haiku 23
you interrupt at
the most inappropriate
times but I love you
Wednesday nights
in the gingko-lined parking lot
behind the main library
a father and daughter feed the homeless
gathered below the M. L. King overpass.
As we hurry through the alley
to the Kentucky Theatre,
we give a woman the dollar
she claims she will spend for the bus.
Inside, to organ accompaniment
700 moviegoers sing
“By’n by hard times comes a knocking at the door”
before the start of Funny Face.
our waking experience can be here
what our dreams bring
opposite of absence seen
dreams know when
the connection is frayed, we lose
trust pays the price
hear the dream soak
in another breath as we slow down reason
for a new way of being
both loss and hope released to work
lovely and tender teaching
with soul, with moment
the dream longing for the dreamer
and how much mattered
deep in relationship this way
Soft, slow, methodical breathing
The cat watches from the closet
Kind words morph into deeper meanings
Your heart is beating
Louder, harder, faster
And when the sun woke my tired eyes, you were still there
but it’s Saturday and we’re
here showing ours: broke, tonguethick. Our husk betrays
how close to the surface the tears
may catch in our throats. Outside is stormcloud,
the light, its gloaming from orange to gray.
Life can hardly be free from fear,
from want, from death. And there’s no answer
why. We always knew this.
So,
hungry, together, we suck on butterscotch
and sip Diet Pepsi–each thinking
our own thoughts, each trying.
The sky could burst
at any time.
And across the street, the clouds
bruise, and the train pulls on
behind the treeline, calls
“Woe– woe–” and we listen
like we haven’t heard it all before.
You don’t
have to buy
my book
of poems,
no need
to turn over
even one
new leaf.
Really,
no worries,
it just means
the first one
I wrote
about you
was right.
The child on stilts is blurred out and rises up, not fully in the frame
(we have all been the oblivious child, the one that got protected)
another with hands on hips gazes after him, muscled brown arms at the ready
(maybe we were the Sassy Girl, alert, but back turned)
The photographer chooses the Tough Girl with a direct gaze
(is it exploitation if this is your own child? She has seen it all)
Pretty face but haggard; all-too-knowing
(hair tousled but framing her face just so)
Wearing the ruffled sundress of a much younger child
(arm snugged down to keep it from gaping)
Cigarette held expertly, this is not a pose
(Incongruent wrist watch – who needs to keep time?)
i.
Some days I’m spilling forth.
I’m built backwards and crooked,
A one horned devil in a flood.
A storm quelled by clockwork,
Countcalmed and gracefallen,
Lulled into rest by her seconds hand.
ii.
A flourish, bloomcharmed and grinning,
I awake in a garden again.
All poppy eyed and morning glory Morningstar.
If I can burst forth flowerbold,
She can count them quartetsplit.
Blissful among shared joys.
They work methodically,
terraforming the nascent planet
of a new fence post,
discarding petrid piles of mildewing
sawdust from the savory underbelly.
When I go out to set the traps,
they surround me like shepherds,
inviting me
to admire the spread
of their opulent tunnels.
They will not
be shooed from the liquidity
of human intention.
