poems
They extend the days
Our ancestors lacked them
Behind walls of wattle or mud
They slept long
Not prodded by the sun
and stepped out
to dawn’s silhouette of trees
They praised their walls rightly
unable to equal the power of winter
or the blaze of the summer sun
Confined briefly behind walls now
in clothes of our choosing
our modern floors keep the earth out
worms we pretend don’t exist
and the infinite creatures soaring above
invisible to us
Nature has a way of insisting
You can’t fool her, it’s true
You open up the sky for a quarter
But find the water is gone
You dig to hell for proof
But nothing is there
Where are can you go
Your new mode of movement does nothing
Though you walk on your nose to the stage
And a bundle of money is awarded
Though you primp in the mirror for hours
Next morning you’re nowhere again
So you read how to eat
And read how to breathe
Ignoring the rain and the children
Skating paved rivers and gardens of chrome
guffawing with guts made of plaster
Midway up
the sandy hill
a whale lies grounded
green in the haze of hot
November
It wants to swim
to the peak
but can’t
The houses tilt
with the tawny terrain
A pink stream
flows past
They start to quake
Then each flies off
The whale stays solid on the hill
The blue road reaching its tail
hold no ox or wagon
The pale sky receives it all
“A collection of poems in grateful homage to the animals in our lives with original photos of dogs, present and mythological, that express an enduring intimacy between human and animal and the world they share.”…K.B. Burgin, Editor Metro Midwives
Best Friend
She follows me around
and I give her the meat from my mouth
to keep her happy
She gives much relief
from freedom’s space
so you could say she earns it
And there’s more than enough for both of us
It’s not a question of starving
Still, at times, I do it grudgingly
confusing myself with the truly hungry
mired, as I am, in a pond of delight
with all refinements
yet calling myself generous
as I give her a tidbit…
gone to the dogs
“At first glance I was skeptical that a whole collection about dogs and cats would work, but you give us poems that succeed and go deep. Many readers to you!”….X.J. Kennedy, distinguished poet, translator, widely anthologized, recipient Frost Medal Life Time Service to Poetry
Landscape
Ride that protozoan
horse through the forest
Jockey in your South
American dream
Whether or not the stones
resemble skies
the train’s exhalation
underlines the mountain
One eyed trees
peer through their fans
do not blink
The molten river flows
beneath an unclouded blue
Scream to the impending storm
capture it with your breath
cheeks puffed to bursting
ready to deflate to nothing
nourishing nothing but notions
a desire to prove
you are bigger
than the sky
the sky
your impediment
Word Craft
The words are dozing
resting from work
at the nuance factory
to regain their original nature
after a life time of time and a half
Outside flocks of poets lurk
nets in hand, ready to flick
wrists and capture
the brightest, the starkest, the most subtle,
to compose poems with them,
if life doesn’t intervene
If it does, there are always butterflies
and flotillas of clouds drifting by
Too Late
The crab you think
the tide has churned
up for your delectation
has no body
You crack its shell
and sand pours out
What’s hollow
was heavy with promise
when you found it
and carried it home
ignorant that the gulls
had feasted first
Attempted Dialogue With Cicadas
Flinging this voice up
is futile I’ll never find them
singing in the tree tops
They seem to be everywhere like stars
but I am defeated
And if there be only two or three
each with continual notes
they pitch me out of my frame
into the sky’s dome
and my voice will never discover
what branches they call from
thriving while I fail to reach them
charging the air with their magical tremble
thrilling the forest as they did
when we were dream seeds
from Three Windows
About
It was a general conversation about finding
and losing, climbing and falling,
dusking and dawning Yet it was more
The air invisible to us
was replete with creatures
the flies could see
The hands of the clock were no longer there
a flashing and beeping surpassed the centuries
every once in a while
As the river flowed on we didn’t step in
watched from a millennial hill
unwilling to keep wheeling along
A Painting
For Sergio Garval
Don’t steal that bishop from the shopping cart
as he’s wheeled with a bevy of squatters
in the acrylic river Sergio creates
which is the beginning of water
All are grim in this grayness of time
luxury rampant in its cages
divas devoid of any smile
ready for a new round of business
Then a cloned fuehrer
raises a fist
and a goon in beauty shop drier trails behind
after which a brush stroke opens the sky
and dawn glimmers
having taken its sweet, certain time