Curious when Dad placed
a pinch of Copenhagen between
his lip and gum
Asked me, “Try some?”
Put the snus in my mouth and advised
“Don’t swallow it”
No sooner spoke those words
than i choked, sending
that sweet moist tobacco down my throat
Promptly turned grasshopper green &
puked on the kitchen floor—
My gawd, never been that sick before
No more tobacco for me
*I was eight years old at the time
I am hard to contain
Into qualifiers and perspective
My body moves like a gust of wind
Through damp trees
Sunlight bright like orbs
Of magic through leafs
People wish to call me by name
But my passion crashes hard
Like salty ocean waves
And thunder roaring behind mountains
I’ve heard it called containing multitudes
What if it’s simply the idea
That I am part of nature
I’m more large and grand
Than this human vessel
Can hold and carry?
My heart holding far greater
The spirit of all that is above and below me
Far more magnificent than
Adjectives and things dictated upon me
My body grows wild with the lavender
Is fertile from morning rain
Brightest of blue
Dotted with marshmallowy clouds
And on some days I am gray
Or cold covered
Decorated
With glistening iridescent snow
But no matter the day
The feeling or the inspiration
I am great
I wish to know the baptism
Of earth from waterfalls
To play with whimsy
Amongst blades of grass
As tall as me
Never feeling inadequate on the days
I feel like a daisy compared to an oak
Knowing eventually
Happily
I’ll be reduced back
To the dirt from where I came
Not Town Branch, Cane Run, Eagle, Scott, or Elkhorn;
not tulip poplar, redbud, dogwood, pawpaw, sycamore, river birch, hackberry, black walnut, honey locust, red cedar, sweetbay, or sweetgum could quench the fire that consumes my heart as much as a lovely spring that sometimes weeps with me, and the sturdy young tree whom in my verse I praise and mourn.
In these I find some protection against the onslaught of Love, through which I must pass my days as if armored, while life rushes on with astonishing speed.
So let the clear creek continue its murmuring course through limestone and switchgrass, and let the bur oak grow wise upon the green lawn;
and may she who planted him sit one day in his mossy shade and, to the sound of the waters, write thoughts both lofty and joyful.
In the robot age we would do well to ask
I have read the ancient manuscripts
That warn of dragons and sea monsters
On the edge of maps
Once the pinnacle of current technology
I know the perils of navigation and do not trust the robots
Even though there are some storied machines I love
Yes, even in these modern times,
We still need the lightkeepers
To warn us off the rocks and shoals
To guide us toward safe harbor
We must protect the lighthouses and their tenders
For the sake of our shared history and their stark beauty in the dark
But also because we do not dare place our entire fates within the grasp of the robots
Or their makers
We know that lighthouses can stand most tests and still catch our eyes on the horizon
While robots do not easily navigate delicate tasks
Like shining a warning light.
an imaginary angle
***this is fiction. should anyone actually license the aforementioned plates, this was never about you, nor any account of accident or incident***
Fuel:
To preserve the sweet syllabic kisses
of your love before you leave me alone
to dissolve against all this gruesome war,
I will have to seize the same unholy ways
of being a righteous fool. The flames of
discontent are a tender wilderness when
the residue of blue breath escapes from
perilous capture. Oh how many nights,
voices, books, years will be obscured by
the shifting heels of an unforgiving violet?
And what matters most in the Winter rain,
except for the silence? Is it the sunshine
or bleached sky of a mourning language?
Or the swells of the buttered damage?
What keeps me kissing your darling lips?
Oh, how I rejoice with the waltzing wound
that frames my entire daring existence.
©️Winter Dawn Burns
The next time I saw her,
Her face was erased,
Features hardly discernable any more
And only with the succor of overdone mascara.
“Too much concealer,” she explained
Over her customary produce,
Though the spinach was puree
And the strawberries were lesions,
White bearded and leaking.
Her physician, it so happened
Was a 19th Century medicine man
In disguise, his covered wagon
Stashed away behind the new
Postmodern medical complex.
He had cures for migraines hangnails
Papercuts laugh lines boredom
A spouse’s wandering eyes—
I never know where people go
Once they step through
The automatic glass doors.
Open and shut open and shut,
Watch them long enough and they become
Maws gnawing bodies whole,
Nothing but the city’s dark
Gaping gullet beyond.
Her voice strained, squeaked.
Her mouth sunk back into the blur,
eyes, nose, ears, hair, all smudged
like ink from a bleeding
Pen. She pulled out her lipstick, drew
Lips where the lips should be,
A bit too puffy, perhaps, as though
injected with novocaine.
Syllables strained through
The inflated lips, “I’m addicted,
I’ve lost myself.” And, with that,
She drifted from my register, beyond
My humble realm of influence,
Into a night that never spat her out
Again.
If he hadn’t said
(in front of the last-ditch therapist)
I love you but
I’m not in love with you –
You’re attractive but
I’m not attracted to you –
If I hadn’t heard
You are unlovable and
not only that
You are ugly and
even though my mama always said
Pretty is as pretty does
I believed every word.
And Imam and a Rabbi Walk in the Woods
אימאם ורב מטיילים ביער
إمام وحاخام يتجولان في الغابة
They don’t speak
Why should they
The trees shading
the trail care little
for what they may
say & no one
along their way
asks to see their
hands judging
who has redder
blood stains The
trees don’t judge
Flags of blue and
green are left be-
hind Just leaves
to fly in the soft
breeze displaying
but the colors of
fall They and
their dancing
branches make
the only sounds
No podcasters or
snapchatters or
youtubers or
tik tokkers to
pollute fresh air
Even the Torah
and Quran are
not here left
behind in shuls
and mosques
in the holy cities
their most pre-
sient points not
read just book-
marked for
another day
Inspired by the cover
of a High Holy Day
edition of the Pittsburgh
Jewish Chronicle pub-
lished many years ago.
