I meant to write more this week,
but I couldn’t bring myself to
pick up the pen and
channel dripping ink
across blank pages.
Instead, I became weightless,
cocooned inside a hammock deep
in Wisconson woods, and let
God read me Their poetry through
a bullfrogs mouth.
soft-shelled extrovert with a heart of song
your deep sea dramatics don’t make me love you any less
we are the ocean’s favourite fools
walking fin in claw through tides high and low
Thunder and lightning.
Summer comes in screaming like
the banshee she is.
8:30: immediate images of hungry
refugees, mothers clasping starving babies.
An Air Force airman set himself afire:
I WILL NO LONGER BE COMPLICIT IN GENOCIDE
Humans are biologically hardwired
to habituate to grossly immoral deeds,
one article says – war, oppression, extremism,
you name it. Not all, this airman cries.
Yet we are not habituated to the trials
of marriage, apparently. People are marrying less,
this called the closing of the American heart.
Not all. I now open the daily photos from “bebe”
Adam’s parents, not for my e-dessert reprieve,
but first thing. He with cherry cheeks and inquisitive
eyebrows, today wrapped in sunny towel with
duck beak on top, his fist full of fettuccine.
This same day, a deep sea robot reveals
that Chilean fishing restrictions have bolstered
biodiversity. A wiggling glassy blue disjointed worm
casts an aura of bright orange dust.
This must be the magic that Adam’s parents
believe in when they, too, push the headlines
aside, click their camera with delight, and post.
leaves dance with the wind
sometimes graceful otherwise wild
music stops they wait
Another day they didn’t listen,
but who can blame them
when they don’t know fact from fiction.
I come home irritated,
and refrain from bitchin’
because that ain’t the first thing my wife should see.
I’m glad the workday is done,
so now I can have fun at home
with the people I’ve been missing.
Park my car,
shift my heart,
and put the past in remission.
I’m grateful for my life
and the home that I live in,
the sunsets I see
And the friends that come visit.
I have found a peace with the things that get at me ,
for they never outweigh the things that make me happy.
I used to escape with a bottle or a pill,
but who needs a vacation when you own a forest and a hill.
Thunder crept up in the dark,
electric night air charged and ready
to crack the predawn sky
until it breaks, bursts, explodes
with the relief of a cold rain.
A summer downpour delivered
by the solstice and steam rising
from the hot rock of a gravel road.
I stand at the kitchen window
and watch a resurrection,
eerie in the ambient light of a storm
and a sunrise pushed aside.
Lightning bolts illuminate ghosts
hovering in the fog, barefoot and restless
pulled from some eternal sleep
in a hidden country graveyard
to go for one more meandering walk
while the veil is thin.
Mamaw got struck one time,
a human conductor for a celestial spark.
They put her little feet in water
and watched the washtub go green.
i love you
but all the strings are attached
and our quota isn’t met
just my heart beat blue
Rusty scum ringing
The clean green water
Like light hazel eyes
Wake boards, jet skis, pontoons
Skimming the surface
Ripples drawing the mud
Closer to the center
Of lake Norris
Thunder drowning out
the talking teens’ thumping
Music, the pink pony club,
Drifting in and out
As we laze on the deck
Waiting for the storm
