Potpourri

***


090630

WONDER OF WONDERS (for Ginnie)

Here’s a long story;
I’ll see if I can gather all the pieces.

I was upstairs when I heard something
plunk against glass downstairs.
Ethan, mowing, had flung a rock
against our patio door,
knocking a small hole in the outer pane.

I was upstairs the next night
when the sounds of hail startled me awake.
It was a cloudless night.
The outer glass was disintegrating.

I was upstairs today
when Ethan called me down
to see something remarkable:
a spider chandelier.
Spider had attached its web
to the broken bits of glass
that still rimmed the doorframe.
One of these had fallen away,
but not from the web-thread.
It dangled and sparkled,
eerily suspended in mid-air.

I’m upstairs now,
writing this on the very notepad
where earlier in the day I’d set down
an affirmation suggested by a friend:

“I expect wonderful things in my life.”


RE-SEARCH

That guy! Must have come
from off the planet.
Went looking for religious truth.
In books. At the library.
Nonfiction section.
Shows how much he knows!

[Aside: This poem is a mystery to me:
I don’t quite know what it’s trying to say.
Remember, these are drafts.]


STATELY

Kansas is so quiet.
Oaks. Grass. Little more.

Smoke-signal clouds say silent Hi ’s.
Very little more.


PROXIMITY OF HAZARDS

When chemicals travel on the road,
trucks and tankers announce, in code,
those of most concern
(each substance and its danger).

By code-book, I investigate.
Here comes 2-0-7-8: toluene diisocyanate.
Scary what you can learn!
(Might oughta kept that one a stranger.)


090629

OPPORTUNITY

Now it comes;
comes too late—
alas, because
we could not wait.


090628

RECEIVING-LINE BLUNDERS

My friends forgive me
my verbal stumbles;
my fumbled garbles
and garbled fumbles.

My friends forgive me
my inane bumbles
and faux-pas tumbles.
This keeps me humble.


090627

THINE OWN SELF

There's a better, deeper free
than any imposed-ocracy.


090626

MEN AT PLAY

things that go KaPOW!
things that go KaBOOM!
master-blaster gizmo-gadgets
things that threaten doom
things that spew out fire
things that chill to bone

—super-charged expressions
of male toy-stosterone.


090625

ANY WAY OUT

Let me die of heat.
Let me die of chill.

Let this little pill I take
take me over the hill.


[ASIDE: Dunno where that came from,
but I love the "take take" bit.]


090624

CLAIMING MY KIN (for Neda)

Some choose to prey, oppress, and betray,
imposing on others the "right" to obey.
I choose to side with those who say, "Nay!
No one deserves to be treated that way.”


090623

EVIDENTLY

Sought,
at last sighting-places,
stray cat and hurt duck.

Neither at either;
so, bad or good luck.


090622

UNMUFFLED

Until I took pen in hand,
poised over paper,
until I paused with expectant focus,
I did not hear this computer humming,
clock ticking, motorboat thrumming,
bird chirping, or cat softly snoring;
I did not notice my own breathing.


090621

IT COMES IN THREES (for Jarrod)

Buzzards! Buzzards!
One, two, three—
circle downward over me.


090620

TIME TRACKING

Seems I'm always busy;
always hard at work.

I tracked my time, so now I know—
it's mostly busywork.


090619

A SOUL’S DREAM

In the land of fantasy,
I would be a manna tree.

Come all ye and feed of me.


090618

CONTENTIOUS

Clouds,
knuckled into fists,
spoil for a summer
showdown.


090617

EXODUS

My breaths come tight.
My heart grows sore.
Where and how I’ve lived,
I’ll live no more.


090616

ON BORROWED TIME

Repayment is owed,
on everything;
soon I will not have a computer,
organic or otherwise.


090615

NO HARM, NO FOUL

I am forgiven:

the mallards
rush shoreward this morning
quacking an eager greeting,
the vet-tended one most boldly of all.


090615

PSYCHO SYNOPSIS (for Linda)

Hurt people
hurt people.


090614

ROUSED

A poem comes,
like foe or friend,
so desperately at 4 a.m.


090613

CALCULATING LIFE

while I ponder

sand
hourglass
time and
change

time runs out


090612

FOUR FIFTEEN A.M.

"Go to bed! Go to bed!"
That is what my body said.

"You’re so tired,
your brain is dead.
Get some sleep! Get to bed!"


090611

DAILY SPECIAL

Life is a banquet—
an all-invited, pot-luck,
come-when-able!

Life is a banquet—
welcome, guest:
what do you bring
to the table?


***

SHORT AND SOUR

***


090610

INTERROGATED

What do you do with them;
your guts, once spilled?

Or with yourself,
raw from being grilled?


090609

AT A LOSS

Where the error,
the wrong turn, the mistake—
that I should come to die
and not have come awake?


090608

YE WHO ENTER

There is no cure
for the "pome du jour."


090607

WEBBED FEAT

followed, following
selecting, selected

hyper-kinetically
cyber-connected


***

Short & Sweet

***

090606

CHOOSE WISELY

Feel glad, always feel glad:
that is success… even when
(especially when!)
life deals a mess.


EXHORTATION

Listen, Sport, life is short:
enjoy your quota—each iota!


090605

LAKE SEEN

Small abandoned dog.
Buzzard mid-road, feasting on fish.
Five ducks, nearly tame; one badly injured.
Large abandoned dog.


ASIDE: The 5th mallard cannot eat.
Something bright-orange dangles from its bill;
a fishing lure, I believe.


090604

INACTION IN ACTION

Body indoors, working.
Mind outdoors, shirking.

It is spring, isn't it?


090603

INSIDE SCOOP

Feel free
to wait seeming lifetimes
for significant others
to recognize your courage
and your contributions.

Feel free to depend
on their accolades
and reassurance.

Or, just... feel free.


DIRECTIONAL

Emma, you are a trial!

Translation: I am so scared for you!
Darlin’, it’s night. Where are you?

Yes, yes, I know; you are expressing
your freedom.

You innocent, brave, and so-vulnerable
blind being—you know nothing of
cats and coyotes.

May familiar sounds and scent-paths
quickly lead you home; or just tune into
the homing signal of my love.


090602

RELATING

A man went swimming
in Hickory Creek Park
Sunday afternoon and drowned.

Most likely, people say,
he just got tired:
that's the story.

He just got tired.


090601

CYBER FRIENDS

It could all blink out,
you know; the internet.

When I think about that,
I'm so glad we met!


***

Outings and Sightings

***


090531

STOPPING TRAFFIC

I must say,
they do show pluck—
those babies and
their mama duck!


090530

BECOMING A DOG PERSON

At first, I deny them.
“These are not my dogs.”

They barge into campers’ tents,
harass the geese,
make runs at other walkers.

“Not mine. They just adopted me
for the morning.”

They chase bikers, yelp at squirrels,
come and go like a pair of boomerangs.

“They don’t belong to me.”

They disappear into marsh grass
(except for happy tails, held high).
They win me over.

“These are not my dogs.
They don’t belong to me.
It’s the opposite. They adopted me;
I belong to them.”


090528

SIGHTINGS

In a state forest once,
as I was walking,
I came across a kangaroo.

Minutes later, someone else
spotted a wild turkey
in the same vicinity.

Near a state park tonight,
as I was walking,
a pteryodactyl flew overhead.

Maybe I should keep this
to myself?


090527

FRESH FROM THE STORM

Cast up on the lakeshore—
one waterlogged shoe and a bar of soap.
That definitely was a cleansing rain!


ONE JOY

When your life breaks apart,
one pebble of that rubble—
one candlelight,
one bird in flight, one joy—
can break apart your heart.


090526

ORDER UP!

Good morning. I’m your higher power;
I’ll be your server today.
What do you want, and how do want it?
Raw, rare, medium? How about well-done?
Still thinking? How about burnt?
Hurry—any choice you might have had
is about to vaporize!


***

Flowers & Other Delights

***


090525

HICKORY CREEK PARK

My private winter playground
has just been overrun
with hoards of weekend campers
loudly having fun.

But! It is a state park,
and summer has come;
and doesn’t everyone
deserve a place in the sun?


090525

TRICKSTER TREAT

You’re walking down a country road
through sparse woods, in a mist turned drizzle
about to turn rain.

Up ahead, you notice a dog, or not-dog;
coyote-sized, with grizzle-gray in its coat,
bushy-tailed.

It weaves down the road, as if
crisscrossing paths with an invisible partner.
It looks back at you; takes you in; resumes.
Coyote? Dog?

Casually, with one last glance at you,
it turns from the road, enters the woods,
and is gone.

You know it is gone, feeling strange because
you don’t know how you know it is gone.
You look into the woods anyway, puzzling.

Hours later, you still puzzle—
Can a coyote look like that?
Does any animal actually move like that?
At what point was it aware of me?
What does this crazy encounter mean?

Lucky enough to have a Native American handy
(as your own spouse), you enquire. And you learn.

The proper question is not,
“What do coyotes do?”
It is, “What does Coyote do?”
And the answer is:
“Anything to mess with your mind.”


090524

ANNE-IVERSARY

Enough of winter hideaway!
Maidens, to the meadow, pray.
Daisy, Iris—quit thy rest.
Hie thee to our Mayday fest.

Go ye, gowned in colors bright.
Rose—deep pink will suit thee quite.
Susan—choose some gold delight.
I, thy Queen, shall dress in white.


UNCUT FLOWERS

Daisies are in bloom today,
roses, cosmos, too;
many floral treasures—
I picked this one for you.


090523

GLORIA DAILY

Dawn comes rosey.
Dawn comes gray.
Dawn comes welcome
every day.


HUSBANDED

Life has been
so good to me;
life and he.

He’s making me
a cup of tea.


SLOT MACHINE

Muse, I use you—
over and over, again, again—
putting my little pen-ny in;
expecting, every time, a win.


***

Xealous

***


090522

XEALOT

On the planet Xebulon, a robot,
come-to-life, looks on with wonder
at the Xebulese magnificence of lands
and seas, and aches to share
the wondrous news of the planet’s
wondrous views; aches to share
(from dawn-till-dusk and dusk-till-dawn)
news of planet Xebulon.


TALENT OR NO

To write a poem about a day
is redundantly redundant.

The day is a poem.
The writing is a poem.
The poet is a poem;
talent or no talent.


090501

NEWBORN

Eighty, sure.
Or ninety, or a hundred.
Any time’s a good time
to start the life you’ve neglected.
No time like the present.


***

Wild and Tame

***


090520

LOVE PANGS

Love ya, Darlin'—
serene or snarlin'!

Love them porky-pines, too.

Would'n pet one, tho'.
Would you?


CHICKEN : EGG

insight : outlook


EAVESDROPPING ON GEESE

Huh! Huh! Huh!
Huh! Huh! Huh!

I TOLD-ja. I TOLD-ja.

Huh? Huh? Huh?


LEVELS OF LIVING (for Rhonda)

Knowledge.
Understanding.
Wisdom.

We build these, one by one.

Survival.
Success.
Significance.

Ultimately, the sum.


090519

SPRUNG

We left doors open overnight,
left outdoor lights full on.

That bird
trapped in our four-cat house
was, by daylight, gone.


090518

DIMINISHED

depriving you
deprives me too


090517

REALMS

Where these meet—tame
and wild—each of us
is still a child.


NOURISHMENT

Sitting on my bed,
looking through my window—
with cereal bowl on lap and
spoon suspended—
I have deer for breakfast.


SELECTIVE

I love to browse through cookbooks.
I love to party-plan.

I love to buy from gourmet shops—
high-standarded I am!

I love to sear those prime filets
that sizzle in my pan,
or stir a roux, or brew a stew,
or extricate a clam.

But certain things, I do not like—
and those I do not do.

I do not peel potatoes,
remove the mold from cheese,
or ever wash the dishes.
I do not shell the peas.

I will not clean a mushroom
or any earthy crop,
or stop to mop a countertop;
and so, I serve up slop.


SOMEHOW, IT MAKES SENSE

Ears go ever deafer;
eyes, ever more dim.

Heart, though!

Heart is magic—
through suffering, it heals.

The more the loss,
the more the art.

Take heart! Take heart!
The more its loss, the more it feels.


COMMENTARY

Oy, oh boy, olé, hurray,
yay and ick and nix!

Words and ways
in such array.

Life is quite a mix!


SUPPLY DEMAND

Muse, don’t be so stingy!

Don’t play games with me.
When you give me nothing,
how poetic can I be?

Is this curse, or help, or dare?
All you give me is plain air!

Are you teaching, craftily,
how creative I can be?


BACKTRACKING

You relied on me.
I relied on you.

So how did we arrive
in this pickle; in this stew?


SORRY, BUD!

Howdy, Duty—
steady friend
whom I neglect
again again.


090516

IT’S THE
STUPID ECONOMY

What works?
What works?
What works?
Tell me—do you know?

You don’t?
You don’t?
You don’t?
Ah, well—so apropos!


***

Words and Moods

***


090515

LET ME TELL YOU A STORY

Words are warmest
and most sharable
when in form of a parable.


090514

MUMBLED

The more my life gets tumbled,
the more my home gets jumbled.

Ditto for my mind.
Ooh, my jumbled, tumbled, crumbled mind.


090513

NEXT AISLE OVER, OVERHEARD

I just don't understand him:
he has no idea, no awareness,
no clue whatsoever
of how oblivious he is to my needs.


TODAY’S TRAFFIC

Take eggs with you
when you drive?

They'll be scrambled
when you arrive.


090512

NEGATIVE BALANCE

How long will it take
to techwrite this proposal?

Much, much more
than there is at my disposal.


STOLEN VIRTUE

We can be so cheerful
when we get our way.

When another does our work,
we can laugh and play.

We can be so giving—
when some others pay.


090511

ALCHEMIZING

Milking my mortality;
mourning morosely
(mostly to myself); moping;
manufacturing melodrama—

Making myself laugh!


***

Blooms and Bugs

***


090510

MOTHER-NATURE'S DAY

In bloom today,
where my path goes;
honeysuckle and
cherokee rose.


090509

ON SECOND THOUGHT

Careful what you ask for!
Snareful's what you get!

To undo a wish fulfilled,
no genie's been born yet.


090509

CARPE POEM

Fingers on keys,
mind on the day—
may there be, please,
a "pome" on the way.


090508

NO LONGER THE "BEES' KNEES"

Latest symptom
of beekeeper woes;
having to count all those
little bees' toes.


090507

FLY BY

Fly-buzzed
or -bugged?

Well, why not try
writing a poem on the fly?


090506

SPRINGY

Trees have frothed out
green and growy.

Cloud-puffs in blue skies are doughy;
flowers showy; breezes blowy.

Grass is green
and almost mowy.


WELL REWARDED

We ate lunch late to celebrate
the triumphs of our day;
helping other workers
(the help, itself, our pay).


***

Accomplishing

***

090505

IN SUM

maybe when you’re dead maybe then
they will take a look at the words you
wrote at the sum total isn’t that redundant
of all the hours of effort and creation
of whatever caliber maybe when you’re
dead they will even study it as an arc of
output that provides insight into a
corresponding trajectory of human
wonder-ecstatsy-dejection-demise-etc
maybe when you’re dead your work
will become a cautionary or laudatory tale
and will thereby serve a purpose and you
will have accomplished the good in the
world that you intended though perhaps
not in the way you intended and maybe
when you’re dead it will be a good thing
altogether


LIFE CYCLE OF A BUSINESS

1. Not busy, no money.
2. Busy, no money.
3. Busy, money.
4. Not busy, money.
5. Never been there.


090504

MELODRAMA QUEEN

Givest thou me
some work to do;
else I bid thee, World,
adieu.


PARTY OF THREE

A fried-peach dessert,
SO worth the money!

Then we added ice cream.
Then we added honey.


090503

RETICENT

As I take
some other person’s
hand to shake—

over there
stands the friend
I want to make.


PRE-LAUNCH

Four eager birdlets
with eyes black-bright
peer from their nest,
stretching toward flight.


090502

IN PRAISE OF PEN

In every writer’s life, no doubt,
there comes a time of writing drought.
But—there’s nothing like a good fine pen
to make one want to write again.


REPORT

The poet wrote,
and she won prizes.

Her work—one loves,
another despises.

Her poems—one or two
make the rest worth sifting through.


090501

INCONGRUOUS

A tech-school marquee
near the four-lane is wooing:

Come get your degree!
We train in horseshoeing!


***

Birds and Words

***

090430

RELEASE

Let it rain!

Break,
you stone-gray dome!

Wind howl!
Thunder growl!

Let it rain!

…now that I
am home.


090429

RE-DO

My long-hair “do”
was such a mess;
I had to learn
to “do” with less.


090428

BRIGHT

Yellow finch
rides dandelion down—
to ground,
to feed.


FORMULAIC

ONE snag (of needing)
plus TWO (of being needed)
equals THREE (of needing to be needed).

Result?
All caution goes unheeded.


090427

2CMPLX!

Daily life
in this techno-nation
is one long exercise
in frustration.


090426

I KNOW WHY THE
CAGED BIRDS FLING

Our finches have lettuce—
lettuce to spare;
lettuce they’ve eaten
and flung everywhere—
in obvious answer
to their “Lettuce, pray!”
prayer.


090425

INFORMATION IN FORMATION

If you can march, a step, a step, a step,
and keep your words in sync, and blank your verse
but not your brain; if you can keep that pace,
yet, somehow, keep the sense from falling out;
if you can drill until the cadence, beat by beat,
enrhythms to the pulsing of your veins
and overtakes each waking state of mind—
I bow, like iambs, to such great command;
in highest honor, I salute your feet!


BLANK EXPRESSION

Blank verse is such a lie or paradox—
no line, by rule, may end with the same sound
as any other nearby one; and yet,
just look!—you’ll find, in it, no end of rhyme!


EXERCISED

uh-ONE, uh-TWO, uh-THREE, uh-FOUR, uh-FIVE.
uh-ONE, uh-TWO, uh-THREE, uh-FOUR, uh-GENN.
This cadence, and the length of line: uh-NUFF!
My little thoughts can’t stand the strain and STRETCH—
and rhymeless verse just makes me want to—UH!


090424

UNFAILINGLY

All I ask for
is supplied me.

All I ask for
is, “Surprise me!”


090423

CLEAN-UP CREWS

Buzzards come in brown or black,
but all of them are green.

Buzzards take a lot of flack
for keeping our world clean!


090422

DELIGHTS OF THE DAY

Hair styled
by a superb technician.

Shaking hands
with a magician.


STORAGE

My garage is full
and so, I posit:
no room for a car?
It’s really a closet.


090421

UNDRESSING FOR SUCCESS

I planned to be a work-at-home
so pared down all my clothes,
and just when I got comfy,
Life said, “Go and get exposed!”


090420

LIFE VEERS

After years
of tears and toils,
Susan is hot!

Who now jeers
that a watched pot
never Boyles?!


090419

MULTI MINI-MESSAGES

Weekends are
so quickly frittered
when you dwell
among the twittered.


090418

QUEEN OF THWARTS

you needed me
to make you
my priority
then
craftily
you saw to it
that could not be


090417

MEND AT WORK

Deep, deep underground
(where baddies roam
and scaries lurk)
my excavating mind's at work.


090416

BLIND SIGHTED

Emma went out again in the night
or so we thought—gave us a fright!
You have to look out for a cat with no sight.


***

Love and Lunacy

***

090415

L’ESSENTIEL EST INVISIBLE

Today, when speaking to my friends,
I closed my eyes ...until the end.
I opened them with such a start!
I'd been speaking from the heart.


090414

MAYOR AND GUEST (for Bob)


When the conference was done
I savored most in memory
the human kindness of the one
who smiled and held my chair for me.


090413

SOUND OF GRACE (for David)

No wayfaring stranger—
nor poor in any way—am I.

Once lost, now found,
I revel in the rich embrace
of precious and amazing grace—

How sweet the sound!



[BIRTHDAY CARD]

Birthdays have their time
and place—

There’s no doubting
that one bit.

Some of them
deserve embrace.

Some of them
are full of…

[inside]

…grace.


090412

SPRING FLING

Welcome to your party?

Thanks,
it’s been a while
since I dressed up fancy;
since I wore a smile.


090411

CORRESPONDENCE

Year after year,
I wrote to the air.

Dreaming (like bear)
I lay in my lair.
When I peeked out,
it gave me a scare.

Out in the daylight,
out in the glare;
if I go out,
how will I fare?

But—kinship is there!
For that, I will dare.


090410

POMES 5¢ (forDusty)

Hmmf! Before you
go and decide
to peddle a book,
stand on some
street corner awhile
selling apples.


BUNNY HOPPEN (for Michelle)

When there’s somethin’ to be done—
Leapin’ in!

Springin’ into action.
Jumpin’ in to help.
Creatin’ satisfaction.
Spreadin’ round some mirth.

What is all that Hoppenworth?
Almost anything on earth!


090409

STRAW VOTE

Old haybales are arguing
heatedly
(in the otherwise empty
summer pasture)
for and against the proposition
that the absence of livestock
is permanent.


090408

LEARNING GRATITUDE

What I had is now supplanted.
What I had, I took for granted.

Night sits heavy on my chest.
Morning comes, but brings no rest.
All it takes to be so tense
is something to compare against.

What I have will be supplanted.
Nothing will I take for granted.


090407

EMMA’S EYES

Emma’s eyes
are clouding—
each day; less clear,
less bright.

(Near death,
when just a kitten,
Emma lost her sight.)

Now she “sees”
in other ways
as her eyes grow white.

Emmas’ eyes:
they help me see
all that is—as right.


SELF-DECEIVED (for Pam)

Said the writer:

Poetry
I do not do—
I can’t say “boo!”
to a haiku.


090406

WHO WANTS TO KNOW

What this means
I’ll come to see,
or not:
that’s the deal.

I may not be immortal.
I may not even be real.

But, scanning through the
portal of my memory
brings a certain certainty:
I have always felt like “me.”


090405

TEA PARTY

Come,
please,
soon,
to be with me;

to share
the happiness of tea.


090404 (for Gary)

GOOD NIGHT,
JUNG LOVERS,
WHEREVER
YOU ARE

I wish we may,
I wish we might
dream-dream-dream
good dreams tonight.


YOU BET YOUR LIFE

Life is abundant.
There is plenty for all.
Life is simple and fun.
Don’t worry. Be happy.
Follow your bliss.

How is a person supposed to
deal with ideas like these?

To test them, you would first
have to adopt faith in them,
and then continually
reinterpret their basic terms:
abundant, simple, bliss, life.
That would take lifelong commitment.

Is it worth the gamble?

???????????????????????????????

Epilogue: The first version of this poem
was lost to a computer crash. Dang-
dang-dang, I said, (or something like that)
as just-written words evaporated and
likely repair bills loomed.
As usual, life was offering me an opportunity
to answer affirmatively: Do you really
want to live in the way you propose?


090403

USE YOUR “INSIDE VOICE” (for Sandy)

A-gor-a-phobia.
It’s some fancy therapy-name
that makes it sound like you’re afraid
of being a bull-fighter.

Well, my bull is my brain, I guess.
But I’m getting to be a real matador.
Hey, I can even teach you a few things.

Last week, I had a major triumph.
You should have seen my doctor’s face
when I told her.

“I went outside on my own,” I said,
and not just to come here.”

Her mouth dropped open.

“Ha! Yes I did.
Went outside to a party.
A cocktail party!”

She was speechless.
I don’t think she believed me.
So I let her know that I have
therapy ways of my own.

“It was so easy,
once I paid attention to my
Inside Voice.
It told me to go out my door
and just watch my feet move.
A while later,
it said to follow some other feet
that were going inside a building.
I came to a room where everybody
was making a lot of noise.
That scared me—a lot—
being in the middle of everything.
But I found a chair, and the voice said, sit down.
Then it said,
turn yourself into a tunafish sandwich.
It was great: nobody even noticed me.”

Doc was impressed—
said she’d never heard of
Tuna Stealth before.


090402

SINCE YOU ASKED

The reason I’m home so early
from the “read-around” is this:
they told me they’re a “writers” group
and they don’t want poetry anymore.

Wait! Sorry! Wrong!
April Fool’s was yesterday.
(But, it’s nice to see you so riled.)


090401

SPRING SPREE

Lunacy rules—
it’s April, fools!


***

Critters and Colors of Spring

***

90331

MYRMECOLOGY

How do you sex
an ant?

The usual way.
(Hee-hee!)

If it’s a worker,
it’s a she.


090330

THERE IS A SEASON

Outdoors, winter ice has melted.
Ants are coming in.
Most are in the kitchen, of course.
A few have found the bed.
One, suffocating in the crook
of my arm, bit.
I brushed her off, none too gently.

In childhood,
on more than one summer night,
I pasted my ring-finger
with a firefly’s glowing belly
pinched off.

When was I innocent?
Was I innocent then?


090329

SPRING SNOW

In the Charolais pasture,
white cow-paddies disappear,
along with their mamas.


090328

I THINK I CAN’T

I lie in bed,
tired and mired.
I can’t get up.

What does this
impasse mean?

How can I get
inspired, re-fired—
get up
a head of steam?


090327

WORK-OUT

Oooh, Sweetie,
how comfy you look
on that cushion,
all primed for a belly-rub.

There you go, Kitty.
And how about a scrootch
behind the ears. Yes.

Oooh, stretch, stre-e-e-e-tch,
stretch-em-out.
Mm-humm. Very good!

Don’t you feel all better now;
now that you’ve done
your work for the day?


090326

COLOR CONSTRAST
(for Pam)

Ahead, in two green pastures,
cows are growing fat;
black and white on this side,
black-and-white on that.


090325

CHEERS!

Scouter still, at middle age,
chases tail, pounces on bedclothes,
and riles the other cats.
He’s our stir-leader.

Okie, younger, will engage
but usually prefers to make
a running commentary
about these spats
He’s our chirr-leader.


090324

ORAYSHUN

Potes an’ Asp’rants,
land me on ears!
Heed on this a’vice:

Ya gotta git yore
“i-dee-as” rit out;
an’ do that more’n twice—
them flings an’ flangs
an sturms an’ drangs;
them thangs ‘at crowd yore mind.

An’ when that’s done,
go have some fun
ritin’ ‘bout cats an’ mice,
an’ lazy dogs, an’ sloppin’ hogs:
real thangs ‘at make life nice.


090323

RUNNING ‘ROUND

Habit-bound,
one foot in a fast track,
one foot in a slow—
until I make
a straight attack,
round and round I’ll go.


090322

SPRING ARRIVAL

A neighbor, in kindness,
brought a bouquet;
a cluster of jonquils
with one curved spray
of forsythia; then,
there, at the heart—
for contrast of color
and sweetness of scent—
one lone and glorious
pink hyacinth.


090321

WAY OKAY!

When the neighborhood
orange kitty
became our orange kitty,
we dubbed him “O.K.”

“Okie” seemed appropriate, too,
since one of us hails from Oklahoma.

Lately, as pet names tend to do,
this one got shortened; to “Oak.”

In a world full of red oaks,
black oaks, and white oaks—
what do you suppose
an orange oak is worth?

Some might speculate,
but we already know.


090320

AGE-OLD BATTLES

It is so,
and so is right,
that youth grows old
as day grows night.

Right;
that youth ignores
the plights of age,
which it abhors.

It is so,
and so is right,
that youth may flee
what age must fight.


MARCH TWENTY

Spring came tomorrow
when I was a child—
on the twenty-first.

When and why this changed,
who knows?

Pluto was a planet then,
or not discovered.

In each season,
In escalating cycles,
one discovery
springs from another.


090319

FUN-DAMENT

To do a thing
day after day,
there has to be
some love at play.


090318

SURVEY

Of other people’s poems,
I attune
to one in ninety-nine.

What reader-writer ratio
would apply,
do you suppose, to mine?


090317

ASPIRATIONS

inhalations
exhalations
observed,
reveal expectations
repeal irritations


090316

ALL RESCUES ARE MUTUAL

I held my life pristine,
not wanting to be seen
or heard
or felt;
not wanting to be known.

I might have vanished, too,
had it not been for you
who found
me out
and claimed me for my own.


***

Ambitions & Frustrations

***


090315

A PASSING FIT

Where am I at home;
where do I fit in?

I’m most at home
away from home;
such is the fit I’m in.


090314

HEADY AMBITION

Oh, I have a brain
without a par!

It knows:
a door’s not a door
when it’s ajar.

It knows:
I’m still a genius
when I’m abed.

Oh, I have a mind
to get ahead!


090313

WHEN’S DAY

Prophecies a-plenty delve
into end-times.
If the Mayan twenty-twelve
really ends time,
let’s stay alive till then.
Let’s share that final when.


090312

THINKING OUTSIDE
THE FLOCKS

How do they know—
those who never go
amok,
keening and careening
through an empty sky—
how do these ever know
the flock?


090311

YOU GO FIRST

Someone needs to share the wealth.
Someone needs to give up steak.
Someone needs to bite their tongue.
Someone needs to take a break.


EXCLUSIVITY

Did you catch that piece
on “Jesus Interrupted”?
The guy says many books
were excluded from the bible.

Oh, yeah—
those agnostic gospels.

Gnostic.
Plus a bunch of others
that were like fairy tales.

They’re all like fairy tales.


INTERROGATORY

Someday
when you are all alone
in your empty house,
go to a mirror
and look into those eyes.
Look deeply. Stare.
Then say aloud:
Hey, you! Are you in there?


090310

SLAMMED UPSIDE THE HEART

You! You! You! You!
I couldn’t have imagined you—

Or foreseen
the heart-hammer impact
of this now-apparent fact:
it isn’t love if it’s abstract.


SO GOES THE NATION

Who can track the brokers,
the moguls, or the feds?

Like you,
I once inhabited the land
of look-you-in-the-eye;
and my children had beds.


090309

OPPORTUNISTS

They clamor for attention;
crowd and interrupt you;
take all you have to give.

Try to understand them.
Words just want to live.


090308

HEART TO HEARTLESS

Each of us
must do some “way.”

So do a way with heart,
even (or especially)
to people who
do away with heart.


090307

WHERE POETRY IS SLAMMED

It’s hard to hide
when you’re young and beautiful,
as I was—but all the young are beautiful.
The old are beautiful.
The shy. The angry. The confused.

Poetry reveals this—
and doing so, is slammed.

It’s hard to hide
when you’re young and beautiful.
It’s hard to withdraw into your own thoughts,
your own view, your own way.
Even when you cannot do otherwise.

It’s hard, too, to unhide
later, when your thoughts and view
and way direct you
to reveal the revelation;
to boldly go
where poetry is slammed.

It’s hard to unhide
when you’re old and beautiful,
as I am.

Hard and easy.
That’s the poetry.


090306

REITERATA

Placidly go,
even if not wanted here.
You have the right,
no less than tree or star.


090305

SHUT-IN SHUT-OUT

Hello.
I’m on a run,
with no time
to hug or kiss you.

Goodbye.
I’ve got to run;
let me go ahead
and miss you.


090304

TRIAL

I feel,
by life,
betrayed.

So
which of us
has strayed?


090303

FORKED

Here I am
at a fork in the road,
with a “mother” load
of hurt.

One sign says,
“Go hungry.”
The other says,
“Eat dirt!”

Here I am
at a fork in the road,
starving,
about to swoon.

All there is
is a fork in the road;
no sign of a knife
or spoon.


090302

TOO ERROUS HUMAN

Your system failed?
No?
You failed it?

Relax, okay?
Find another way.


090301

BRIAR PATCH

What the snare?
How the stun?

Why, again,
this begun?


***

Working Things Out

***

090228

PERILOUS PATH

If you haven’t made
the breakthrough
(said the talk-show guru),
you probably haven’t yet
suffered enough:
enlightenment is tough.


090227

FIFTY WAYS

There must be fifty ways
to make a living.

Be an errand runner.
Walk other peoples’ dogs.
Keep their books
and business logs;
help them with their moolah.

Write and edit resumes.
Be handyman or doula.
Train or coach in what you know
(unless it’s obsolete).

Turn hypnotist or fung shui-ist.
Massage the public’s feet.

Be creative, smart, and thrifty.
Make gift-baskets if you’re “gifty.”
Clowns, consider party-giving.

‘Cause if your age is over fifty,
there must be fifty ways—
oh, all of fifty ways
to make a living.


090226

AIR LAUNCH

Taking the rise
of a lakeside hill at dawn,
I get overflown (barely)
by a squadron of geese
taking the rise
from the opposite side.

Lifted
by sudden wonder,
I soar, too.


090225

SUSPENSE

This sword—
this sword of Damocles—
let it fall!

Let it all
be over, please.


090224

B’CUZ

Why write
words and lines
so short?

Why write
so little
and so slow?

Why write poems
of this sort?

I write about
what I know.


090223

POME
PRODUX

Uh?
Oh!
Ah!


090222

UNACCOMPLISHED

What’s that word?

The word for a good-looking
home interior; the one that means
clean, cared-for, inviting, organized,
welcoming, nurturing, picked-up,
uncluttered or decluttered, aesthetic,
tidy? I keep fumbling toward it;
toward or away.


090221

IN TIME OF TROUBLE

When others sorrowed, did I care?
When they succumbed, was I there?
How then, now, can I plea
for someone to be with me?


090220

PAIN

I’m told it isn’t real,
just the breaking of the shell
of understanding; just part of
life as a dream or play.

That tells me
I am an exceptionally talented
method actor.


090219

FIT, OR SPLIT

Square peg.
Round hole.
You don’t fit the job.

Round hole.
Square peg.
The job; it doesn’t fit.

Some jobs bolster.

Others clobber:
these you have to quit.


090218

I ASK YOU

What earthly use
is a cat—
but heavenly delight?


090217

THE SNEEZIES

Baby, when you get the sneezies,
that can lead to icky queezies
in your chest and in your head.

Please-y, please-y, take it easy.
You don’t want some bad disease-y.
Come, let’s get you into bed!


090216

HE READS ME

I try not to consider
newspapers, internet,
magazines, and books.

Words, words, words;
everywhere he looks.

All of these are fine.
But I, by now, have learned
not to be concerned:
the words he wants are mine.


090215

FEB FIFTEEN

No valentine of poetry
were these words
that came to me:

The ides of February
never got famous,
nor will you, you ignoramus.


***

Explorations and Discoveries

***

090214

LOVE, DO!

Valentine!
Do be mine.
You and I do fit.

Do not break
the pledge we made
to love, to live.

Do not, ever, quit!


090212

MAKING FUN OF IT

Let me tell you something, Hon.
Work is easy, work is fun,
if only for this silly quirk:
work is, oh-so-fun to shirk!


MAKE BOOK ON IT

This world:
I hold it holds
no better friend
than just about any
librarian.


SILENT SPRING,
FRUITLESS FALL

Humans,
we’re part Pollyanna,
part Svengali.
Who but Nature
can tame our folly?


GARLIC PANCAKES

The meaning of a word
like “feckless” can be learned
by doing something reckless;
using last night’s skillet, say,
for this morning’s breakfast.


ENRICHING THE SOIL

One by one, I ease my thoughts
gently from my brain.
I strew them on the open ground,
wards of sun, wind, rain.

I let them all grow brambly,
let them surge and twine,
then later, plow them under;
all to make this garden mine.


RETICENT

Hello?
Hello.

Hello to
each of you
I’m afraid
to hello to.


REVERBERATING
QUESTION

why why WHY
is IS so SO?

why why WHY
IS is so so?


WORN OUTWARD

You may suffer, but not I.

Of this,
I was convinced—
till misfortune stole that buffer
(told the lie) and,
as I winced,
rubbed away the calluses
of my indifference.


SKEERED

I want m’ mom,
I want m’ dad,
I want the life
I use-ta had.


GETTING, BY NOT-GETTING

I get my news second-hand,
like sunlight from the moon,
and filter out the harmful stuff
by not getting it too soon.


090211

OUT, DISTANCED

Poets of the ages, literary sages—
your esoteric rambles
(raptures, rants, and rages
deemed sublime by fellow minds)
leave common minds a shambles.

Bruised and stunned, we mirror shun—
or grope toward the profound
with those who deign to meet us
on more common ground.


090210

ALL AGLOW

I asked the moon
the secret
of her luminous
complexion.

Graciously
she answered—
after much reflection.


090209

BLUR OF FUR

Besides lounging and scrounging,
a cat has one proclivity—
to turn its ready body
into a furry of activity.


090208

COLLECTED WORKS

Arrogance and errors,
bewilderment, joy, terrors,
riddles you solved in grade school,
punch lines you’ll catch next year,
wheat and chaff, gloss and dross;
all these, here, you’ll come across,

I write for myself, as I see us:
I write to capture and free us.


090207

TRUE? NOT TRUE?

A tsunami
is more significant
than a dew drop.

A Nobel laureate
is more valuable
than an errant child.

A Lippizan
is more interesting
than a horsefly.

The embroilments of nations
are more worthy of attention
than a stubbed toe.

So we think.


090206

RELAX, THIS ISN’T
GOING TO HURT

You, in the corner;
under the bed,
senses shut tight,
fetally curled.
You, in the corner;
near-dead with dread:

You are the one
who must save the world.


STUCK

Crises loom at every turn.
Life has grown unsteady.
I know my world’s about to end.
I know I should get ready.

I know. I know. I know. I know.
(I know I won’t be ready.)


LIKE TO LIKE

I like
to be
around people
who like
to be
around people.


DEEP DUH!

It’s profound,
or else simplistic—
inside each fruitcake
is a mystic.


ONE TO WOW

I like the word “profound.”
It sounds so full and round—
something from a tomb or womb;
something to astound.


FAITH-BASED INITIATIVE

Religion and I parted ways
some time ago…

maybe we are groping toward
a reunion; who knows?

I don’t have enough faith
to operate on faith;
just enough to work on
a working hypothesis.


090205

ONE FAMILY, ONE FUTURE

Mother, father, sister, brother—
from nest of child,
from else or other,
we stole feather after feather.

Brother, sister, father, mother—
let’s bless the child,
all else, and other:
for we are nestlings all together.


090204

CEREAL THRILLERS

Life is bland
(as plain as bran)
without sweetness,
nuttiness, et cet’ra.

So, it’s nice
that we find spice
in each other.
(That’s our raisin d’etra.)


090203

CRAZY WISDUMB

“Enlightenment”
is progressive disillusionment.

I am a master of this state.

For example, I just heard that
“expanded consciousness,”
is a kind of super sensory awareness.

To me, that sounds suspiciously
like multitasking.


090202

ABOUT THINGS

Reading is a good way to discover
things you don’t know about;
and things that you
would never even know
you don’t know about
without reading about them first.


090201

BLUFF DWELLERS

We hold the wild at bay;
one paycheck, one illness,
one frailty away.

One hurricane, one flood,
one earthquake, one day
will strip our bluffs away.


***

Cold Days

***

090131

COLD GETS OLD

Is this our third night
in this still-freezing bedroom,
or our fourth?

We lie under fabric strata;
sheets, blankets, quilts,
and fluffy clothing,
each night piled higher.

The cats sleep on top,
each night piled closer together.


090130

ICE COLD

My toes, under the covers,
are frigid. My fingers,
in the frigid air, are not.

I do not understand this,
or why I occupy my mind
with such a puzzle.


090129

ICING CONDITIONS

For light and heat the first few days
(or, rather, nights), we had tea-lights
and bedclothes.

We read books aloud to each other,
under four cats and a quilt.

Days later, at the discount store,
we found plenty of generators,
camp stoves, and chain saws.
There were also a few candles
and something that amused us—
no matches. No matches
at WalMart!

Similarly at the grocery store—
no bread. But plenty of cake.
We loaded up on Hostess snowballs.


0901278

STILL LIFE

Where do little sparrows go?

With ice above
and snow below,
where do little sparrows go?


090127

PRAYER

As above, so below.
May it be.

May we grow:
in willingness to ask,
willingness to do,
willingness to task—
to start and follow through.


090126

WRITTEN WRONG

Be mindful
of mindless mistakes.

Mistakes are like worries;
they proliferate.
They compound with interest.

Shut the door on them
and they break in
through every window.

Mine have invaded my computer—
well, the one on my desk
and the one on my chair
(specifically,
just above my shoulders).
or, drat! have I lost it again?


090125

LAST HURRAHHH

Let’s pretend
this is my end—
a last goodbye
at point of death.

Play-pretend
this is my end—
my final word,
my final breath.

Pray-pretend
this is my end—

Ahhhsome!


090124

LETTING GO

At today’s news
of the imminent sale
of our beloved Ozarks home,
I become unmoored;
relieved of ballast—
a balloonist lifting off—
an old woman
launching another
maiden voyage.


UNTITLED

A day in bed,
but not as an invalid—
unless preoccupation
with disease and
healing counts.


090122

PRE-MED CURRICULUM

Books on health and healing
have erupted on every bedroom surface.
They litter the floor like discarded facial tissues.

In one sense,
they have already done their healing;
they have revealed my spiritual hypochondria:
I have been trying to heal from suffering
that has not yet occurred.

In another sense,
they are cornucopias of consternation;
for it isn’t my own pain I feel called to relieve.

But whose?

***

Health and Freedom

***

090121

GOOD KITTY

Come here, baby.
Yes, darlin’.
Yes, sweetheart.
Come on, honey.

Over here, baby.
Come here, precious.
Yes, sweetie. Come on.

Well, you stay right there then.
You do what you want to, baby.
That’s right, darlin’.
What a fine kitty you are.


090120

READING BROADLY

Lately,
at the rate of half per day,
I’ve been reading books.
Health-and-healing is the theme,
broadly speaking.

Broadness includes
regenerative DNA, Mayan calendar,
sound and light therapies,
meditation, chanting, networking,
biographies, finances,
and—essentially—poetry.

One biography told the story of
a successful presidential aspirant.
Another was about an Alaskan wilderness
non-survivor. He too was a success;
broadly and poetically speaking.


090119

YA GOTTA LAUGH!

Sometimes,
don’t you feel like that
close encounters mashed potato
mountain man—on a quest that is
peculiar, compulsive, and
directed toward no known object?

Well, don’t you, Spud?


090118

ALL MINE

I declare this day for me—
mine to use judiciously
or to squander being free;
mine to use just being me.

I declare this day for me.


***

Winter Drafts

***

090117

woodpeckers
swooshing tree to tree
in scallop-dip flight


ACT ONE, SEEN TWICE

Walking toward a creek,
I notice a mallard downstream;
a bright-headed male.
His mate announces herself
by flying away.
Seconds later, he follows.

“Hey!” that male probably thought
when I first arrived,
“What is this disturbance?
Oh, a two-legged.”

“Danger?” queried the female.
“Let’s just see,” he responded,
but she'd already departed.

“Of course I’m not afraid,”
he assured himself, lifting off.
“But I must stay with my mate
and protect her.”

Walking away from the creek,
I wonder, “Who supplied this dialogue?
And should I demand a rewrite?”


CALLED HOME

Ribs prominent,
the skeleton lay whitened on the ground
exactly where the body fell and died,
or where it died and fell.

There would be no removal,
no fuss of any kind;
just a sinking into and becoming earth,
a melding into the only place
the tree had ever known.


ON THE LOOKOUT

What did you see rare today?
What did you see new?

I saw a bird’s quick change-of-mind
expressed in how it flew.
And, in a sky of straight con-trails,
one that curved askew.


VIVIFICATION

Should you ever find yourself
lakeside at dusk
when a large stone nearby
suddenly takes flight,
the appellation “great blue”
will take on uncommon significance.

Even more uncommon
is to encounter a heron anywhere
that has not already alerted to you.


090116

ADDICTS

All of us are weak,
it’s said.

Some may drink,
or bet, or bed,
do drugs, or over-feed.

As for me; I read.


090115

SPECIOUS

There are too many poems
in the world;
not to mention, poets.

There are too many flowers,
species of flowers,
and species of every kind of genus.

The world is too abundant, too profuse:
too much goes unappreciated,
unacknowledged, or unnoticed.

It’s such a waste! Or else—
some Genius’s specie of a poem.


090114

CURRENT EVENTS

Planes crash.
Economies tank.
Superpowers bomb.

I write a pome,
pet a cat,
call my mom.


090113

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

An hour of poems
lovingly read
to a captive audience
on my bed.

Shall I cry
or groan or weep?
Each ear and eye
was put to sleep.


090112

BOOK MARK

I quit reading the library’s
holistic healing book
and went outdoors
to catch a breath of fresh air
when I came to the page
that had been mangled.


090111

APPLES

Everything is connected
to everything else—
apples to oranges,
Valencia to Rome.

That’s why it’s so easy
to start with a word
(“apples” or “oranges”)
and end up with a pome.


090110

PAYING MY WAY

At end of day,
I pay a toll—
a poem as a token;
words of tribute
to the day,
spoken or unspoken.


090109

PURPOSE-DRIVEN

What is life;
what’s the attraction?

- Mere expansion and contraction?
- To observe, or to create?
- Something else, if not too late?

What is life;
what’s the attraction?

All I want is—satisfaction!


090108

NOTICE

Look around.
It’s all profound.


090107

CRUISE SOCKS

My favorite pair of socks
(which I'm wearing now)
isn’t—
strictly speaking.

My right foot sports a green sock,
my left a red. This is slightly ironic,
since they aren't sports socks.

As I navigate my day,
I so much relish their red-and-green,
port-and-starboard motif
that I rationalize how pale
the red one's color is.
(Truth be told, it is a dusty pink.)
In fact, I confess,
the sock is dusty as well as its hue.
This comes of my cruising
our hardwood floors
in stocking feet (and, yes, of not
swabbing the decks daily).

The mates to these socks
have gone AWOL.
Someday, I expect they will wash up
on the shore of our laundry pile.

Unless (why not?),
as oppositely-attracted lovers,
they have eloped to some
south-seas island and now are
living, blissfully entwined,
in a private paradise.

For them, and for the record,
I harbor just such a fantasy.


090105

PARTNERS IN CRIME

Today, in broad daylight
on my neighbor’s lawn,
I witnessed a mass murder.

Black-clad mauraders
gathered under a large oak tree
to brazenly conduct their riot.
Afterwards, they disappeared,
looting eastward.

Still later, but not still,
they congregated in the street
before my house, issuing taunts
with mocking cries.

I appeased them
with stale bread and other extortions.
As they cawed their victory,
their exultation was echoed by my own;
I had become a willing accomplice.


090104

DAY BREAK

Recent dawns—
rousing glows
of peach and yellow
tinged with rose.

Yesterday’s—
a reveille;
a golden blaze.

Today’s—
a call to doze;
some languid phase
of silver haze.


090103

DREAMY

Nestled in love
under blanket and sheet,
rapt in your arms
I wrapped up in sleep.


090102

REFINING AIM

I’m bored.

No. I’m restless.
Cabin fever, maybe.

No. Not that exactly.
I’m searching for something.

I’m searching for something
to substitute for shopping.

No.
I’m searching for whatever
shopping was a substitute for.


090101

BROKEN DREAMS

Why did I wake?
What time is it?
Oh, gee, it's only four.

I want to sleep.
I need to sleep.
Oh, let me sleep some more!


081228

HOW CRAFT FARES

It wasn’t Prairie Grove,
where squirrels pelted my booth
with acorns; not there.

It wasn’t War Eagle,
where road-dust sifted onto
satin-doll mohair hair.

Or Siloam Springs,
where I lost a contact lens
overnight in the grass.

It was Joplin,
where I traded for a plant stand
wrought of iron and glass—

Someone there
sold out for pennies,
for yarn, to keep on knitting.

How many "pomes"
must I sell, by now,
to make an equal living?


081226

GROUP HUB

You who are uncertain,
like me;
You who know sorrow,
like me;

Who seek the core lesson,
root cause, and root change;
Who search, centered on love,
not on grammar or roles;
Who desire, above all,
joy of awareness
and awareness of joy—

Let us meet at the hub
of our mutual quest
and there embrace;
become each other’s joy.


081223

GREETING THE DAWN

Good morning, Morning.
My, but you are
looking grand!

Good day, Day.
What, for me,
do you have planned?

Come in, visit,
have some tea.

Stay awhile.
Just be with me.


081222

JUGGERNAUT

Unless I plan to die this year,
I’d better get my act in gear.


081221

LAST LESSON

It’s hard to die
when people won’t let you.
But that is the way of people,
once attachments are made.
And so,
expect that your transition
will be lengthened,
as well as eased.

Let yourself be held and caressed,
for this is a shared learning and
you are an advanced teacher.

Welcome home, Pilgrim.


081220

HOME WORK

Saturday’s for shopping.
Saturday’s for chores:
dusting, waxing, scrubbing,
laundry, mopping floors.


081219

A RENDEVOUS

Buzzard,
when you came to die—
somehow summoned,
there came I.

On the road as cars drove by,
you made no attempt to fly
till I slowed—
then you showed
your battered body, broken wing.

Without protest, you acquiesced
to all my role would bring:
the vet exam,
the verdict,
the needle in the vein.

Buzzard,
when you came to die—
you and I looked eye to eye.
Somehow, I don’t wonder why.


081218

PLAYED OUT

My pencil will not write tonight
(my pencil or my mind).

I search for inspiration
but all that I can find
is an empty-headedness;
something of that kind.

Instead of poet, I must be
becoming deaf, dumb, blind—
or truly empty-headed;
my mind’s been overmined.

***