 
Collected Poems

By Richard George

Copyright 2015 by Richard George

Smashwords Edition
Preface

Some of us are compelled to scribble verses. Iambs, trochees, anapests or the lilt of words in a line burst forth to flatter beauty's ignorant ear, or at least the inner tin ear of the versifier. Some of us are afflicted with verse impulses; others, I suspect, become addicted to versifying. If I didn't scribble verses I would deny a basic component of my being.

I first encountered verse at a tender age. By my early teens poetry, verse, and literature preoccupied me almost as much as sex. My compulsion to versify has not diminished, though its influence on me waxes and wanes depending on the vicissitudes and attitudes of everyday survival.

Some of my verses are syllabic, others are based on traditional forms such as the sonnet, sestina, and triolets. Some might even qualify as free verse, though I don't often think in free verse terms. Despite its evident uselessness as any kind of practical tool I versify on whim at many opportunities. Prose is good for things like grocery lists. Verses are a moment's monument, an encapsulation of sentiments, the physical universe and ephemera churning in the poet's soul. Poetry and verse are not interchangeable terms. Verse refers to the arrangement of words in one pattern or another (think of "free verse" as a form in its own right). Poetry is any literary creation that rises above its humble origins to express beauty or truth (Keats equated them). Poetry may as likely occur in prose format as in verse format.

This collection of verses spans my now nearly-completed lifespan. I doubt I have more than twenty years left. Since to rhyme words twenty years leaves little room in my life I'll meander among the syllables of English to put them in verses, and, maybe, poetry.

Peruse this volume, dear reader, (I've always loved this phrase—it reeks of the 1920s to me) and you may find herein somewhat to amuse you.

Verses encapsulate a moment. A few words shape an incident in the cosmos. The moment may be defined by an image, an event, an emotion, or a whimsy. A new perspective expresses a reality, sometimes one so obscure even the poet is unsure what it is. Then along comes a reader, reads the poem, and another perspective is born. Reader, enjoy making out with these poems.

Listed below are the volumes into which I have divided my verses.

From the Classics paraphrases verses from the classical authors. In best 18th Century fashion I have re-imagined them in a 20th century manner.

Adapted from Anacreon # 47

Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)

For My Ex

Love Weariness

Midsummer's Night

My Escape

For a Soldier Who Died on Camera

Adapted from Anacreon # 53

Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)

Tithonos

Lesser Verses are short lines, for the most part, on a wide variety of subjects. The inspiration for them arose from multiple sources, particularly Chinese and Japanese verses in translation.

The Place

Golden Gate Bridge

After Psalm 137

A Dream of Dolls

Aubade

Butterflies

Coyote Skull

Epitaph

Ghosts

Haiku

In Exile

July Moon

Loveland Lake

From Wu Ti

Moths

November

Lover and Moon

Petals

Purpose

Question

Rain and Lichen

Red Geranium

Sea and Grove

Stone Man

Tears

The Dragon and the Iguana

The Plaid Giraffe

Rock Creek

The Gift

November Garden

Rainy Night

The Moon Pretends

Poppies

The Old Ewe

Lines from a Gum Tree Grove is a set of fourteen-line poems written in iambic tetrameter with a rhyme scheme of abacbcdefdegfg. They chronicle my courtship, marriage and divorce. I was spurred to write them in part by reading Meredith's _Modern Love._

Where Were You When We Met?

First Date

We Found a Quiet Place

Two Conjoined

Provoke No Dragons

You the Queen

Watching You

You Braid Your Hair

Morning Glories

Housekeeping

Squeaking Snow

Prairie Winds

Rhinestone Weeds

Coyotes

Two Sparrows

Two Gulls

Surf

Squid Boats

The Sails

We Watch the Swallows

Invasion

The Turquoise Frog

The Witch

The Frost

Night Disturbance

Champagne Dragons

The Temblor

Rain

I Talk of Swans

We Wake the Buzzards

The Frog Dream

Gargoyles

The Chase

Joshua Trees

City Streets

You Are Sad

The Caged Cricket

The Owl's News

The Photograph

The Lost Day

Come Play

The Hawk

Milking Time

Talk

Shadows

The Walnut Ships

Absent

Dusty Dragon

The Missing Queen

Your Call

Etiquette

Day Breaks

In My Dreams

Postscript

Orts and Oddments contains verses on many subjects and in many forms. They are, often, bits and pieces without a close connection to each other.

The Visitation

Homeward Bound

Hospital

Hyperbole

Kokopelli

Park Encounter

Reunion

John Day Country

The Hustler

The Tulip Bearers

For Don Wells

The Clockwork Nightingale

Dictionary Flowers

Early Muse

Fred

Alone

Grownups Talked

Mrs. Palmer

Flute Man

The Rare Quiet

A Certain Lady

For Friends in an Old Snapshot

Invitation

Generations

A Trio of Triolets

Harp and Willows

Love Song

White Asters

Kate Nein Remembers 1917

Easter Monday, 2002

Road Kill—A Villanelle

October 7, 2001

Images of Afghanistan

Misty Gorge on the Yangtze

Yellow Mountain

World Cuisine

Afternoon at Machu Picchu

Cruising Musing

The Sphinx

Sales Resistance

Temple Dogs

Sunset

The Wild Nile Gone

The Pylon Carvings

Religions

Machu Picchu Rain

Cairo Streets

Quatorzains are fourteen line poems. The most common use of these poems is for sonnets, both English and Italian. There are many variations, as well.

By the River

First Funeral

El Amor Pasa

Flesh and Conceits

Teddy's Bath

The Boy

The Singing Boy

Ghosts Between Us

If I Should Die

In Fifty Years

Night Incident

Night Music

Spring Breakfast

Spring Vistas

Summer Grass

The Carousel

The Quiet Carousel

The Coyote

The Dowager

The Frogs

The Presence

The River

Waiting for Unicorns

When We Began to Love

White Water

Wise Old Women

Berry Picking

Childhood Rules

Remembering Barbi in April of this year (2015) my kid sister, Barbi, died. She was the best of sisters, and my especial friend. I'm still reeling from the shock of finding her dead when I came home after a conference. Let this be her epitaph until God gives her a better one.

Remembering Barbi One

Remembering Barbi Two

Remembering Barbi Three

Remembering Barbi Four

Remembering Barbi Five

Remembering Barbi Six

Remembering Barbi Seven

Remembering Barbi Eight

Remembering Barbi Nine

Remembering Barbi Ten

Remembering Barbi Eleven

Remembering Barbi Twelve

Remembering Barbi Thirteen

Remembering Barbi Fourteen

Remembering Barbi Fifteen

Remembering Barbi Sixteen

Remembering Barbi Seventeen

Remembering Barbi Eighteen

Remembering Barbi Nineteen

Remembering Barbi Twenty

Remembering Barbi Twenty-One

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Two

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Three

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Four

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Five

Spiritual Ruminations are moments from my exploration of things spiritual.

Making Poems

Villanelle for a Silver God

A Caveat to New Converts

Ossuary

God Thoughts

Ascension Sunday

Elegy for a Dead God

Elvis Redemptor

Geas

Abandoned Promise

Out of the Shadow

Sunday Morning

Anything is Possible in California

The Copper God

The Alpha-Bestiary is a group of twenty-six poems for a parent to read to a child. One poem per letter celebrates the histories of various beasts.

A is for Arliss

B is for Barnaby

C is for Cathy

D is for Disraeli

E is for Edelweiss

F is for Frank

G is for Gilbert

H is for Hellebore

I is for Ichabod

J is for Johannes

K is for Katrinka

L is for Leander

M is for Milford

N is for Nestor

O is for Oswald

P is for Pythagoras

Q is for Quigley

R is for Rehoboam

S is for Sandoval

T is for Teresa

U is for Ursula

V is for Vladimir

W is for Willoughby

X is for Xenocrates

Y is for Yussef

Z is for Zenobia

Winter Poems are poems from my winter of 2015. The subjects and forms are various.

Ken

Don't Wait for Me

November Sonnet

November Villanelle

The Lovers

Random Triolet

South Park

Winter

Afghanistan Redux

Drought Sonnet

Ballad of Remembrance

Astronomical Triolet

Evensong

Winter Ballad

Regarding Death

Promises

Jill's Call

Daylight Comes

I Welcome the Sun

The Quiet Time

The Night Comes Soon in November

December Night

Thanksgiving Lyric

Winter Sonnet

Young and Old, a Ballad

Minor Song

December Sonnet

Remember June?

Admonition

Friends

Folk Fashion Gods

Spiritual Ruminations

Making Poems

Villanelle for a Silver God

A Caveat to New Converts

Ossuary

God Thoughts

Ascension Sunday

Elegy for a Dead God

Elvis Redemptor

Geas

Abandoned Promise

Out of the Shadow

Sunday Morning

Anything is Possible in California

The Copper God

Making Poems

I stuffed an ibis

I caught one dream

with cotton swabs

from aspirin bottles.

I stitched the skin

with nylon thread

from raveled socks

and waxed the beak

with paraffin

from jelly jars.

I propped it up

against the wall

above my mantel.

It shook its wings

and flew away.

Villanelle for a Silver God

I made a silver god

and put it in a shrine.

I thought my work was good.

I made an altar of wood

and set it on the lawn.

I made a silver god

with eyes I painted red,

because I was alone.

I thought my work was good.

A priest came by and said,

when everything was done,

I made a silver god

because I was so bad.

I did not think I sinned;

I thought my work was good.

He was amazed, and mad

with faith, he burned my shrine.

I made a silver god.

I thought my work was good.

A Caveat to New Converts

Beware the Tiger hidden in the Lamb,

his wool-sheathed claws and sheep's eyes veiling fire.

Hosea married Gomer, a common whore,

and got three children in her well-worn womb

under the Tiger. Jeremiah came

to Jerusalem a poet, and wore

away his poetry and died a bore

in Egypt. Lamb-beguiled, the saintly dream

of fleece and limpid eyes. The Tiger waits,

crouching in the wool, to strip and break their bones.

Dream on, oh would-be saints, of God, of sweets

in Paradise, rewards for repented sins.

Sleep with the Lamb between the silken sheets.

You'll wake to find the Tiger always wins.

Ossuary

Lost in a search for God and truth,

I wander on wind-worried silt,

stepping over bleaching bones

others left in this barren place.

Barren myself, a spastic puppet,

yearning for an ever-absent god,

I shake my fist at uncaring skies.

This is a storehouse of crumbling skulls,

a place designed for stacking bones

in piles ordered by length of shin,

in heaps by size of scapulas.

I will wander till thirst and dust

strip my bones and I lie down

in this ossuary of broken faith.

God Thoughts

The pious people come to church

shining and clean from soap and water

to hear the clergy caw of god.

The pulpit crows presume to hedge

divinity with scarecrows conjured

from rags of their own dustbin natures.

Priests fear the unchained power of god.

Pagan and saint alike craft idols

plaster gods to front our fears

and cardboard saints to be our models.

Whatever god might be is other,

beyond our naming. We need our idols;

what use is a god we cannot know?

Do not smash our idols, lord.

Ascension Sunday

Three sparrows play musical roost

on a wire across the street.

A robin gathers weeds for a nest

she's building in the elm. The preacher

says "Glory, Hallelujah!

God's gone to heaven in glory."

His shouting scares the birds,

scares them into the heavens.

Elegy for a Dead God

My God died yesterday.

Outside my windows rat claws

scrabble waltzes on the sidewalks.

My God of the golden smile

died in an alley last night

among the orange peels

and scraps of Styrofoam cups.

Under the neon stars

knives flashed and fell and rose

to slash at him again,

again, 'til he fell and died

in a huddled heap by the gutter.

His laughter is lost on the wind

prowling the hidden alleys.

His unseeing eyes are staring

at an empty sliver of sky.

Overnight, I've grown old.

I stumble. My feet make echoes

in the hollow chambers of our house.

Outside the devils chatter

like copulating squirrels.

I'm too feeble to silence the devils.

Elvis Redemptor

They come, arid of spirit,

to worship their Elvis Redemptor.

His face has appeared in the rust

on a public bathroom's tiles.

They bring their paper flowers,

to wreathe the holy picture,

some light candles on the drains,

some offer their teddy bears.

The pilgrims shuffle in lines,

waiting to plead with Elvis,

plead for water to cleanse them,

plead for Elvis to fill them.

They go away empty,

their nostrils pinched together

against the reek of stale urine

and the dust from their own dry hearts.

Geas

I must go to the desert, to the clean high country.

I will call on the winds to sweep away

the cobwebs the city has spun in my soul.

I will call on the sand to scour the scale

from my mind until my thoughts run true.

I must go among the mesas and rimrock,

and walk through the sage and rabbit brush,

breathing their pollen to clean my lungs.

I must go where nothing grows with ease,

I must go to my brothers, coyote and deer,

go where the rattlesnake has her dominion,

I must go to the desert, the clean high country.

Abandoned Promise

I thirst for god, the promised water.

The springs I drink from are pools of mud.

The low wells yield a brackish drink

thick with salt and rotting matter.

I walk in barrens. My skin is caked

with salt from my sweat. Sand crusts in my eyes.

I cry challenge to God the Promiser.

"Why have you left me broken in this bitter land?

Here sun has bleached the bushes white

and bordered the leaves with brown.

The hot sand glares like amber glass.

The copper sky sears like a skillet.

The winds bob and weave in the thistles,

spreading their thorny seeds on the sand.

I walk this place and stir up dust.

It fills my throat and clogs my nostrils."

God does not answer, preoccupied

perhaps, or dead, or harrowing hell

or otherwise divinely bemused.

I stumble over the mountain's bones

crying through the parch in my throat.

One day some other unfortunate

will stumble over my brittle bones

and fall face forward in the sand and thistles,

and I won't care I'm no longer alone.

Out of the Shadow

Shunning my shadows has shaped my way.

Sure I knew the geas of God,

I stifled the cry of the Spirit within me.

I danced with angels and dallied with demons

bound in the pages of the books I studied.

Weary with turmoil and tumults of spirit,

I sought haven in a prairie pulpit,

earnest to soothe my soul in service.

I affirmed my faith with false fervor,

gulled with dogmas of God and goodness.

My shadow deepened, light shunned me as shameful

I made demons of failure from my fear of freedom.

Broken, I yielded to the folly I'd fled from,

and there was God, greeting me with laughter

and holy healing for heart and mind.

Sunday Morning

Old prayers hang from the chapel rafters,

fallen short of the ears of God,

dried bats of piety gone dusty.

The choir intones a solemn hymn,

a dirge for faith sucked dry of hope.

The preacher thumbs his tattered Bible,

seeking a text to prompt his sermon.

In the market the people sell and buy.

Two fall in love; two others part.

One wins a game; one loses money.

One gives birth; one kills his brother.

The nodding congregation waits

to hear the benediction amen

before they brave the market again.

Anything is Possible in California

I bought a tangerine to eat beside

the California ocean. Rain and wind

had washed the people away. The ebbing tide

grasped at the shore; its wrinkled fingers found

no purchase on the sand. The surf was cream

on the coffee beach. I used my toe to write

my name and town. Seaweed erasers came;

their bobbing pods rubbed all the letters out.

I sat to peel and eat the tangerine.

Wavelets tickled my toes and made me laugh.

Above me I heard a wheeling gull complain

to God. I threw the peeling at a cliff

of cloud, and kindled the west with scarlet fire.

Tomorrow morning I'll gild the dawn with a pear.

The Copper God

I tooled a mold from clay,

melted copper, and cast a god.

For eyes I ground pebbles

from green bottle shards.

I carved a niche from the rock

along a mountain highway,

a shrine to hold my god.

Most travelers passed it by,

but occasional pilgrims stopped

to offer flowers or prayers,

and once a teddy bear

with a single button eye.

When the high priests heard

about my unauthorized shrine

they came with cameras and hammers

and broke my god on television.

They named me heretic and rebel,

for none but the high priests

have license to make gods.

Lesser Verses

The Place

Golden Gate Bridge

After Psalm 137

A Dream of Dolls

Aubade

Butterflies

Coyote Skull

Epitaph

Ghosts

Haiku

In Exile

July Moon

Loveland Lake

From Wu Ti

Moths

November

Lover and Moon

Petals

Purpose

Question

Rain and Lichen

Red Geranium

Sea and Grove

Stone Man

Tears

The Dragon and the Iguana

The Plaid Giraffe

Rock Creek

The Gift

November Garden

Rainy Night

The Moon Pretends

Poppies

The Old Ewe

The Place

I sit in a place

that is no place,

emptiness over me,

emptiness under me,

emptiness around me.

Something scatters

stars in the void.

A joy unwinds

from a depth in me.

My feet touch ground.

I rise and run

with a new strength.

Golden Gate Bridge

Chickens on a truck

scatter white feathers

on the orange bridge.

A west wind puffs them

over the rail to the Bay.

See the sail boats

waltzing with the wind.

After Psalm 137

By the waters of Hiroshima

we wept for the burned children.

We cast chrysanthemums

on the stream and whispered their names.

Destroyers required our mirth,

saying "Sing festive songs."

We hung our guitars on the trees.

We will not sing such songs

to dishonor the ghost children.

A Dream of Dolls

I dream of dolls

under my feet.

Their celluloid heads

crackle and crunch

as I walk over them.

Their plastic hair

tangles my toes,

threatening to trip me.

I wake, terrified,

to find my lover

shelling walnuts

and my toes wriggling

through the holes in my socks.

Aubade

Go warn the moon

the sun is coming.

I hear the rooster

clearing his throat.

Go warn the moon;

don't let the sun

catch her unwary,

baring her cheeks.

Go warn the moon:

too late; too late.

The rooster is crowing.

The moon is blushing.

Butterflies

I watch the butterflies.

Their wings are spotted

with orange and black.

They touch noses

with the purple flowers.

I wonder, are the flowers

smelling the butterflies?

Coyote Skull

A friend brought

this coyote skull

to bless my house.

He found it in the desert,

brought it home,

varnished it,

and gave it to me.

He said he believed

it would prevent demons.

I keep it on my mantel.

Demons play with it.

Epitaph

Stranger passing by,

stop and rest your feet.

Watch the butterflies

dance on the summer wind

before my marble eyes

that cannot see their wings.

Watch them, while you still can,

under the summer skies.

They don't dance long, stranger.

Ghosts

When the wind hurls the mist

from the river at the stars

and the coyotes beg

the moon yield her heart,

Cheyenne and Arapaho

hunt phantom buffalo

in the whispering grass.

A truck klaxon

counts coup

on the night's quiet.

Buffalo and hunter

fade in the moonlight.

The wind swallows

the coyote petitions.

The mist scurries

to hide in the river.

Haiku

The peach blossom sits

on the river; the banks flow

steadily upstream.

In Exile

The cat sun

worries the tails

of fog mice

running the valleys

to shelter in gray

holes in the sea.

I wonder if snow

is falling on the blue

canyons of home.

July Moon

The full moon

perches on the redwood.

The stars hang

from the thin cloud

like silver berries

on a gray bush.

The fog child

plucks the stars

and gorges itself.

Will it choke, I wonder,

on the fat moon?

Loveland Lake

Rice paper kites

climb toward the sun.

Wind stills, kites dive,

tangling in trees

pregnant with spring buds.

Kite tatters echo

splashes boys make

throwing pebbles

in the lake. Kite tails

flutter rag fingers,

begging to fly.

Wild geese rise,

flaunting their wings

to tease the broken kites.

From Wu Ti

The autumn winds are cold.

Chrysanthemums and asters

bloom by the garden wall.

An arrowhead of geese

pierces the gray clouds.

I cast my black fly

in the spray-white creek.

The water drums a roll

on rounded brown rocks.

The wind tattoos a snare

on scarlet maple leaves.

I long to dance with the leaves.

I want to waltz with the waters.

Sorrow slows my feet.

My legs have withered.

My feet stumble on pebbles.

Moths

Wind ruffles the clouds.

Orange-winged moths

mate in the wind's whirl.

The dancing pairs

fall to the meadow

exhausted with love.

Dead wings

cover clutches

of eggs in the clover.

November

At the window I watch

the treetop twigs

nervously scratch

at the sky's belly.

They would tease out the snow

to bury the grasses

that rattle like bones

as the wind passes.

Letters on my table

wait for my answers.

I'll answer them later.

The kettle whistles

the water is ready

to embrace the tea.

I let it whistle.

The telephone jangles.

I let the recorder

pick up the message.

I want to see

the first flakes fall.

Lover and Moon

My love is sleeping,

dark hair spread

like weeping willow

over the pillow.

He does not see

the promenade

of the old maid moon

on our window sill.

Soon the moon

will tickle his eyes

and he will wake

to play with me.

Petals

The wind tickles

the crabapple's branches.

They shiver with laughter,

and drop their petals.

The petals bury

faded violets.

Purpose

When I am old,

I'll plant a garden.

I'll plant flowers

to please my eye

and herbs for my nose.

Lilacs and pansies,

chrysanthemums,

blue rosemary,

and mint and thyme,

pollen palaces

for hungry bees

and petal mansions

for dragonflies.

Question

Why, moon,

do you let your deer

nibble my tomatoes

when I have poems dancing

in the tip of my pen?

Rain and Lichen

Exploring in the rain,

peeling away

green-spattered

gray lichen

from old boards,

I find splinters

and the dark tracks

of my wet fingers.

Once I stood

in another rain

and traced your name

on boards like these

while you argued

your reasons for leaving.

When the rain wets the lichen,

I remember you

and trace dark tracks

with splinters in my fingers.

Red Geranium

This red geranium

is missing three

petal clusters:

two eyes

and a wide mouth.

A yellow jacket

stops in its center.

See the red

kabuki mask,

yellow nose

snuffling the wind.

Sea and Grove

Sea voices cry in the wind.

Hawks glide over the grove.

Wild carrot flowers dance,

white ladies on green hills.

Surf blossoms white on the green sea.

A motorcycle passes on the road.

Its growl swallows the sea's murmur.

The hawks wheel into the sun and flee.

Unheeding, the wild carrot flowers

dance till the moon lights the pastures.

Stone Man

White pebbles are rolling

in the brook by my plinth.

A sparrow is muttering

in the orchard above me

as daybreak reddens

the snows on the peaks.

I've been here since the masons

quarried my granite

and the sculptor shaped

my man's semblance

and fixed me here

on this plinth by the brook.

I weary of standing.

Come, frost fingers,

and pry at my cracks.

Sand on the wind,

wear at my stone.

I would slough this shape,

I would crumble and roll

to the stream that laps

at the base of my plinth.

I want to travel

with the river pebbles.

Tears

Take your tears from the floor

and lay them in a line,

or rank them three by three,

or mingle them with mine.

Don't waste them in the dust

or let them salt your wine.

The Dragon and the Iguana

Neighbor children

stole my strawberries.

I caught a little dragon

with fearsome eyes.

I tied him to a cabbage plant

to scare the wicked children

who would plunder my garden.

I woke next morning

to find the dragon gone.

A neighbor's iguana

cut the string to free him.

Iguanas like children

who share stolen berries.

Iguanas don't fear dragons.

The Plaid Giraffe

The plaid giraffe has gone.

She left some time last night,

slipping between the bars

of my playpen on cotton hooves.

The corduroy elephant

and denim teddy bear

look wistfully through the bars.

I see an intent to diet

glittering in their button eyes.

Rock Creek

Brown water pools

behind tangled stick fingers

clutching the river's belly.

Gold leaves swirl in the current

where trout fan their gills.

A squirrel's chatters a warning.

I toss a pebble at him.

He scrambles up the tree.

Thunder breaks a cloud

over the mountain peak.

The trout leaps and plunges.

Raindrops break the ripples

he left on the pool's surface.

I shelter under a boulder

while the storm spews its fury.

The Gift

To whom shall I send these,

the lilacs I've gathered,

in the cool of the morning?

To a dancing maiden,

or a withered crone?

Perhaps I should lay them

on altars dead Romans

raised to old Bacchus

in drunken frenzies.

Their perfume is fading,

the leaves are brittle,

the petals are shriveled.

I shall give them to Marcia,

she's wilting and fading

like lilacs in the noonday.

November Garden

Wind rattles the withered

hollyhock stalks.

A blackened rosebud,

frost victim,

prophesies winter.

Button-drum

seed pods fall

from the hollyhocks,

waiting for snow,

waiting for spring.

Rainy Night

Near midnight, a tree frog

croaks under my window.

Science claims his croaking

marks his territory.

The frog and I know better.

He sings because he wants to.

The Moon Pretends

The moon pretends

it doesn't mind

bouncing over black

cloud tatters

the wind scattered

across the sky.

I know the moon

is pretending, because

its face is green.

Poppies

June poppies,

orange and yellow,

are blooming

in Denver yards.

They honor no dead.

This is not Flanders.

They bloom for joy

that summer has come.

The Old Ewe

Rain on the shed

sizzles like a kettle

beginning to boil.

The old ewe

scrapes crippled hooves

through the dung on the floor.

She begs the mercy

of a bullet in her ear.

A mourning dove

cries once in the rain.

Quatorzains

By the River

First Funeral

El Amor Pasa

Flesh and Conceits

Teddy's Bath

The Boy

The Singing Boy

Ghosts Between Us

If I Should Die

In Fifty Years

Night Incident

Night Music

Spring Breakfast

Spring Vistas

Summer Grass

The Carousel

The Quiet Carousel

The Coyote

The Dowager

The Frogs

The Presence

The River

Waiting for Unicorns

When We Began to Love

White Water

Wise Old Women

Berry Picking

Childhood Rules

By the River

I went down to the river to see

the sunlight waltz across the ripples.

The wind scattered the leaves of a tree

hanging over the water. A man

leaning against the trunk ate an apple.

He gazed west as if to see Japan.

I asked if he thought the fish could think.

"Fish can't think in rippling water,"

he said, "it hypnotizes them."

He tossed the core. I watch it sink.

"On moonless nights the fish think better.

No ripple glitter distracts their minds."

He left. I watched the river turn pewter

as clouds flew in on the evening winds.

First Funeral

We commonly visited our dead in May

We brought them irises from our garden.

We told them family news, then left

to let them lie for another year.

That March the sun was thin as water.

Stale snow lurked in shady places.

Carpet green as Christmas wrapping

covered the brittle winter grass.

Hothouse flowers covered her coffin

balanced above the open grave.

The preacher droned his graveside words.

I squeezed my tears under my eyelids.

We left her in the March graveyard

waiting for May and an iris bouquet.

El Amor Pasa

Some rite should mark the death of love,

some moment lovers declare love dead,

with ceremony, then take their leave

of one another with ritual graces.

There should be words the parsons read

with solemn sorrow on their faces

in chapels filled with candle light.

We'll have to stumble as best we can

through awkward meetings in public places.

We have no comforting parting rite.

Love died between us, I don't know when.

Your love for me was first to go,

then, some time, mine for you was gone;

No ritual marked the when and how.

Flesh and Conceits

Elizabethan poets wrote their rhymes

to catalog their women's charms

in strained conceits, or else the times

produced strange women, wigged with wire,

with jeweled lips and ivoried arms,

cold robots to set a man afire.

I prefer your flesh to take to bed

in all its humanity. Warm skin

beats ivory; jeweled kisses wear

the lips away. I like your head

with hair, not wires. Crescendoing

to spill my seed in your warm place

I glory in your hips' wild swing

and the rush of blood that flushes your face.

Teddy's Bath

Mother insisted Teddy was dirty

and must endure the washing machine.

I watched him through the glass in front.

He battled the tumbling currents bravely,

but his stitches broke and he lost his head.

His cotton drained with the soapy water.

His button eyes were left behind.

They rattled round the tub as it spun.

I wept over the rag he'd become.

"At least he's clean," my mother said.

"And dead," I said. "I'll fix him," she promised,

"while you take your bath." "No!" I screamed.

"I don't want to lose my head

and send my innards down the drain!"

The Boy

"Where has he gone, the boy who clapped

his hands to the robin's song and marveled

to see the squirrels rear, rigid,

to reconnoiter the park with fierce

black eyes before they buried their nuts?

That boy dreamed bright dreams and planned

great deeds. I wonder, did he ever

wander the woods with wolves his companions?

Did he dance with dappled dolphins

or run between the glittering stars?"

"He boxed his dreams in workday tissues

and put the boxes in his heart's attic,

took up the world of everyday

and withered away among accountants."

The Singing Boy

Angels might envy his boy's soprano.

His "White Coral Bells" enraptured

an audience of parents and teachers,

his "O, Holy Night" beguiled them

to set their hearts on sacred things.

At six he tore my homework in pieces.

At seven he punched my stomach. At eight

he tried to drown me in the toilet.

At nine, he beat my head on the curb.

I fought back, then. The teacher caught us,

and punished me. She did not think

a demon child could sing like an angel.

At ten he moved, I hoped to Hell,

where he could never sing on key.

Ghosts Between Us

Ghosts walk between us in the lane,

hurts we've given one another.

We talk of familiar things we've done

hiding in ordinary matters,

denying truth, hoping it withers.

We wrap our hurts in shrouds of chatter.

We fear to say them would open doors

to mental rooms where clawed things wait

to tear our crafted selves to tatters.

How long will we fill our shared hours

with idle conversation that floats

like dandelions on the winds?

Will brittle patter let us forget?

Or free the ghosts that haunt our minds?

If I Should Die

If I should die before you wake

some morning, take what time you need

to know your grief before you look

for other folk to comfort you.

I would not go among the dead

without remembrance or have you go

among the living with untouched grief.

Be with me one last while as we

have been: one manifest in two.

Then go about your separate life

and let me be what the dead must be.

If your separateness needs salve,

then think of me as one set free

from the weary turbulence of self.

In Fifty Years

Fifty years from now will we

sit in our rocking chairs all day

waiting until we can rest and be

forgotten names on tombstones cut

with the chisel, or will we replay,

although more slowly, what we thought

and said and did when we were young?

I hope not, for then our time

will be short, and our ending ought

to be a death-defying song.

Let's make a triumph, teasing rhyme

and reason from chaos. We'll tell all

the gloomy wardens of that dark home

the dead inhabit, we're living well.

Night Incident

Eastward, rain obscures the dawn.

Westward, the mountain hides the moon.

Barking dogs and slamming doors

have wakened us, to peer at the street

through red-lit raindrops on our windows.

We watch the crew roll out the gurney,

we speculate in quiet voices

what desperation rides its wheels,

which neighbor copulates with death.

Someone starts their car and follows

the ambulance around the corner.

Eastward, the dawn breaks through the rain.

Westward the sun has touched the mountain.

We wait for news in the morning paper.

Night Music

It's three in the morning; I'm alone in my bed,

wakened from dreams I refuse to remember.

The sweat of my fear soaks my sheets.

I turn the radio on for distraction.

Steel guitars cry the blues, laments

dry as grief, and hot as hate.

They waken black things deep in me.

Something struggles to live in the hollows

between midnight and dawn, fights

to birth itself inside me and crawl

into the day to blacken it.

I thrust the monstrous fetus back,

change the station in mid-chord,

and wait for day with piano jazz.

Spring Breakfast

In spring I breakfast with mourning doves.

I remember their song from my childhood mornings.

I wake un-rested from broken sleep.

My knees remind me I'm growing old.

Something grates in my elbows as well.

My tea is bitter, my toast is tasteless.

Sugar and butter sour my digestion.

My eyes blear in the morning breeze

that scatters iris petals on the deck.

I force my fingers around my cup.

The tea is hot and comforts them.

I listen as doves grieve this morning.

I chew my toast and sip at my tea.

I'm glad my ears and teeth still work.

Spring Vistas

In April the world starts over again.

Calla lilies bloom in the gardens,

and rosebuds unfold in silver vases.

Ladies in lace and watered silk

drink jasmine tea from porcelain cups

and pass platters of lady fingers

with polite remarks about the weather.

Weeds thrust up from sidewalk cracks

and gnats dance over abandoned tires.

Boys in jeans and baggy shirts

drink yellow beer from shiny cans

and pass corn chips in plastic bags

with lewd remarks about their women.

In April, the world renews itself.

Summer Grass

Summer grass was brown that day

we marked the lambs and sheared the ewes.

I put aside my mythic songs and play.

We turned our hands to summer's work.

Powdered dung-dust sucked the juice

from our throats, discouraging remarks

and idle chatter. Despite the sun

I felt chills in the stifling shed.

something stirred that slept in the dark

rooms of my mind. It seemed that stone

hunched my shoulders and bowed my head.

I quarreled with my heaviness,

blamed it on eating improper food,

blinding myself to my unease.

The Carousel

The palomino swan-coach pair

and bay horse and black horse all are still.

They stand with the appaloosa mare,

nostrils flared and hooves held high,

poised on the silent carousel.

The sallow people walking by

darken the mirrors with their despair.

They hunch their shoulders against the snow.

They have no magic of the eye

to see the horses waiting there

to ride the golden poles. When they go,

we see the mirrors shimmering,

the horses prancing, eyes aglow,

and, beckoning, the golden ring.

The Quiet Carousel

The carousel is still. The gilt

has peeled from its poles in curling strips

and lies on the deck. The mirrors melt

debris to fantasies. A sad

slow wind rattles the empty cups;

they sound like horses on parade.

I half-convince myself I hear

the wheeze of a distant calliope

and see clowns caper in the road.

Small flakes of snow fall through the tears

in the carousel's canvas top. I see

no clowns, I hear no song but wind

drumming the canvas mournfully

and rolling the cups along the ground.

The Coyote

Last night it snowed. Tonight it drifts.

The coyote calls from the eastern hills.

He'd have me raise my cry with his

to grieve the moon's uncaring ways.

I hear the despair in his howling

that the moon has done him wrong.

I will not go to howl with him.

I will not go where God has spilled

his star shaker across the sky.

What care I for the fickle moon,

that I should freeze in the winter wind?

Let old coyote howl for himself.

I've faithless loves of my own to accuse,

and in my house I have fire and light.

The Dowager

Orange-and-black-winged, two butterflies

sip at the purple chives. The cat

folds her tail and poses wise

and solemn, a gray-furred dowager

aloof from frivolous moths at their meat.

You stroke her chin. She starts to purr

and stretch, forgetful of her dignity.

The dowager is still a kitten,

for all her venerable years.

I look, and in your eyes I see,

though you wrinkle, your youth will sweeten

your sour age. Your sight may fade,

your hearing go, your memory weaken,

but you'll still want to watch the parade.

The Frogs

The frogs are croaking in the yard.

Their throats are hoarse. They've sung for hours.

"Ninety-nine droplets of dew on the lawn,"

they sing, "ninety-nine droplets of dew.

Take one sip, then wipe your lip,

ninety-eight droplets of dew on the lawn..."

they must be drunk, or stoned on grass.

If they kept a rhythm, I'd sleep,

perhaps to dream of railway journeys,

but each must croak to his own drum,

and sing his own off-key notes.

Some claim their chorus marks their turf,

others say they sing for mates.

I'm wakeful, plotting frogicide.

The Presence

You sense a presence in this place.

I feel a chill, dead, mass of air.

You think it's a ghost, one of your race

still uneasy in its rest.

Your talk prickles my neckline hair.

Moonset is orange in the west;

some angry cloud has tinted the white.

My unease grows as you draw close.

I put my fingers on your wrist

and wish the day would rush the night.

I measure the stutter of your pulse.

You take my hand and say, "Let's run!

I do not like whatever it is."

We run and hills swallow the moon.

The River

I watched the sun waltz on the river

thinking of you and why you went.

The ripples ran like melted silver.

I bowed my head to make a wish.

The river flowed westward, intent

on the sea. The sun painted a flush

on the waters as they ran.

I turned homeward to the rooms

where your feet left prints I washed

away in anger. You are not in

their emptiness, and I must come

to terms with places empty of you.

How strange: the river flows the same

while I stumble on a road that's new.

Waiting for Unicorns

One night when lilacs bloomed in the yard

I slipped from bed and opened the window.

The cold breeze chilled my cheeks and nose.

The moon tarnished the yard with silver.

The stars had chewed a thousand moth holes

in the night's threadbare opera cape.

Beside me, the clock climbed hand over hand

from nine to midnight. My books had promised

unicorns would come to graze

on lilacs blooming in May moonlight.

The clock hands slid from midnight to five.

My heart and body were ice by dawn.

I saw no unicorns. At noon

I cut the lilacs to fill a vase.

When We Began to Love

When we began to love each other

I thought we'd love till death came round.

New lovers don't see troubles gather,

immersed in two becoming one,

convinced they'll be forever one mind,

one will, one soul, under the sun.

Romance breeds a cataract

that blinds the heart to common sense.

Yet love survives the setting moon

to thrive in the day. I'd resurrect

the giddy ecstasy of romance

with you, but you've found someone else

who fires your soul with a single glance

and mates his heartbeat with your pulse.

White Water

White water wears at iron-stained stone,

then tumbles and quiets in brown pools.

The paintbrush catches the morning sun

and distills for dawn its purple and red.

Sun-dribbled gold touches the rills

that swell the creek from the mother lode

of glacier ice. Daisies dress

a hill in lavender shawls. We stop

and kiss with our eyes. You shake your head

to stop my kissing with lips. We pass

a small cascade, the others in step

behind us. "Look for columbine,"

you say, "under the aspen," and drop

a wink to me for promise sign.

Wise Old Women

Old women were wise when I was a boy.

They crafted childhoods from cookies and stories.

They knew the secrets of making jams

and building peace from compromises.

They knew where small boys went to play,

and when a silence threatened mischief.

They brought forth cakes from cranky ovens

and started fires with kindling and coal.

They chased my monsters out of my closet

and swept the ogres from under my bed.

The world was a decent and orderly place.

One by one the wise old women

laid down their baking pans and died.

The world wobbles in a warped orbit.

Berry Picking

A sparrow chattered overhead

while we picked the boysenberries.

Our hands were sticky with the juice,

our fingers too dirty for licking clean.

The cat stalked the moths cavorting

above the vines. We complained

about the heat, but kept picking.

Grandma promised pie for dessert.

A thunderstorm rode down the canyon

throwing lightning and hailstones at us.

The cat and sparrow fled to the porch.

We dropped our pails and ran for the house.

The berries scattered over the lawn.

We had no dessert that night.

Childhood Rules

The old ones gave me childhood rules

that still compel my obedience:

"Brine draws the bitter from cucumbers."

"Don't sit in drafts if your feet are wet."

"Vinegar seasons beans and spinach."

"Salt tomatoes, sugar cherries."

"Hot cookies burn the tongue and fingers."

"Do your chores before you play."

"Children should sleep when chickens do."

"Scorch the flour for pot roast gravy."

"Wash your ears and elbows twice."

"Tiptoe when a cake is baking."

"Wash both the front and back of the plate."

"When you sleep in strange beds, wear pajamas."

From the Classics

Adapted from Anacreon # 47

Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)

For My Ex

Love Weariness

Midsummer's Night

My Escape

For a Soldier Who Died on Camera

Adapted from Anacreon # 53

Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)

Tithonos

Adapted from Anacreon # 47

I am old, but I drink more

than young men can, and when I dance

I take the center of the floor,

using my jeroboam for crutch

since my cane's too short to serve.

If anybody wants a fight,

bring him over; I'll whip him, sure.

Barkeep, bring me bourbon and seven,

not too heavy on the seven.

Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)

Snow crushed the roof on Lizzie's hut.

The thrifty council refused to disturb the ruin.

They carved her dates on a broken roof tile.

Why dig the woman up just to bury her?

For My Ex

(Horace, Carmina IV, xiii "Audivere, Lyce, di mea vota, di...")

I lit candles, pranced

widdershins around them,

chanting harsh syllables

awkward as Klingon curses.

It worked, my dear. You've aged.

You paint and powder, paste

a too-bright smile on your face.

Only the blind are fooled.

Your flesh has shriveled or sagged.

Your hair, what's left of it,

clings feebly to your scalp.

Look in your mirror; your treason

is carved in your wrinkled cheeks.

The powers that be are just,

if bought with prayers enough.

Love Weariness

(Horace, Carmina IV, i " _Intermissa, Venus, diu..._ ")

Love gods in every pantheon,

have done! Spare me further amours!

I'm not the man I used to be

when Lou's love ruled me. Have done, I plead!

I'm crowding sixty. Bother the young.

They've the constitution for love,

the will to waltz all night with lust,

the strength to woo and win and lose.

I'm beyond both men and women.

Leave me to my television and crackers.

But why, when Matt Damon visits Oprah,

does my breath come faster, imagining

I watch from poolside as he plunges,

a golden arrow, into blue water?

Midsummer's Night

(Horace, Carmina III, xxviii, " _Festo quid potius die..._ ")

Midsummer's Night, my friend.

I've stashed a Sonoma Merlot

in the cellar for tonight.

Fetch it, amigo.

The afternoon's wound down.

Dusk unwinds it shadows.

I'll get some ice and a bucket

to cool the wine.

While it chills we'll sing

songs for the holiday.

I'll do songs of the sea.

You warble laments.

We'll end with a duet for lovers,

uncork the wine and drink

a toast to fermented grapes

and drowning sorrows.

Adapted from Anacreon # 51

Just because you're young,

blooming with youth and grace,

don't run from my gray hair.

Florists arrange bouquets

with lilies beside the roses.

My Escape

(Horace, Carmina I, v "Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa...")

What graceful half-god embraces you,

crushing you on heaps of roses?

Have you caught him with artless curls?

He'll come to tears over you.

He'll dive into your eyes' black seas

to drown where others have. Too bad

your eyes are deeper than your soul.

I was luckier. I got away.

Shipwrecked Romans come safe to shore

offered plaques and their sea-soaked tunics

to thank the ocean. I scrawled my thanks

on a bathhouse wall and left my jeans

in a puddle in a shower stall.

For a Soldier Who Died on Camera

(Catullus, Carmina LXV, "etsi me adsiduo defectam cura dolore...")

Brother, my verse calls me to work.

I am too dull with regret to midwife

verses for the Muses. The foreign earth

lies heavy on you by that strange river.

I'll never meet you, now, to spend

an hour or two in some tavern to hear

your story of your war. Out of regret,

unknown brother, I write for you

this paraphrase of Catullus to tell you

I held you in my mind beyond

the electron flicker of your dying.

Adapted from Anacreon # 53

Gray hair rings my head.

When I see young men dancing,

I am young again

and waltz as well as any.

Bring me scotch, no ice,

to stupefy my heart.

I'm old, about to die,

but I've got reels to dance

and polkas to step before

I let you bury me!

Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)

Prion, a sailor of Greece,

outran the storms of the sea

to shelter in a windless harbor.

Pirates caught him there,

took his ship and cargo,

recruited his crew, and killed him.

Tithonos

Greek tales tell how Dawn once took

a lover, the young stud Tithonos.

She granted him an endless life,

but forgot to include eternal youth.

He withered as the years piled up.

Dawn ran off with an ageless god.

Fate made Tithonos a locust

doomed to hop the prairies forever.

Tales claim he still wanders with the bugs.

If Dawn remembers her lover at all,

I suppose she remembers him young.

Who knows what Tithonos remembers?

If fate was kind his brain has withered,

and he only remembers the wind in the grass.

Orts and Oddments

The Visitation

Homeward Bound

Hospital

Hyperbole

Kokopelli

Park Encounter

Reunion

John Day Country

The Hustler

The Tulip Bearers

For Don Wells

The Clockwork Nightingale

Dictionary Flowers

Early Muse

Fred

Alone

Grownups Talked

Mrs. Palmer

Flute Man

The Rare Quiet

A Certain Lady

For Friends in an Old Snapshot

Invitation

Generations

A Trio of Triolets

Harp and Willows

Love Song

White Asters

Kate Nein Remembers 1917

Easter Monday, 2002

Road Kill—A Villanelle

October 7, 2001

Images of Afghanistan

Misty Gorge on the Yangtze

Yellow Mountain

World Cuisine

Afternoon at Machu Picchu

Cruising Musing

The Sphinx

Sales Resistance

Temple Dogs

Sunset

The Wild Nile Gone

The Pylon Carvings

Religions

Machu Picchu Rain

Cairo Streets

The Visitation

It was after church

and after noon,

and the sun lay on the town

like eternal damnation's despair.

Miranda sat on the veranda

holding her panda

while Amanda fanned her

with a palm frond.

Behind the oleanders,

her brother Alexander

and her cousin Leander

fondled each other.

Sister Lorna lounged on a lawn chair

languid as the lilies

sleeping on the pond

in the languorous afternoon.

Her beloved Papá, the Commander,

snored in his wicker rocker.

The cicadas in the yews

harmonized on their kazoos

and the mockingbirds slept,

too weary to mimic their buzz.

Flies circled the lemonade,

dipping and sipping

from pitcher and tumblers

sticky with sugar

retreating ice cubes left.

Silk rustled in the stillness.

Miranda thought of dry grasses

rubbing helplessly in a moaning wind.

The cicadas went silent.

The Commander woke.

Alexander left off fondling Leander.

Amanda laid aside her palm frond.

The lilies slept on the quiet pond.

Lorna lifted her head, her limp locks

slipping over her shoulders.

The flies, flush with lemonade,

settled on the rim of the pitcher

and waited with motionless wings.

A fungus-pale face emerged,

like a Polaroid developing,

above the yew shaded walk.

Under the face the darker shadows

formed into a gown

five generations out of fashion.

A fierce old woman stood

in mourning silk and laces

just on the edge of the sun

like a raven with ill tidings.

Miranda on the verandah

shivered and squeezed her panda.

Amanda turned and hurried into the house

crossing her bosom in panic.

Leander and Alexander peeped

through the branching oleander.

Languorous Lorna leapt from her lawn chair.

The Commander rose from his wicker rocker,

to peer at the figure on the walk.

"Great Aunt Cassandra's Ghost!"

he exclaimed and fell back in the rocker.

It creaked under his weight.

The apparition laughed.

The screech was nerve-destroying,

like a death cry of dolphins.

"Not sober, Nephew Evander?

Too much rum in the lemonade?"

The ghostly whisper

rattled like dry sticks.

The Commander forbore to answer.

Miranda's Mamá,

Amanda behind her,

drifted onto the verandah

dressed in blue linen

pale as water

under a winter sky.

"Great Aunt Cassandra,

what a lovely surprise!"

Her voice was a flute song,

liquid melody in the languid heat.

"Do come perch on the porch.

We've lemonade, already made."

"Great Aunt Cassandra

died a hundred years ago, Mamá."

Lorna's voice was harsh and sour.

"I don't think we've lemonade

enough to wet her bones."

Mamá Letitia's fluting voice

rose to a gargling shriek

as she slumped to the porch.

She lay there like water

spilled in a puddle

waiting for the sun

to suck it up.

Miranda held her panda

in front of her to defend her.

"By the holy jacaranda,

sacred to the best of families,"

she demanded of the apparition,

"what brings you here,

Great Aunt Cassandra's Ghost?"

The menacing whisper was clear

though it did not stir the heat-heavy air.

"The Yankees are coming!

They've burned Atlanta!

The Yankees are coming!

They're marching on Savannah!

Beware! Beware! Beware!"

With a loud ululation

the apparition evaporated.

In the silence that followed,

the cicadas began to croon

in the summer afternoon.

The thirsty flies

dived into the lemonade.

Amanda lifted Mamá Letitia

from the verandah

to carry her into the gloom

that huddled in the house.

Leander caressed Alexander.

Alexander giggled among the oleanders.

Sister Lorna reclined on the lawn chair,

her fingers twisting her limp locks.

Commander Sanders snored again,

a gentle sound, like muffled tubas

keeping the beat for a distant band.

Miranda hugged her panda

and prayed on the verandah

for the repose of ancestral souls.

Homeward Bound

Winter moon, watch over me.

Shadows stalk the feeble streetlights.

The whispering wind has snow on its breath.

Long hours in smoky bars behind me,

waiting for Mr. Right to show.

I'm going home alone, again.

Watch me, waning winter moon,

between the bar and my empty room.

Hospital

Every evening they come to me,

the woman I wed and the man I loved.

They gather with lesser ghosts at twilight,

fearful I'll forget I knew them.

They swing from the tube that enters my arm.

They dance on the scope that watches my heart.

When the lamps divide the glare from shadow,

they skulk in the dark corners and scowl.

They wait for my evening medication.

They want to chatter in my dreams.

If this room had television,

I'd turn it on before the twilight

and drown my ghosts in seas of drivel,

so I could sleep the night undisturbed.

Hyperbole

"If the moon were a medal,

I'd take it from Heaven

to hang round your neck.

I'd take Orion's stars

to make the chain

and a cunning clasp."

He smiled as I spoke.

"But the owls will not take

their delirious wings

from the moon's wan face

and Orion is hunting

the negligent bear

through the galaxies.

I faint when I climb,

and a loon is wailing

I'll die if I try

to snatch the moon

from the firmament."

When I said this to him,

he replied with a shrug,

and got up and left me.

"No poetry of soul,"

I said to my beer.

My beer said nothing

as I drained my glass.

Kokopelli

I hear his flute on the canyon winds.

Kokopelli is coming to town.

The young men practice the festival dances.

The old men count the hides and corn

they've kept to trade for turquoise and coral.

Old women smile and hum with the flute,

remembering Kokopelli's songs,

remembering Kokopelli's arms.

Down at the river the pueblo's girls

are washing their hair with yucca root,

whispering of Kokopelli's songs,

whispering of Kokopelli's arms.

Kokopelli is coming to town.

I hear his flute on the canyon winds.

Park Encounter

I watched you pass my bench,

smiling sidelong at me,

many times before

you stopped to talk with me.

The wind tousled your hair

and pressed your shirt against

your muscular pecs and abs.

My pulse swelled in my throat

so I mumbled my reply.

You looked up at jets

writing vapor answers on the sky.

and nodded as though you'd decided

something. You smiled, excused

yourself, and walked away.

I've waited on my bench

every day since then,

but you haven't walked this way.

Reunion

Lamplight splotched

the polished wood,

littering the table

with yellow lights

like lemon peels.

Our coffee cooled

in our willow-ware cups

while we tried to remember

why we once were friends.

The furnace noises

accentuated our silences.

After an awkward time,

he went into the snow.

I turned out the lamp

and was glad he had gone.

John Day Country

There the spirit may sing its making,

and the pilgrim wander the wind-kissed ridges

to commune with hawks in the high desert.

There I would go to get heart's ease.

I would shelter with cougars in the shadowy pines.

I would sing with coyotes in a star-scarred sky.

I would chant with the rapids roiling through the canyons.

I would den with the bear and dance with the deer.

I would run with the rabbits through the sage and the sand

I would untwist the tangle of my terrors

and walk a free man on the wind's highways.

There I would live, lonely and clean,

where the air's so thin the eagle falters.

There I would sing my spirit song

The Hustler

A boy-man leans against the brick,

one knee bent, one hand on a hip,

offering youth for coin of the realm.

His eyes are green as ocean swells

I yearn to plumb their mysteries.

He searches my face to see what I want.

I shake my head. I will not pay

for grappled sex in a bathroom tiled

with puddled semen and weary lust.

He shrugs. His eyes glaze with boredom.

He turns to search the passing crowd.

I leave him there. I will not watch

some casual trick buy time with those eyes

not caring what self may swim in their deeps.

The Tulip Bearers

Two men bearing potted tulips

in the mall processed with uplifted hands,

solemn as priests presenting the Host.

The younger, who led, looked back to see

if his older companion followed safely.

The old man's gaze was all on his pot.

He looked neither up ahead,

nor at his feet. He walked down stairs

and did not stumble. "Do they visit

the sick?" I wondered. "Look around,"

you said. "Potted tulips fill

the flower boxes. I think they're thieves."

"Walking so slow and carefully?"

"They're too old to run away."

For Don Wells

The crocus will bloom where the snow is melting.

The bud shows color under its green.

If Don were near, I'd invite him over

to greet the crocus when it comes,

but he has gone adventuring.

He left his house; the door's ajar.

The stove is cold, the table's empty.

A winter's dust sits in Don's chair.

Autumn leaves sleep on his bed.

He has other rooms to keep.

He's taking tea and cookies with the saints

and telling jokes to the solemn angels.

Tomorrow he'll fly kites with the Christ.

The crocus must make do with me.

The Clockwork Nightingale

I made a clockwork nightingale.

I cut the gears and shafts from brass.

The springs I bought at my hardware store.

I made the body and wings from copper,

and etched the feathers in the metal.

The beak and tail were stainless steel.

I enameled eyes so the bird could see.

I wound it up with a silver key.

I taught it madrigals and sent it

from door to door to sing for my supper.

A Nashville crow lured it away

with promises of country music stardom.

I have not heard it sing on the radio,

nor seen its discs in music stores.

I sometimes wonder, late in the night,

if it sings on Nashville's meaner streets,

or lies scrapped in a dump in Tennessee.

Dictionary Flowers

My grandmother

kept her family history

in a dictionary,

because Webster's stirred less controversy

than her mother's Protestant Bible

in her stepfather's Catholic household.

She pressed flowers between its pages,

mementoes she kept of her wedding,

and my father's christening,

and maybe her mother's funeral.

She never said which blossom

marked which event,

perhaps because she couldn't remember.

I don't touch them.

They might crumble.

Even the dictionary's pages

are brittle and likely to shatter.

I breathe gently when I look at them.

I don't want to sneeze

and scatter her memories

and the old definitions

among the dust mites

in this room she never saw.

Early Muse

One spring some forty years ago

I fell in love with her for a month.

I called her "Lady of the Lilacs."

because she dressed in grays and lavenders

and gave me metaphors and rhymes.

She called herself "Child of Rain."

and planned to die when she reached thirty.

I meant to live to be very old,

and promised to mourn her early dying.

We quarreled over some small thing.

I left her weeping in an April rain.

A class reunion letter tells me

she's married twice, has three children.

No mention of intention to die soon.

Fred

Tangerines in a blue glass bowl

flamed in the winter sunbeam

dividing the dust in the room

that day after the funeral.

She put a kettle of water to heat,

finding endurance in familiar tea.

She set out cups, and put away

her funeral gloves and black-veiled hat.

I murmured things to comfort her.

She understood my awkward words

the way I meant them. The sun went towards

the west. She brought the tea. The fire

left the tangerines and the sun.

The tangerines blended their smell

with the tea steam. We traded small smiles,

drank tea, and shared our thoughts of him.

Alone

I stopped to watch him wait for the bus.

He stood where turquoise lamplight fell

in streaks through leafless trees. The shadows

hid me from him. He did not know

I watched him strike a match to warm

his hands. I moved; my footsteps squeaked

on the snowy walk. He watched me come,

from the corner of his wary eyes.

Before I could speak, or catch his glance,

the bus pulled up and rescued him.

I walked on home through empty streets.

Grownups Talked

Grownups talked in the summer twilight.

They talked of ancestors they'd known

who plowed Kansas and mined Wyoming.

One told how timbers splintered in a mine,

mangling a father and the company mule.

Another's carpenter cousin fell

from a roof and broke his back. One's brother

died in France, spared the war

by influenza and poisoned blood.

An uncle, three years old, tumbled

from a car, cracked his breastbone, and died.

At nightfall, they turned on parlor lights,

bid me kneel to say my prayers,

and sent me to bed in a darkened room.

Mrs. Palmer

She was a neighbor we visited.

Her house was redolent

with liniment and coal smoke.

Even the spring breezes,

could not pass the screen

against the smoke and liniment.

When she came to our house,

her liniment and smoke came with her

and lingered after she left.

Time and age had raddled her,

marking grooves in her cheeks

and whiskering her chin.

She might have modeled the witch

for a book of Halloween stories,

except her eyes were kind and smiling.

Once she gave me seeds

for Hubbard squash.

I scratched a hole in a cinder heap

with a bent-handled spoon to plant them.

Against all expectation, they grew

a squash for Thanksgiving

and made a lifelong gardener of me.

Long after, she died in an old folks' home,

a refugee from a brutal son

who drank her pension and beat her.

Her obituary revealed she'd been

a scandalous beauty, with a bastard son

whose father denied begetting him.

The old women of my house murmured

"God knows she suffered a bitter atonement."

They never spoke of her again.

Flute Man

He was playing his flute

on a bench in the Zocolo.

He was not of us, an intruder.

He was a stranger.

I knew it at once.

I am of the village.

I know everyone by sight.

We call our town square the Zocolo,

though it has no plinth,

only weeping willows,

and patches of lawn around two flower beds.

The willow buds were breaking,

promising early leaves.

Dust crusted the flower beds.

The grass was still winter amber.

The melody conjured the sun

smiling through the rain.

It tugged at corners of me

I had not visited in a long while.

Faded denim covered his lean strength.

Storm cloud grays speckled

his obsidian hair.

Living had carved characters

in his face and around his eyes.

His brown eyes looked

beyond the Zocolo.

I stopped to listen

until he closed his song

with a quiet phrase.

He looked at me and nodded,

shook the spit from his flute,

put it in his pack and walked away.

I stayed, and listened to the wind

whisper to the willows

until my corners

settled into place again.

The Rare Quiet

It has come

so unexpected,

this rare quiet.

The house is so still

I can hear the clock

tick in the kitchen.

The wind is soft;

it hardly moves

the young green leaves

in the cherry tree.

The petals cling

secured to the branches.

All the children

must be asleep.

The neighbor dogs

nap in the shade.

Under the silence

the pigeons mutter

some foreboding.

On a distant street

a siren screams.

Dogs tatter the stillness

with their barking.

The angry pigeons

fly with a rasp

of beating wings

into the wind

rattling the trees.

Soon the children

will shriek and laugh

in the streets and yards.

The rare quiet

was ah! so brief.

A Certain Lady

In the shadowy hall

she stopped me,

her hand on my arm.

"Never tell!" she said,

and squeezed my wrist.

She turned and ran.

She never told me

what to keep

eternally secret.

She just told me,

"Never tell!"

squeezed my wrist,

and left me to wonder

in the empty hall.

For Friends in an Old Snapshot

I'd stored the photo

long years back.

It belongs to a summer

before the plague

burned you away.

It shows you on the beach

playing volleyball.

I watched you shrivel

forty years too soon

and die distorted

like sheets of paper

curled to ash

in a fire.

That's how I remembered you,

your faces pillowed

on plastic tubes,

your eyes

staring at a void.

I'd forgotten

you played

beach volleyball.

Invitation

Shut the door against the wind.

I smell snowflakes on its breath.

Take a chair beside the fire.

Pour yourself a glass of wine.

It's cranberry. I made it myself.

Don't add ginger ale or soda.

Tonight you need the alcohol.

Swirl it in your glass a little,

to start the bubbles. The fecund yeast

sings such harmonies with the juice!

Drink up, good friend. I've more on hand.

Nothing stops old age or winter,

or so a wise man told me once,

but wine, he said, mellows both.

Generations

"Why do you dance, old man,

in the light of a neon moon?

I hear the creak of your joints

you're out of sync with the beat

and you're not pretty to look at.

Your belly gyrates like pudding.

You wobble like a top

running out of spin.

Why do you dance, old man?"

"Because I can, young man,

here where the neon moon

glitters on the asphalt.

Because I can, I dance,

and if the beat escapes me,

the drummer in my belly

keeps rhythms I understand.

I dance because I can."

"Why do you whirl, little girl,

your arms stretched out and your hair

tangling in the wind?

You're like a butterfly

lost between the flowers.

Why do you spin, little girl,

spurning your lessons and chores?

The world is made for the serious;

the frivolous lose the prize.

Why do you whirl, little girl?"

"I whirl, old woman, to praise

the moon and sun and wind.

I whirl and spin to see

the stars in my head

rock and roll with the song

of the spheres and suns that dance

in the dark of the universe.

I turn and turn to make

my skirts fly in circles.

I whirl, old woman, because

the universe is a song

and I love to sing along."

A Trio of Triolets

When I cut an orange rose

and pinned it in my hair,

I wore my gypsy dancing shoes.

When I cut an orange rose

I donned my jester's clothes.

There was laughter everywhere

when I cut an orange rose

and pinned it in my hair.

The yellow rose was in bud

and I was playing the fool

with a flower on my head.

The yellow rose was in bud

and all the others said

my foolery was very droll.

The yellow rose was in bud

and I was playing the fool.

When the day grew dark with rain

the others ran away.

I danced alone with disdain.

When the day grew dark with rain

I made a daisy chain

and threw my rose away.

When the day grew dark with rain

the others ran away.

Harp and Willows

I hang my harp among the willows

to let the wind play tunes.

The fingers of the wind are agile.

My old fingers are weak and thin.

The wind plays merry Irish reels

and Scottish border ballads.

I dance arthritic minuets

with swaying willow branches.

I dance until the rising moon

hushes the plucking wind,

shakes the silver dust from its blankets,

and puts the stars to bed.

Love Song

Never tell me how or when

he became your golden boy.

Come and kiss me once again.

Leave me then and go away.

Love affairs are lisping tourneys,

wayside wars on tedious journeys;

Be gone,

dear man,

before the coral clouds of dawn.

Go without a final scene.

Dead love seldom entertains.

Sorrows seldom linger long.

They soon drown in tomorrow's pains.

Go and laugh with your golden other.

Life without you is no bother.

We're smart

to part

before we scar each other's heart.

White Asters

You gather white asters and purple begonias,

and bring them to me to beguile me from grieving.

Be kind to me, lady, and leave me to weeping.

Woe is my lover, my constant companion,

he fills my tomorrows with familiar sadness.

My tears are the liquor that quenches my thirsting,

my sighs are the bread that diminish my hunger,

so take them away, your bouquets of comfort.

Their purple and white distract me from sorrowing.

Kate Nein Remembers 1917

There were no lilacs blooming

when we left the Volga for Berlin.

We lived five weeks on cabbages

a trainman stole and sold us.

We couldn't leave the train

because the Bolsheviks would shoot us.

Somewhere in Poland we smelled

lilacs through the smell of sickness.

We wept because our world

was shrunk to sickness in a boxcar.

The trainman brought some lilacs.

He gave them to me for a kiss,

and because my hair was coiled

in a yellow bun like his sister's.

I planted lilacs when I came

to live free in this country.

Every May I bring some in

to remember the world is more

than smelling sickness in a boxcar.

Easter Monday, 2002

Tanks in Bethlehem. Tanks in Ramallah.

Blood reddens Netanya and Nablus streets,

running between the paving stones,

sinking through the asphalt cracks

to merge with the blood of yesteryear.

The god-besotted claim the land,

each convinced of his creed's perfection,

each convinced the other's creed

is something evil beyond description,

and bent on martyrdom to prove it.

Their war-tornado feeds on itself,

revenge supplying fuel for revenge.

Whatever gods receive this worship

are either appalled with it, or demons

who rejoice in human self-destruction.

On Easter Monday, a day of Passover,

all the prelates who prattled of peace,

rabbis and mullahs and priests alike,

wag their chins and wail against

the darkness in the human soul.

Other clerics howl for war,

howl with manic glee to see

the flowing blood that soaks the stones.

The stones keep silent, waiting for rain

and the oblivion of man.

Road Kill—A Villanelle

Vultures swoop from sun-bruised skies.

Something dead lies in the road,

a flattened host to beetles and flies.

Bits of fur and flesh and eyes

broil on the asphalt, while overhead

vultures swoop from sun-bruised skies.

See the heat waves dance and rise

from the corpse stuck in sticky red,

a flattened host to beetles and flies.

A lizard at the roadside shies

from the copper smell of sun-cooked blood.

Vultures swoop from sun-bruised skies

to peck a share of the carrion prize,

the shapeless smear lying spread,

a flattened host to beetles and flies.

One wonders if God ever sighs

over this bloody bit of road

where vultures swoop from sun-bruised skies;

on a flattened host to beetles and flies.

October 7, 2001

And so it begins again.

Out of the darkness of humans

blossoms a fell green light

on a murky screen.

Pray we do right.

Pray we understood

when we determined we had

no other way to do this.

God, if You are,

guard the innocents.

I grieve the little people.

Along comes a government,

and it steals their sheep

to support the cause

of the little people.

Along comes the next government,

and the two or three scraggly ewes

the little people hid against hunger

get swept up by the liberators.

And every government after

swallows the people's substance

in the name of the people.

In the end the little people

never have sheep enough.

Their granaries are empty.

Rat turds wither

where their grain was stored.

And so they die,

slowly or swiftly,

but always in terror.

God, if You are,

help the little people

keep their sheep,

keep their grains,

keep their lives.

God, if You are,

cleanse us of religion,

cleanse us of politics,

walk with us

to gather wool

and bake bread.

God, if You are...

Images of Afghanistan

The television

shows me deserts

barren as moonscapes.

A game of polo,

played horseback

with a goat carcass

for a ball raises

yellow dust

that obscures the players

like ghosts in a dream.

There are no trees

on these mountains.

Grass does not grow

in their ravines.

The skies are brown

or gray with dust.

I wonder how

anything lives

where nothing grows.

If something dies

in this wind-scoured place,

a sheep or a man,

is the corpse

mummified,

freeze dried,

or pulverized

by the airborne grit?

Misty Gorge on the Yangtze

Before our ship sampans,

behind our ship sampans,

under us brown water

roiling with propeller wakes.

Snake kite and fish kite

wheel on the wind astern.

Green cliffs on either side

rise to dark blue peaks.

Sunset washes blue-gray mists

with watery rose.

Around a bend, ten men tall,

a white Buddha stands on a hill.

Sunset is pink on Buddha's brow.

A thousand broken steps below

a man drops his net in the river.

Sampans precede us.

Sampans follow us.

Twilight shades the gorge

into the starless night sky.

Buddha glimmers in shadows behind us

more ghost than Bhodisattva.

The dinner gong calls us

to banquet on duck,

chopsticks flashing

amid the chatter

of glittering people.

Yellow Mountain

Yellow Mountain has many bridges;

at every one our guide

provides a mournful story

of parent-parted lovers plunging

onto the rocks below.

I look over the rail for bones

tumbled in the ravines.

I see bushes and rocks,

and a silver thread of water

between the drifting mists.

Ah, well, the tales are set

in the T'ang or Chin or Han,

some dynasty older than bones

and dimmer than mist.

I look up at rocky fingers

scribbling clouds in the sky.

I wonder what they write,

these unmoving fingers,

on the blue paper heavens.

Do they record the histories

of lovers untimely dead?

The guide urges us on.

No time to decipher the clouds.

We've more bridges to cross,

more suicidal loves to hear of,

a gift shop to visit for the shopping,

and a bus that will not wait for us.

World Cuisine

In Chungqing

chicken with chilies.

In Chihuahua,

chilies with chicken.

In Paris, snails,

leeks in Wales

and in London

overdone

Brussels sprouts.

In Naples pizza

in Cairo tabouleh,

at home

MacDonald's.

Afternoon at Machu Picchu

The wind whispers

through the grasses.

The small flowers

seeded between

the stones of the walls

dance blue and mauve

arabesques against

the gray and black lichen.

I look into the mist

to scan for ghosts

of the builders and see

neither priest nor servant.

only the remnants

of temples and altars.

I listen to the stones

fitted together to make this place.

I would hear the whispers

of those who built it.

Only the wind

whispers here

and it tells me nothing.

Cruising Musing

Lying on my bed

eating chocolate mummies

with peanut faces

as palm trees

on the Nile banks

glide past the cruiser's

picture window,

I wonder if the fish

that ate the penis of Osiris

ever found another worm

so satisfying.

The Sphinx

I've been to see the Sphinx

ochre stone majesty

thrust against the hard

blue of desert sky.

Behind it rise the pyramids

and mystic desert horizon.

The gawkers cluster at its feet,

wrinkling their noses against

the pervasive camel dung

and stopping their ears

against the rumble of suburban traffic.

Sales Resistance

In the bazaars,

crying "One dollah!"

the vendors struggle

to grab my attention.

I am proof against them,

I walk the street,

my eyes cast down,

and do not haggle with any.

Later, in the Valley of the Kings,

my resistance crumbles

when a brown-eyed boy

bats his long lashes

and sells me postcards

at an inflated price.

Temple Dogs

Gaunt temple dogs

scratch the fleas playing soccer

on their xylophone ribs.

Swollen bellies and swollen teats

suggest pups, but all the dogs

I see are older, worn away

like the carved columns

whose shade they seek

when the sun is high.

Sunset

The golden sun falls

into the Sahara sands.

Ra is going to sleep.

Black against the sunset

the date palms stand

above the river

littered with glitter.

The call to prayer echoes

over the quiet Nile.

Minarets silhouetted

against the sun stand guard

over streets suddenly hushed

in recognition of God.

The Wild Nile Gone

The Nile is tamed;

I saw no crocodiles

swimming in the dark green waters.

"They're gone," the guide said,

"from all the lower river,

hunted to extinction

north of the Aswan Dam,

though they frolic in numbers

upriver in the Nubian Sea."

How tame this Nile is,

a channel for cruising ships

and floating ducks.

Dare one hope the fishes

still prowl the riverbed

looking for bits of gods

other gods discarded?

The Pylon Carvings

Cut deep in the temple pylons,

stiff kings and upright gods parade

the temple walls. Around them

royal and divine cartouches

identify the players

Lines of ducks and papyrus plants

clutter the borders.

How wonderful, then, to see

two figures floating free

their spines on the diagonal

as though they dance to songs

the wind plays in the ruins.

The guide says they are gods

and names them. I prefer

to think they're portraits

of astronaut architects

who drew the temple plans

and laid the stones on the stones,

then carved their pictures

to sign their work.

Religions

Mosques built on churches

raised on synagogues

built on temples of Horus,

plaster saints painted

over carven deities

in the shadow of minarets,

the monuments of Egypt

sink into the mud

heavy with religions.

In the streets the people

come and go, buy and sell,

copulate and eat, despite

the gods, living and dead.

Machu Picchu Rain

From our shelter

in a thatch-roofed hut

we survey the city.

A sudden rain

has waxed the worn

stone stairs

between the levels.

Like broken butterflies

tourists in colored ponchos

stumble over the terraces.

The llamas stride,

sure of foot,

over the grass

and around the walls

the Incas built.

Below us the clouds
open to show

the Urubamba,

a brown ribbon

through the green

cloud-forest canyon.

The rain hushes

the drone of the guides

describing the pasts

that might have been.

Cairo Streets

Donkeys and Datsuns

travel the same road.

The Datsuns have horns

that bray loudly and often.

The donkeys are quieter.

They bray seldom,

too tired, perhaps,

to comment on the traffic.

Over the discord

loudspeakers float

the call to prayer.

It's like a melody

played on a flute

above a modern

dissonant chord progression

played by basses and tubas.

Lines from a Gum Tree Grove

Where Were You When We Met?

First Date

We Found a Quiet Place

Two Conjoined

Provoke No Dragons

You the Queen

Watching You

You Braid Your Hair

Morning Glories

Housekeeping

Squeaking Snow

Prairie Winds

Rhinestone Weeds

Coyotes

Two Sparrows

Two Gulls

Surf

Squid Boats

The Sails

We Watch the Swallows

Invasion

The Turquoise Frog

The Witch

The Frost

Night Disturbance

Champagne Dragons

The Temblor

Rain

I Talk of Swans

We Wake the Buzzards

The Frog Dream

Gargoyles

The Chase

Joshua Trees

City Streets

You Are Sad

The Caged Cricket

The Owl's News

The Photograph

The Lost Day

Come Play

The Hawk

Milking Time

Talk

Shadows

The Walnut Ships

Absent

Dusty Dragon

The Missing Queen

Your Call

Etiquette

Day Breaks

In My Dreams

Postscript

Where Were You When We Met?

I remember you at church

standing quiet in a pinafore;

I remember you on a porch

wearing lavender and white,

but I don't remember what you wore

or where you were the day we met.

Perhaps you wore a yellow frock,

or maybe a gown of midnight blue.

My cheesecloth memory I regret.

I know you stood quiet in back,

letting the talk wash over you.

I know we met in a public place,

and you watched the people come and go

with wary interest on your face.

First Date

You laughed at clowns shambling by.

We cheered the parading elephants

marching to drums and calliope.

Trapeze artists, twirling their capes,

suggested on earth their aerial grace.

A donkey passed pulling the rope

that dragged behind him a dozen clowns

I bought us burgers and lemonade.

You ate my pickle. I ate your chips.

Vendors came selling balloons

and pictures of the watching crowd.

I bought you a monkey on a stick.

"Thank you," you said. "I love a parade,"

and kissed me lightly on my cheek.

We Found a Quiet Place

We found a quiet place to sit

away from the crowd of picnic tables

and talked of how to fly a kite

as though that were the end of life

and we the world's two wisest sibyls

who read in kites the world's relief

from evils. "Give the people string,"

I said. "Provide them paper and glue,

and wood for frames, and let them laugh.

Instead of work, teach them to sing.

Give them nothing important to do,

and they'll forget all hate and fear."

You look at me; I look at you.

We giggle and I tickle your ear.

Two Conjoined

We are two worms in one cocoon

floating on the river slime

under a sky that had no moon.

We make wings in secret space

against the come of flying time,

dreaming of butterflies in a place

of sun and wind. It comes, the crack

of threads, the drying off of wings,

the lift of air to start the race—

and overhead the shadowy hawk

is watchful of our wanderings

as if he wonders what we are.

We hear his scholar's mutterings—

"What feathers are so gossamer?"

Provoke No Dragons

"Provoke no dragons when the moon

floats fat above the redwood tree,"

I tell you, "or if you hear a loon

complaining to the stars of death

or taxes Congress levies on tea,

keep still. Polish no tiger teeth;

don't let the lions come indoors.

Don't tease the purple apes or play

with adders when you take your bath,

and don't feed stranger manticores

raw peanuts when I must be away.

I want you safe when I come home."

You nod compliantly. That same day

I leave, you buy a leopard to tame.

You the Queen

I watch your graceful come and go

and fantasy you made a queen

who fills her days with regal show

encastled in Tara's marble rooms

bidding her harpers hush the keen

of women whose men will no more come

grimed with battle thorough the gate

while you weep privately for your lord

graying to grimness under his doom

to send forth men he loves to fight

in wars he cannot win. "Come, bards,

sing gladsome songs to banish care,"

you bid the harpers, and murmur words

of comfort to ease the king's despair.

Watching You

You mutter in your sleep some phrase

I cannot catch. I am awake,

watching the moon's deliberate pass

across the night to cloak the sky

of customary stars and black

with silver sheets hung out to dry

after the rains have washed them clean.

I wonder what disturbs your rest,

what dream demands to have its way.

You turn your face toward the moon.

I see your smile, and think it best

I do not wake you. A distant dog

barks once. Westward, on the coast,

the winds gather the morning fog.

You Braid Your Hair

I watch your comb unsnarl your hair

and dream I am young Lancelot

adultering with Guenevere

fearing to hear King Arthur's tread

on the white stairways of Camelot.

I watch you plait and bind your braid.

Your patient fingers twist and weave

unaware of my dalliance

with the knight and queen who one time played

their false mate on the kind king's love.

You break my dreams of prurience

among the ancients when you smile

and say, "Last night I dreamed we danced

with dolphins on the hump of a whale."

Morning Glories

My grandmother's morning glory vines

covered the porch of her tenement.

We played there, summer afternoons,

that girl and I, the play of house,

with pots and pans set on cement

the sun had fired. Once, tremulous,

she asked what color eyes I liked the most.

At six I was no Don Juan, and said,

"Morning glory blue." Her eyes

were black and teary. This is past—

except at times your eyes are sad

and blue like the morning glories were,

and I recall how she replied,

"O, blue," and tried to hide her tears.

Housekeeping

We set up house with pots and pans

and castoff dime store dinnerware.

"We have a kitchen, bed, and beans.

We'll sleep and eat and love," I said.

"It's all we need, and nothing more."

"We'll want more than beans and bread,"

you told me, "like onions, cheese, and ham."

I stopped your words with kisses and took

you in to initiate the bed,

and afterward you said, "Our home

needs curtains, a table, rugs, a lock

for door and window to keep us safe."

I hushed your wise domestic talk

and said, "Tomorrow. Today's for love."

Squeaking Snow

We walk on snow so cold it squeaks

under our feet. "It sounds like mice,"

you say, "resent our using the walks."

I listen to the snow's tirade,

to hear it with your ears. "The ice

is brown with leaves the wind inlaid,"

I tell you; "winter art is hard,

but won't survive the spring time sun."

You think a moment, then, looking sad,

you say, "Time suffers no retard

of changes; lovely things must end

to make the room for others, but I

am loath to see the last of one

though glad the next comes passing by."

Prairie Winds

The prairie winds unravel your calm.

You have no love for windy days.

You clench your fingers in your palm

or raise your fists to challenge the squall

of every gust that shakes the house.

You think me mad that I am thrilled

with the song of the wind's un-cadenced blow.

I hold you to shield you from your terror.

I ask what childhood monsters still

linger in the wind for you.

You shudder. "Do not ask. I fear

black things that have no names escaped

from some dark hole." I stroke your hair

and hold you until the wind has stopped.

Rhinestone Weeds

Ice coated the weeds with rhinestone skins

that threw back the morning at the sky

in gleaming bits. You spoke of rains

greening the hills at home. I knew

you saw white gulls above the spray

of ocean, or followed as they flew

unbound over unresting seas.

I pointed out how snow lay soft

on roofs of cars across the way

and fattened branches on the trees.

You nodded, and stopped to read a drift

inscribed with sparrows' cuneiform.

I asked what word the birds had left.

You said, "A lament for dearth of worms."

Coyotes

I hear coyotes on the hill

baying the moon. You are asleep.

I wonder what your dreams would tell

if they spoke now. I touch your hair

tumbled on your pillow. The sweep

of moonlight touches your knees. The spare

harmony of the coyote songs

infiltrates your dreams. You turn,

restless. The moonlight takes the chair

beside the bed to shield you from wrongs

the night might perpetrate. I yearn

to wrap my arms around you. The moon

forbids me break your sleep. So warned,

I kiss your ear and quietly yawn.

Two Sparrows

Two sparrows huddled against the snow

through three white days of December storm.

You felt the cold for them, I know,

because you shivered every time

you looked at them, though our room was warm.

You made them toast and threw the crumbs

on a cleared place leeward of the drift

that blocked our walk. The fourth day broke;

frost gleamed in the morning calm.

"The sparrows went," I said. "They left

no crumbs." Later, clearing the walk,

I found them where the snow had blown

over them in the night. They shook

their wings and flew toward the sun.

Two Gulls

Two gulls perched on a driftwood stump

watch the seaward sky, and we,

wet with rain and the ocean damp,

watch the brown sand pipers rake

the beach for the leavings of the sea.

One gull, out for a noontime walk,

important as a law-fat judge,

scatters the pipers who block his way

with one judicial-sounding squawk

that turns to comic scream when the edge

of one wave wets his feet with spray.

We laugh. The birds are startled. The gull,

his dignity in disarray,

turns away and pecks a shell.

Surf

Surf gnaws the sand wedged in the cliff.

Two gulls squabble for scraps of fish.

Wind tangles your hair. We watch waves chafe

the offshore rocks. We look for seals;

we hear them bark in the ocean splash.

You point to a seal diving where swells

cross foaming. I kiss your forehead, not

my usual target, and you frown,

mocking irritation. The gulls

quibble landward. We laugh at their spat,

and turn to follow where they've flown,

wishing them a happy new year.

We do not speak of what might run

under the surfaces things wear.

Squid Boats

Squid boats set seaward from Monterey

trailing a line of moon-bleached gulls.

Along the shore the sea weeds sway

in the surf. I watch you talk with friends

while I toss pebbles in the swells

washing the litter over the sands.

It is not long ago we walked

on sun-cracked mud at the reservoir,

joined trembling hand in awkward hand,

afraid our lives would intersect

a moment, then part to meet no more.

Now all the wonder of our time

together, like the tide along this shore,

ebbs from my heart into this rhyme.

The Sails

"The sails on San Francisco Bay

are feathers from the Cosmic Hen

she took in her beak and plucked away,"

I tell you, "to ease her Cosmic Itch."

"Whether the sails are works of man,"

you say, "or feathers the Hen has scratched

is no matter to trouble us.

Things as they are, are beautiful."

I, silenced by your logic, watch

the sailboats dodge the wind and chase

the whitecaps. You say, "Observe that gull.

He has no thought of Cosmic Things.

He's happy with an orange peel

and the feel of the wind under his wings."

We Watch the Swallows

We watch the swallows rise and swoop

catching moths in the neighbor's fields.

We drink brown tea from white-rimmed cups

and talk a bit of philosophy

as lights turn on across hill

beyond the fences. Up from the sea

the gray fog creeps, plucking the stars

with cold fingers from cobalt skies.

You leave your chair and come to me,

and we make love before the fire.

Outside a hunting owl's low cries

keep rhythm with our love. We come

to gentle climax. You close your eyes.

I watch the shadows fill the room.

Invasion

We heard terror in the chicken pen.

We grabbed our robes and ran to save

the frightened birds. We lost two hens

the rooster, and a foot of chicken wire.

The raccoon ran to hide in the grove.

"It will come back," you said. "It tore

the pen apart." "Feathers and blood,"

I said, "will draw the buzzards, too."

Surviving hens huddled in terror.

I mended the fence. You buried the dead.

We finished as the day broke through

the eastern eucalyptus. "Damn the fiend,"

I said. "I don't feel safe." You replied,

"Some monster gets us all, in the end."

The Turquoise Frog

You hold the turquoise frog you find

among the plants that share our house

on the flat palm of your open hand

and inquire of him which thing he prefers:

to stay a safe guest, or, set loose,

to hazard cats under the stairs.

By some alchemy of thought

you know his choice is liberty

despite vicissitude. "Outdoors,"

you tell him, "be careful of the cats.

Come sometimes to visit me."

You say to me, "His froghood says spawn

his kind, and here there is no she.

He'll be unhappy if he's alone."

The Witch

We hear the witch calling her hogs

under a yellow November moon.

Her "piggy-piggy" wakes the dogs

and interrupts our moonlight talk

with the cows. We wait 'til she is done

before continuing our walk.

We wake the sheep. One has a bell

that stirs the dogs again. "She's sad,"

you say, "to be so old a wreck

who once was young and beautiful."

I call her witch; you shake your head.

"I'm not so sure; she's just insane.

It's thirty years since her man died,

and that's so long to live alone."

The Frost

"Frost killed some pepper plants last night,"

you say. "Their leaves are black and limp."

I say, "The moon and stars were bright.

It was a night for making love."

"The owl," you say, "complained of damp

and cold. I heard him whine and grieve

for his arthritic wings." "I heard

him too. I thought he'd missed a mouse."

"He did. The mouse was glad to live

a little longer, but the bird

was mortified that he had missed

an easy kill." "The peppers froze?"

"Yes. I think this spring's the last."

"Last what?" "Last spring the old owl has."

Night Disturbance

I switched off your reading light

and said, "Put down your book, my love.

The old moon's thin as a paring cut

from a geisha's lacquered nail.

Exotic creatures cavort in the grove,

and I think I heard a griffin growl."

You had a page or two to read,

but went out with me, hand in hand.

The stars had melted in a pool

of ashen gray. "Some magic," I said,

has changed the world." "It's fog the wind

has blown in from the sea, no more."

"It's dragon smoke, or the breath of a fiend."

I held you close and stroked your hair.

Champagne Dragons

Two bubbly dragons in my champagne

flipped their tails and tickled my nose.

I put my glass aside just then

to sneeze and missed the toast we made

to you, although I saved my clothes.

The dragons, unconcerned and rude,

went on swimming in my glass

as though it were their private pool.

Our company was undismayed

that I had sneezed and let it pass.

I raised my glass and turned to tell

the reason I missed your toast. You saw

the dragons flash a champagne smile,

salute you, and effervesce away.

The Temblor

Ghost songs play on the harpsichord;

a passing temblor strums the strings

and tumbles chessmen from their board

to roll across the tiles on the floor.

The cicadas have stilled their songs.

I hold my breath, waiting for more

uneasy tremors in the earth.

I grip my chair to keep my place.

You see the terror in my stare.

"It's a little shake, not worth

your worry," you say. You touch my face

with tender fingers. "Help me get

the men picked up. We can't play chess

with wandering rooks or missing knights."

Rain

Rain rattles the roof; the fire is low.

I lie beside you listening

to your breathing's come and go.

You are sleeping, spent with love,

not hearing the rain hammering

water nails in the shingles. I move

to watch the firelight on your hair.

You stir and smile. I stroke your arm

and pull your blanket up. I leave

to make a cup of tea and hear

you sigh as though dreams come to charm

and consummate your sleep. The rain

beats on the roof. Your back is warm

when I get into bed again.

I Talk of Swans

I talk of swans on silver rivers.

You catch my mood and sing for me

of dappled dolphins who were lovers

parted by a school of whales

one summer in a purple sea.

I tell you how snails build their shells

with help from oyster engineers,

and you tell me how lizards use

spider webs to make new tails

and horsehair worms to clean their ears.

Then I recite the list of clues

that prove an elf is in our house.

You tell me what leathers dwarves will choose

to bridle and saddle a riding mouse.

We Wake the Buzzards

We wake the buzzards with our talk

as we walk the lane along the grove.

Some, nightmare-raddled, croak and wake.

They shake their dank wings, and shower

fog from the moon-forsaken leaves

on our heads. We laugh and run, and stir

the neighbor dogs from dreams of game

running before the hunter hounds

of canine hero tales. We hear

the moon sigh for her shattered calm

as dog tells dog the fearful sounds

that broke sweet sleep's security.

We stop to kiss where the pathway bends

as the moon restores serenity.

The Frog Dream

You dream a frog had driven the bus.

"It was strange," you say. "All green

and blue he was, and lectured us

on human destructiveness. The pools

were poisoned by us; he'd never seen

so many tadpoles die. The scales

of justice found us wanting, he said."

You shake yourself awake. "He wore

a red cap on his head, the spoils

of war he took from a porter dead

of warts and wine." I stroke your hair.

"You dream strange dreams. I cannot say

what they might mean. They're too obscure.

Let's drown them in morning sun and tea."

Gargoyles

I dream of gargoyles clutching the eaves

to keep the rain from washing them

through the gutters, with matted leaves

and broken shingles, and down the spout.

They huddle on cramping legs and dream

of scaring children. They are too wet

for terror now, small granite things

swamped by the elements. "How sad,"

I tell you, dreaming. "Take towels out,"

you say, "and help them dry their wings.

I'll bring them broth." You leave your bed

to brave the rain with cups of soup.

"Your nightgown's wet, and so is your head,"

I say aloud, and wake you up.

The Chase

I dreamed we chased a deer in sage.

We carried wooden javelins,

and, huntress, you were the first to lodge

your weapon in the vital heart.

The kill was yours; the tribe's folk danced

the antler dance for you. The dirt

and blood were on your hands. The hide,

the victor's portion, you brought to me.

"Make me a robe of uncommon sort

with white quill work and beads," you said.

The tribe was shocked—what could this be,

woman commanding work from man?

I don't know whether they set you free

or killed you. You woke me up just then.

Joshua Trees

I dreamed one night of Joshua trees

and saguaros posed like Egyptian girls

in temple frescoes. We cut a cheese,

uncorked Chablis, and fed some crumbs

to kangaroo rats while the swirls

of wind-entangled sand made drums

of crumbling rocks across the ravine.

Then, suddenly, as dreams will do,

I chased you nude through smoky rooms

lined with leering navy men,

and some clutched me and some clutched you,

and yet we slipped their grasp entire

to run the green hills wet with dew—

you woke me when you stirred the fire.

City Streets

"Those grimed stone streets where you go daily,

set them ajar when you walk there.

You are a sunshine child; go gaily

between the sad brick rows and whistle

some tune to wake the drunks on the stairs,

or pretend you walk a ruined castle,

and you, the archaeologist,

with camel's-hair-brush-puttering

have found a dead queen's uncle's fossil."

You tell me, "City dust is dust;

for all your magic bantering,

it's dust. I miss the flight of clouds,

the misted moon gone westering,

and quail strolling the uncurbed roads."

You Are Sad

I say wild things to make you laugh.

I talk of crimson-bottomed baboons

and how they saved a green giraffe

from purple hippopotami

on a yellow planet with thirteen moons.

You do not laugh. I ask you why.

You cannot say. I take your face

between my hands and kiss your nose.

A rebellious tear stands in your eye,

repealing your smile. I hold your head

against my shoulder, and you release

your sadness on the sleeve of my shirt.

I kiss your hair. "I've no excuse,"

you say, "no reason why I hurt."

The Caged Cricket

You found a cricket in a cage,

a plastic toy in plastic bamboo.

"How sad," you said, "to be a bug

imprisoned for another's luck."

"As bad to be a cockatoo,

or a hamster on a wheeling track,"

I said, "or lambs trapped in a chute."

"I'm glad the cricket's plastic," you said,

"prisons make the spirit sick.

I wonder if atoms think they're caught

in molecules, or protons read

the nucleus as a cell." "Who knows?

Limits abound." You shook your head.

"Then nothing's ever free, I suppose."

The Owl's News

Your face tells me you are forlorn.

"I see green hippos on parade

behind a captain unicorn,"

I cry dramatically, "and two

purple giraffes in chains they lead

to judgment for cheating a kangaroo

of all her ill-got wealth." "And where,"

you ask, "do you see that?" and smile.

"I saw you sad," I say, "and knew

some disaster had made you wear

unhappy looks." "You read me well,

but why giraffes?" "They came to mind.

What made you sad?" "I dreamed the owl

proclaimed last night his world will end."

The Photograph

I had not met the child you were

until I saw the photograph

that caught your eyes spread wide with fear.

You sat on a step, hunched and cold,

a waif who never hoped to laugh.

I'd heard the tales your people told,

crafting a happy long ago

to hide dark things they'd rather forget.

I asked what happenings compelled

so sad a photo, hoping you

might show a part of you as yet

unknown to me. You would not say.

You took the picture from me, and put

the family photographs away.

The Lost Day

We watch the sun, cast up from night's

uneasy stomach, smear the sky.

"Today's a day for launching kites,"

you say, "to chase the clouds and run

their fingers through the wind's hair high

above the trees." I hear the drone

of regret for this day lost to work

under your words. "Tomorrow, perhaps,

you'll have time." "Tomorrow will rain;

the wind is south." Behind us the dark

retreats westward. Condensed fog drips

from eucalyptus along the road.

"Look," I say, "the morning weeps

on the windshield, knowing you are sad."

Come Play

"I hear mermaids sing at sea

and sparrows chatter at the door.

Will you come and play with me?

We'll fly with dragons in the moon's hot light,

or bowl with dust balls on the floor."

"I have chores that will not wait."

"We can run with wolves in the snow,

or race the meadows with unicorns."

"I will not play, you crazy coot."

"Dolphins dance where whale spouts blow,

elves hunt mushrooms among the ferns,

leave the work for another time."

"I must go to muck out the barns.

I'm grown up now, and cannot dream."

The Hawk

I heard a hawk cry in the grove

five times loudly, then clap his wings.

Whether he cried for prey or love

I could not say. The telephone

rang in the still of hushed bird songs.

The hawk soared upward toward the sun,

riding the wind's colorless swell.

You asked me why I seemed remote.

I didn't know how to explain

the hawk's cries held me when you called

in a space where unbound beauties met.

"I heard a hawk." "And did you chase

the chickens in, and call the cat?"

My beauties broke in your commonplace.

Milking Time

I tell you unicorns are near,

that I see them in the gum tree grove.

You go on brushing snarls from your hair.

I tell you how the dragon's breath

provides raw threads the fairies weave

into misty blankets to sheathe

their silver horns from prying eyes.

I tell you how the hunters come

to put the unicorns to death,

snaring them with virgins and lies.

I weep poetic tears for them.

You lay aside your brush and say,

"The cow needs milking all the same,"

and something wondrous slips away.

Talk

I told you tales of ancient kings

bedeviled by wizards and foreign wars.

You talked of common household things

of dishes, meals, and garden plants.

At first we sat and talked for hours

of truth or beauty or elephants

or crocodiles or fossil clams.

We made words our insulation

against too hasty commitment, against

too early testing of our dreams

lest fulfillment blight our intentions.

We fools believed that dreams come true.

They died in wordy suffocation,

then silence walled me away from you.

Shadows

Shadows gathered in shallow pools

in the corners of the empty room.

I'd spent my day concocting tales

of bees piloting dragonflies

to beguile you from your silent gloom.

You'd gone. You'd written your goodbyes

on a pad we kept beside the phone.

You took the dog, left me the cat,

a lot of questions, no apologies,

no explanations why you'd gone.

I read the note, re-read the note,

crumpled and smoothed it several times.

I shed no tears, though my eyes were hot;

I stooped to gather my shattered dreams.

The Walnut Ships

I made you ships from walnut shells

I gathered at your mother's house.

I timbered toothpick masts; the sails

I cut from heavy paper, and then

I rounded them as though a breeze

bellied them full. With fishing line

I tied the ships to rods I made

from clothing hangars. I hung the fleet

to sail the air in the morning sun

where we could watch it from our bed.

You left it when you went, "Unfit

for my new home," you said to me.

I'll take them to the river to let

them sail the current to the sea.

Absent

My dwarves and elves have gone to war.

My unicorns have gone to sea.

I leave the house and lock the door

to roam the fields. The cattle lick

their salt, not caring you're not with me.

I monitor the wind for talk

the amber grasses may be sharing.

They whisper in unfamiliar tongues.

I look upward. A wheeling hawk

searches the ground for rodents daring

the afternoon. He folds his wings

and falls to strike some hapless mouse.

You, for whom I sang my songs,

have left me in an empty house.

Dusty Dragon

My dragon's wings are gray with dust.

I have not flown him since you left.

I've left the warrior dwarves to rust

I do not dance with unicorns

amid the eucalyptus. I craft

no tales of mice with hunting horns

nor sing wild songs of elves at sea

on dolphin steeds. There's no one here

to listen. The summer meadow burns

with golden fire for none but me,

and, left alone, I no longer care.

I ought to get a box to pack

these relics away, but if I store

these things, I admit you won't be back.

The Missing Queen

The fog has come silent in the night

and made the eucalyptus groves

green islands set in mock seas white

with waters the coast could not confine.

I look for castles among the leaves,

or sail of sloop or barquentine

in the foggy ocean. Unicorns

should prance along this shore

to greet a disembarking queen

robed in rubies. Their golden horns

should honor-cross above her hair.

There are no castles. The gray fog pales.

There is no queen. You are not here.

The cows beg for their morning bales.

Your Call

You called today to set conditions

for splitting things we own. Your voice

hummed like wire tightened with tension.

We spoke with exaggerated care,

playing at strangers being nice

above the angry hurts we bear.

I weary of dividing things

that once meant happy memories

of times we had. I want no more

of balance sheets of rights and wrongs

reduced to dollars, deeds, and keys.

I want us talking in the grove

about the dragonflies the bees

have tamed as the air guard for their hive.

Etiquette

If I should meet you some time to come,

what should I do? What should I say?

Smile and nod, or leave the room?

Pretend we never knew each other?

Or stand till you have run away?

Or am I wasting worry and bother

on something unlikely to occur?

Now we'll walk on different streets,

go to places strangers gather,

and divide the friends we had before.

You take the days, I'll take the nights,

or summer's yours and winter's mine,

or some arrangement that fairly splits

our ways in halves that never join.

Day Breaks

A distant cow calls for a bull.

The day breaks gray over the grove.

Taped boxes wait along the wall.

I drink my tea and clean the cup.

My life is almost ready to move.

I close the last box, wrap it with tape,

and stack it with the rest. I check

for things I've overlooked. Just day

and dust in the corners, not one scrap

of us, just me in the waiting stack.

The climbing sun brightens the sky.

I hear the movers park the van

on the drive. I push my past away,

open the door, and let them in.

In My Dreams

Sometimes your face shows in my dreams.

I glimpse you acting in the back,

an extra in a movie who comes

on camera in the party scene

or multiplies the crowd at a wake.

Aging starlet, who once was queen

of my center screen, why harass me?

I've made my life in other places.

My sound track plays another tune;

our waltz is only memory.

When you appear among the faces

you wrench my dream from its destined flow.

I wake and wonder what psychic distresses

come from dreams that are twisted so.

Postscript

When I loved you I saw the world

through fogs gilded by the moon.

From chimney smoke I'd make a herald,

from clucking hens a parliament,

from buzzards aging courtesans,

from clouds a camp of warrior tents,

from bleating sheep and lowing cows

the battle noise of jousting knights

clashing lances in tournaments

fought to win a single rose.

Even in Arthur's Camelot

the sun one morning rose to find

the towers tumbled, weeds taking root

and roofless halls filling with sand.

The Alpha-Bestiary

A is for Arliss

B is for Barnaby

C is for Cathy

D is for Disraeli

E is for Edelweiss

F is for Frank

G is for Gilbert

H is for Hellebore

I is for Ichabod

J is for Johannes

K is for Katrinka

L is for Leander

M is for Milford

N is for Nestor

O is for Oswald

P is for Pythagoras

Q is for Quigley

R is for Rehoboam

S is for Sandoval

T is for Teresa

U is for Ursula

V is for Vladimir

W is for Willoughby

X is for Xenocrates

Y is for Yussef

Z is for Zenobia

Copyright 2013 by Richard George

Smashwords Edition

If you quote from this work, please acknowledge your source. If you want a friend to have a copy, instruct them how to download their own.

A is for Arliss,

A mellow armadillo from Amarillo,

Who, one spring, all sad and lonely,

Plodded the prairie from Pampa to Plainview

In search of a mate to share his fate and pillow.

Down in the Breaks and up in the wheat fields

Arliss wandered, past gophers and rattlers,

Through feedlots and cornfields and hog wallows,

'Til autumn augured winter was coming.

He wanted a she; it wasn't to be.

Poor Arliss, the mellow armadillo from Amarillo.

B is for Barnaby,

A bandicoot from Ballarat,

Who bothered bumblebees in the berry bushes.

The belligerent bees stung Barnaby's knees.

Barnaby bawled and bellowed and howled,

Till his overheated brain crashed and burned.

Bitterly he repented,

Grievously he mourned

Ever disturbing the bumblebees in the bushes!

Weeping and wailing he toppled and sat

On a hill hallowed to irritable ants,

And soon Barnaby's bum grew sore, then numb.

Oh, pity the battered bandicoot of Ballarat!

C is for Cathy,

The coatimundi from Canton

Who cradled her daughter in her arms

As she ran through alleys and byways

Calling for cats to come catch the mice

Who were eating her baby's morning rice?

Through the streets and past the pavilions Cathy ran

Calling on police and civilians to collect the cats

To catch the mice who were eating her baby's evening rice.

Alas for Cathy, the coatimundi,

She spoke only Cantonese,

The cats only Greek,

So the mice went on eating the rest of the week!

D is for Disraeli,

The dinosaur from Denver,

Who delivered stray dogs to dowagers,

And decked out derelicts with decent dress.

He fell in love on a day in June,

Went howling under the Colorado moon,

Which peeved the people prodigiously.

They bedeviled Disraeli for the dirges he droned

Till he wept like a destitute dervish

And drowned the dinosaur bedevilers of Denver.

E is for Edelweiss,

The elephant from Elsinore

Who vowed she'd never be a bothersome bore,

So educated herself in all things intellectual,

Of nature animal, vegetable, or mineral.

She stored up clever remarks for parties,

And brilliant ideas for seminars.

Alas! Poor Edelweiss! Her neighbors were apes

Whose sole conversation consisted of japes

About the pusillanimity of pachyderms

And the possible proscription of proboscides

That extended beyond the person's chin.

F is for Frank,

The flying fish from Fontana

Who chose to go by air from LA to Montana,

But a perch in a pond in Riverside

Flashed her scales and fluttered her fins,

Diverting Frank to dally in her cabana.

Small fry resulted, swimming in schools,

So Frank became a teacher of fishes,

A faithful husband who did the dishes.

He sold his wings to a passing eagle.

He never flew again but clung to his perch

Until he died in a crimson tide in Riverside.

G is for Gilbert,

The goat from Gowana,

Who gambled his gold in Guyana and Ghana.

A missionary swore to save his soul

And make poor Gilbert's fortunes whole.

Night and day he preached at the goat,

Read him the Bible over and over,

Promised Gilbert a heaven of flowers and clover,

'Til all his talking wore out his throat.

Gilbert sighed, and inquired the odds

Of a goat like himself ever meeting any gods,

And offered to make the missionary a wager.

H is for Hellebore,

The hyena from Hackensack,

Who bore a burden of heavy heartache,

For Hellebore had loved Herodias,

A hyena from Hyannisport,

With all of her heart and all of her soul.

Herodias, the cad, renounced all matrimony,

And hied him to Hawaii

To do the hula for hordes of hungry Hungarians.

Hellebore hung her head in sorrow

And heaved a heavy sigh and died.

Her spirit haunts the highways of Hackensack

Hunting Herodias, the cad, who never came back?

I is for Ichabod,

The iguana from Ixtapa,

Who was overly fond of his cervezas.

He guzzled in Guadalajara,

He drank till dawn in Mazatlan,

Dos Equis, Corona, Agua de Baño,

He drank it all from Juarez to Zihuatanejo.

When rotgut made him loco in Acapulco

He swore he'd be sober from June to October.

He died in July from going dry,

Poor Ichabod the iguana from Ixtapa.

J is for Johannes,

The jackal from Jersey,

Who journeyed from Jamestown to Johannesburg

Looking for jewels to grace his Joanna's collar.

He caught the jaundice from a jerboa in Jakarta.

Joanna declared she despised a yellow jackal,

And joined a Janissary from Jamshedpur

On a matrimonial jaunt to Japan.

K is for Katrinka,

The katydid from Katmandu

Who quaffed a cup of mountain dew,

Downed a pound of Polska Kielbasa,

With a side of kohlrabi and kale

And spent the rest of her life in the loo.

L is for Leander,

The lizard from Laramie

Who slithered and slid along the muddy Platte

Through rattler's burrow and sage hen's nest,

Through coyote den and prairie dog town,

All to win the love of a Lincoln lady lizard.

Alas! The lady was no lady, not in the usual sense,

Though with lizards it's hard even for lizards to tell;

The Lincoln lady proved a lusty lizard lad

So Leander languished alone and lost in Lincoln,

Until a passing Lamborghini laid him low.

M is for Milford,

A mongoose from Malkangiri,

A masseur for a Maharaja and his Ranee.

A clever cobra contrived a conspiracy

To capture the Maharaja's Ranee

And hold her for ransom in Rajapalayam.

The Maharaja moped and mourned,

Hopeless and helpless for he had no rupees,

No emeralds or diamonds or gold or rubies,

To meet the snake's insidious demands.

"Will no one rescue my Ranee," he cried.

His people shrugged their shoulders and sighed,

None brave enough to confront the cobra,

Save Milford, who mounted a rescue mission,

And wrestled the cobra into submission.

The Maharaja sang Milford's praises

With long-winded speeches and flowery phrases,

But gave nary a cent or even credit for rent

To Milford the Mongoose from Malkangiri.

N is for Nestor,

The newt from Novosibirsk,

Who detested living where the weather was brisk,

So off he sailed for Nicaragua in a bark canoe,

Paddling his way with a digeridoo.

In the ocean's middle he met a whale

Slapping the ocean with his mighty tail.

"Stop!" Nestor cried as the wave closed o'er him,

But the tail-slapping whale chose to ignore him,

Which got the best of Nestor,

The newt from Novosibirsk.

O is for Oswald,

The ocelot from Onandaga,

Who opted to audit the opera Otello.

The soprano's aria brightened his aura,

The basso's boom made his belly Jell-O,

The alto's duet he thought a delight,

But the tenor's bellow he couldn't follow,

So he opted instead for an Indian raga,

Did Oswald the Ocelot from Onandaga.

P is for Pythagoras,

The python from Paramaribo,

Who found a job for which he was perfect.

A shark was swimming in the jungle waters,

A help wanted sign across his dorsal fin.

Pythagoras applied, swelling with pride,

That he could put the squeeze on deadbeat clients.

Alas for poor Pythagoras!

The shark had forgotten the sign on his fin,

And, since his belly was aching,

He gulped down the python like jungle bacon,

So ended the career of Pythagoras,

The unemployed python from Paramaribo.

Q is for Quigley,

The quail from Quito

Who quashed subpoenas for a fee.

When he came to retire, no longer for hire,

He went fishing for sturgeon in the Caspian Sea.

He speared a specimen with his beak,

The sturgeon dived for the bottom,

And Quigley was suddenly up the creek.

R is for Rehoboam,

The rat from Raritan

Who raced in the maze at Roanoke,

Ran the marathon at Refugio,

Raced a canoe down the Rapidan,

Ran for his life from Recife to Rio,

And died in honor climbing Raton Pass in New Mexico.

S is for Sandoval,

A salamander of Samarkand,

Who spent his youth avoiding the burning sand

By traveling only at night in the bright moonlight

That cooled the sun-burnt desert land,

But when he was older his toes were colder,

So he traveled the dunes in the hottest of noons.

T is for Teresa,

A tortoise from Teotihuacan

Who traveled from Tehran to Timbuktu

Titillating the terrapins that toiled in the tules

With terpsichorean treats of tango and tap.

In Tonawanda, Terwilliger, a turtle of tender temper,

Enticed her with treasure to turn domestic

So Teresa turned her tutus into tea towels.

U is for Ursula,

A unicorn from Uruguay,

Who undulated in ecstasy near Montevideo.

An urchin observed her in wonder,

And hailed her with ululating halloos.

Ursula, understandably unnerved,

Evacuated Uruguay for Buenos Aires.

V is for Vladimir,

A vole from Vladivostok,

Who vitiated his vichyssoise with sturgeon stock.

The maitre-de was mad as could be,

Bid Vladimir boil up borscht burgundy beets,

But Vladimir was true to the vichyssoise he knew,

And bade the maitre-de to stuff his beets

With Caspian caviar and broccoli buds.

The maitre-de evicted Vladimir from Vladivostok.

Now he wanders from Voivodina to Valparaiso,

From Vincennes to Venice to Vienna to Vilnius,

Vaunting vichyssoise as the vitamin for all.

W is for Willoughby,

A wallaby from Wollongong,

Who wobbled on stage to warble a song.

He warbled soft, he warbled loud,

Then he waltzed, and really wowed the crowd.

So give three cheers, and three times three,

For Willoughby the warbling wallaby,

Willoughby, the waltzing wallaby of Wollongong!

X is for Xenocrates,

A xiphosuran from Xanadu,

Who excelled at exciting extraterrestrials.

"Exceptional entertainment" some critics said,

"Expansive and exuberant" others expressed it.

"How far I've come," Xenocrates expounded,

"From the life so drab of a horseshoe crab

To xiphosuran from Xanadu!"

Y is for Yussef,

The yak from Yaroslavl

Who loved to grovel on the gravel.

He met a maiden yak and fell in love.

She bid him behave in slavish ways,

Which won his heart and loving devotion.

He popped the question, she said yes,

If he wore yellow for his wedding day.

He assented with never a hesitation,

Yussef vowed to love, honor and obey,

And so today he is the maiden yak's slave,

And if he behaves the way she wants,

She lets him grovel on the Yaroslavl gravel.

Z is for Zenobia,

A zebra from Zanzibar,

Who invented a zoological brassiere

With cups numbering four for bovine grace and elegance.

She sold them from Zanzibar to Zimbabwe.

Her fortune made, Zenobia tried other product lines,

With little success. None could bear her lacy teddies,

Her gator garter belts she could not sell,

No crocodiles would buy her corsets.

Impoverished by products no one would buy,

Zenobia retired to pasture in poverty.

Remembering Barbi

Endnote

Remembering Barbi One

Remembering Barbi Two

Remembering Barbi Three

Remembering Barbi Four

Remembering Barbi Five

Remembering Barbi Six

Remembering Barbi Seven

Remembering Barbi Eight

Remembering Barbi Nine

Remembering Barbi Ten

Remembering Barbi Eleven

Remembering Barbi Twelve

Remembering Barbi Thirteen

Remembering Barbi Fourteen

Remembering Barbi Fifteen

Remembering Barbi Sixteen

Remembering Barbi Seventeen

Remembering Barbi Eighteen

Remembering Barbi Nineteen

Remembering Barbi Twenty

Remembering Barbi Twenty-One

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Two

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Three

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Four

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Five

By Richard George

Copyright 2015 by Richard George

Smashwords Edition

Verses encapsulate moments in time. I came home from a conference to find my kid sister dead. These poems reflect some of the sorrow I feel around her passing. May whatever gods may be keep her soul safe through eternity.

Remembrance One

I was away when Barbi died.

She walked that lonesome valley alone

As all who went before her had done

Both the lowly and the deified.

I thought I'd be the first to go

Eldest of us three as I was.

And here I sit the last who is

Walking the earth to and fro.

The emptiness is all around

My grief has muffled all my senses

And I am blind to any offenses

I commit, or on the other hand

Any comfort others propose.

I was away, came home and found her

Gone forever. I'm left to wonder

If living still has any use.

Remembrance Two

And why am I the one surviving?

I was firstborn; the others died

Before me, the why un-clarified,

Obscure, as always, to the living.

They left a lot of clutter behind,

A jumble of jewelry and figurines

Of puzzles and books and tambourines

And odd collections of every kind.

This is my charge, to sort and sell

The remnants of their earthly estates.

When I have done this, what awaits

Me, Heaven, oblivion, or Hell?

Remembrance Three

Her time was up as spring sent shoots

Of new flowers out of the ground.

That day I came home and found

Her body sprawled upon the sheets

Still haunts my sleep. Dark winter comes.

The cold grave gapes wide in my mind.

Promising snow before the end

And ice to chill my troubled dreams.

Perhaps the dead trouble us

Because the afterlife is lonely

And spirits weary that they only

Wander mansions in God's house

Instead of having a permanent place

For their weary souls to stay.

The dead, perhaps, forever stray

Without the solace of a house.

Remembrance Four

Life stretches between birth and dying.

Two portals mark life's start and end.

Some hold that we will die to ascend

To glory. Others deny such inferring

From scriptures written round the world

That any future awaits our death,

That talk of beyond is wasting our breath.

There is a yearning lying curled

Amid the hopes our hearts hold close

That Paradise is still to be

A destination we will see

When our end occurs for us.

Remembrance Five

I wake while night still fends off day

With darkness. She has been in my dreams.

I'm half-awake; to me it seems

She came to me with something to say.

Whatever message she meant for me

Faded away as I woke up.

I fumble through my dream to grope

For clues she left. It shall not be.

Some claim the dead return to shield

The fragile living against some evil

Or to rescue them from the devil

Who keeps their souls in stranglehold.

I don't believe the dead ones care

What happens to us living folks.

They've written all their history books;

They won't scribble any more.

I woke in the dark and moonless night.

I dreamed of her as though she stood

Whole beside my rumpled bed

Gowned in cotton and crowned with light.

Remembrance Six

Other folk in other times

Relied on religion to ease their sorrow

Believing in a holy tomorrow

Where angels sang unending hymns

And reunions with the departed dead

Were commonplace. No angels sing

In the quiet I imagine; no ring

Of bells. Silent repose ahead

Is all I see in my mind's eye.

No apostle-managed gate

With one door sheep and one door goat

No joyous harps playing for me.

Empty dark is what I fear

Waits for me, starless and cold,

Un-mooned, a place of frost and mold—

Is this the void that swallowed her?

Remembrance Seven

In the dark a bright light shines,

Or so St. John declared was gospel.

It's held as truth by many people

That John's bright light forever defines

A Godly promise for all time

To stir the human heart to hope

For greatness beyond the human scope,

For verse beyond the human rhyme.

The light shines on St. John avows,

And darkness fails to conquer it.

O John, I hope you've got it right

That you're the one who really knows

The ins and outs of the afterlife.

That Barbi waits for me to come

And dance with her where planets hum

A counterpoint to droning grief.

Remembrance Eight

I weep for her in quiet hours

When the night is dark and deep

And I'm too sad for restful sleep.

Somewhere an ocean wears its shores,

White surf gnawing at the sands,

Where killdeer scramble up the beach

Beyond the ocean's tidal reach

Beyond the wavelet's grasping hands.

Sometimes I think my tears make seas

Salty and full of brine on my pillow

And afterward a quiet sorrow

Gives my grief a brief surcease.

Remembrance Nine

Shadows pool in the afternoon

Promising twilight will be here

To tell us darker night is near

Silvered with the glow of the moon.

A chill wind rattles the leaves outside.

It carries the song that distant dogs

Sing to the coyotes laired in crags

Atop the hills where lone deer glide

Across the flower dotted meadow.

I sit alone remembering them,

My dead who left me here to dream

I see their faces in every shadow.

Remembrance Ten

I turn at times to say to her

Some witticism or bit of news

But she's not there to hear my views;

There's no one near enough to hear

What I think a cheese should cost

Or who should win a baseball game.

The dogs treat all my words the same:

Unless there's food they're unimpressed.

The silence now is loud with lack

Of sound as though the world must withhold

Comment until the spheres have rolled

Around their orbits forth and back

The heavens whirl in accustomed dance.

Jupiter's moons do do-see-dos

Old as time and old as skies,

And I throw words in emptiness.

Remembrance Eleven

The autumn heralds the winter to come

The last few tattered leaves are falling.

Overhead the geese are calling

From the sky's unclouded dome.

The afternoon holds its breath

Until the geese have sung their song.

The twilight comes creeping along

The sagebrush scattered on the heath,

The stars are waiting in the wings

For their cue to take the stage and dance

Across the Cosmos, and wheel and prance

To charm the commons and the kings.

Remembrance Twelve

Rain at last has come to wet

The parched dust in the yard and bring

The green back to the lawn. The spring

To come should fill the farms with fruit

Enough to feed a hungry people.

A fertile season seems to me

To be quite contradictory

Since she is dead I think it simple

Logic to expect the earth

To grieve as I must grieve. Her voice

Is stilled. We cannot hear her choice

Of words to draw a shy one forth

Or teach a novice what to do

When all the protocols have failed,

Or speak a belief she closely held

Or analyze a problem anew.

The quiet creeps along the gloom

Pooling in the room. The rain

Falls steadily to wet the lawn

And promises that spring will come.

Remembrance Thirteen

She fancied crochet for making throws.

She painted ceramic cats and fired

Them in her kiln for gifts she shared

On birthdays and other holidays.

Her skeins of yarn and tubes of paint

I've stored in boxes and plastic bags

Whose contents I have marked with tags

And set aside for sale. I want

No clutter of things to cloud my mind

When I remember her, sweet sister;

If there be gods they've blessed her

Above all other humankind

I'm certain. Let the word escape:

Her spirit persists in things she saw

As beauty's material in the raw

Ready to smooth and scrape in shape.

Let these things lie quiet and still

She is not here to make of them

The objects she saw in her dream

From bits collected and made whole.

Remembrance Fourteen

She is gone beyond my reach.

Lectures I have for teaching sisters

To avoid the touch of unseen disasters;

I have no pulpit from which to preach

Cautions for her. She does not feel

My brotherly care or my concern.

The dead lie unaware of the turn

The planets make in their quadrille

To keep the beat. The dead don't care

If oboes are flat or trombones sharp

Or if the string choirs twist and warp

Some concert master's favorite score.

The dead don't mind the band's off-key.

Or that the strings are late to start

Their ears are stopped with graveyard dirt

They can't hear the symphony

Ringing in the welkin's concert hall.

Mud plugs their ears. Perhaps they sleep

More soundly in sepulchers that keep

The star-songs quiet and moon-songs still.

Remembrance Fifteen

I think I'm most offended to see

The face of my own death that waits

For me, this wondrous me that sits

In my flesh and lets the world go by.

Bowing to both the stars and moons

I feign my resignation to fate;

Inside I seethe with fury and hate

That she is dead. The many suns

Dance their cosmic waltz to songs

Old as time. They will dance until

The cosmos ends and God fulfills

The balance sheet of rights and wrongs.

My end offends me; I would rebel

If my anger could win the day.

I raise my fist in futile display

Knowing my defiance will fail.

Remembrance Sixteen

The dead, men say, shall tell no tales.

Their histories are all complete

Written down by angels and put

On shelves near Heaven's judgment scales.

Does some jury of seraphim

Review the stories written there

Lest falsehoods the true records impair

And expose the angelic host to shame?

Or do the angels write things down

With fiery quills on pristine sheets

Split from marble? Do they take notes

So every stroke is rightly done?

Or do the angels stand amazed

As humans ramble through their times,

Their petty couplings, their paradigms

Of right and wrong, their squabbling ways?

Who knows what angels do for fun?

Or are they ever solemn folk

Who pass their time in sober talk

About what God has lately done?

Remembrance Seventeen

It stormed last night. I heard the rain

Hammer the roof. I think it fell

On her grave, soaking the barren soil,

Striving to wash away my pain.

I did not go to cry in grief

Or whisper masses for my dead.

I'll wait for sunny days ahead

To call on gods for my relief

Let the rain come down unbound.

The dry land needs the water's kiss.

The pious have prayed the drought will pass.

She sleeps forever underground

And all the prayers I can devise

Are powerless to change that truth;

My orations are wasted breath,

I doubt the dead will ever rise.

Remembrance Eighteen

Begin the search for answers now.

My time grows short to find out why

Death took her and passed me by.

As if it comforts me to know

The answer. Death awaits us all,

And why Death comes and when's obscure.

We catch the disease that has no cure;

It engineers our final fall.

Death, be not proud; the crop you reap

Is ripe to harvest. If the grain

Is still green you cut it down

Untimely. Mortal lives must stop

Because you pass along the way,

Sickle flashing left and right

Through days of sun and moonless night

We folk born of earth and clay

Bow before your final decree

Unwilling to come away with you.

Tell me what wise things I should do

To know why you took her, not me.

Remembrance Nineteen

Somewhere near a coyote calls

Hopeless love for the moon above.

We put her in an earthen grave

And filled it with dirt and our farewells.

The coyote's hymn infuses me

With melancholy. I am sad;

There's discord clanging in my head.

A voice declares this should not be,

That I'm alive and she is not.

I flounder lost in nighttime gloom

Huddled in a darkened room

Recalling how she loved her cat.

The hapless coyote tries again

To woo the moon with ballads. Fool

He is to hope, for he will fail

To win the stony-hearted moon.

Remembrance Twenty

It should not be, but it is so

That she has died and I survive.

It seems to me that she should live

And I should be the one to go.

Whatever god may be in charge

Has erred. I should have been the one

First coffined if justice had been done.

Instead I'm left to drone a dirge

For her. Moaning with my sorrow

I stir my dogs to sympathy.

They take my lap to comfort me

And bid me live for some tomorrow

Whose emptiness echoes with the noise

Of words she spoke a long time since

That I remember hearing once

When the air still quivered with her voice.

Remembrance Twenty-One

I do not welcome the winter cold.

It plagues my bones with painful joints.

That hurt so much that even saints

Curse the winter, or so I'm told.

Add grief to this brew of misery

And I would weep through all my hours

For her and my bones. I have done with tears.

Reality has come for me.

The dark comes down to rest my soul.

My joints cry out for some relief

My heart cries out to ease my grief.

Around me lighter shadows pool

Against the dying day. Tomorrow

Will be warmer pundits say.

I'll struggle through this winter day

And set the night aside for sorrow.

Remembrance Twenty-Two

The hollow gurgle of summer streams

Flowing over rocky beds

Murmurs in my ears. The clouds

Above drift with the grace of dreams

Through skies painted brass and blue

By the summer sun. She is not here,

The last of my generation. Where

She spends her days I do not know.

Last April brought a cruel spring.

It bred no lilacs from cold ground

But death with sharpened scythe came round

And forestalled all my bothering

To provide for her when my time came.

She died untimely, much too young

She had more harmonies to sing

She had more future scenes to dream

But all that planned retirement went

Away in scattered tendrils of smoke,

Wisps that drifted until they broke

And all their dreaming power was spent.

I hear the silence reverberate

With echoed memories of her

Reciting reasons she would share

For sacrificing all for her cat.

The silence has become my friend,

A bulwark against the emptiness

I wallow in. My days are less

Each sunrise marks the approach of my end.

Remembrance Twenty-Three

Her chosen totem was the cat.

The feline kind enraptured her

At three. Our old cat with great care

Brought home a kitten and from that

A long cat line of pets ensued.

Frequently stroked, seldom reproved,

Each one was individual and loved

Like the children she never had

Would have been. Though dogs she met

Or chickens, even crawling creatures

Roused her tender heart and nature

None ever got the love that a cat

Could excite in her. Now I

Am left to care for her cat. This

Is the respect I give her wish:

Care for her cat if she should die.

Remembrance Twenty-Four

The feast days loom ahead

With viands traditional for the date.

I dread their coming. How or what

I eat means little when she is dead.

Life does not hold much merriment

For those who linger here behind;

Solemn things weigh down my mind

My fund of joy is drained and spent.

I'll eat of course; the flesh requires

Maintenance. I sometimes wonder why

I keep my habits from years gone by

But then the roast my gut inspires

And so I fill my plate with food

From rim to rim and slowly fork

It down. No matter beef or lamb or pork—

I eat it all and hold it good.

Remembrance Twenty-Five

I tell myself to let it pass,

The dead are dead; they do not hear

The discourse we the living share

Standing on the edge of the abyss.

They've had their time and now are done

With the chatter of living things.

Perhaps somewhere an angel sings

A hymn of praise for an unseen sun

Thus stopping their ears with melodies

Beyond my ken. Perhaps the dead

Hear nothing under the rain-soaked sod

And nothing in the stormy breeze.

Talk's for living people. We speak

To hide our fears, hoping our words,

Which we chatter like fledgling birds,

Obscure the silence of dead folk.

Winter Poems

Ken

Don't Wait for Me

November Sonnet

November Villanelle

The Lovers

Random Triolet

South Park

Winter

Afghanistan Redux

Drought Sonnet

Ballad of Remembrance

Astronomical Triolet

Evensong

Winter Ballad

Regarding Death

Promises

Jill's Call

Daylight Comes

I Welcome the Sun

The Quiet Time

The Night Comes Soon in November

December Night

Thanksgiving Lyric

Winter Sonnet

Young and Old, a Ballad

Minor Song

December Sonnet

Remember June?

Admonition

Friends

Folk Fashion Gods

By Richard George

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 by Richard W. George

Ken

The evening sun slides down the sky.

The night chill steals into my room.

The promised rain should soon come by.

Out of the night's accustomed gloom

I will not see the stars aglow.

This fog will hide them, I assume.

The cold winds wander to and fro

Carrying leaves along the street.

I idly mark their drifting flow.

You went too soon. When will we meet?

Or won't we be together again?

Is our journey truly complete?

Just now I wait for promised rain

As twilight smears the firmament.

As darkness falls I think of Ken

And what our years together meant.

My grief is old; I will not cry.

My sorrow-tears for you I've spent.

Don't Wait for Me

Don't wait for me under an apple tree.

Apples fall from trees the wise folk say.

I will not come to be with you today

Lest a heavy apple fall on me.

We can meet some other place and be

Unworried that fruit might fall. There is no way

To share an hour of talk or try to play

With fruit falling around us. Shall not we

Find shade beneath an elm or stately oak

To host our time together? Perhaps we'll find

A park, complete with bench for us to use

Where we can talk away from other folk

Or whisper secrets to the passing wind

Or ask some bird to tell the latest news.

November Sonnet

November winds scatter the withered leaves

Across my lawn. The marigolds' dried pods

Fall to the ground. The rain drips from the eaves.

Somewhere pagans worship stranger gods

With arcane rites beneath the alien sun.

Somewhere, I think, the winds are warm and soft

As a lover's touch. Here the warmth has gone.

The winter rides astride the chilly draft.

I dream of June with blooms of every kind

Flourishing in riotous color. How bereft

I am of warmth I've been robbed by the wind

Of summer's heat. I huddle in my coat

And watch the world blow by outside my door.

A sudden cough rattles inside my throat

It's the dust of shattered leaves, no more.

November winds are playing with the trees,

Whipping bare branches in its autumnal breeze.

November Villanelle

Night swallows day in somber shade.

The timid stars have hidden from the moon

And summer meadow flowers fade.

The feeble sun is most dismayed

That cold night comes so very soon,

Night swallows day in somber shade

The vibrant life the summer displayed

Is dormant. Autumn breezes drone

And summer meadow flowers fade.

The green fields where the wild mice played

Are black with damage the frost has done.

Night swallows day in somber shade.

The happy hours the summer made

Have shriveled with the shrinking sun

And summer meadow flowers fade.

There is no way for one to evade

November's heartless coming when

Night swallows day in somber shade.

And summer meadow flowers fade.

The Lovers

The young man rode through winter rain;

His horse was old and slow.

The trees pushed off their sodden leaves

To fall to the ground below.

Despite the cold he merrily sang

Love ditties as he rode.

The plodding horse paid little mind

To the off-key music he made.

One foot before the next the horse

Put down on the narrow trail.

The young man crooned about his love

Riding through hill and dale.

The furtive deer fled through the forest

Alarmed by the young man's songs.

Shy rabbits burrowed in their dens.

The eagles spread their wings

And flew sunward in the afternoon.

The young man urged his horse

To hasten to his lover's abode.

The steed plodded his course

Ignoring his rider's urging him.

The young man's lover pined

For him to come. Night darkened the east.

Trees bowed before the wind.

The rain intensified and drowned the stars

In grey and somber cloud.

The horse stumbled and fell to rise

No more, for it had died.

The man fell under the dying horse,

His bones were crushed and broken.

He lay in pain until he died

Clutching the love token

He wore to show his love eternal.

The lover he rode to see

Presumed the young man's ardor cooled

And despaired that this should be.

He put a pistol to his head

And pulled the trigger. Down

He fell and died as well. So both

Young lovers untimely gone

Were mourned by maidens' salty tears

For fortunes lost. None missed

The horse. The people talked about

The young men who were lost

Never knowing they were lovers

Sworn to hold each other

Beloved above all folk they met,

Held closer than a brother.

Do not ride out for love, my friend.

The danger's great you'll die;

Before you consummate your love

It's time to say goodbye.

Random Triolet

Bright sun belies the cold

That holds the day in an iron grip.

In the feeble flare of a year grown old

Bright sun belies the cold.

The sun is weak, the leaves are gold

And winter waits with an un-sprung trap.

Bright sun belies the cold

That holds the day in an iron grip.

South Park

Where the white Tarryall

Tumbles to the valley

Crimson-gowned Alison

Wandered witless nightly.

East and west, north and south

High peaks ring the parkland.

Snows that fell decades since

Glitter in the sunshine.

Alison coiffed in curls

Grey with age and weary

Laid her down in the town

Waiting for the daylight.

Death came then freeing her

From her earthly sorrows.

Solemn prayers townsfolk made

For her soul's salvation

Where the white Tarryall

Tumbles to the valley.

Crimson-gowned Alison

Sleeps in peace forever.

Winter

The winter's diluted the sunshine.

As though the November grew thinner

October was brilliant and warmer

The grasses were green then, not brown yet.

The summer's departed; snow flurries

Are waiting to fall on the mountains.

The fishes swim slower in rivers

Much tamer than summer meltwater

Had made them. December is coming.

The rabbits have refurbished their burrows,

The wolves and the coyotes are denning

For winter. The people light lanterns

To drive back the darkness that threatens

To cover the daylight of winter.

Afghanistan Redux

Then in the mountains of Afghanistan

Blood fertilized the ground where clan fought clan.

'Til blood-soaked sand cascaded down the slopes;

Perhaps the gods despaired of saving man.

Men fight today and make the sacrifice

Soaking the ground with wartime's bloody mess.

When will they learn, oh gods, that killing fails;

It seldom solves a human made impasse.

Grieve anew, widows and orphans, for war

And rumors of it we have heard before;

Blood will soak the mountain sands again

From Kabul, Balkh, Helmand and Kandahar.

Drought Sonnet

The promised rains are falling on the sea.

The dry land suffers winter's watered sun

With unquenched thirst. Salmon struggle to spawn

In low rivers. The spawning fish set free

Their roe and milt. Some fingerlings will be

Survivors strong enough to find the ocean,

Others will die before their trip is done.

Nature's stern law allows no remedy

Except by chance. I wait for rain to splash

On my roof and fill the rivers up

With flowing streams of waters fallen fresh

From heaven bringing life in every drop,

Bringing green to renew the brittle grass,

Bringing me renewal and re-born hope.

Ballad of Remembrance

Old men dream of virile youth

Winning wars and loves.

Romances then were all they pursued.

Now they flee their graves.

Hobbling feebly leaning on canes

Or crutches, the sad old men

Tell tall tales of derring-do

Of wars they've never seen

And loves they never won except

In wishful memories.

Indulge them, these old men near-dead

And all the vagaries

Of time-distorted recollection

They share. The fearless young

Will, too, grow old and tell old tales

Of wine, lovers, and song.

Astronomical Triolet

The weak moon leads the stars

Across the nighttime skies;

Its face is pocked with scars.

The weak moon leads the stars

In the welkin's futile wars

Perhaps to their demise;

The weak moon leads the stars

Across the nighttime skies.

Evensong

The night has come to rest

My weary eyes.

The moon and stars are hiding

In the shaded skies.

They fear to venture out

Lest winter rain

Fall from the clouds that hang

A darkened stain

Across the northern welkin.

The western glow

Is red with sunset blood

That soon will go

And I shall sleep at last

Untroubled by dreams

Of dying romantic heroes

'Til morning comes.

Winter Ballad

No rain is promised for today.

The skies are bright and blue

Brightened by light left over from days

When summertime was new.

A cold wind blows out of the north

Its chilling breath has seared

The tired leaves on the sleeping trees

And left the branches bared

To winter winds. The winter ice

Will come and wrap the trees

Against the winds that carry cold

As freight upon their breeze.

Regarding Death

We do not wait for death,

Indeed, we flee its grasp.

With careful ritual ways

We blot its face from our thoughts.

Life occupies our time

With cares and kin and joys

That come and go like clouds

The wind is chasing around

The skies before a storm.

We do not wait for death

To come to take us away.

We will not see the grim

Destiny meant for all.

Do not be proud dear death;

We do not wait for you.

Promises

The weather gurus promise us

The rain will come to make the lawn

Green again instead of brown.

The dormant trees will drink it deeply.

Too long we've had no rain. The seas

Have kept us dry. The weather-casters say

This year will offer a wetter winter.

The cracked soils need to swell with rain;

The small seeds need the kiss of rain;

We dried out humans need to feel

The rain against our skins and hair.

The weather gurus promise us

The rain will come to make the lawn

Green again instead of brown.

Jill's Call

Her call was brief, a simple thanks to me

For verses I'd sent her. I was glad she rang.

My day was dark before she called, you see.

When she hung up I hummed a happy song.

The melody was one the old folks sang

To mark their joyful times. My heart was lighter

Because she called, though she did not talk long

I found when her call was over my day was brighter;

I startled both my dogs with a sudden burst of laughter.

Daylight Comes

Daylight comes cold and gray

Out of the eastern sky.

Summer seems far away.

An autumn rain is coming

From the sea's northern clime

Riding on the cold winds

Breathing frost all the time

To blacken tender plants.

Cold winds come at dawn

Robbing the sun of warmth.

Winter rules, summer's gone

I'll need a coat today.

I Welcome the Sun

I welcome the sun. The gray has gone for now.

I heard a bird greet the bright break of day

Warbling anthems on a pine-tree bough.

Green sparkles dot the lawn in bright display

Where dewdrops dance. The winter flowers sway

To the wind's chill song. I greet the winter sun

With new delight. I hope it's come to stay

A while with me and let me see wind run

Its fingers through the coiffure of the sprouting lawn.

The Quiet Time

I fold my book

And lay it down

To listen to silence.

Ice cubes fall

In my ice maker.

Outside a dog

Protests some wrong

Perpetrated

By unknown hands.

Inside my dogs

Mutter replies

I won't translate.

The silence returns,

I hear it fall.

I take my book

And open it.

The silence weighs

On my ears. A voice

Would be a joy

To hear in this quiet.

There is no voice

For me to hear

And thus awaken

My social side.

The Night Comes Soon in November

The night comes soon in November.

The dark rushes to hide

The last rays of the sun

That crimsons the western sky.

The night comes soon in November

Commanding stars and moon

To promenade the welkin

In diamond-brilliant splendor

The night comes soon in November;

The too-short days stay cold

The frost fringes the flowers.

I'll go early to bed--

The night comes soon in November.

December Night

The dogs and cat sleep soundly tonight.

They sleep through the sounds that come and go.

Above the white-faced moon is bright

And cold. The drifting stars ae pale

In the moon's scattered silver glow.

The icy breeze's breath is chill

Exhalation across the town

Sleeping beneath the winter sky.

One dog stirs and groans, then sleeps

Unstirred by coyotes courting the moon.

I pull the blankets up to my eyes

One dog growls a dream response

The other stirs as the moonlight creeps

Across the welkin where stars dance.

Thanksgiving Lyric

The feast is ready, the table's set.

The chairs are set to hold

The feasters while they eat the meal.

The bird and ham are carved,

Served with mashed potatoes and yams

Prepared by loving hands.

The mince and pumpkin pies are lined

Along the side buffet

Waiting the knife to cut the wedges

Of too-rich food to round

The big meal out. The merriment

Of holidays should reign.

Chairs we set for the ones we loved

In years before are stored

In dusty attics. In the chatter

A sudden time of silence;

Someone spoke of she who died

Untimely soon last spring.

Winter Sonnet

I bid my dogs come sleep with me tonight.

The weatherman has promised cold will come

To freeze my garden. Winter takes its bite

When it chooses, and leaves frost on the lawn.

The day is fading. Night swallows the sun; the dark

Descends, and as it falls the cold comes too.

I pity those who pursue an outdoor work

When winter has swallowed northern ice and snow.

The dogs do not demur; they want the warm

To heat them through the night. The cat as well

Requests a place to shield him from the harm

He fears is riding on the winter chill.

The dogs refuse to make room for the cat;

He waits 'til they sleep to find himself a spot.

Young and Old, a Ballad

The old man pranced about the yard

Celebrating the sun

The young man slept, worn out by love

Under a silver moon.

The old man heard a music playing

No others heard at all,

The young man heard no music sounding

No melody to fall

With sweet remembrances on his ear.

The old man whirled and danced

A dervish chained by love of rhythm,

By memories entranced,

He pirouettes his winter steps.

The young man wakens then,

Recalling passion's play in the night

He smiles and wonders when

He'll sate his lust another time.

The old man drops to his knees

Head bobbing to the tune he hears

He prays for final release

From life grown painfully long to live.

He contemplates his death.

He bows his head in prayerful fashion

And stops his wheezing breath.

Minor Song

Falling stars last night rained fire

From the darkened dome above.

Lovers new to love's desire

Plot to hide their new-made love

From their disapproving elders

Frowning fiercely at their altars

That truth

For youth

Parents find a thing uncouth.

Under falling stars the young

Sate their need for romance now

While I sing my simple song

They part with a languorous sigh

Vowing they will come together

Never knowing any other.

Star-fire

Falls far

Through the chill autumnal air.

December Sonnet

The day is bright and cold. The noontime sun

Spreads light across the sky—a frozen ball

In a sapphire bowl polished with an icy stone

Illuminating winter's welkin-hall.

No birds, mosquitos or dragonflies are here

To brave the cold. No insects copulate

Among the weeds brittle, dead, and sere

Their kinds have chosen to hibernate.

The winter flowers petition God for rains

To keep them blooming 'til the spring comes round.

The world rolls on despite the grief that chains

Me to sorrow and death that has no end.

The brilliant sun spreads daylight but no heat

The icy day reflects my chill regret.

Remember June?

I do remember,

Remember June

Was warm with summer

And lively bees

Circling the trees

Riding like knights

On dragonflies

Across the lawn

Going brown

With summer heat.

I remember June

When the world teetered

On the cusp between

Summer and spring.

I was younger then,

But not by much.

Six months older,

And no wiser

I do remember

When June, new-come,

Promised life

Continued on.

I do remember,

I remember June.

Admonition

Don't weep for the dead, they want no tears

Falling on their graves. The green lawns need

No salty tears the living leave.

They flourish un-watered, unwept, forsaken

By the living who fear to find themselves

Under the grass in the ground that lies

Heavy with sorrow above their bones.

Don't weep for the dead, your tears are wasted

The dead don't care if you cry for them.

Friends

I sought out friends

Because my heart

Was squeezed with grief

And I could bear

It no more alone.

We ate a bit,

We drank a bit,

We talked of those

Who died untimely.

We talked of those

Who did not come,

Absence providing

Fodder for gossip.

Grief's grasp

On my heart was tight.

Nor friends nor food

Nor drink provided

Heart's ease for me.

I left my friends

And returned, heart-broken,

To my empty house.

Folk Fashion Gods

Folk fashion gods from clay

Some find bright gems for eyes,

Others bring garlands and pray.

Despite what preachers say,

Despite the words of the wise,

Folk fashion gods from clay

Worshipping them each day

With solemn hymnodies.

Others bring garlands and pray.

Folk march in sober array

Tonguing solemn melodies.

Folk fashion gods from clay

To guard them on their way

From birth to last demise.

Others bring garlands and pray

The gods are silent, they

Stop their mouths with lies.

Folk fashion gods from clay;

Others bring garlands and pray.

Alphabetic List of Titles

A Caveat to New Converts

A Certain Lady

A Dream of Dolls

A is for Arliss

A Trio of Triolets

Abandoned Promise

Absent

Adapted from Anacreon # 47

Adapted from Anacreon # 53

Admonition

Afghanistan Redux

After Psalm 137

Afternoon at Machu Picchu

Alone

Anything is Possible in California

Ascension Sunday

Astronomical Triolet

Aubade

B is for Barnaby

Ballad of Remembrance

Berry Picking

Butterflies

By the River

C is for Cathy

Cairo Streets

Champagne Dragons

Childhood Rules

City Streets

Come Play

Convenience (Greek Anthology 402)

Coyote Skull

Coyotes

Cruising Musing

D is for Disraeli

Day Breaks

Daylight Comes

December Night

December Sonnet

Dictionary Flowers

Don't Wait for Me

Drought Sonnet

Dusty Dragon

E is for Edelweiss

Early Muse

Easter Monday, 2002

El Amor Pasa

Elegy for a Dead God

Elvis Redemptor

Epitaph

Etiquette

Evensong

F is for Frank

First Date

First Funeral

Flesh and Conceits

Flute Man

Folk Fashion Gods

For a Soldier Who Died on Camera

For Don Wells

For Friends in an Old Snapshot

For My Ex

Fred

Friends

From Wu Ti

G is for Gilbert

Gargoyles

Geas

Generations

Ghosts

Ghosts Between Us

God Thoughts

Golden Gate Bridge

Grownups Talked

H is for Hellebore

Haiku

Harp and Willows

Homeward Bound

Hospital

Housekeeping

Hyperbole

I is for Ichabod

I Talk of Swans

I Welcome the Sun

If I Should Die

Images of Afghanistan

In Exile

In Fifty Years

Invasion

Invitation

J is for Johannes

Jill's Call

John Day Country

Joshua Trees

July Moon

K is for Katrinka

Kate Nein Remembers 1917

Ken

Kokopelli

L is for Leander

Love Song

Love Weariness

Loveland Lake

Lover and Moon

M is for Milford

Machu Picchu Rain

Making Poems

Midsummer's Night

Milking Time

Minor Song

Misty Gorge on the Yangtze

Morning Glories

Moths

Mrs. Palmer

My Escape

N is for Nestor

Night Disturbance

Night Incident

Night Music

November

November Garden

November Sonnet

November Villanelle

O is for Oswald

October 7, 2001

Ossuary

Out of the Shadow

P is for Pythagoras

Park Encounter

Petals

Poppies

Prairie Winds

Promises

Provoke No Dragons

Purpose

Q is for Quigley

Question

R is for Rehoboam

Rain

Rain and Lichen

Rainy Night

Random Triolet

Red Geranium

Regarding Death

Religions

Remember June?

Remembering Barbi Eight

Remembering Barbi Eighteen

Remembering Barbi Eleven

Remembering Barbi Fifteen

Remembering Barbi Five

Remembering Barbi Four

Remembering Barbi Fourteen

Remembering Barbi Nine

Remembering Barbi Nineteen

Remembering Barbi One

Remembering Barbi Seven

Remembering Barbi Seventeen

Remembering Barbi Six

Remembering Barbi Sixteen

Remembering Barbi Ten

Remembering Barbi Thirteen

Remembering Barbi Three

Remembering Barbi Twelve

Remembering Barbi Twenty

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Five

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Four

Remembering Barbi Twenty-One

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Three

Remembering Barbi Twenty-Two

Remembering Barbi Two

Reunion

Rhinestone Weeds

Road Kill—A Villanelle

Rock Creek

S is for Sandoval

Sailor Becalmed (Greek Anthology 640)

Sales Resistance

Sea and Grove

Shadows

South Park

Spring Breakfast

Spring Vistas

Squeaking Snow

Squid Boats

Stone Man

Summer Grass

Sunset

Surf

T is for Teresa

Talk

Tears

Teddy's Bath

Temple Dogs

Thanksgiving Lyric

The Boy

The Caged Cricket

The Carousel

The Chase

The Clockwork Nightingale

The Copper God

The Coyote

The Dowager

The Dragon and the Iguana

The Frog Dream

The Frogs

The Frost

The Gift

The Hawk

The Hustler

The Lost Day

The Lovers

The Missing Queen

The Moon Pretends

The Night Comes Soon in November

The Old Ewe

The Owl's News

The Photograph

The Place

The Plaid Giraffe

The Presence

The Pylon Carvings

The Quiet Carousel

The Quiet Time

The Rare Quiet

The River

The Sails

The Singing Boy

The Sphinx

The Temblor

The Tulip Bearers

The Turquoise Frog

The Visitation

The Walnut Ships

The Wild Nile Gone

The Witch

Tithonos

Two Conjoined

Two Gulls

Two Sparrows

U is for Ursula

V is for Vladimir

Villanelle for a Silver God

W is for Willoughby

Watching You

We Found a Quiet Place

We Wake the Buzzards

Out of the Shadow

Waiting for Unicorns

We Watch the Swallows

When We Began to Love

Where Were You When We Met?

White Asters

White Water

Winter

Winter Ballad

Winter Sonnet

Wise Old Women

World Cuisine

X is for Xenocrates

Y is for Yussef

Yellow Mountain

You Are Sad

You Braid Your Hair

You the Queen

Young and Old, a Ballad

Your Call

Z is for Zenobia

