Best Audience Ever
With the outhouse door flung wide cigarette snowing flurries of ash on the jeans at my feet I read poems aloud to the trees— Could have sworn I heard the snapping of twigs. (from Wobbly Man, Red Dashboard Press, 2016)
Day: May 12, 2020
Cleaning the Attic
for Lauren I’ll just say it— I envy you, love. Up and down the narrow rickety stairs with (I’ll say this too) an embarrassing amount of what we kept but did not need while the real work, the work of combing the ratty hair of the past is done—dusty photos, baby clothes the mother’s day …
While Kneeling on the Ground Holding a Yellow Hammer
I must have resembled a large and shaggy hibiscus in my red bandanna worn in that vacuuming the rug, doing the dishes type of way. And my blond hippie-hair must have been stamens and pistils glinting with pollen and nectar when viewed from afar. Had I known I would have remained quite still, …
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The First Great Beast
God Digging the clouds being foaled By her fresh yellow sun And baby-blue ocean Lies on her back In her green young fields, Inspired by shapes, wobbling Out of her heavens. Hears the lowing and mewling, The bellow and roar, The thrum of the wings, The squeak and the grunt, The …
Posing with Willow
In one photo I was wearing my Sunday suit, leaning on a little cane, showing a mouthful of disorderly teeth. It was summer. You could tell by the willows, and it was not Sunday because I remember goofing around that day, finding a little black cane in the back of the garage, then putting …
Buying Stamps
Buying stamps I’m handed a book full of flags. Nothing strange, nothing you wouldn’t expect in an American store, in an American town, but I ask – What other choices do you have? Celebrate! one book says, over and over in primary colors. Another, a page of pastel flowers. I’ll take …
What Then? After Rilke
And when you agree To the wild And the dangerous habit of Love You’d make of yourself What then? What Of the awkward Swan As the night glides in His Clumsy gait Her Uncertain returning To ground? (from The Lawnmower Poems, Foothill Publishing, 2019)