“Do-Do Bird”
I was going to write
A poem
About poems, but
Poets spew this bullshit brand
Out like Hallmark cards
At a hospital.
It’s gut twisting
That nowadays folks say
Originality is a dinosaur
A Do-do bird.
So, then, why craft
Another?
Instead, paint the grass blue
And the sky red
Write a poem about poems
About poems instead.
1
“North Eastern Winter” –An in class writing
Click, click, click,
Breaks the descending snowflake silent
Mountain air, as your bindings securely snap
Into their rightful adjustment. Boots
Of tough material defend sweat wicking socked feet,
Like a knight’s armor.
Your snowboard is a sleek hovercraft
From the future. You dominate the plummeting slopes
Of this vast mountain. Nose down, trees
Blur past, as you are motion itself.
Behind you a trail of white dust clouds the silence
The control you have come to know, allows
Mastery, like an F15 pilot to air.
Thought doesn’t exist here, a void,
Free of anything but speed and turns.
At the bottom, you wait for friends
And a slow ride back up,
To do it all again.
2
“A Picturesque Moment, Ruined”
As I pulled to a glaring
Stop sign a league from the beach
Two darting finches
Zipped near the driver’s side
Of an SUV, gunmetal
Glinting a reflection of sun
Splashing into
Horizon below. One finch followed
It’s partner like siblings or
Best friends circling the edges
Of their middle school dance.
Such quickness my quill could hardly
Capture the moment. The tires rolled
So slowly forward, while those finches flew,
So fast, together, like synchronized swimmers.
The leading finch swopped low toward
Ground, wings expanded
In beauty as the tire stamped the finch into the concrete.
Two finches were suddenly one.
Only one finch danced in spring sunset, alone
I had to drive
With road kill passing under the middle of my car,
There was nothing for me to do
Except to proceed toward my dinner,
Take out teriyaki wings.
3
“Nature’s Fears” –A Sonnet
Something about the way the trees creak
Is deafening compared to the wind’s blow
In the woods it’s impossible to know
What language nature may speak
What dialect is used by the creak
For the babble is the tongue of flow
Again, you won’t understand, no
The brains of humans are bleak
Leave behind your civilization and you just may
Find something in listening with more than ears
And perceiving more with eyes today
Take in the song of peace and lack of spears
Notice blood-reddish silts, and clay
Notice humans… being the constituent of nature’s fears
4
“On the Comprehension of Magnificence”
How magnificent the war is
Going? The mad general mocked,
Whiskey breath wafting in visible plumes.
Then he growled the orders to storm the hill
War’s effect ripples through home,
Like a diving jet,
Crashing into a pond,
Not only does the water lurch,
The sparrow is incinerated,
And the lilies are crushed,
Submerged, bubbling silently
Against sunbeam javelins
That pierce surrounding murk.
And the fox is mutilated
And the dinner tables, -1
The enemy flings a barrage of fire
At our backs, their trap sprung,
Now, the massacre.
5
“Breakfast”
You crawl along limp and sloth-like,
Hair, a gray hurricane,
Following a bobbing buoy
Down to the store on 25th and 1st.
Kids pedal their furious way around your wrinkled walk,
Like blurs in a photograph.
Your hands shake, frail and weak,
Rickety hard plastic gray wheels bounce on Brooklyn pavement.
Steps greedily suck the energy from your rotten bones,
Two blue-jays bathe in an ashtray as you pass.
The portal to the Barrel whips open,
A well put together youth pops out
Like streamers and kazoos,
Flipping the open sign.
A subway crowd bubbles up to your right,
Effervescence from the underworld below,
Mixing with a gusty wind
People all squished together swirling in
Blocking your path,
A cloudy whirlpool of scarfs, faces, and mittens of red.
Finally, you make it to the Barrel’s door, in you creep.
The clock’s arm accuses the minutes after eleven am
Bottle nearly finished,
Beard soaked and smelling like curdled milk-whiskey,
You are thankful you stole a walker last night.
Cheap whiskey bottle glass smashes on Brooklyn pavement.
You slip back under a pleasant, dreamy park-bench siesta
6
“The Kids Behind the Dumpster” (A villanelle)
We live by the zoom,
And play in the now.
High above the people we loom.
Behind the dumpster, kaboom,
Orbital trips during school,
We live by the zoom.
It’s weekend, drop broom.
Light fires and blaze out.
High above the people, to loom.
All day starting ‘round noon,
Our heads and bellies only to mow.
We’re not afraid to live by the zoom.
Feasting too far, been told a buffoon.
The clouds be our home, we did vow.
Above the people? Always to loom?
Minds left without spring’s bloom.
Only an OW, no more a wow.
We lived by the zoom
Above the people we must, now, loom.
7
“It’s Common, Apparently”
A kind of fingernail scraping
Of the inner skull.
Pressure like pneumatic jackhammers,
Repetition pounding on bone,
Prodding at lobes
Of self. Dare to fight the inebriating
Glare of medicine
Cabinetry fluorescence?
Like waking to the sun’s wrath
With eyes only aware of night,
Curtains undrawn revealing
Clean windows.
The bongo cracks cries
Of bass, mercilessly down
Sinus’ den.
Eruptions shake free geodes
Of invading mucus that
Multiply like landowning rabbits.
Sand paper esophagus tissue grinds
Like flint and tinder, dry and flaccid.
Body’s inability to perform
Kreb’s Cycle.
Head for piñata,
Forehead feels thunk-ing
Of regret and dehydration.
Aloe Vera-moisturized, menThol tissues scrape like steel wool
On nostrils, raw.
Cranium slapshot: Tylenol,
Mountain spring melt;
Handkerchief.
Wipe with futility red, irritated
Skin covering a hurt inside
That should
make blood splash.
Like a sneeze that
Won’t pop.
You’re left with just the tickle.
8
“The Chase”
silent assassin smiles stalk
with fangs unseen.
eye contact’s the same
as blood in shark water.
stealthily, subtly, approach with tact.
pick up line rhetoric perfected
penetration the prize
the kill and the feast,
behind the tall grass,
unending pleasure, mountainous satisfaction.
even from the catch alone.
the cheetah loves to be reminded he can
get the gazelle
what of it, though, when the wolf ‘s
dinner is served nightly,
already hot on his plate?
when the hunter can’t chase?
when the seeker finds his prize?
what of the hunter inside?
9
“The life of a smooth river stone”
Feel the unending froth
Of river strong
Rushing and foaming away
A rock is lonely
As water never stops to chat
Never buys a drink
Always busy rushing
And foaming away
Hope maybe for another rock
To be pushed by the world changing
Spring waters to talk
In this fine-sand, river-bed lounge
Only hope there is time
Before the descent down the fall
Before the afterlife comes
Before this lonely rock joins the other
Smooth river stones at the
Bottom of the cascade
10