My arms surround you while drawing me close to your warm embrace in turn.
Lift your face to me and press your lips to the matched desire of mine.
Our tongues flash across each other while lightnings duel in the southern sky.
Stroke my lips with the sharp brush of your teeth painting stars behind my eyes.
Let me fill your mouth with promises of passions to make this kiss pale.
Oh, this simple life I’m building here at the
edge of this hillside with dew berries and
day lilies, rat snakes and morning glory
vines twisting around every fence post.
The one holding laughs after dark and
peaceful solitude in the dusty rose of dawn,
where I find snail shells and pine cones
and circular fungal patterns in leaves.
Where I meet friends to look for hag stones,
add more rocks than I have room for to my collection,
stow away bits of wood for later projects, and our
conversations fill me up with more to think about.
Where I mix dough with my hands and
forget coffee cups on porch rails and eat
peas straight from the vine while
my dog follows at my feet.
Where I have cuddles at bedtime and mud
finger-painted across windows and s’mores
and stories and little fingers in my hair
twirling to the rhythm of high-pitched hums.
These small joys, all stitched together,
holding my heart against that great big
scary world out there where not everyone
has a home like this to shield them.
My love burrows like sand fleas
Riding the froth at the mouth
Of the churning gulf tide
Digging in and clawing backwards
Or beaching up in the dry sun
Waiting in shallows to be eaten
My love’s bones litter the coastline
Ghost-white and hollow, crumbling
Never containing much of a life at all
Something easy to crush underfoot
Something that bites back but
It doesn’t hurt much or last long
In 2014 the Maysville, Ky writers group, Old Washington Wordsmiths, sponsored a public reading by poet laureate, Frank X Walker. Local businesses donated the funds for Frank to also conduct a two hour workshop for local high school students interested in creative writing. Following is a part of my journal’s impressionistic recording of his lecture. It contains two of the five parts of his presentation. NB: these are not Frank’s exact words, only my own poor
interpretation.
1) Visual Perspective
A straight line
On white paper
Is an Open Door
Two beautiful women
Stand on each side
One in, One out
Add a line
That looks Capital
But you’re not allowed
To say L
It’s a literal deadend
A clock eating stillness
An alleyway with
A chair flipped
Sideways
Go up with a line
And you have
A field goal
Steak knife
Swing
One across the top
A rectange becomes
A book-the bible
A podium, a slammed door
Next a circle inside is
A camera, caution
Light, full moon,
Bird’s eye view of
Sledgehammer, looking
Down the barrel of a 45
How can this figure be
All these things?
You do it with words
2) The Myth of the Wooden Teeth
imagination, imagine
you’re a black man
in Mount Vernon, singled
out for inspection,
of the mouth, open wide,
wider, wider, three
of these will do, then
five men holding you
to the ground, metal mouth
wrench like a hammer
to the head, this is you,
YOU, left bleeding there
writhing, a dirty rag
to staunch the bleed,
this is you, part of you
in a museum, not as you,
but as Presidential Denture
stopped worrying about weeds
an age ago, when
tendrils, branches,
clutter of stems rooted,
then flowered, then
bore fruit,
nectar and berries and
leaves and all that
we eat, or life eats
which sprout forth
from yard and garden side
to sustain and fulfill
and show all who watch
that providers, and provided,
can live in harmony
without temptation
of the blade
We love rotten cauliflower,
the rottener the better.
Throw a little pickling spice
and some salt
and some bottled water
into a half-gallon jar
with one head of cauliflower
and let it sit rotting on the counter
for weeks or a month, however long,
until it is good and rotten. Really
it’s called fermented but it’s not like wine
which would be pretty gross.
Can you imagine cauliflower wine?
Or maybe we should make broccoli wine
but that might be worse. Who knows,
maybe cauliflower wine would
be just the thing to serve with cat brains
or picked dog feet. Okay, so now
I am getting really gross.
I guess that what happens when you eat
too much rotten cauliflower.
beauty, riches
glory and glisten
walls lined with jasper
saphire and sardius
sparkle and splender
sensations abundant
He had it all, but chose
like king edward
the eighth to relinquish
the throne for love
The end is in sight–
The end is there–
The end is soon–
The end is on its way–
The end is almost here–
