Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Sonnet Nine

Sonnet Nine

When morning first broke through the open shade,
I gazed to find what darkness kept concealed.
A tidy ocean bed that God had made
spilled quiet on the shore that dawn revealed.
Beneath the milky cast that hid the sky,
a row of surfers waited for a wave.
On shore a flock of avocets ran bye;
their ebb and flow my memory engraved.
The half-a-moon that shined the night before
still lit the darkness when I closed my eyes.
Too soon the sun would rise to light the shore
and only leave recall to claim this sigh.
The wind that gave me shivers in the night,
now warms the dream my spirit does alight.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Footprints on the Soil

You make yourself impossible
to love...
drifting off past the edge of trees
past fairytales and song
where wonder diminshes
and time closes with the stage.
Curtains draw and darkness leaves
a path of chirping crickets,
a bench under a street lamp.

Wait here,
don't go into the darkness alone.


You set the clock on random
changing every second,
and you give me the moon
smiling down, as though I were a child
and you an illustration
shining through winter branches
like something real
that never quite comes.

Don't fall in love.

I wait like something faithful
in a jar of formaldehyde
until the wind blows in the night
and it falls and breaks,
and now the path has broken glass.
The rain washes me away
into the dead of night,
where nothing even dreams,
yet I can't close my eyes.

Don't worry Dear.

I rest beneath a tree
a wilting fruit that turns to soil.
My job is feeding sprouts,
telling a story nobody believes,
still wating for my love,
while they all walk by
arm in arm
leaving footprints on the soil.

Dead Mouse

Dead Mouse

Who so often wonders who
an owl in tree-tops darkest night
hungry for a mouse to find
first light that falls upon the path.

We found a mouse dead in the path
uneaten buy its pray,
yet I cannot blame the owl
or hawk that hunger for his meat,

a tummy full to feed his young
hidden from their own foe.
Perhaps he might have lost his grip
when startled in the night.

I knelt down on my knees
looked closer for a cause,
but didn't even find a scratch
or ruffled coat.

His black eyes were clear,
his little ears intact,
fur glistening with health
left still to find the morning light.

I wonder if he might have run
into the night, found his true love waiting
a princess never promised
to a little gray mouse.

But, who knows for sure, not I,
my wonder satisfied.
There are just some things in life,
we never come to know.

The Pubic Hair

The Pubic Hair


Like plucking a weed,
I pulled the misplaced pubic hair
depriving it a life
to play Repunzel for the dead
spirits grasping from the Earth
for anything left to climb higher.

This misplaced secret
that had slipped from concealment of panty
boasting itself amongst the soft leg hairs
of my inner thigh.

It stung like hell as I tweezed
and pulled its permeable root
through the soft pale skin
leaving a red speck of blood.

I lay it on the table, examine it up close
under my reading glasses then crush the root-ball
with the lead of my pencil
and examine its life source
now mashed like some sort of zit goop.

I sit back in my chair
and look at it from a distance,
worried someone might see,
and I would feel the fever of embarrassment.

This hair either plucked or in place
discomforts my inner being, as though
I would be a better person
had it never grown at all.

I wonder what someone would think
if they noticed it.
This mischievous gremlin
appointed to frame my confidence.

Yet it lies there in full view
evidence of its pitiless death,
glued down to the table
as though it seeks to find life again
on another planet. ..

as though it needs to prove its purpose
as some grossly out of place being
frightening everyone that looks at it
to hide their face in embarrassment.

I pluck it once again
denying it purpose at all,
and there it is
proud as ever between my finger tips.

I twirl it around
honoring it one last dance
then suck it away with the vacuum cleaner,
so I might find myself again - something like pretty.

Reading Poetry

Reading Poetry

I lie on my bed reading poetry
and thinking of a friend.
I can almost see
our thoughts resting
under the same night lamp,
reading the same poetry.

The shadow from my hand
blacks out the paper.
I can't see what I've written.
The grey pencil fades away
along with the day,
whose light softly retreated
into the mountains.

I scratch my neck and twist some,
moving my hand from the light, so I can see.
I hear the sound of cars,
passing on a distant road,
and remember that someday
I won't be here anymore.

.. and that I may be reaching
for this moment
at some later time in life
wishing the children were still downstairs
playing games on the Internet,
and I could still be here
only dreaming of a future time.

I imagine myself an old woman,
resting in a nursing home,
my mind rusted and blurred,
my hands withered like fall leaves.
I might even call out for the children
or ask where my dog has gone. Then

...fading gently like the light of day
into dreams.
I think of a friend, and
we are walking together
under arbors of fresh born leaves,
the musk of fertile soil rising.

A song of spring plays from the birds,
light dances in the shadows.
We bow our heads with smile
afraid of what a kiss might bring
as we decide together which path to take.