haiku 29
my color mix mind
calculate paint hue nuance
scout spectrum pathways
On a wobbly wharf
a row of tall totem
elders, hands fisted,
stare sternly over
sea-green water,
guide boats home
like lighthouses.
Moored canoes bob
with each wave,
knock against rot.
Big hand mine, five fingers wrap
his small hand palm-sized
just hold on for a minute – note
this soft pink skin turning to sinew
while I hold it, while I think
I’m watching but when I blink
the baby’s hand is bigger
and my own big hand is gone.
First day in new school–
Sixth grade– smelled like sour vomit,
Tasted like salt in a cake,
Felt like a might drowing in the deep end of the pool,
Looked like a crowed prison camp,
Soundedl like a grave digging,
Prelude to a prolonged nightmare awake.
The goldfinch is just a shape in the fig tree,
a density among the leaves, which I know
by their shape, & the fig-shaped figs
that the goldfinch is eyeing,
wondering, like me, when
they’ll be ripe.
The cardinal in the gingko, calling for a mate—
I know him not by his famous bright color
but by his spiky punk haircut,
his bandit’s mask
& his song.
It’s all black & white cinema, whites & grays
floating in a lake of Rembrandt dark.
It’s what I’ve have to work with,
what I’ve been given to make
the most of.
The profile of low-lying clouds lit from below at sunset,
the outlines of waves as they crash on a beach,
your eye like a black plum
in a bowl of cream.
Sometimes slow
is the fastest way to go.
Forgetting
is often how we remember.
Marcus Aurelius was Emperor.
He made time for philosophy.
make a depression
press! press on a common heart
as big as your heart
often otherwise
to do to do check them off
as you check those too
his common concern
nothing toward this will help
with any advice
close and go away
go with questions instead of
the same by taking
without feeling your
heavy breath or breathlessness
this is hard enough
This morning, me and Billy lost a calf
driving the herd ‘cross Red River.
Boss man cussed us, docked our pay,
but Billy said he don’t care ‘bout that.
Said if all I loved was money, take his half
an’ go drink ‘till I ain’t got no liver.
Told Billy I was gonna stay
and weren’t in no mood for no spat.
I tried a joke to make Billy laugh,
but he called me a dirty fibber.
He was mad, and turned his bay,
and rode off down the flat.
Someday they will be an epigraph
to make the cowpokes shiver:
In the end, every old cowboy rides away,
broke, alone, no horse, no hat.
