Porcelain Corridors

The grave is a purse full of porcelain bones mingling with earth.
The porcelain corridors of my bones are possessed by burning light.
The light tastes of wild multitudes risen from the grave.

burning; mingling; corridors; wild; grave; light; possession; pursed; porcelain; multitudinous; taste

words courtesy of Read Write Poem

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He Thinks, She Thinks

He thinks his wrinkles earn him some respect.
She thinks the silver in her hair is quite becoming.
He frowns in mirrors, knows what to expect,
he thinks. His wrinkles. Earning some respect,
he tells her he's unable to detect
her age (she looks like grandma's photos she's been thumbing,
he thinks.) His wrinkles earn him some respect,
she thinks. The silver in her hair is quite becoming.

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White Blossoms

cherry blossoms courtesy of Mark Uttecht
for Read Write Poem's spring prompt
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He Seemed So Quiet

3 Word Wednesday: Earnest. Layer. Reactive.

earnest countenance
conceals reactive layers
seething volcanoes

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Reading scheduled (tentative)

I'm tentatively scheduled for a reading in July at the Lloyd Center Barnes & Noble, as part of the Barnes & Noble poetry reading series hosted by Sage Cohen and Tom Mattox.

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Thunderbird Poem

My falcon hunches, hooded, on my wrist
and digs her talons, sharp as razors, in
to leather-guarded forearm, trembling fist.
She craves the air. I hold her penned within
the compass of my will. I'll let her fly
when time is right, for some raptorial lover
who will read her writing on the sky
and hear the predatory music of her.

I'll loose my falcon soaring from the page,
a live thing made of paper, ink and words.
I'll loose this poem from her printed cage
to join the company of thunderbirds
above the clouds, behind the lightning strike:
electric storm behind an open mike.

Image by Pensiero via Read Write Poem.

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Ploughing

Through rough patchwork fields
the plough drags. Step, step, turn.
The blade stutters over rocks.
Shuddering flanks twitch flies away
from trickles of sweat. Black earth
erupts through pale stubble.

Under trees at field's edge, shadows
straighten toward noon, then lean
into evening, tall dark figures
bending to rake long fingers through
the fresh-turned soil and sniff.
Dew falls from their hands.

Oxen rumble, asleep in their stalls
and the farmer's legs twitch, twitch all night.

The first line was donated by throws his words, a fellow Portlander, via the first-line prompt at Read Write Poem.

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Do North

The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center is once again hosting its annual Do North exhibition, featuring artists who live or work in North or Northeast Portland. The show opens March 26th and runs through April 25. Stop by and take a look. (Two of my poems will be on display along with a bunch of toerh good stuff.)

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Chalk Talk

This morning, on the pavement shining wet
from recent rain, I saw a message scrawled
in hopscotch chalk. It warned me: "Don't forget."
And winging overhead, a seagull called
"Remember." Strange graffiti on the wall
of my perception; cryptic clues that best
my crossword-puzzle analytical
attempts; emerging words on palimpsest.

The morning traffic fills my neighborhood
with engine noise, the grinding clash of gears.
These chalk-talks from mysterious pamphleteers
aren't always meant for us, I understood:
the sleeping world dreams of God, and writes
these notes on sidewalks in the rain-wet nights.

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i am not

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Operculum

The angels wrap newborns in unfeeling flesh, blind eyes, deaf ears. They leave an opening to the heart, a misplaced fontanel. Over it they place an operculum of horn like the translucent door of a snail's spiral shell. The soul grows. One day it pushes the operculum aside and crawls out naked into the air and wonders where it came from.

They say the gate of horn is the true gate. The soul crawls from the door of horn in search of truth. The soul crawls from the darkness inside the flesh. From the spiral house of forgetting. From the mindless songs of vegetable growth.

Where did it come from before that, asks the soul. What did the angels make me forget when I was sealed inside the doors of perception, the windows of flesh, the house of forgetting. Where did I come from that I remember

light

an empty snail shell
rests on a clean gravel path
sounding of ocean

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Obit

3 Word Wednesday: Burden. Natural. Ubiquitous.

obit page carries
the ubiquitous burden
of "natural causes"

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Cross That Bridge

I would not cross that bridge for silver and I would not cross for gold
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, that water underneath is cold.

The birds fly high above me and they laugh at a woman's fears
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, have pity on my tears.

That bridge is far too high to cross, that bridge is far too steep
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, the water underneath is deep.

The train come down the mountain and she run the bridge so fast
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, I'm feared to be left for last.

That river's much too wide to cross, my Lord, I'm turning back
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, the river she run so black.

The river run so white across the teeth of broken stone
I would not cross that bridge, Lord, but for Your hand alone.

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Needle

It wasn't my fault
she stole her mother's jewelry box,
dropped it and smashed the mirrored cover.
She was dazed by the glitter and the spilled perfume—
it wasn't my fault I'd been mending
the queen's diaphanous unmentionables
and I'd left a needle
in the midnight blue velvet that lined the box
and the silly chit stuck herself on it.

Oh, how the queen scolded.
How the king careened raging around the castle,
while the chamberlain fluttered after him.
"Calm yourselves, Majesties—
at least it wasn't a spindle—"
they turned to the princess
as a maggot crawled from her mouth.

perfume; scold; diaphanous; raging; glittering; maggot; needle; stolen; careened
Words from Read Write Poem.

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Inside the Eye of an Angel

Now that it's gone I miss the ice
that left crusts on the sidewalk like fingernail clippings,
coated my windshield with translucent stars
glass bonded to glass.

Every step that day was an exercise in caution
a lesson in mindfulness. Every twig and leaf
was edged with illumination glimpsed sideways
and I turned to find myself surrounded
by tiny rainbows, scattered bits of color
darting like hummingbirds among frozen flowers.

Now that it's gone I miss the ice
and its miraculous prismatic silence
like living inside the eye of an angel.

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Vertebral Column

clouds courtesy of Dez Pain
staircase courtesy of Aliesha Benzinger
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Well-Tempered Clavier

3 Word Wednesday: Cajole. Recluse. Temper.

the recluse cajoles
the "Well-Tempered Clavier"
from yellowing keys

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Lollipop Girls

Lollipop girls are posing on sticks
attracting attention
getting their kicks
high over the crowd.
Everyone licks
the lollipop girls.

Candy-cane fellow got hung in a case
trapped behind glass
hiding his face.
Don't like attention?
It's a disgrace
to the candy-cane race.

Bon-bon people are so good to look at
no good to eat
sugary-sweet
will rot out your teeth—
don't give it up
for a bon-bon treat.

photo by Lucas Rocha, courtesy of Read Write Poem

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Buddha Hand

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.

--for Read Write Poem. I'm probably going to hell for this.

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One More Spring

Now and then the sky shows blue
between pursed grey lips that spit hail
like loosened teeth.

I feel the change:
electric signals dancing on my nerves at night
the taste of coffee sitting askew
against my tilting biochemistry.

The pendulum slows.
Lengthening afternoons bring songbirds
gathering twigs and feathers, assuring me
of one more spring.

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Freckled Chickens

freckled chickens peck
scoot to evade hawk shadows
dash into shelter

--for Poefusion

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Shadow Calligraphy

Bamboo courtesy of Graham Soult
Fan courtesy of Christa Richert
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Love Songs of the World

This is important—
listen, okay? Just listen—
it's important. It's the most important thing you'll ever—
listen—
the most important thing in the world is—
listen a minute—

hear

a train calling out for a distant lover
the wings of a thousand starlings writing the Name of God on the sky
the whetstone singing under the knife
whales gossiping about the ocean on the other side of the world
a meteor in the earth's embrace, crying for heaven
sand grains reminiscing about the mountain peaks and stained-glass cathedrals that they once were
and will be again God willing
as you and I and the stars were dust
and will be again God willing
but even as dust swirling in the million-mile-high mazes of the Orion Nebula
(like curtains of gauze in the nursery of newborn stars)
we'll remember to sing
love songs, God willing.

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Call for Submission: Villanelles

Heads up, formalists...

For a new anthology to be co-edited by Annie Finch, Patricia Smith and Marie-Elizabeth Mali. Send up to 3 of your villanelles, as well as your favorite oldies by other authors (except Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle..." and Roethke's "The Waking," both of which we have), to Marie-Elizabeth Mali at mem AT floweringlotus DOT com by April 1st. Please include contact information on each page and publishing credit if previously published.

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Door closes one way, opens another

Milkweed Press rejected my manuscript Navigational Challenges. Bummer. On the other hand, it frees up a lot of good poems for journal submissions, which is probably more what I need right now.

I think I know what I'll be doing most of the weekend.

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Genuine Heroes

3 Word Wednesday: Average. Genuine. Ramble.

average folks ramble
genuine geniuses
ramble with intent

I goofed! It was "avenge", not "average". Blame my handwriting.

genuine heroes
aren't masked rambling avengers
but normal people

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Arctic Ice

The Arctic ice continues to contract
like fading scars that cover healing tissue
or time-reversal on a cataract.
Not many now dispute the central issue,
(though glaciology is not exact)
especially not the dwindling stocks of fish who
can't find food in warming seas. In fact,
the narwhals, polar bears and fur seals wish you
could reverse the CO2 impact—
but it's too late now. Arctic ice, we'll miss you.

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Love Every Third Stir

She put in a handful of goose-grease and memory
dropped in a shred of the black-and-white fur
from the old panda counterpane you used to sleep under
and thought love of you every third stir,
love of you every third stir.

She simmered it slow on the stove in a copper pot
added some hope and a smidgen of myrrh
an afternoon sunbeam, a late-evening dinner-bell
and thought love of you every third stir,
love of you every third stir.

She stirred it with silver, a spoon with your name on it
steam in her eyes turning years to a blur
packed it in jars from the big discount shopping mall
and thought love of you every third stir,
love of you every third stir.

This poem was inspired by the short story "Love Every Third Stir", by Zenna Henderson. You can find it in the anthology Holding Wonder.

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Watch Your Head

Is that thunder, or just the sound
of a falling satellite burned to dust
in midair? Or some forgotten piece of junk
jettisoned from Mir—a radiator core
or insulating panel. Watch your head.

Is that joy, that tigress rearing up
claws out, inside your heart?
She'll make you holler, leave you
a sentimental idiot mooning over daffodils
and drooling in the dust. Watch your head.

We fall like skittles in trajectories
constrained by numeric descriptions,
prisoners of calculus. She prowls
alongside our cages, tail lashing her flanks
raising puffs of burning dust. Watch your head.

The metamorphosis begins. You see stripes
like flames on the backs of your hands.
Around you the scrolling numbers change
to dawn clouds racing before the sun.
Watch your head burning
burning to dust.

joy; satellite; holler; jettison; skittle; tigress; metamorphosis; dust; thunder; forgotten; daffodil; numeric; cure; drool

--words courtesy of Read Write Poem
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