Tag Archives: poetry

Burnished stones
in a bright closet
tulip flavored eyes of tile
streaming chrome
brushed leather and fleece
against dimpled knees
joints dovetail
high in the yellow daffodils
the small
river of clouds
next to the bed.

There are two swallows
standing on the porch railing
of our rented house at the beach
eyeing the ladybug
my daughter has named Dimitri.

Iridescent doesn’t begin
to describe the sheen of their blue black,
and orange feathers
punching my tired eyes
with their joy.

I could try to write a poem,
obliquely, about the day,
the wizened 100 year old house,
the photo of the tall ship
wrecked on that rock out there in 1913.
Try to sneak up on them.

I was put here to try,
still as Neahkanie rock,
with my Bukowski and my cigar,
knowing there is no way.

Winter drops the dove tree leaves

on the greasy, rain slick deck.

A chalked quote from Shakespeare

and Spring’s white paper bracts

Won’t make you return little one.

May the white rose we threw in the river

find you in the crook of God’s elbow.

the sunlight rakes
the stubble fields

silvers the windrows
rolls up the honeyed hay bales

curls pea leaf tendrils
around the split wood fences

reverberates off acorn squash
making a pale man steal fire

Standing at the bus stop
On a rainy Portland day
Chatting with my bus mates
Just to pass the time away
When some a-hole drives by
Easy as you please
Now I’m soaking in my work clothes
And freezing in the breeze

Everybody!
Breeze, breeze, breeze, breeze
Freezing in the breeze…

Damn I feel happy
Walt Disney can eat my shorts

Craig Virgin can take people to the moon in his aero rocket for all I care

I’m going to grab the corners of my mouth and shove them up over my ears

gonna lay around the shack ’till the mail train comes back

gonna hop like a one legged crow on a day old happy meal

I’m going to bloom like a rhododendron looking to get his pistil wet

Oh. My. God.

It’s working.

the wind through the blue pine needles
kept thinking at bay
long enough
to enjoy your company

A fruit bat will hang upside down
all day at the zoo
waiting for a banana
so why won’t you wait
six seconds
for me to walk
across the crosswalk.
Asshole.

How detestable, how absurd
to be upstaged by an insipid Bird
thought Elmo with glum eyes gazing
as the puppeteer smacked him
with a six foot bird wing.

Masons laid up the basalt for the cottage walls between smoke breaks and beer the skeleton grew sideways first then a chimney spine and vertebrae
the breathing started later
rasping at first
then smooth sighs
finally growling at the end when the whole thing came down in an earthquake a hundred years later

Earth eyes looked up from below through the masons beer bottle glasses as they scraped the rubble away looking for anything salvageable amid the moldy fever dreams of a hundred years of nighttime wanderings.

My somber shoes lit flint blue sparks
walking over the best parts of your grave

Tell me, did they bring you here in a human bearing vehicle?
If so you could have saved some money

The supermarket
across the street is open late
I think I’ll go over
and get champagne and a single rose
for my next corporate values trainer

The waitress at the restaurant in Kapaa dressed non-threateningly in black pants and shirt. Her sleek, long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Our eyes meet for a second and I hold my gaze for a split second longer than decorum allows. I see she is not another expat but a true daughter of the islands with the fierce beauty and wild gaze of a gazelle, her onyx eyes dark and lovely. She loses her careful mask for a moment, returning my look with unguarded island beauty.

I hear the paddles begin beating in angry rhythm on the sides of the war canoes. I have transgressed. I looked the chiefs daughter squarely in the eye, breaking taboo law. I am now subject to its harsh justice.

I am in the surf swimming for my life.
I have one small chance–if I can reach the outer reef alive ahead of the canoes full of warriors, my life will be spared. Spears shatter the water around me. Every gulp of air comes with the shouts of the blood lust closing in behind. My muscles are tearing themselves with the effort. Canoe paddles rhythmically vivisect the distance.

Shrill cries from shore. Mind split in two watching itself with odd detachment.
Vision narrows to a blue tunnel…can’t feel my legs…ears buzzing..floating…above the canoes…high over the reef…

Two Bass ales arrive at our table. “Your steaks will be up shortly,” says our waiter. A family with small children sits down next to us. The chiefs daughter picks up a stack of dirty dishes three tables away and walks back towards the kitchen. Someone brings a battery powered candle to our table. And I wonder if lived or died out there where that lone paddle surfer in the red board shorts is just now clearing the breakwater.

We slept on black rubber body bags
in the mountain hut
high on the north side
of Mount St. Helens
under the diamond hard sky
the bags squeaked all night
when we rolled over
and the mountain waited
for us to climb
its scabrous slopes
into the brilliant orange white morning
a few years later
that side of the mountain
erupted and slid
into the lake below
at least nobody had to sleep
on those body bags
again

Around my block
crows berate,
busses bray
lawn mowers growl
neighbors kvetch
bumble bees perambulate
incognizants plod along in a line
sunk beneath dreaming.

My banjo helps to seine the day’s
news from between the noises
a hardened heart
a wandering wife
a sunken fishing boat
a new car
a lost job.

Slowly it starts to ring
first plinking along in sorrow’s key
then brightly tin-hammered
then ringing like sunshine on cotton fields
ringing like John Henry
banging away at the pit face
of that coal mine
where by God no steam drill
can stop him can beat him
baby it rings like silver
all the way to Canaan
glory hallelujah damn.