Thoughts on a poetry reading...

(Lune)

A clarity of purpose and

Phrase. Digging deep,

a furrow of the heart.

(Couplet)

Crossing a ford into a river of words,

Littered like mites on the wings of the birds

The flox and coreopsis bloom at their flight,

Nested into the night, into the good night.

 (Skeltonic Verse)

A poetry reading           

in all of the hustle

with all of the bustle

and even a minor tussle

the words have muscle

The words

made us move

we danced on our hooves

and we even grooved

certainly renewed

and we left

with a greater sense,

a little less tense

a space to recompense.

(List Poem)

Purple punch on the table

Cookies stare down diets

Fat strawberries chocolate dipped

Cheesecake rectangles with

Blueberry kiss

Open door on its hinge

Lights barely to tinge

Words do not impinge

Audience: do not cringe

(Ritual Poem)

I open my hands

And push my fingers

Together.

Locked and reverant,

Facing north and up.

Double-fisted hope:

“Please Lord, let our

hearts touch, if briefly.

Let me gaze up to your

Power, even if underfoot.

Lord, crack me wide as your

Lightning cracks night’s

temperate sky.

And Lord, give me what I

Lack so I too can be gracious.”

—Amen. 

"My Grandmother's Closet"

“My Grandmother’s Closet”

My grandmother’s closet held things I didn’t understand.

Things that were too big.

Shoes and purse straps and dresses

too threadbare to make public. There was wrapping paper angled

in the corners and rain nets balled in the pockets of coats…

Old makeup kits and curler sets

crowded its floor like broken headstones. 

Buried souvenirs from day trips and week-long vacations

deep in its crevices.  She also kept her overflow of sewing materials

in baskets and bags

careless and cascading among overstuffed

boxes and empty suitcases. 

Boxes of things unopened and new and forgotten or decayed. 

Something surely drew her attention away. 

She used her closet to keep secret birthday and Christmas gifts.

It was a place we rarely ventured. 

I imagine she kept these items because

she no longer

thought about them.

Collected

and amassed.

I wonder how often she thought of the things there

never moving and bearing the weight of new things.

Bearing the burden of time.

Layers of things compressed into sediment.

I suppose those things stood as a kind of archive

for her life

fossilized and hardened. 

"A Vacancy"

The dirt reminded me of

coffee grounds. Fine-

tuned. Loose and spacious. Arid.

Dry. Perennials once grew there.

The bed now

bleak by time and inattention.

"Tilting"

Those days we sat harmlessly

Kicking water at

the sand. The pelicans meeting

the sun in a head-on

collision. For what

it’s worth, they never did

make it. Neither did we.

"For Lillian"

That look, yes, that look

            Pierced even the shadows

The child’s sentiment shifted from

            What was to what is

Staring up at—us, our figures

            A frieze of a daggered Greek Chorus

What once made her safe provided

            The alchemy for what stood

The child’s sentiment shifted from

            What was to what is

And we bickered and fakely bantered,

            (For her sake).

What once made her safe provided

            The alchemy for what stood

And she drew the blanket and the animals,

            A talisman around her unlined neck,

We bickered and fakely bantered,

            (For her sake).

Yes, I broke the “Golden Rule”—I

            Cursed her mother and made fodder of my words

She drew the blanket and the animals,

            A talisman around her unlined neck,

And we left that room together, though

            We could still hear her cries, muffled, through the plastered wall.