Curls
Little girls have happy curls
Their mothers, perms of sorrow
Curls laugh and leap and catch the sun
Perms fight and fear tomorrow
September 19, 1991
Boys’ Toys
Every boy who holds a toy
Imagines devastation
A sudden smash, a crushing crash
Or fiery immolation
So in this way his mind will play
At wild mad destruction
I only pray it dwells someday
On careful slow construction
June 27, 2013
Circles
A baby was born on a merry-go-round
Already sitting a painted horse
Round and round, up and down
The baby goes, before he knows
Who he is or why he’s there
Beyond him the world spins once every day
As a moon circles round it once every month
Both circling a star once every year
Amongst stars circling a galaxy
In a circling cluster of galaxies
The universe extends light years past counting
In all directions, on and on
What grand and final shape it has
I cannot even guess
But I know that the shape
Buried deep in its heart
Is a circle
And the baby grows
To see births of babies
And births of hopes
And births of beliefs
And births of movements
And births of wars
And the end of them all
One after another
Only to watch them born again
And that’s a kind of circle, too
The future should be unknowable, just
A puzzle solved only moment by moment
And yet I can tell you where in the sky
Mars will appear ten years from now
Precisely just there in the sky
And I will lie down that night in my bed
Appearing just there in my bed
For the planets and I circle round quite predictably
Buried deep down in the heart of time
Is just another circle
The baby’s soft skin, my skin
Grows dry as an onion’s
Translucently showing my purple veins
While my legs and arms grow weak
How long can I cling to this horse?
The more that I stare, the harder to care
And keep count of times I’ve gone round
I am ever more aware
That I’ve circled past these days before
And know how they ended and will end again
In decline and blood and sorrow
And then
The old, firmly holding onto their beliefs
Grow weak of limb, losing
Their grip on all else, and fall off
New babies are born, new hopes arise
The world seems new, seems changed
Circling
Circling
Circling …
July 4, 2013
Mine Enemy Sleep
I curse this lurking enemy
Makes consciousness dissolve
And robs me of the third
Of all my given hours
No comforter or friend to me
To make clear thoughts revolve
Through fantasies absurd
‘Till daylight steals its powers
God of Mercy send to me
A fast and firm resolve
To never more be lured
To sleep’s enticing bowers
Before curtains descend on me
This puzzle I will solve:
How it can be abjured
This taste for lotus flowers?
A mind engaged will lend to me
Such strength as will absolve
Me from the sleep that’s stirred
From corners where it lowers
Poetic Muse, please bend to me
Inspire and involve
My mind in every word
That builds your temple’s towers
I need a hero. Then he’ll be
On some quest, yes, and involve
Some others — and a bird!
A raven, supernatural, empowered
By some great and magic watcher, and he
Or maybe she, watches, through this bird,
The hero’s setbacks, gives him resolve
To keep striving, to keep going, smell flowers …
The lotus flowers …
And win past obstacles, to be
Victorious … or maybe fail! That would be
Different. But it happens to everybody
Sometimes …
Not always victories. Not always …
Sometimes …
You just …
do your best …
Not always victories, not always …
just your best …
or …
maybe …
less …
…
…
What sun through window breaks?
Oh! Good Lord.
Morning already.
Well I must say, that feels better!
July 5, 2013
A Day in a Bottle
How shall I keep one day fresh in my heart?
How shall I keep its sky in my eyes
Its wind on my skin, carrying scent
Of the blossoms of Linden trees?
Close and protected, I’d have it
Contained, always with me
Just like a sailor’s ship, safe in a bottle
As I carry it, so will it carry me
Through the rain and the snow
And the days when bright hopes break in pieces
Like glimmering icicles fallen to ground
I’ll carry my day in a bottle
And in it an essence beyond all the rest
The essence of you
The brown of your eyes
The round of your shoulder
The round of your cheek
The touch of your hair on my cheek
The fusion I felt at the touch of your skin
I’ll carry it always
My day in a bottle
I’ll never have left you
Gone wandering away
Alone, altered, transfigured
Some fairy tale creature enchanted and lost
Wherever I go my day in a bottle
Can be a loadstone
Whose reach pulls me back
Back to where I was
Back to how I was
Back to who I was
Back to what, on that day, I most cherished
The love, the desire I felt
Back to before the beast was enchanted
Back to the man who knew a great love
And never could turn from her face
July10, 2013
The Quiet Place
In the quiet evening moments, light
through flowers and through leaves
ignites and purifies them
so they glow with praise
like shards of leaded glass
betokening the saints
in windows high above the pious
or the flames on candles of remembrance.
Across the tree limbs splashing light
transmutes the dark-hued bark
to radiant gold, honey-bright
like the Chi-Rho’s golden threads
illuminating altar cloths.
I seek the quiet time, the peaceful place
where whispers of the Earth
and all the stir of smaller lives
with their concealments and concerns
and sometimes revelations
can, when I forget myself,
be seen and just be heard.
If I can onl
y lay aside
the things I feel I should be doing
all my anger and frustrations
dropped behind me in the street —
offending sins left at the church door —
then this place will be my pew;
this time, despite the hour and day,
becomes my Sunday morning.
August 16, 2013
After the Fire
Grieve the passing, leave the trees
Charred and leafless, drawn within,
To their dreams of Eden days
Step your weary steps and ease
Around the blackened limbs that in
Another time drank heaven’s rays
Sing of flames that lit the night
Sing of smoke that hid the sun
Sing a dry-as-tinder tune
Wing and paw and foot in flight
Man and beast, their work undone
All the world in ashen ruin
Scorched foundations, broken embers
Skeletons that scratch the sky
Scattered over barren ground
Of the world your heart remembers
Only these to catch your eye
Only these and death are found
Where the ferns and wildflowers?
Topless trees with life astir?
Where the garden past your door?
You’ve returned from nightmare hours
To the grave of things that were —
Turn and come here nevermore
August 26, 2013
Writing a Poem
I’m writing a poem.
This is it.
I promised (ordered) myself
to keep from my bed ‘til it’s done.
From the forest came the hunter
bow and kill slung on his back
Long his frame and strong his spirit
They are all he did inherit
From his father’s empty sack
Not a bad start, but where to go from there?
And, good God, why did I make him a hunter?
I don’t even like hunting.
Dad took us hunting, my brother and I.
He liked shooting game with guns.
I liked guns, my brother liked guns.
It should have worked out.
Should have.
Let’s try this:
From the garden came the maiden
In her arms were rosemary,
Dill and basil; and her hair
Had a primrose to make fair
That more fair, were it let be
Creaky, but it works.
Anyway, what’s a tired brain to do?
I think of Tennyson, Swinburne,
Longfellow and the like,
and eke out some lines
such as they might have eked
— If they were wretched bad poets, that is.
In the valley of the Arden
Kissed by breezes from the sea
There she plants her beds and rows
All her wealth in what she grows
These her only legacy
Mom had a garden.
She hunted beets and tomatoes,
and bagged them without a gun.
The beets she pickled,
and I ate tomatoes sprinkled with sugar.
I liked the way she hunted.
The maid grows flowers for a mother
By consumption brought down low
Hyacinths, anemones
Lavender and white lilies
One last bloom is missing, though
I can see Tennyson writing something like this
while hunting deer, perhaps, or pheasants.
Dad would’ve liked me to shoot a pheasant.
But I walked the woods with my 22 rifle
and all that I shot at were sticks in the river.
I’d have felt kind of bad killing pheasants.
I was real proud, though, when I hit a stick.
Now the hunter stalks the pheasant stag …
Longs to bend his mighty bow
Send an arrow through its heart
Gut his