Potpourri

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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?


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