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Category: Poems

Poems written by me.

Best to Ignore the Wind

April 13, 2010 • • 6 Comments

he heard the wind proclaim,
it’s not much farther now

saw the killdeer land in a ditch,
its feet running as they met the ground

studied the fading stains of
roadkilled armadillos

threw the bones of the library
on the sidewalk

picked through the oracles

divined messages
from broken patterns
and torn pages on
concrete

knew this all meant something
(knew it so deep it drove him silent)
these revelations he never

understood

—

This is a response the the Read Write Poem Prompt: Secret Codes provided by Carolee Sherwood.

Starghazaling (A Thousand Evolutions)

April 12, 2010 • • 4 Comments

We walked long hours following sacred stars
and watched for signs of certain darkened stars.

The moon rose thin and razor-like, slicing
a course across the meridian stars.

You traced the secret constellation lines
on my homemade maps of fallen stars.

I followed the moon’s trek across the void
and through the gaseous graves of ruined stars.

You talked about explosions bursting with
a thousand evolutions born in stars.

The atoms in our fingertips trembled
as we pondered our origins in stars.

Our hands met as our thoughts lingered on strange
dim memories of long forgotten stars.

I looked into your eyes—saw new worlds and
the echoes of eternity in stars.

Shower

April 9, 2010 • • 5 Comments

Lowering storm clouds,
the grey rain intensifies.
Everyone rushes to
stand under the canopy
& listen while drainpipes rattle.

—

Attempted tanka for napowrimo today. This weekend, I’ll just be doing micro-poems at a gnarled oak. They cross post at Identi.ca and Twitter for anyone who is into those things.

While Sitting in Church

April 8, 2010 • • 9 Comments

I didn’t hear a word the priest said,
but I saw the vultures circling

rising

in the air above the lake
outside the windows
beyond the altar.

Things looked clearer out there,
and it made perfect sense to see

God skipping church that day
just to ride thermals with the angels.

—

This isn’t exactly a NaPoWriMo poem. It’s one I wrote almost a year ago, but I decided to come back to it and do some reworking. For one I wrote today, you’ll have to visit a gnarled oak for my daily napowrimo micro-poem.

The Wildflower Forest

April 7, 2010 • • 28 Comments

Were dandelions tall as
trees

would we follow the
meadowlark

into such a yellow
forest

where flowers tower
overhead

and the only thing we
hear

is the clamorous buzz of
bees?

—

This morning while I was outside with my students observing nature so we could write haiku, we saw a meadowlark land near some dandelions and walk into what could only be described as a forest since most of the stems rose well above the bird’s head. I listed it as one of my observations.

Later, looking over my list, I wanted to write a poem that was basically just a sentence and then play with different ways of breaking the lines. I tried several permutations but settled on something resembling “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, which I had just read in Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook.

Two other versions:

Were dandelions tall as trees
would we follow the meadowlark
into such a yellow forest

where flowers tower overhead
and the only thing we hear
is the clamorous buzz of bees?

—

Were dandelions tall as trees, would we follow the meadowlark into such a yellow forest where flowers tower overhead and the only thing we hear is the clamorous buzz of bees?

The Great Egret

April 6, 2010 • • 14 Comments

I ask the egret what makes him great. He smiles his bird smile and tells me of forbidden passion and how he loved and lost a snowy egret once. Held great roosts on the other side of the pond, invited all the shorebirds, hoping—just hoping—she’d maybe wade up his shore. At night he stood one-legged in a tree, ignoring the herons all around, while he studied the faint light reflected in the rippling water across the pond—I stop him there, tell him it sounds like he’s cribbing this story from Fitzgerald.  Yes, he says, returning to the present, it’s true, it’s true, but there is no copyright for the heart, and besides… she was so beautiful and it was spring and the stars were bright and we were fledglings in the days of love.

egret reflections
ripple the still pond
echoes fade

Distance

April 5, 2010 • • 4 Comments

The wind blew gray and humid,
the Gulf thick over the prairie,
catching trash and leaves and pollen

and a lone scissor-tailed flycatcher,
the first to arrive this spring, suspended above
a crepe myrtle, his tail forked, balancing
on wind, navigating toward a perch.

It seemed those last few feet against the wind
became as significant a struggle as the journey
of thousands of miles flown between
Central America and this narrow limb.

Such it is to be in the moment
when attention is required:
the scale of the task
falls secondary to action.

In this way, we can reach the tree
no matter how far we’ve traveled,
and, like that bird,
we can leave if we want
without a second thought.

The Radiological Work Permit Day Labor Line

April 2, 2010 • • 24 Comments

And each day the workers waited
for the renewal of their daily permits.

And when the clouded sky lightened,
they watched insects flicker and glow.

And old folks spat on the ground,
mumbling toothless legends of times

when all bugs weren’t lightning bugs,
when leaves burst forth from trees in spring,
when you could drink the rain and rivers,
when the sky was dark and there were stars.

And the memorists were shoved back,
kicked and beaten for their lies.

And everyone agreed with what we know:
since the beginning, all bugs have glowed.

—

A response to Read Write Poem’s NaPoWriMo prompt #2: The Old Acronym Switcheroo. I went with RWP as Radiological Work Permit.

I’ll be sticking with my usual no blogging on weekends routine, though I will still be doing NaPoWriMo, but the poems will be micro-poems posted at a gnarled oak, to which I do sometimes post on weekends.

On March 1st

March 25, 2010 • • 2 Comments

The grackles opened
Like gates in the trees
Shadow birds, eyes glistening
You could almost imagine
These noisy shades
Abandoning tangible birds,
Parking lots and steel dumpsters
In their odyssey through
Suburban woods,
Clacking and creaking
Like machines or clocks
Ticking away the last
Hoarse seconds of winter.