This was based on one of the prompts at Big Tent Poetry: start a poem with the phrase “legend says…”

—

My sci-fi haibun “Dear Old Stockholm” is up over at qarrtsiluni as part of the translation issue. Be sure to check it out and while you’re there have a look around. There’s a lot of great work in the issue.

She grew up in the land of twisters,
seeking shelter in middle bathrooms.

She baptized herself in the rivers of glass
sparkling through the broken house.

Wall clouds turned and blackened,
the sky decayed, fell down from itself.

Monsters ate trees in the night
but by morning, birds always returned,

the feeders full of color and song,
while all around hailstones melted.

Only small questions remained, then;
the big ones were all torn up

with the trees and trails, apologies
she used to believe she owed.

A familiar man in coveralls claims
he can repair the roof faster, cheaper,

better than the other guys who don’t
understand these things (sign here please).

Her fists clench, knuckles ache like love;
she relaxes only when he leaves.

She whispers secrets to her daughter:
about the days of electricity and engines,

about the thrill of kneeling wild-eyed
before the weather radio’s robot voice,

about prayers for thunder and wind,
about how she learned to control storms

and how everything that happens
flashes in a dark and roaring instant.

—

Call this my first NaPoWriMo poem for this April. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing last year, but here I am again, back for more. I won’t be posting here on weekends, of course, but I’ll still be writing my daily stones at a gnarled oak (but I often don’t post weekend stones until Monday). One where or another, though, there will be daily poems.

The soaring hawks who patrolled this highway
through the winter watched as wildflowers grew.
As if the sky were napping on the earth,
the fields in spring explode in deepest blue.

Fields mirror sky and fill with the shadows
of hawks and vultures flying through flowers.
Bipedal hairless apes swarm through the fields,
teeth bared, pointing rectangles at each other.

In just a few more weeks, the bluebonnets
will wither and be swallowed by the grass.
Then the soaring hawks will get their fields back
as, ignoring green, the apes just drive on past.

—

This was first published at Bolts of Silk (thanks, Juliet!) back in May 2009. I figured I’d share it here now since it’s springtime and our awesome Texas wildflowers are starting to show up along the highways. Also, I’m busy and getting over a cold so it’s a good time for posting reruns of a sort.

—

Caroline at Caroline at Coastcard [Land & Lit] wrote some very nice things about last year’s gnarled oak chapbook. They’re all gone now, but you can still read them online (though apparently not if you’re using an iphone).

—

Dave Bonta is running a cool little contest over at Moving Poems wherein contestants will produce a videopoem using Howie Good’s poem “Fable.” I’m almost done with my entry. Deadline is April 15. Check it out.

Flecks of sea rust
trailed phantom ships,

their crews (it’s said)
marooned in paradise.

In this crash economy
we had no choice—

fight the fishing fleets,
reflag at sea.

An old fax machine
wired to a car battery

sent our request to join
some landlocked navy.

We lined up behind
flags of convenience

leading us forever
from our green homes.

While sharks & frigates circled,
I reckoned the distance

between two hearts
and almost made the leap.

—

This came from reading a series of articles on piracy in the Naval War College Review (Summer 2009, Vol. 62 No. 3).