A toy firetruck that makes noise
More legos than are ever used
The simplest of crafts
and friends to play with
It really doesn’t take much to make a child
happy and the delight of a child’s heart
can touch the adults they interact with
in a way that refreshes the thirstiest soul
My friends think they’ll read my poems
one day and I think that’s as likely as
a bear eating Boy Scout Troop 8-0-8,
they think my mental pursuits are like
having someone else move the furniture
from floor to floor., who can blame them?
They think I don’t know how to screw
a screw into a pine board or an adjective
into a noun and give me attributes
I’d rather not have. They think I’m listening
to birds when I’m listening to poems
and when I write about making love,
to them it’s just another blue etcetera.
My friends think I’m a line short of a sonnet
Minimalism
less is more they say
striped bare, boiled to the bone
essence left alone
Surrealism
umbrellas raining
crawling ants and melting clocks
wearing jello socks
Impressionism
mingling colors fuse
matter turns to fluid light
dashes shimmer bright
Let me see:
you are prodigiously articulate,
erudite, sagacious,
and astutely discerning.
You are the perfect mix of
jocularity and sympathy,
sensitivity and wit,
the paragon of verbose perspicacity.
And how very, very
serendipitous it is
that you are mine.
of the great expanse
of the Fitness Center parking lot,
one tree surrounded
by an island of grass
stands alone in a sea of vehicles.
As I emerge
from my car I spot
a peculiar and unlikely sight.
I keep inching closer to be sure.
And yes it’s true.
A baby bunny
chasing three crows around
the only tree in the parking lot.
The rabbit charges and the crow
flaps away. And then again
with the next crow. And then again.
At first
I thought the hare was aggressive
in its attack, though the crows
didn’t seem threatened, just
moving out of the way, as you
would brush aside an insect.
Who would believe this?
Seeking confirmation,
I point out this bizarre sight
to another woman getting out
of her convertible. They’re playing,
she said. And of course they are.
Our news channels so choked
with conflict, it slipped my mind
play happens spontaneously
in nature. I walk into the gym
renewed, a livelier bounce in my step.
proclamation: I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing
somewhere along the way
I stalled out
or missed a turn
admission: I have a hard time letting go
which leads me to believe I, perhaps, made a way out of little in order to
stay
all the while, the Impetus had other plans
or so it seems
how can one be sure?
today I’m certain of very little, as far as what’s next
I’ve asked, hinted, shouted, cried
yet here I sit
front porch on a hot day
familiar, yet achingly so
response: answers will come because tomorrow is consistent
it always follows today
Winters, after sowing
flower seeds in plastic trays,
then setting them
in the warm garage
under a special greenish light,
my father watched,
waited, to glimpse
the tiny green heads
pushing through
the soft, silver-studded soil.
When we were dating we’d sit in a canoe
in Jacobson park
and we’d type pages of poems
on your typewriter
using specially selected
colored paper
You’d let me steal your cigarettes
when they were half finished.
We’d sit at your kitchen table
and draw page after page
of house plans, diagrams for made up worlds,
tarot cards, poems that swirl into curlicues
Or drawings and poems that you fold and add on to,
so that no one sees them in full
until the end
We’d sit in the back yard,
on the wooden swing
sipping cold creamed coffee
from dazzling cups
I’d read to you
Or you’d tell me long elaborate stories
and I’d paint them
Or I’d tell you about the future cloth-bound volumes
you’d make of your stories,
The accompanying art and merchandise
The millions of dollars
floating by on the breeze
like fluff balls
Emanating from your
Bird’s nest hair
Or we’d lay on our backs in the dark
with swirls of orange, pink and
green lights murmering
all around,
Swelling high to the tops of the giant trees
church bells sounding
within my soul
Nowadays we sit in the hammock or on the side wall,
the morning or evening
giving us colorful pulsing planets
or slanted half moons
or neighborhood cats and dogs
Racoons, possums, crows, vultures
a cast of human characters too
Now I listen to all the inspired or
flummoxing parts of your day
you tell me what you think of my new painting
or I listen to incredible music you coax
from the piano or the $6 goodwill
children’s guitar with three strings
or the keyboard, violin or piano
we lay there and play word games
or crosswords
and drink coffee
from those same dazzling cups
