Poetry
9 1/2 Hours Into Daylight Savings Time
Post breakfast/ My youngest’s
/ Boychick kids/ So close both/ Often mostly/ Seem as if sibs/
Oy same skin/ One organism
AT THE CROSSROADS
Crossroads,/ heavy rain,/ woman in thin white/ fluttering dress,
faceless signalman/ in gray cape
/ and tall rubber boots,
Acts of Stopping and Disengaging
Apologies from my reality to yours,/ I shouldn't have parked it so close here,/ Now there's a contamination, colors and chimes
FINDING MY WAY
Even in the womb I was spouting words like,/ “It’s a dark, cold wind gonna blow the doors off this ship/
which will surely wind up at the bottom of the sea!”
THE WAY IT’S ALWAYS BEEN
It was completely dark and then smoke filled the air./I could feel it in my lungs./ I yelled, “Run!” but then realized there was only me.
Don’t Know Where, Don’t Know When
The counter in this game is a love-object/ who unforgettably, unforgivably/ left, or whom you left and now feel bad about.
MEETING A SEA GODDESS
Because you fell fast through her shipwreck dream/ red tides bit, kissed, cut you. Rusted iron/ from ghost ships wounded you.
I’m Mr. Blue: When I see my baby/What do I see/Poetry/
Poetry in motion (Johnny Tillotson, 1960)
…You'll never know how great a kiss can feel/ When you stop at the top of a Ferris wheel/ When I fell in love/ Down at Palisades Park…
THE PACK
On the wooded slopes above the village the pack is on the move./ It is a silent brown blur from this distance but we all see something.
Black Friday Blitzkrieg
Phase zero commences, year of our lord/ and all that, counseling,/ sheltering, and first aid,/i.e. resources for you, are here,
THE THOUGHT
Yes, I am so rich that I hold my wallet close to my chest/ before I pull out a bill, but even then people crane their necks/ to look inside.
Nighthawks
In her notes (she made detailed/ notes on all his paintings), Jo/ describes the waiter inside the counter/ as young and good-looking;/ I see him/ as old, holding on to what he found during
the Depression.
SONG ON SPANISH THEMES
His boat—a thought that ran away—/
he built for her. She didn’t know/ his name, his face, his dock. He sailed—/
most nights—swiftly. Some others, slow
as a new moon, pulling tides low.
Grounding the Moon
Look: with a long iron rod/ I’ve hooked and grounded the moon./ It was only an old kite tangled/ in a dead pine. We can sell it,/ or present it to a museum,/ or tack it above our fireplace/ above the photos on the mantel.
The Lion of the Spirit
That roaring you hear is not/ the lion of the spirit. Most/ likely a big truck grinding up/ Temple Mountain, the night/ collapsing all around it./ We don’t disparage the effort