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Tag: napowrimo 2012

She Didn’t Think It Would Go that Fast

April 4, 2012 • • Leave a comment

shrieking joy and fire, hair
snaking out the window, racing
parking garage curves
carbon monoxide hellsmoke fumes
tires screech pedestrians,
shorebound sailors, mostly
jump from her maniac path,
cursing the admiral’s
daughter, her giant car,
the course she charted
over asphalt and down
to the drunken shore
down shore drunken
stars sailing overhead
sunrise sunrise bubbling
up from the Atlantic, filling
her blonde hair, again, with fire
smoldering laughter, spark
the curves of the road, her
body shaking joy and flame
foot on the gas, all the way

Chekhov’s Gun

April 3, 2012 • • 2 Comments

if there’s a gun
it must be fired

that’s the rule
and so now this poem
has a gun hanging there
and it must go off

it’s not much of a rifle
just a .22, at least
a hundred years old
with stock worn smooth
nothing to race
a hunter or collector’s
blood

still, there are cacti
and roadsigns
on the highway
we could shoot

and deer
standing dumbly
on the road waiting
for wolves that
never show

but I’d really rather not
shoot any of these
though I like firing guns
I mean who doesn’t, right?

and so perhaps we’ll
leave it hanging there
for now
as if above the door
of a hill country cabin
across from the mounted
deer head wearing
a rakishly cocked gimme cap

and I’ll wake at night
and check occasionally
to see that it hasn’t moved
because someday, of course,
it has to be fired if not in this poem
certainly in another

4.02.12

April 2, 2012 • • Leave a comment

abandoned nest
two mourning dove eggs
under open sky

—

They abandoned the nest after a week, leaving two eggs behind. Don’t know if they decided they didn’t like our porch and dogs, or if they got eaten. I suppose now the grackles, jays, squirrels or whoever else will get some eggs soon.

Roadside Attractions

April 2, 2012 • • 4 Comments

The desert stretches its paws in endless forevers.

Vultures and hawks circle overhead
eyeing ruined billboards advertising
diners gone since the seventies.

Echoes of the ancient world tumble
over rock, spill down through time.
Coyotes call those who never come,
hang up when no one answers.

This billion year old ocean sea still can drown,
though the water now just floats as clouds.

I walk from my car, leave it unlocked.
I walk over scrub grass desperate for water.
I walk toward rocks painted by ancient hands.
I walk over fish, seaweed, dinosaurs, meteorites.
I walk into time made visible, layered and worn.
I walk until sunset when stars begin to burn my skin.

I get in the car, drive to the next town,
find a motel and watch a ballgame on TV.

—

I’m attempting NaPoWriMo again. As usual only stones on the weekends. This year I also plan to write about one poetry collection per week, probably on Fridays. Let the madness begin.

4.01.12

April 1, 2012 • • 2 Comments

the chickadee sits
on her nestlings, each breath
a feather’s tremble

—

I think I’ll be posting my small stones here for NaPoWriMo and maybe past that. I’m not sure I want to keep maintaining two blogs. We’ll see.