Mint
on desert’s edge rub
the scent that transports childward
to cool backyard garden
It’s wake and bake
with a weekend reprieve.
Then back to the 90’s
and even 100 next week.
I think Mother Nature
might be confused.
Or she is angry
and letting us stew.
I moved from Florida
to get away from that heat.
Then I see my alligator planter
smiling at me.
“Get that smile off your face,
or I’ll throw you in the lake”.
Yes, the heat
is getting to me.
An attitude adjustment
is in need.
So, this weekend
I will regroup,
gathering strength
for next week’s soup.
Will I throw one for two
Chrips and flutters
are the only answer
One act
Rear my arm back
like a little boy
palm first
Can I throw all existence
and interrupt two jays who
chatter from a honeysuckle
bush – rush their thrust
for flight
Who knows one stone
Who knows two birds
Yes, the jays annoy
anyone who cares for
fairness, they’re trying
to get more than just
the seed they need
Could this be what God meant?
One for two
And where is Zero
The jays say zero is betwixt
one and two, us and you
My arm is locked & rocked
Two birds One stone
and the infinite space
between intent and act
Enough time for the big bang
and the formation of black
holes and the whole universe
to stop
Forever
I got past the shaky usage
Of “to journal” as a verb.
Yet I never wrote one entry
— Nothing lengthy nor a blurb.
I believe I’m well-adjusted,
And I studied counseling,
But I didn’t hit the keyboard
As a self-healing wellspring.
Yet when 2020 happened,
With its virus and George Floyd,
I started scribbling daily;
It became my Sigmund Freud.
But it wasn’t free-form writing
That I turned to every time.
It was poetry in motion
‘Cause I like to make things rhyme.
Donnie:
basketball team captain
soccer scoring records
National Medal of Honor
CEO of global companies
survived by his wife and
seven children.
His name was Dieudonné,
which means God-given.
I recall his compliments
to me, dusk, a soccer field,
pillow lips.
that she loved him
desperately never
dawned on her
until too late.
before she knew it
she was too far gone.
it all started with
the difference
between
shale and slate,
a curiosity they
discussed
on a
class hike they
went on.
but as they
did linger to ponder
those old rocks
they found themselves
for the first time
alone.
he thought nothing
of it, to be sure,
but to her
the river wept
and all the birdsong
wailed. The woods
accepted them
as if it had been
centuries in wait,
as if their spirits
coalesced in communion
with that place.
she’d fight it
for years,
to no avail.
but already
she was
a hopeless case.
that night she wrote
him the first love poem
of a million more she’d send.
she looked up slate and shale,
and simply copied
the definition.
after she read, she closed
the book, tears like
that river in her eyes.
“slate starts just
the same as shale,
but under
pressure, over
time, does
metamorphosize.”
Light dimmed like a firefly crushed
by your biting fingers keyboard
curses thrown daggers to my
spirit put back in the jar pressed
into the form of your expectations
Too sensitive
too sensitive
I run wild
escape the confines
of this mental
dungeon until
I am caught again
Firefly in a jar
waiting to die
I am the descendant of a long-lost sailor,
a red haired Celt who washed ashore,
saved by the arms of those warriors
from the rocks of Sicily.
Descendant of a black-haired beauty
who bound his cuts and soothed his burns.
He fell in love with her and did as young lovers do
with what warriors and the sea have in common.
Now, no one is certain how many grandfathers
have been born since his marriage to our clan.
No color photographs to show each generation’s mark
of copper hair, waiving in the sea winds.
