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Tag: napowrimo

Moths

April 16, 2012 • • 1 Comment

river of electric firelight
illuminated tracks
each tie a droning beat

glimpse of moth pulled
into light, flash of wings
a windshield smear

night moves as
any night made slow
by tons of steel in motion

a woman in white flutters
from the embankment
onto the tracks a door

closing on the night
flash of her lost eyes
and then the thump

half a mile gone
before he could react
or reach to pull the brake

a million moths
flit in spaces between
the shadowed trees

—

The other day a butterfly smashed into my windshield. Just a moment to see its beauty before impact and nothing I could do. That reminded me of a some stories I’d read a few years back about the effects on engineers of people who commit suicide by jumping in front of trains. There is nothing they can do but watch, turn away and in some cases spend years trying to forget.

Ghazal of Treaty Oak

April 13, 2012 • • 5 Comments

Great Treaty Oak, a poisoned husk,
bent boughs beneath this ashen dusk.

The deals we reached beneath this tree
portended its pale and broken dusk.

I always dreamed I’d shoot your scenes
beneath theses branches at golden dusk.

Long years and days withered away
and swallowed you in barren dusk.

Odd limbs still live and mingle with
new high rise lines in token dusk.

Somehow you found the way back home
all through the long moth-eaten dusk.

And the songs of city birds suggest
the dawn of some new-woven dusk.

—

This is for Joseph Harker’s Reverie 14: Ghazal Boot Camp using some of the words from Wordle 51 at The Sunday Whirl.

Note for non-Austinites: Treaty Oak is a 500-year-old southern live oak in downtown Austin. In 1989 some jackass poisoned it. After a major recovery effort, it survived and said jackass went to jail for a good long time. It’s still a big tree but only a fraction of its former self, yet ten years later it started releasing acorns again.

Summer Triangle Rising

April 11, 2012 • • Leave a comment

I knew a woman who advised

write your poems in the sea
write your stories in the sand

the moon tries to pull
away the ocean but

only scatters tales
through the sky like fireworks

or knives dulled down
from overuse

I knew a man who claimed

constellations are knives
that slice up the darkest nights

this morning I saw Aquila,
Lyra and Cygnus

sneaking up on spring

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

—

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.