Birds and Words

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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.


***