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Tag: poems

Four and Twenty and Housekeeping

March 30, 2010 • • 3 Comments

Two things:

1. While I was out of town last week, I forgot to link to Four and Twenty, where one of my haiku was featured as the “Four and Twenty of the week.” Check it out.

2. You may have noticed the type on my site is larger. Ever since I redesigned the site in Jan 2009 to ditch the 2nd sidebar and widen the content area to accommodate larger photos something has bugged me about the font. I’ve tried different fonts but after reading iA’s The 100% Easy-2-Read Standard (h/t Dave for the link), I realized that what was bugging me was the size of the font relative to the expanded line length.

I tried a larger font, and I like the results. How does it look out there in blog land? Easier on the eyes?

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.

Sentences and Corrections

March 17, 2010 • • 6 Comments

The guy from the attorney general’s office
blamed the nouns, sources of all trouble—
people, places, things.

Combined with certain verbs—
assault, distribute, trespass and possess—
these nouns form gangs of complex sentences,
fragments of lives half-lived and run-ons
rambling through the detritus of car crash lives.

The simplest, though, tell of kids locked up,
looking out at the free, positions of attention
in the parking lot, half-listening
to mockingbirds refining their own syntax
as they mimic the ringing fire alarm
while we wait to go back inside
where we’ll try, again, writing

sentences that don’t mimic the past,
sentences that aren’t destinies.

Hummingbird Heading Out to Sea

February 10, 2010 • • 31 Comments

 

Does the hummingbird know
the vastness of the Gulf of Mexico
when land is lost from sight?

Oil rigs and shrimping boats—
fast-blurred memories, random ghosts afloat
where sky and sea seem one.

Is there any inkling
of monsters below that other ceiling
birds can scarce imagine?

Tiny feathered jewel,
leagues from any flower’s nectar fuel,
how do you know the way?

Above those trackless seas,
in doldrum times of windless apogee,
one heart of pebble’s size

pounds alone against the gulf,
pounds alone against the world.

—

One of the most amazing bird migrations is that of the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. On its southbound journey from eastern North America to its wintering grounds in Central and South America, it flies up to 500 miles nonstop over the Gulf of Mexico.

Update: This post was included in I and the Bird #119 hosted at Somewhere in NJ.

Lines Discovered in an Aging Ornithologist’s Field Journal

January 25, 2010 • • Leave a comment

 

When the end comes, don’t
plant me in the ground, trapped
in just one piece of earth.

Why not leave me by
the highway for the vultures
and maybe for the crows
who will take my sleeping eyes.

Then, at last, I could soar,
finally fly on dusky wings
outstretched,

buried in the sky.

—

“Lines Discovered in an Aging Ornithologist’s Field Journal” was one of 3 poems originally published at Thirteen Myna Birds in July 2009. Poems don’t stick around long over there before they fly away, so I’m posting them here for those who may have missed them back in July. This is 3 of 3. It has been slightly modified from its original form. The others can be found here and here.

I’m continuing to dabble with audio blogging, this time seeing how it goes reading one of my poems. I don’t know how often I’ll do this, but it was surprisingly easy to get the reading. I even edited a little bit since I liked the end of one take and the beginning of another.