Posts for June 15, 2017 (page 4)

Category
Poem

Morning Thunderstorm

Morning Thunderstorm

I hear thunder
before I carry trash out
to the roadside.
I get hit by scattered drops
of rani as I walk back
to the house.

I watch a chubby field mouse
dart from grass where the crack
in the highway begins. It stops,
frightened by me, no doubt,
not by a poet’s eye or thunder.

I get inside before rain
falls, blown diagonally by wind.
Long minutes I stand
at the kitchen windows,
looking out; seeking poetry.

I find a form poem; I see
three robins emerge as rainfall slows
to a trickle. They hop, for they understand
that worms come out
after thunderstorms end,
the way hunger & drought ebates, with rain.


Category
Poem

Go

I am in love
with going, with motion
between staying.
My Nirvana

floats, uncertain,
wavering,
a volley 
kept alive
from both sides.

Category
Poem

Night Sounds

Cricket harmony.
Rattling owl call. Chanting frogs.
Coyote chorus rings.
Bawling cows answer challenge.
Wind soughs through new sprouting corn.


Category
Poem

The First One

I want to think you are right–
the way you call ultimatums “promises”,
how you think things may change
if I talk to someone other than you
for once

(“You need professional help”)

I want to think you won’t leave–
not first–
as you grow
smaller
and smaller


Category
Poem

the one kind face

every two minutes in the backroom
of the coffeehouse the old man
asks anyone who will listen

what time it is every two minutes
exactly for twenty as one by one
people begin to ignore him except

the young man absorbed in a book
who every two minutes lifts his head
looks into the questioner’s eyes 
as if he has always known him


Category
Poem

Late Night Conversion

steamy pour of shower over head, neck, back
drain-off of the day’s residue

sudsy soothe of lavender-scented soap
fresh towel rub, herbal tease left on skin

sigh between newly laundered sheets
the tender insistence of Charlie’s hand:

We generate our own clean energy.


Category
Poem

Ode to Amygdala 

 

Sweetheart, you’ve been frightened 

enough already.  Don’t let anyone fool you.

Some of your biggest fears are dead

and buried; you can breath easier now.

Take slow deep breaths in, 

slow deep breaths out.

Never has anyone worked so hard

to protect me.  Granted, you did need eyes,

ears, nose and skin; yes, the heart helped too. 

But you’re the gal with the oldest job

tucked away in the tiniest cubical.

The strain’s been a bit much for you, I know.

We’ve been close these years; I feel your pain. 

People say you need a vacation

and, while I agree, I’m not confident I can

do without you.  But it would be nice,

a little distraction, don’t you think?  Amy, look!  

Out there!  A squirrel jumping from limb 

to limb!  See how it stops

and gazes back.

 

 

Idea from http://neurosciencenews.com/memory-fear-breathing-5699/


Category
Poem

Learning To Be A Person

An angry 4 year old
   with perceived 
      injustice —
a hurricane 
   of screaming, 
     wild and destructive. 

When the storm is over
   another rung
     ascended;
lap time, tight embrace, 
   another angel 
     tended.


Category
Poem

Phototropism

          for Jude

Light gray sky between the leaves, a splash
of cream. For a moment, nothing moves. Caught
as a photograph, not live, it’s barren. I lie still
until a bird or weight of rain relieves
monotony. The world’s alive, so I can breathe.

I lust for the resiliency of grass, thin shoots
emerging, true to sun, from earth. Where in me
do I unbend, take up the quest that I won’t know
will end, sere fallen trails of pilgrimage
crushed, yet fragrant of the time of bounty?

Hunger for the brazen earth echoes through me
like a parting dream. I will spring into the rain,
bend to all that I encounter, lift my arms
into the possibilities of air. Not frozen, yet,
removed from influence and will, I rage.


Category
Poem

head in

 
clouds
not square not triangles,
not solid, can’t be trapped
in the palm of a hand
clouds
transform
change with each puff
rotation temperature
clouds
sail, float, fly fast
across an expanse
of see through curtains
of breaths
clouds
are paintings
like etchings
made of sand
by tides and laps
clouds
like the sins of man
morph, ever present
clouds
are plays
that tell stories
to the eyes that see
the creative productions
clouds
are were my proud head
turns to stare and dream
clouds
are my poems beginnings.