Selected Poems—
These are some of my favorite poems from this winter. (They are still drafts, not final versions, so please don’t share them without permission, except by linking to this website. Thank you.)
JAN-MAR Poems
A season’s worth at once?! Yes.
Perhaps soon I’ll resume posting monthly selections.
MAR
150329
WHAT NEXT?
Maybe we get so tired
of being human
(who knows why?)
that God takes pity
and lets us die.
150326
ENCOUNTER
Hi,
glad to meet you.
Is this your first time
on this planet?
Yeah?
Me too.
Think we’ll ever
get the hang of things
here?
Gotcha.
Well, where ya off to
next then?
150324
IF I AM GOD’S EYES
Let me watch the cheerful boats
that sail, sail back, and dock.
Let me watch the vibrant birds
that nest and soar and flock.
Let me view
(through God’s good grace)
just one aurora’s blazing trace;
let me know that shock.
Let others watch the clock.
150321
IMPULSE
What I put off doing all year
just got done in a night…
almost did itself, in fact.
I’m stunned with sheer delight.
That motive force—I can’t explain it.
I only wish I could retain it.
150319
STIGMA
Forgot a name,
forgot a date—
I guess I should
be shunned.
Why can’t we
take this off the plate
for me and, yes,
for everyone?
150318
NEWBORN
(for Eli Andrew)
The children are fascinated
and everyone wants to touch it.
It’s soft and warm and living
like a loaf of bread in the rising,
just kneaded and beginning to resize.
Only it has eyes.
150316
AUDACIOUS
(for Ethan)
We chose each other
for our differences
as much as for our likenesses.
Sometimes it’s amazing
we can get along.
Sometimes it’s astounding
we can tolerate each other.
You offered your one
precious life to me…
I took it. And you took mine.
We made a pact and we kept it.
You. Me. Life. Love.
By thunder, we will not
be put asunder.
It’s a wonder.
FEB
150206
ICE, NO MICE
At the window
Okie lies,
chasing squirrels
with his eyes.
150204
MADE FRESH DAILY
You have to have
some trauma, don’t you?
Some predicament,
some wonderment,
some insight, right?
Something of your own,
not from books on shelves,
not second-hand or third-,
not something merely heard?
Poems don’t write themselves.
150204
JUST A THOUGHT
Life is grief and both are brief.
That’s a thought, not my belief.
150203
EARTH BIRTH
Death is a friend,
not one I fear.
Yet, as I feel death
drawing near,
I’m still confused,
I’m still not clear—
What was, what is
my mission here?
150202
DREAM REAVER
A man came into my life
last night.
He’d rented my workroom
as a base of operations,
then proceeded to winnow
and redecorate my entire house.
All the superfluous,
all the excess,
was set out on tables
in the entryway,
to be taken away or sold.
This was a great removal
but, astonishingly,
a great addition.
JAN
150128
DEATH’S A MESS
(for Ragget cat)
No longer every day
must I pick my way
between those pools of poo
left on the floor by you
when you were sick and dying.
Now that you’ve passed along,
that old Bill Bailey song
(about less work and how
I “should be happy” now)
mocks me as I’m crying.
150125
PREPPING FOR PERU
I need to know that
I can do things…
and to know what
doing things brings.
150124
COMING UP EMPTY
No scribbled lines.
No half-formed verses.
Not even a note.
Where are all those
unrecorded poems
that I thought I wrote?
150121
MORNING TIDE
Wave on wave,
a tide of clouds
comes washing over me
while morning sun
floats and bobs
on that inverted sea.
150119
THINGS
There was a time
when things absorbed us wholly
in their newness—a time before
they lapsed into tired, vague
reminders of something else.
150118
LIGHT SHOW
Dawn does paint
with light—and
oh-so-swiftly too.
150112
WINTER OF WELLNESS
Filling hunger wrongly,
whether openly
or in stealth,
only feeds the hunger,
keeps it longer,
makes it stronger—
when what I’m
hungry for is health.
* * *
Photo credit:
Winter weeds by Lili07 of morguefile.com