Posts for June 13, 2018 (page 5)

plum branch hangs fruiting
now just the size of my thumb
never much sweeter

Most heels go,
Click, click, click
Like the nails of a well-groomed poodle
Prancing across a wooden floor.  

Mine go,
CLUNK, CLUNK, CLUNK
Like an elephant wearing wooden clogs,
Lumbering through an echoing hallway.

I don’t have to be your first love. Everyone deserves to have and hold, even if it ends before we’d like it to. And I don’t need to be your only love. I’ve seen the size of your heart, it’s many rooms, and know there will be vacancies I can’t fill. Wanting you to live forever, expecting that I won’t, I don’t want to be your last. Remembered, yes, but only as preparation for better.

The coach warned of the impending doom borne from our shared weakness,
Looked us all in our eyes and into our souls:

“Soda will break you down
Strip you of energy mercilessly
And tempt you to drink its venom once more
to remain in its ugly trance.”

“You must resist.
Pour water into your stomach at twice the rate.
If you want it, then you’ve waited too long to have it.
If you don’t want it, keep drinking it.
Or you will become a shriveled petal
And die behind blooming flowers.”

I take my first sip.
Throw away the rest of the poison stored in my cupboards.
And welcome myself into a watery hell.

Only now do I know ‘mine’ cycles. 
From sandbox to nursing home,
Stuff that’s ‘ mine’ defines one. 

For the first quatrain, we pull stuff
To us like a lifeboat, on which we 
Work as if that vessel was sinking.

Quatrain 2, we polish and replace,
Stack stuff two by two or more, each
New thing to quarantee we survive. 

Third Q, and we begin to wonder 
If all that’s stacked is worth the effort
It takes to keep the pile from mold and rust. 

Then to fourth q, please get this stuff
Out of sight, give it to Good Will, save 
It for the kids. Just move it off my deck. 

Stuff didn’t save us from gravity, age, or
The barnacled boat gone to port. Wonder if
Early knowing might’ve writ a better page.

Only now do I know ‘mine’ cycles. 
From sandbox to nursing home,
Stuff that’s ‘ mine’ defines one. 

For the first quatrain, we pull stuff
To us like a lifeboat, on which we 
Work as if that vessel was sinking.

Quatrain 2, we polish and replace,
Stack stuff two by two or more, each
New thing to quarantee we survive. 

Third Q, and we begin to wonder 
If all that’s stacked is worth the effort
It takes to keep the pile from mold and rust. 

Then to fourth q. please get this stuff
Out of sight, give it to Good Will, save 
It for the kids. Just move it off my deck. 

Stuff didn’t save us from gravity, age, or
The barnacled boat gone to port. Wonder if
Early knowing might’ve writ a better page.  

Only now do I know ‘mine’ cycles. 
From sandbox to nursing home,
Stuff that’s ‘ mine’ defines one. 

For the first quatrain, we pull stuff
To us like a lifeboat, on which we 
Work as if that vessel was sinking.

Quatrain 2, we polish and replace,
Stack stuff two by two or more, each
New thing to quarantee we survive. 

Third Q, and we begin to wonder 
If all that’s stacked is worth the effort
It takes to keep the pile from mold and rust. 

Then to fourth q. please get this stuff
Out of sight, give it to Good Will, save 
It for the kids. Just move it off my deck. 

Stuff didn’t save us from gravity, age, or
The barnacled boat gone to port. Wonder if
Early knowing might’ve writ a better page.  
 

Nobody got hurt.
No cars wrecked, no play dates missed.
Grandparent success.

If you need to modify a base shape,
choose to generate an air smile.
Far too many frames are blurred,
for entire empathy file.

watching wrens

brown thrashers and other thorn
birds shuffle their decks of cards 
as i kneel to examine swollen orange
mushrooms with cantaloupe skins.

wrens cooperate in this irrational
forest, destroying a swallows nest.
the pair hold their tails upright, like
halves of a lifting bridge.