Back Porch: Morning after the Debate
panoply of bird calls
a United Nations of song
combined under the canopy
panoply of bird calls
a United Nations of song
combined under the canopy
The summer air is heavy with the taste of popsicles
Dripping across the horizon
Staining the clouds in shades of red and orange
Leaving behind a sticky film on my summer skin
When I put my pen to paper
The result is only partly mine
The words that flow through me
Only do
Because half of me, is you
Your writings are scarce, but there’s always been a poem on the fridge
The School Bus
In all of your favorite pieces
You recite poetics about how much you love your kids
Oh, honey bunny, honey bunny
You make my life sunny
My funny honey bunny
The song you’ve sung to me countless times, in an exaggerated baritone
You don’t know how much that rhyme means to me
no matter where I am
When I hear it
I’m transported home
Each stanza I transcribe
Will always only be partly mine
Because my love for language was given to me
By the parts of my mind that are half of you
Until the end of time
To my first wife:
Just past teens when hitched
by my uncle priest. You, the
oldest of nine brothers
on a tobacco farm, had
a knack for being the boss
and I, an emergent slug
from six years of seminary, had
a knack for following holy orders.
The early days like dressing
on a salad, trying out different
flavors until we settled
on log cabin in the wilderness
with two babies (boys of course).
What words could describe how
we survived the blizzard of ‘78?
After that there was lots of thunder
blunder and a flashy rain that washed
away what we had.
Easy now to account for 2 decades
with a sentence or two. We’re country
neighbors and tip our heads when
we pass on the road.
One keeps gently probing,
careful in exposing each layer.
The dig is recorded for review,
the object no further damage
added to what years have done.
The other seems relaxed, casual,
fear betrayed by shifting eyes,
as if the walls could reflect peace,
could absorb the pain caught
in his mind like a spear in bone.
Calls and responses, clinical, soft,
broken at points by friendly banter,
all of it part of the recovery effort.
It’s a long process. The hour is up.
They agree to a session next week.
(after an unattributed photograph of a spear-pierced bone, found at https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=341525778498614&set=a.144253828225811&locale=zh_CN)
Who’s the fool
I try to fool
Question mark
He/she/they/we must be important
Ellipsis
Why else
do I pimp myself
dawn to dusk
none to trust
searching for a friend
Question mark
Are you the fool
I try to fool
Question mark
You must be important
Period
Question mark
Who
are you
Paragraph break
Are you going to steal my thingy
Save and close
Easter bells chime, a tradition’s gentle hum,
If life is change
why do my days feel the same?
The sun rises, it falls,
in between I give someone
my precious time,
compromise my beliefs
to keep the peace
and the fuel gauge above E,
numb to it all
even to the ticking whiskers
of the cat-faced clock
that meows the hours
my wife hung in the kitchen
because she thought
it made sense there.
