Snow fell while we walked last night

Snow fell while we walked last night.

It fell like flakes of peace

and drifted as if gravity could not hurry it,

its moving multitudes of aimless quiet stilled in streetlights.

The sky was warm like pink baby's skin,

snow pale blue as an easter egg.

Who knew that all the frivolous childhood

springtime colors come out again on a winter's night

made serious and delicate and serenely severe

by the stacked branching blackness of bare trees?

We spoke of how to calculate snow:

what percentages of it had fallen where,

how high it had come up our boots when,

whether to consider the times fallen or the total amounts.

Marriage knows its moments.

When it finds its way groundwards, by slow zig zags or rushes,

may it meet lush solemnity and may it be hushed about

and may we learn to whisper to it in low lullabye,

while, safe, it sighs, old shape beneath a new newness,

under that close sky who doesn't stretch coldly to infinity.

Kind of Creepy Excercise in 'in'

Inevitably I'll know you.

Inevitably you'll be

just an ineluctable consequence

of inescapable me.

I'm unbelievably deep

and inconceivably wide.

I intend your fine unfathomable

soul, in essence, to fit inside.

My imagination's underdeveloped.

My sense of the future is feigned.

I'm unproblematically interested

in the infinite instant of pain.

Inevitably you'll see me again.

Inevitably you'll be

as an introspecting infant

expecting an infantry.

Instead babe hears with interest

as strummed instrument is played,

a song prayed through interstices.

Interred interprets: saved.

Take a moment to inspire me

once we're involved again.

Inform me of your openness and

intense intrepid skin,

a work of art inimitable,

mosaic of flesh inlaid

with freckles and specks of beaded sweat,

engulfed by implacable spade.

Hope has a cousin feathered thing

While we're on the subject of birds, here is one by Emily Dickinson and a sort of reply by me.


"Hope" is the thing with feathers--
That perches in the soul--
And sings the tune without the words--
And never stops--at all--

And sweetest--in the Gale--is heard--
And sore must be the storm--
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm--

I've heard it in the chillest land--
And on the strangest Sea--
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb--of Me.

Hope has a cousin feathered thing

that perches just the same,

sings equally persistently.

Does this bird have a name?

She sings about some sweet lost prize

as if it still might be.

Her warbling defies science and

forgoes morality.

And if it's hope that brings us warmth

and hope that never dies,

this trilling fowl's immortal too,

hot, haunts the soul's fair skies.

Is there augur can classify

the signs that mark each bird?

One's heard the words, forces the tune.

One hums without the words.

Oh Bravest Bird

Oh bravest bird, you were the last

of your nervous congregation,

delicate and all aflutter,

to take wing away from that bread

as I walked passed.

Must you live your life in fearful

snatches? Torn in two directions?

Are you always last or sometimes

first? Sparrows in the snow, it is

hard in this world.

Oh bravest bird, you are to me

wisdom and courage in feather.

Carry your virtues so lightly

that you can flit and float and fight

death's every threat.

Spam Poetry Challenge

T has challenged me to write a poem using a nonsense line that came to him in spam: 'Mature a tool cut through her damp forest inside'. The only condition? That the poem not be pornagraphic.

Early, she awoke, grave, mature.

A tool cut through her damp.

Forest inside,

tree without,

which would she lose for which

today?

Her stomach groaned, empty, prescient.

An anvil settled in upon her cold.

People inside,

steeple without,

would she see fingers or faces

in play?

Voidless, she advanced, an ancient.

A hammer astounded her hope.

Galaxies inside,

earth without,

is she dirt and stardust which

can pray?

The Persistent Friend

If you were a one time friend
I'd break your sturdy arm.
If you were a two time friend
I'd let you come to harm.
If you were a three time friend
I'd drown you with the rain.
Then befriend me a fourth time;
you'd certainly be slain.
But if upon the fifth time
you came back to be my friend,
I'd shove this fiery poker
up your stubborn, kind rear end.

I said I'd see you in Savannah

I said

I'd see you in Savannah

at sometime in the spring.

Down amidst the Spanish moss

I'd tell you everything:

family recipes and prayers,

coordinates and passwords,

secrets I've been saving up

for our forever afters.

But

if the chill still hugs the ground,

if, for a time, spring's shelved,

meet me in cold Canada,

my secrets to myself.

Sad Taxonomy

We must be very far along

before you classify

perversions in my ways of thought,

that sad taxonomy.

Wander in Wonder, Philosophy Friends!

The world is all that is the case.

Is that a fact fit for your face?

Both the individual and the race

could make a kind and careful case

for lining our books with linens and lace.

If it cries out for silence, let it be still.

If it flourishes boldly, don't make it ill.

If it chooses like lightning, behold it: free will!

When it staggers and stutters like an imbecile

tell it not to wage war against idle word mills.

Wander in wonder or tremble in fear.

We whisper wet wisdoms in each other's ear.

I rely on those eyes, unknowing but clear.

While throngs of professors corporately leer,

we'll stare out some star that allows us to steer.

Baby, I've got that apocalyptic feeling one more time

photo courtesy of TLo

The blackbird sang the white bird's tune.

The white then sang the blue.

Caged dog meowed.

Kind kitten growled.

Stained sheet was rent in two.

The sky bled red.

The ground flung yellow.

No perfect shroud was found.

An emptiness to swallow hell

fraught blindness with the sound

of fallow wombs, full low-slung looms

and sayings of crones crooned,

but nothing fled

except the dead

with basketfulls of moons.

Mingling Earnestness and Jest

I have had a poem commissioned! SB requested a Thanksgiving poem using the words 'stuff', 'stuffing' and 'suffering'. I have only used two of these, but the following just begged to be written. More may follow.



God saves for sons a discipline,
leaves for us to receive
this grace so terrible when felt
abandonment can seem.

'Midst copper leaves we harvest grains
but righteousness and peace?
When all we know is sowing's pain
strengthen these feeble knees.

Turkey cannot thankful be for
abattoir and stuffing.
Can we number 'mongst our blessings
crucifix's suffering?

Free Rice

Check out www.freerice.com.

You play a vocabulary game and for every word you get right, you donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program, paid for by advertisers.

No surprise, this mere versifier does not have the biggest vocabulary around here. What level can you get to?

At least--to pray--is left--is left--

Here is another poem by Emily Dickinson, the one where I got this dang ol' blog's address from.


At least--to pray--is left--is left--
Oh Jesus--in the Air--
I know not which thy chamber is--
I'm knocking--everywhere--

Thou settest Earthquake in the South--
And Maelstrom, in the Sea--
Say, Jesus Christ of Nazareth--
Hast thou no Arm for Me?

On the saying that if you give it the little finger it will take the whole hand

'Linger innocent and still

a moment here with me.'

Temptation keeps its distance

with possibility.

Fascination curls its tines

round detail, down design.

Filagree, they seem to me,

fine cadence, the breath's time.

Intrigue, first contemplative,

sincere, space traverses,

sudden, presses up my thigh,

blinks cross universes.

'Seduction, take this finger,

tongue-trace its patterned pad.'

Savage, gobbling skin, cord, bone,

she feasts upon the hand.

Hot and Wet (A Summer Rhyme)

Hither and fro, yon and thither,

under my nose with a damp, weeping feather.

When the joints are all swollen how can we measure?

Can you pierce the heat with a mind so clever?

What will we do about this weather?

What will we do about this whether?

Heal the sore beneath fond fetter,

climb the pole and shed tied tether?

What will we cleave and what will we sever?

That Couple

That couple--
could you see their faces?--
could not fathom their own joy, anxious,
could not fix on some source for their grief.
Already when these took shape
they tasted of kind must and nostalgia.

You married a young dark haired girl who played

piano hymns in chords steady like stone.

Her hips, her skin, her waist, woman displayed

who always sun and leaves and world had known.

She came to you, suggestion from above,

so lithe, easy, and giggling all the while,

conceived a child the first time you made love

and bore her with an adolescent smile.

This round baby, more knowing than your wife,

had intimations of the worldly world.

Her eyes were wise like yours, like books and life.

A sage, that babe, philosophers had lured.

You found your joy with family for a while;

time passed. The youngest one was not the child.

Kingdom Come

Half a pint of warm summer milk,

half a pint of whiskey:

this is the way to lead me astray

and this is the way to kiss me.

Break me off a cinnamon stick.

Let's chew a piece of gum.

That is the way the kingdom goes;

this is the way it comes.

Hum the song I taught you,

a happy yellow rhyme.

Touch the fullness of my face

once in the fullness of time.

We whispered in the warm summer winds

and listen what we said:

Jack be nimble; Jack be quick;

Jack be silent and dead.

Half an hour glass passed, we find

love's litany's been spent.

Down the lane the kingdom came.

Oh, which was the way it went?

What Moved Us

We were driven by the arm
of peace, that steady, simple
grace, soaked in with strain off lips
and hands of strangers.

We were moved by hard fought health,
fragile, grim serenity,
found wisdom where we could with
iron consolation.

This World is not Conclusion.

SB asked if these are real poems or if I had written them. I will post some real and some of my own. I'll indicate the poets. Today, a real poem by Emily Dickinson:



This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons, and it baffles -
Philosophy - don't know-
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul-

The Logic of Mittens

Grandma knit that babe bright mittens

with a pattern circling round.

Sly Grandma took precaution,

lest one mitten meet the ground.

Grandma knit a string betwixt them,

held fast at one end and the other,

whispered, 'My babe if you keep just one

then you will keep its brother.'

Grandma reasoned thusly

but th'antecedent wasn't so.

Put elsewise, lose but one mitten,

and both the mittens go.

I wasn't sure which way of thought

should seem to me most sound

as I passed the purple mittens

lost and dusty on the ground.

White Rain Hairspray

She said he used a blow dryer,
white rain hairspray and a pick.
He chopped and flayed and transformed her
into an 80s chick.
Now I know my hairspray
and the topside of my tongue,
the tail a squirrel is apt to wear,
the taste of bubble gum.
But I can't say I know why she chose
to stake her whispers there
on the man who gave her nothing
but that horrid 80s hair.

Sinister Sonnets: Sonnet #1

My love, let me sing you a lullaby.

Place here your head upon my lap. Be still.

Days now you've raged, you've roared, you've thrashed and cried.

I have a song, soft stroking and a pill.

Slide now, my lamb, this needle 'neath your skin.

Flare not a moment more 'pon feeling pain.

The quietening venom rushes warmly in.

My love, rest gently; you will wake again.

Perhaps will seem to you a life away,

when opening your drowsy eyes you'll meet

a happy and an honest tranquil gaze.

You'll wander calm, maternal in the streets.

'Lil love, you've many shapes and much of health.

Hum him this hymn; prepare him well for death.

Sonnet #2

Perhaps Sonnet #1 will follow.

Wake now my gray and faceless sleeping friends.

Rise all of you. 'Tis only eyes are closed.

Your silent rage, persistent in demands

will to my unjust judge be sage widow.

Listen, desires, somehow meet, unmet,

God gives good gifts to those who plainly ask.

I too submit to relentless trumpet.

To give you eyes, a tongue, will be my task.

You sly and steady indestructibles

must come with me into the light of day

where you'll call out in answer to a call,

where we will toss and jog and feign and play.

Sad small gray ones, why simmer like a wreck?

Your rightful fear--I aim to break your neck.

Let's play 'What Would Emily Dickinson Do?'

I am sustained, I'm amplified,

exploded by the thought,

of changing leaves and graying grass,

of seasons and of air.

I'm shrunken like a shriveled leaf,

transparent wisp of cloud,

by still and windless ways of thought,

the static space of time.

If it is winter who must come

then let her come all dark.

Bring cold blood, ice and descending

but openly, with speed.

I am sustained, I'm amplified,

supported underneath

by rhythms of the everyday,

ticking some quiet route.

If summer comes then let her stay.

Her stillness I can bear?

Sweat satisfied, eternity,

my paradise, my noon.

Happy Howard and the Gift of Grain

Happy Howard, have you got a hand to hold?
Gary, give this girl the gift of grain.
Susy says a secret makes a slippery sound.
Lazy Lyle, let me lilt and lounge.

Mike makes the meanest most miraculous morsels.
Cindy, send me some serene sin scene.
Abby aches to arm him and to aim him.
Natalie, next time know to knit, to kneel.

Who are we? We would like to know.

Who are we? We would like to know.

What were we long before?

What will be be when this is done?

Something forevermore?

Something that shifts from day to day,

from sunshine to the sea?

From rock to air we sublimate

without recourse to will.