Theme: Yellow

Buddha hand image from In through the out door
Pavement from Written Inc.
And I'm reposting this, because it's too cute.

A hand with fingers tapering and slender
shapes a mudra graceful, strange and cryptic
puzzling both the tourist and the mystic—
"think I've seen it somewhere, can't remember—"
on a statue, seated at the center
of some monastery's Buddha triptych
or the produce section, where the citric
fruits achieve satori in surrender?

Semblance of the hand that holds the Zen door!
Call it spurious, you carping critic
pride yourself on being the hardened skeptic:
I am charmed by vegetative splendor,
static dance of hand- and finger-gestures
made by fruit, evocative of... zest.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

The Poe Toaster

Distant steps; a shadow on the stone. Tiny graveyard noises.
Swirl of dark around the monument. Someone leaves three roses.

January's dark mornings replace October's lonesome nights.
Whirl of ravens round a steeple: windows shiver, cold with light.

In a tavern known as the Dark Tarn they hoist a glass for memory.
Someone stands on the bar and recites the last stanza of Ulalume.

A figure slips from the rear door and glides down the darkened street.
Frost-glittering trees watch over the silent cemetery gates.

Clink of glass in the shadows: a bottle of cognac is left with the roses.
Mystery greets mystery: this well-remembered grave is Edgar Allan Poe's.

--more about the Poe Toaster
--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Seagulls Before Dawn

Although the sky shows just a trace of light
the gulls are up and flying, silver-pale
their wings like sketches on the violet night,

like ghostly robes, or Vandervecken's sails,
like slices cut from morning-faded moons.
The gulls are up and flying, silver-pale.

They call like lovers, or like northern loons.
The plaza drifts with snowy, ashy feathers
like slices cut from morning-faded moons.

It's said to be a sign of stormy weather:
unusual behavior from these birds.
The plaza drifts with snowy, ashy feathers

like letters lost from old prophetic words.
The seagulls cross, recross the predawn skies,
unusual behavior from these birds.

Although the dimness hides their yellow eyes,
although the sky shows just a trace of light
the seagulls cross, recross the predawn skies
their wings like sketches on the violet night.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Queen of Pentacles

The damned hippies mistook me
for the Queen of Pentacles. Well,
if you can't be one of the Greater Trumps--

Her provinces are earth and metal.
They wanted gold. I offered them the tawny hills
that cradle the vinyards of Sonoma.
I turned their greedy thoughts into
a swarm of metal hornets
and sent them shrieking from their fallen temple.

Archetypes are filling
and difficult to digest. I think I need
a swallow of mythic Pepto-Bismol
or maybe a spiritual Tums or two.
So much for the New Age.

From a "word salad" exercise.
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Glassy Glances

we trusted in the camera to witness
all the things its glassy lens enclosed
to capture life in all its messy "it"ness
unlike portraits carefully composed.

we trusted in the truth within the mirror
both the blemished and the flawless-fair
unbiased by the silver-glass revealer
of the secrets hiding in our stares.

but which is real, the bed or the reflection
but which is real, the mirror or the frame
the broken glass, the image of rejection
or rumpled sheets surrounding lover's flames?

for glass is flawed, it's rippled, it's distorted
and camera eyes can be deceived by heat
the witness swears the truth that he's reported
but testimony's weak when unsupported
and you can hear the clink when glances meet
reflections doubled in endless repeat
when glassy glances double back and meet.

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

The Fremont Bridge

The Fremont Bridge carries dawn fog
on her curving back. Some mornings
the moon perches atop, a slice of white
like chalky shell peeping through mother-of-pearl
or bone through skin.

She is all skeleton herself, steel girders
and concrete deck disdaining misty veils
or space-time illusions. She speaks solidity
against changeable moon and moving river:
"I will be here always."

The moon never answers
but sometimes laughs.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Windows of Memory

The windows of memory
are full of sepia brilliance
and tilt out of kilter
like the walls in a dream-room.
Brass loops like gypsy earrings
leave dust on your fingers.

There's something there
out of frame.

Shadows flit across the view
but you can't see birds.
Leaves stir but there's no sound
or fresh smell of breeze
although the window's open—

you think, but your reaching hand
meets glass.

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Aubergine Kiss

Romance on the Big Muddy. French doll
poised on a wrought-iron staircase among vines

drooping with heavy gourds,
her eyes bitter as eggplant flesh.

Her glossy purple lips are puckered.

You think you'll pluck the fruit. Once that hook sets
there's no extracting it.

All it takes is one kiss.

--words courtesy of Big Tent
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Marsh Hawk, or Northern Harrier

Owl-faced hawk, harrier of long grass and low pastures
why do we never see you perched? Do you live
on the wing, sleep on the wing, like albatrosses
catching an updraft on the face of each wave
in this sea of grass? Ice-grey fellows and earth-brown ladies
alike, perfect V-shaped silhouettes tip-tilting against amber skies
while the farmer watches and says Kill me some mice
Kill me some mice and you oblige
merely out of the furious perfection of your hunger.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

The Bruised Peach

will publish "Ordinary Fruit" in November, as the winner of its English-sonnet contest.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Verseweavers

It looks like Savanna Dust will be in the 2010 issue of OSPA's Verseweavers, as the second-place finisher in the "Members Only" category.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside

Studies in Orange

maple leaves in shadowboxes
candles glowing inside pumpkins
flirting tails on slinking foxes
fake tans on the city bumpkins
summer's last gasp of tomatoes
tender pastries made from carrots
roasted yams and sweet potatoes
orioles as bright as parrots
ginger tom as proud as Pharaoh
gleam of new-scrubbed copper kettle
four-alarm-hot habanero
harvest moon as cold as metal
crates of ripened apricots
bundles of October thoughts.

--image courtesy of Magpie Tales
Collection available! Knocking from Inside

VoiceCatcher 5

will shortly be hitting shelves around Portland. It will be at Powell's and New Seasons. Or you can order it from the VoiceCatcher website.

Collection available! Knocking from Inside