Selected Poems—

These are some of my favorite poems from last winter. (They are still drafts, not final versions, and may not be shared outside this website without permission. Thank you.)

JAN-MAR Poems

A season’s worth at once?!  Yes.
Can I explain that? No.
But I do want to start posting poems again.

[NOTE: These are almost all the poems written in this period.
My attention was barely on poetry last winter.]

MAR

140324

ONE OFF

I find it delightful
and wondrously odd
that Creator, for joy,
made me Her toy—
that I am
God’s gift to God.

 

140310

SOLAR FLAIR

“I deserve it,”
sunning himself, says my cat,
“for making it through winter—
a winter like that!”

 

FEB

140224

UNTITLED

If I gave my farewell
to all, some, or nil—
would I fare well,
or fairly, or ill?

Yes—
would I fair fare?
And would I dare dare?

[I only wrote this one poem in February,
not even giving it a title.]

 

JAN

140125

LIFE, LIBERTY, HAPPINESS

I’d stopped by the evening tree
(or else was stopped below it)
when there arose in me
this deep-felt certainty:
It’s one thing to be free,
a better thing to know it.

 

140122

RETURNS OF THE PLAY

My poetry gains
already have maxed out
(though not in worldly riches).

My poetry yen
may never be played out—
still, as you see, it twitches.

 

140119

YOUR MONEY
OR YOUR LIFE

Did or do you
expect to survive
many years
past sixty-five?

Enough of life
or enough to spend—
which, for you,
the first to end?

 

140118

DEAR DESIGNER,

We are intelligent beings
with minds,
memories,
emotions,
relationships.

Do you have any idea
how painful it is
to live in a reality
that doesn’t make sense?
Or in an unreality either?

 

140109

CAIN’T COMPLAIN

GMOs, pesticides,
big bidness
an’ big pharma…
we lives, we dies,
we takes our chances—
all part of our karma.

 

140108

LIFE GIVING

When I sat at table,
I forgot to thank the basil.

How generously it grows,
how submissively it bows
to my taking, for so life goes.

So each life owes.

Let me give my thanks now;
may I awaken
before my life is taken.

 

140106

PENCIL POOR

Pens and markers
I have by the score
in every type and hue.
Ah, but pencils—
the tool I adore!
Of them I have so few.
Please, may I have some more?

 

140101

ENDGAME

Well before the wakening,
well before the dawn,
well before the vision ends,
the dreamer scans the scene,
sure—as by a quickening—
the king will take his pawn.

The game is up, all trends
affirming what this means:
the dreamer is the dream.

 

* * *

Photo Credit:
Winter sky by Jo Lightfoot