Saturday, April 06, 2013
Poems March 2013
(This group is comprised of lunes lx through xl.)
3/1: "Lune lx"
My fingers pluck brisk
staccato
shivers from your skin.
* * *
3/2: "Lune lxi"
Your golden circlet
gleams warmly
from your brown ankle.
* * *
3/3: "Lune lxii"
Your temples are brushed
lightly gray;
there, I kiss our years.
* * *
3/4: "Lune lxiii"
Disheartened by frost,
too-early
cherry blossoms rust.
* * *
3/5: "Lune lxiv"
The curve of your arm
on my waist
eases the world's weight.
* * *
3/6: Lune lxv"
Light reverberates
within ice
March hangs from the eaves.
* * *
3/7: "Lune lxi"
Brushed, you, mimosa-
sensitive,
curl about my touch.
* * *
3/8: "Lune lxvii"
The brown of your eyes
draws me down
to your center's heat.
* * *
3/9: "Lune lxviii"
February leaves
one last gift:
a frozen sparrow.
* * *
3/10: "Lune lxix"
The scent of lentils
with cumin
and mint fills our home.
* * *
3/11: "Lune lxx"
Ripe peach juice trickles
from your chin;
I lick your breasts clean.
* * *
3/12: "Lune lxxi"
This tussle of bee
and blossom,
this season of seed.
* * *
3/13: "Lune lxxii"
Filled with flowering
quince, your arms
bring light to this room.
* * *
3/14: "Lune lxxiii"
The shadows of crows
cannot dim
the hue of the rose.
* * *
3/15: "Lune lxxiv"
Gold frost on the car:
premature
pollenization.
* * *
3/16: "Lune lxxv"
Pita, with zaatar,
black coffee,
blood oranges: Brunch.
* * *
3/17: Lune lxxvi"
The slow gray of rain
lengthens our
morning's lassitude.
* * *
3/18: "Lune lxxvii"
Fourteen thousand feet --
out the door --
soaring in free fall --
* * *
3/19: "Lune lxxviii"
I hollow my heart
to make room
for your ripe spices.
* * *
3/20: "Lune lxxix"
How eloquently
shrill the crow's
contention with time.
* * *
3/21: "Lune lxxx"
March-returned swallows
refurbish
homes beneath the bridge.
* * *
3/22: "Lune lxxxi"
Wisteria's first
racemes fling
bee-nets of fragrance.
* * *
3/23: "Lune lxxxii"
The slow sway of your
heavy braid
measures out my days.
* * *
3/24: "Lune lxxxiii"
Just-baked gingerbread
warms the house
and moistens the tongue.
* * *
3/25: "Lune lxxxiv"
The weight of your breast
in my palm
eases the world's ache.
(NOTE: Thanks to Lisa
Toops Smith for this idea.)
* * *
3/26: "Lune lxxxv"
Frost sparks as the pines
toss shifting
light through their needles.
* * *
3/27: "Lune lxxxvi"
Catfish gather in
the shallows
to worship the sun.
3/28: "Lune lxxxvii"
The carpenter bee's
hollow hum
drifts from the eave's edge.
* * *
3/29: "Lune lxxxviii: Wangari Maathai, 1940 - 2011"
Forty million trees
shout their green
over Africa.
* * *
3/30: "Lune lxxxix"
Figs and fontina,
crusty bread
and chianti: Noon.
* * *
3/31: "Lune xc"
Fingers intertwined,
we hold each
other, and the world.
* * *
* * *
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Poems February 2013
Poems for February 2013
("Lunes xxxii - lix" +
one "Small Song")
2/1: "Lune xxxii: Columbia at 10"
A streak of fire ends
in Texas;
seven, remembered.
* * *
2/2: "Lune xxxiii"
Flung stones skim the lake
where none sink;
ice sings at their touch.
* * *
2/3: " Lune xxxiv"
The moons of your breasts
disperse my
profoundest nightfalls.
* * *
2/4: "Lune xxxv"
Chill sunlight hardens
the pond's edge
to rough translucence.
* * *
2/5: "Lune xxxvi"
Your cinnamon skin
simmers hot
ad sweet on my lips.
* * *
2/6: "Lune xxxvii"
Vanguard snowdrops lift
bells against
winter's salient.
* * *
2/7: "Lune xxxviii"
Above thick cloud fields,
the sun hoards
its heat for August.
* * *
2/8: "Lune xxxix"
O fiery cornhusked
tamale,
eager to be shucked!
* * *
2/9: "Lune xl"
Lurking sweetgum balls
sabotage
spring's first barefoot walk.
* * *
2/10: "Lune xli"
The faint clicks of beads
you've braided
in your hair bring peace.
* * *
2/11: "Lune xlii"
The st eady static
of the rain
breaks for bridges.
* * *
2/12: "Lune xliii"
That worn pink bathrobe
still sets off
the curves of your calves.
* * *
2/13: "Lune xliv"
Your fingertips taste
of ginger
and sesame oil.
* * *
2/14: "Lune xlv: For Krysten"
You are the hawk who
strides the sky
and never falters.
* * *
2/15: "Lune xlvi"
I enfold the warmth
of your breast
as seeds embrace May.
* * *
2/16: "Lune xlvii"
A jay dislodges
fragrant rain
from a cedar bough.
* * *
2/17: "Lune xlviii"
Cold as cats' noses,
your toes press
against my bare feet.
* * *
2/18: "Lune xlix"
Flashing yellows wink
through brown stems
of forsythia.
* * *
2/19: "Lune l"
Always I'm caught by
how your hands
move about the world.
* * *
2/20: "Lune li"
Side by side we breathe,
still after
the sharing of selves.
* * *
2/21: "Lune lii"
Noon's weight presses down
on my eyes;
I'll rest them just one -- -- --
* * *
2/22: "Lune liii"
My rain-frizzed love, how
unperturbed
your insouciance.
* * *
2/23: "Lune liv"
The python tattooed
on your thigh
entwines me smoothly.
* * *
2/24: "Lune lv"
As ever with you,
I'd rather
take the scenic route.
(NOTE: Suggested by the title of
Nikki Giovanni's poem "The Scenic Route")
* * *
2/25: "Lune lvi"
Morning's numbed light seeps
through these clouds,
outweighed by cold rain.
* * *
2/26: "Lune lvii"
Your lips are deft moths
playfully
flitting over me.
* * *
2/27: "Lune lviii"
Currants and cream fill
your navel,
a feast for my tongue.
* * *
2/28(a): "Small Song: Vespers"
I thrill to the creases and folds of your form,
to the undulant abundance of your abdomen.
Your breasts sink comfortably down your chest,
and the curves at the corners of your mouth
are cups that hold more kisses than I can count.
Your body has been joyously lived in and wears it
like a beacon that draws me out of the dark
to the warmth and repose of home.
* * *
2/28(b): "Lune lix"
The warmth of your hand
suffices
as the sun descends.
* * *
* * *
Saturday, February 09, 2013
Poems for January 2013
("Lunes i - xxxi +
one "Small Song")
one "Small Song")
(NOTE: Lunes iii through xvi comprise
the sequence Presences although
the final order will be quite different.)
1/1: "Lune i"
Chill whispers of rain
stir the pines
into slight motion.
* * *
1/2: "Lune ii"
I've tattooed your name
on my lips;
your taste goes with me.
* * *
1/3: "Lune iii"
Black braids brush my face
as you sway
above me in joy.
* * *
1/4: "Lune iv"
Baptismal sweat beads
the valley
of your breasts with light.
* * *
1/5: "Lune v"
The curves of your hips
shimmer through
the cirrus of silk.
* * *
1/6: "Lune vi"
Sun woman, your touch
causes me
to break into bloom.
* * *
1/7: "Lune vii"
I follow the scent
of mango
to your moist center.
* * *
1/8: "Lune viii"
Your coiled pubic hair
tangles my
tongue like matted thyme.
* * *
1/9: "Lune ix"
The black cherries of
your nipples
swell; my lips sweeten.
* * *
1/10: "Lune x"
Beige satin, the backs
of your knees
tremble with my kiss.
* * *
1/11: "Lune xi"
I ache for no home
but the brown
mound of your belly.
* * *
1/12: "Lune xii"
The umber folds of
your navel
invite me deeper.
* * *
1/13: "Lune xiii"
The surge of your thighs
thrusts us up
to burst among stars.
* * *
1/14: "Lune xiv"
The catches in your
breath trace my
fingers' passage down.
* * *
1/15: "Lune xv"
All the hinges of
your body
open for us both.
* * *
1/16: "Lune xvi"
Your hand folds over
mine as I
cup you afterward.
* * *
1/17: "Lune xvii: January"
The hot water takes
too long to
reach the shower head.
* * *
1/18: "Lune xviii"
Morning frost sings and
curls away
from the scraper's blade.
* * *
1/19: "Lune xix"
Feathers of light brush
snow-freighted
pines with nascent peach.
* * *
1/20: "Lune xx"
Your black hair mirrors
in shimmers
August's waxing moon.
* * *
1/21: "Lune xxi"
Your fingers whisper
in silence,
your touch rich with Braille.
* * *
1/22: "Lune xxii"
The cat, stepping in
a patch of
moonlight, shakes her paw.
* * *
1/23: "Lune xxiii"
The whisper of your
hairbrush calls
the hour of compline.
* * *
1/24: "Lune xxiv"
The windflower sways
but never
spills the sun it cups.
* * *
1/25: "Lune xxv"
The ache of the cold
seeps within:
bending, I will break.
* * *
1/26: "Lune xxvi"
The iris angles
from its vase,
a shout of purple.
* * *
1/27(a): "Small Song: Matins"
Sipping Starbucks lattes,
they stare, intent,
at their laptop
where the preacher
chides his flock.
- - -
1/27(b): "Lune xxvii"
Two gulls blown inland
skim the closed
strip mall, candescent.
* * *
1/28: "Lune xxviii"
The scent of burning
pine lingers
beyonds the ashes.
* * *
1/29: "Lune xxix"
Crumpled bumpers droop
and dangle,
hampering morning.
* * *
1/30: "Lune xxx"
The pin oak sapling
wraps itself
split plastic sacks.
* * *
1/31: "Lune xxxi"
Melon-ripe, your hips
rumba all
around the kitchen.
* * *
* * *
Monday, September 17, 2012
May 2012 "Small Songs"
* * *
5/1
"Small Song: Shreds"
Damp matted leaves, dark and tattered,
litter the path. No wind stirs them
into motion or music. Chill rains
erode them. A few cling to my shoes,
fragments of an almost forgotten year.
* * *
5/2
"Small Song: Humidity"
Thick air oppresses night,
muffles the squirks
of the spring peepers;
only the brightest stars
chisel their way through the murk,
and the moon rusts on the horizon.
One stirs with the reluctance
of a wet flag in a faint breeze.
* * *
5/3
"Small Song: Emulation"
The autumn maple stands glorious,
dark scarlet leaves molded to its base,
its empty branches lifted to the sky.
In tribute, you stand with open arms,
your feet in brilliant red stilleto heels,
the rest as bare as desire intends.
* * *
5/4
"Small Song: Navigation"
Begin here with dawn washed
in rosemary, clean and astringent.
Progress to the vast expanse of noon
steeped in sun-urged honeysuckle.
Arrive at last where jasmine fills the air
with the attar of a thousand sweet stars.
* * *
5/5
"Small Song: Ache"
Even now, when I listen to Chopin,
my forearm muscles strain and
my fingers twitch, stiff and slow,
with forty years' memory of having
sought some clumsy dexterity
where Horowitz never faltered.
* * *
5/6
"Small Song: Chance"
Some days one can't distinguish
between the lake and the sky;
they merge in a blur of gray,
uncertain themselves of
rigorous boundaries. Such days
would seem ideal to be a flat stone
and hurl oneself out to skip
again and again and, perhaps,
to have, just this once, the possibility
of not sinking irretrievable
into the depths at the end.
* * *
5/7
Small Song: Chance
Some days one can't distinguish
between the lake and the sky;
they merge in a blur of gray,
uncertain themselves of
rigorous boundaries. Such days
would seem ideal to be a flat stone
and hurl oneself out to skip
again and again and, perhaps,
to have, just this once, the possibility
of not sinking irretrievable
into the depths at the end.
* * *
5/8
Small Song: Orison
What do the leaves of the birch
know of failure? A morning
of dense mist, an afternoon
heavy with storm, an evening's
obscured light. Perhaps
that's why they whisper to the wind
. . . . sun . . . sun . . . sun
* * *
5/9
Small Song: Knife
I peel the bronze skin from the Bosc,
then cut thin, translucent slices
which I place, flesh-warm and moist,
between your open lips.
. . . . . .With each movement, I pare
away the distance that makes us two.
* * *
5/10
Small Song: Indignity
After the rain,
the dandelions droop,
the prim white globes
of their heads
as matted as wet cats.
* * *
5/11
Small Song: Hardcase
Sharp-leaved, stiff-stalked thistle
claims the railway embankment
as its place -- dense, dry earth
from which it wrestles life.
This spread of purple blooms
seems innocuous, but only
hot, thick fumes of diesel-electrics
rock them in their sleep.
* * *
5/12
Small Song: Ornament
The concrete frog squats among
the stems of flowering toadflax;
its smooth gray arc anchors the eye
amid the flurry of curves, the rococo
corollas of yellow motion.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . How readily
the simple calms the complex.
* * *
5/13
"Small Song: Performance"
Gladiola, tall and taut green,
you open your blouse
button by slow button
to reveal your splendors;
I wish to be a hummingbird
to burrow in your blossoms
and lap your nectar.
* * *
5/13
Small Song: Renewal
Gray-white cloud covers the sky like limestone;
not even a blurred brightness localizes the sun.
Wet pavement dulls the reflections further,
just sheets of bleached lichen. Damp air
dims color, mutes highlights. The absence
of bright intensity soothes, sustains in its own right.
* * *
5/14
"Small Song: Poem"
Sometimes you feel that you
just have to ask the poem,
"Exactly what is it you're up to?
You're supposed to be wearing
cool white linen with iridescent
dragonflies at throat and wrist,
strolling through the herb garden
just after dawn and brushing
dew-rich lavender thyme to loose its scent.
Instead, there you are in overalls
and dirty boots traipsing across
a plowed, muddy field heading
for the one island of blackberry canes
and old man's beard with an abandoned
1961 Chevy Fleetwood C10 pickup
rusting square in the middle (how
did that get here?) and whatever are
you doing out here anyway?"
But really of course you know there's no use
asking because you're not going to get
an answer until the poem's good and ready,
so there's nothing more to do but tag along
and see what happens on the off-chance that
50 year old truck actually starts up and spins off
and takes you and the poem somewhere you never
would have imagined if left entirely on your own.
* * *
5/15
"Small Song: Guide"
Mist frosts the night sky
to a directionless blur
except where Sirius
leaks through:
a single porch light
to mark home.
* * *
5/16
"Small Song: Preserves"
The sun casually reclined across
the breakfast table, loosing sparks
from the assorted jelly and jam jars
gathered in the center. Inspired, I took
the orange marmelade and slathered it
over you as if you were an oven-hot
English muffin awaiting adornment;
then we began to feast.
I kept some
of the crumbs we left behind; occasionally
I'll nibble one, for the sake of sun and
oranges and you.
* * *
5/17
"Small Song: Source"
Earth-cold, water flows from the dark,
spills over tumbled rock at the cave mouth
through tangles of sun and shade, then into
channeled bedrock; it surges down
the long, slow bones of the mountain,
suffused with light and a faint tang of cedar
no descent however sheer can fully undo.
* * *
5/18
"Small Song: Display"
Everything engages in spring's showiness,
even the abandoned cars in the pine scrub
off Pea Ridge Road. Swirls of pollen veil
their broad surfaces, cracked paint flakes
from metal rust reddens, and blackberry canes
wreathe through missing windows so that
white petals gleam out of the shadows.
* * *
5/19
"Small Song: Reclamation"
Bit by bit, with each frost-scorched rose,
each mildew-spotted elm leaf,
each storm-thrown peach,
I reclaim what is mine
from the indifference of time.
* * *
5/20
"Small Song: Duellists"
Two weather-weakened brick chimneys
seconded by scraggly, overgrown roses
face off on the edge of an abandoned farm,
whatever was once between them long forgotten.
* * *
5/21
"Small Song: Propitious"
The most auspicious doors are those
with some trace of failure: splintered
veneer along the foot, a rattling knob
which wobbles to the touch, blistered
paint peeled away from cracked wood.
Their days of hindrance crumble away.
* * *
5/22
"Small Song: Drowsed"
The sun is heavy with honeysuckle.
Yellow-bellied sliders line the fallen oak
by the bank, motionless in late morning.
No damselflies dart over the water, sheltering
in shadows. Only a pair of cabbage whites
jink and wheel silently, absorbed in each other.
* * *
5/23
"Small Song: Strays"
Clusters of wild carrot fill the ditch
across the field. Moonlight glows
on the flowerheads which the wind
sways and dips into and out of sight,
random thoughts flickering through night's mind.
* * *
5/24
"Small Song: Delivery"
Letting go proceeds best
from a high location, a ledge
with a view of vast volumes of air.
The ascent by its difficulties prepares
one for what follows, as the descent
will heal in its finality.
From the edge,
the released ascends or falls entirely
of its own nature, that burden of choice
now no longer yours.
* * *
5/25
"Small Song: Byproducts"
A chipmunk, cheeks bloated
with nuts and seeds I'd put out
for the birds, hightails it through
the herb bed, releasing a spasm
of mint, a billow, an intoxication;
even the drizzle sweetens.
* * *
5/26
"Small Song: Waken"
The crisp thicket
of your pubic hair
entangles the sun.
Lustrous with light,
lush tendrils and coils
glisten, warm, rouse.
* * *
5/27
"Small Song: Intent"
The bulges of the willows
edge the river like elephants,
heavy in the dark
with expectations of morning.
* * *
5/28
"Small Song: Wish"
I want to be caught in a rainstorm
with you, drenched to the skin
with the truth of mutual need,
the downpour driving us past
walls of words to move together,
sheltering, each of us, chosen.
* * *
5/29
"Small Song: Port"
Dutch irises fix
their anchors in the air,
docking at the sun
after their chill voyages
through the earth.
* * *
5/30
"Small Song: Invitation"
Some days, usually about mid-afternoon,
conscience pushes his chair back and says,
"You as tired of thinking as me? There's
some really sweet catfish down in the river,
the tackle's already in the truck, and a few
beers in the cooler. Interested?" And,
though I'm not much for fishing and
don't really like beer, whatever could
possibly lead me to say "No"?
* * *
5/31
"Small Song: Fanfare"
The crape myrtles have just burst
into the most intense of fuschias;
that must be June at the door.
