They tiptoe around back,
velvet flanks broad,
flashes of cream tails,
not raised in alarm,
but wagging in whispers,
graceful necks dipping for moss
or lifting for leaves.
I nearly missed them,
these soft, silent, beauties.
Don’t you, too.
Keep an eye out for the
nearly silent beauty,
still nibbling away
at the underside of shade.
It’ll be what keeps us going,
keeps us lifted and searching,
ears twitching, feet pattering
toward goodness and mercy.
Find and follow the tender path.
There’s still softness to be found.
Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can.
--Yann Martel, Life of Pi
we lug our guts around in our bag of bones
and being
a ticking tangle of purpose and futility,
we seek to make magic of the mincemeat
we’ve been served,
to make art of our existence
before it’s gone too soon
gone to ruin
our dance with life
a composition
ending
in death
where decomposition
takes the final bow
meanwhile, the masters behind
like the masters before
the masters like us
break
bread over the bodies
of work we leave behind,
our dusty rewards raked together
in studied elegies
of the rise and fall
of form and function,
the composition
of the naked ambition
of all who came
and saw
and were conquered
before
begging,
more please my mentors
more please for me.
Yes, the world whispers in watercolor sighs
through lemon-lime tree tops and songbirds in flight,
through apricot patchwork and tangerine glow,
she softly persuades me I’ve nowhere to go.
I bow to her whimsy, take shade-sprinkled paths,
leave briefcase discarded and footwear off-cast
take dappled indulgences, sun-skittled treats,
while light couples shadow, I follow the beats
of finches’ wings and bold insect song,
of cobbled trail and moss-laden lawn,
‘til a whisper of Wordsworth I feel at my ear,
melancholy Keats through the brush of a tear.
Shelley’s sublime catches fire in my rib,
but mostly its Oliver’s procreant crib
that justly uproots me
with riotous sound
head spinning, knock-kneed
I’m lost, then I’m found
by wind in the willows,
birds whistling spondee,
fuzz-bodied pollen thieves
humming off-key
tickling each stamen in
ramshackle weeds,
staining, sustaining
life down on their knees.
each citrus sweet moment,
kaleidoscope framed,
now central components
fused deep in my brain
for when the time comes –
when from depths I will plumb
the sensory memories
now blooming in me
the pigments of poetry
stirring inside
straining, complaining
to bring them to life.
I’m oh-so-done with the darkness and gloom
so ready to disregard heralds of doom
for greener pastures, sweeter natures
softer scenes and lesser dangers.
But can I, should I, turn away,
pretend it’s not happening every day —
the fabric and flesh of American dreams
aren’t being gutted, torn loose at the seams?
So much vicious carnage, fresh blood every day,
pooling, congealing, while most look away.
I gawk and claw and scream at the trends,
try to wake neighbors, coworkers and friends;
but so few are listening, so lost in their role:
red-blooded Americans losing their soul
to their man and his crony who’s bleeding them dry
of things they would normally never abide:
like liberty, bank accounts, morals, good sense
how long will they sit and forget self defense —
(that right they hang hats on
campaigns on,
their money and more).
How long ‘til it becomes
an ironical right that
the blindly-following right
have hanged themselves —
and every last one of us –
on?
I woke to the shrieks
of blackbirds roving.
Again.
Every day
for the last 20-something,
they’ve picked at anything
trying to wriggle a little life
out of this cold planet —
their raucous beaks slicing
as if the world is on fire,
when in reality,
there’s no way.
It’s blueblack cold and cracked here,
with frosty hearts on full display.
I wanted to say hearts unfrosted, but that would have been wrong.
The White House Valentine, with its chronic anger and bulbous, floating heads, proves that sentiment wrong.
Oh, also sentiment is wrong.
Inefficient. Fraudulent.
Surely a liberal initiative and thus dismantled completely by dodgy, draconian beaks as too woke.
I woke to the shrieks
of blackbirds.
We three wore comfortable shoes
and smiles on our cheeks
while chasing windswept leaves,
chocolate croissants,
and all the sights we could see:
the coyly smiling diva beneath her pyramid,
the Grande Dame in her scaffolding,
the famed tower on the Seine,
the tree lined boulevards,
marble-mouthed accents,
cigarette smoke and accordion chords,
the hushed blend of crepe trousers,
bicycle spokes, and Shakespeare and Company crowds.
The harsh scrape of blisters
and bistro chairs
clustered like the grapes
pressed and poured into glass balloons
poised near berried lips
as perfumed hands snapped selfies
beneath silk flowered awnings,
ribbon-braided balconies,
and stone so creamy you ached for a spoon.
All elegant and expected
and somehow, so not –
like the massive teddy bear
tucked in the crotch of a tree
and the painted elf carousel
at the street corner in Montmarte,
and all the memories that spilled
like sepia-toned love notes
from my daughters
when I spotted a stuffed bear
in the corner of my son’s closet
this Valentine’s week.
It’s February, and a finch couple
flits from branch to branch
between waxy camellia leaves,
plucking at blossoms, at twigs.
It’s early yet to feather a nest,
so maybe they’re searching for
aphids, simply sustaining
themselves in this long winter.
I, too, need sustaining
in this long, bleak winter
and turn to poetry to search
for truth, diversion, comfort,
calm, as entire branches of
our great nation are stripped
of softness. Too riddled,
we’re told, with corruption.
And while pruning keeps things
healthy, this is far from healthy —
all decency peeled and hacked
to feed and feather already
substantial nests.
And I am at a loss which way to lean
with my poems in this storm. To settle
in and steel myself against the cold
currents left after caring and kindness,
inclusion and liberty and justice for all
are gone. To write of soft feathered things
staying the course, perching in the soul,
and singing loudly for all to hear?
Or to steel myself with implements of war?
To load my poems with brimstone and
fire, flashes of anger, to sound the alarm,
to blast the eye and ear of friends,
neighbors, countrymen.
And whichever way I go… will anyone
listen? Will anyone care? As they
don’t seem to care anymore anyway.
Earl Grey Morning
Even the name of it soothes.
the violet soft of it,
purled, curling stir of it,
rising through cold
like a promise.
From dark there is dawn --
first fog, then a song.
And even the sense of it soothes.
The cupped balmy breath of it,
pressed against palm of it,
steeping the dark
like an oath.
From warmth will come glow –
soft first and soft-slow.
Easy, the taste of it soothes.
The deep woodsy heft of it,
rich malted zest of it,
breaking the black
like a vow.
From dark will come light,
cool bergamot bright.
So, for now, just feel
for the sunrise,
the wayfinding blessings
are always unwinding and
binding themselves
like a pact.
Find fragrance in the dark.
Seize promise.
Feel the spark.
Fast and furious
Apollo’s gold Bugatti
banks chlorine blue sky
asphalt, a stovetop,
boils order to turbulence,
air rifts in ribbons
lawns, deep-fryer crisp,
once locust feast, now famine,
amber waste of grain
poolside barbecues
swim-suited shish ka barbies
rotate in the heat
collarbones glisten
sweat stipples bellies, arms, breasts
salt crusted temples
silk Bernini saints
cut from farinaceous clouds
clot in curdled air
sunsets melt so fast
ice cream too, fireflies blink and
summer’s gone away
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