Poems 2007
2 Haikus & 1 Tanka (2005)
Published by Bear Creek Haiku, Winter 2007
By pruning roses
I get paid for my good time.
There have been worse days.
A labradoodle.
I understand this strange dog
And throw him a stick.
The veil was thinnest –
There was the nierika!
All things all at once.
When one sees the Divine Dance
Nothing remains as it was.
In This Grassy Field
& Fractal (2004)
Published by Poetry Explosion Newsletter, Spring 2007
In This Grassy Field
In this grassy field
on a sunny day
I feel the autumn yellow
brushing on legs
shining on my head
And if, I think, I wore a dress
across this grassy field
I believe I would be healed
For every blade of us grown tall
upon whom our feet will fall
arrested by this Earth
through renewal and rebirth
we grow up tall
with yellows of the sun and ground
we shine down
we brush the legs
of unsuspecting men
with our free and flowing pen.
Oh if I’d wear a dress
across this grassy field
I believe I would be healed.
Fractal
We think al-
gebra will mend bro-
ken bones,
but in fractions of those
fractures
lies the genuine moment
never found in
Euclidean pathways or
other linear perfections,
those abbreviations of
unstoppable misunderstandings.
What are we to make of approximations of mountains?
Of clothed hourglasses on restroom doors?
Foundations of injustice
will crumble under hollow bones
turned inside out
along quantum coastlines of the soul,
the smaller our becoming
the more blessings the journey.
A Pagan Apology (2005)
Published in Main Street Rag, Spring 2007
My penchant for the jurisprudence of popular opinion
provides me with this hodge podge of pandemonium,
this piece of panderous pedantry.
​
Forgive the preponderance of pernicious pejoratives and percussively piquant pessimism
in my pronouncement of the ever-present oppressive patriarchy
presided over by the panoply of political and corporate pinheads
who persevere in their predilection for petulant opulence,
their appropriation of pork bellies, apple pie, and the praise of pollution
as the proper and prideful pursuit of a compliant public,
these repulsive pigheaded pricks
spouting their pathetic panaceas for poverty,
impaling the people on the prurient spikes of perdition.
Pardon my passing on the preferred passivity of pollyanna-like prudence
lest it impede any progress toward a pantheistic approach
to this repugnant and paltry paternalism.
I patently hope our own implied providence
will help produce a penultimate pre-depilatory hair-raiser
and persuade a palliative preparedness
to precede the putrid purgatory appearing
at the prying open of this perfidy
in opprobrium to Pandora.
Heaven & Earth (2006) &
Winter Solstice (2000)
Published in Tributaries, Winter 2007
Winter Solstice
The apricots we ate
tasted like New Mexico sun
radiating music on the tongue.
The wine we never had
was cold as snow and called me.
But we drank of each other,
we ate our own flowers
and bloomed inside,
darkness falling.
Message From Beyond (2004)
Published in Georgetown Review, Spring 2007
Before the Millennium,
birds speak to me.
They come on new winds in spring,
blown like kites
from broken strings.
In Fire, they say,
is burning change,
is joy and pain,
and it won’t be free.
They point to willow limbs
bent by wind
and say, like this tree
must I be,
or snapped away
across this ground
will I lie,
pruned by gods
I’d never know.
Desire (2005)
Published in Georgetown Review, Spring 2007
Within me grow trees
of other times
scarce of heartwood,
a sapling perhaps
nurtured many years,
pruned for eternal youth:
a bonsai of my
perfect desire for
verdant leaves,
multitudinous limbs,
shallow blessed roots strangling
with juvenile strife.
Today I split wood
to feed a fire
in the aging forest
of my history
as if this sacrifice
will suffice,
as if somewhere this dreamscape,
a bountiful wood
through a gateway of burning,
gives honorable passage
to the naive longings
I will shed.
How to Untangle a Knot (2007)
Published in Oberon Poetry Magazine, Summer, 2007
Grasp a loose end in one hand
and in the other behold the heart of the matter.
Enter the entanglement
taking note the multitude of impetuous pathways.
Beware of free unravelings
entwining themselves into other snafus.
Pay no attention to seemingly unrelated cordage
encouraging resignation.
Ignore the growing turmoil
as you disengage snarls to enlarge the mass outward.
Refocus on the path
gently tugging loops that carry the loose end through the plight.
Repeat until fully unravelled.
Sort through the tethers.
Throw nothing away.
Heaven and Earth
Love flooding in leaps and
bounds licks a dry bone gulch
sucking marrow waits for rain in
high clouds’ heavy breathing moisture
smelling life’s ways through dust and rocks
dressed in lichens and teased with tumbleweed
drops into the canyon with blessings from springs
reaching mountains’ summits and never coming down.