Watermark

What I'll Never Tell You

  

1

I did go out that summer day
with an old lover, into the mountains.
We had a meal by the river, then
lay together and made love
on the scratchy blanket.

2

Peonies make me think of you,
how they open, and open, unfolding
petal after petal, so lush, so brazen;
how we chased each other, room
to room, naked and ecstatic.

3

If you had asked, I would have
gone with you. I would have
left all rules behind, followed you,
led the way into that unknown
wilderness, that anarchy of desire. 

  

This week's prompt was what i could never tell my mother.  I changed it just a bit.

Summer Solstice | Sitka, Alaska | 1993

This day blooms
under wide meadows
of sky. We lay
our sun-stunned bodies
in constellations
of clover and buttercups. 

Salmonberry bubbles
of sweet red light
break on our tongues. 
Shooting stars
in the flowerbeds,
pollen in our sheets.

   
 

For an audio post of this poem, go here.

The House-Bound Ventures Out

she prepares for days hoarding
energy / fireflies in a glass jar /
examines clothing for marks
of wear / a hole in the knee / buttons
cracked or missing / missing / stains
on the embroidered breast / amulets
in the pocket / earrings 
finger rings / key ring

her eyes widen / she can feel the lids
stretch / at the distant horizon / far
mountains / clouds / the river
high dark fast / pulling / at its banks
trees bent down in the water

a drive through the neighborhood
of biography / victorian towered flats
the hall of a bed / bath in three rooms
claw-foot tub / pedestal sink / time
cracked / old porcelain

cottonwood flurries at the windshield
out-of-season seed-storm / wide-winged
dark-tipped osprey / young-one
gliding in the still air

boarded storefronts / bowling alley
gone / in its place modern cantilevered
apartments across from the slumped motel
where once she lived husbanded / loving /
loved / daytime soap operas the drama
of housewifery punctuated by books
physics / philosophy / poetry

she buys new fish for the slaughtered pond
tiny shells & silk cord threading through narrow
street after wide avenue / this old woman /
green maples and ash trees


MP3 File

April - May - June 02009

2009-06-10

the lives of thousands rest on his shoulders
the enemy is vile and wily

he is strong enough to carry this weight
he is strong enough to meet this enemy

he is strong, he is brave
he is willing to die for what is right

these people, if you can call them that
care for nothing, value nothing

they do not respect life as we do
they do not treasure family and god

he must be strong, he must be brave
he must be willing to die for what is right

he has prepared for this moment
for this, he was born

for this, he worked to become strong
for this, he is brave, for this

he is strong enough to save
his own kind, he is strong, he is brave

the enemy is vile, and wily, but weak
weak, they are tatters at the edge

of our genetic fabric, they must be cut
out, such contamination must be

cleansed lest it ... no, he will not think
of it, he is strong, he is willing to die

he is willing to kill, he is willing to die
for this, for right, for strength, for god

  

A brief mood report...

[Previously posted here.]

Yep. Again.  

[Thanks, Ruth!]

[Previously posted here.]

Yep. Again.  

[Thanks, Ruth!]

Traveling to Arizona | snapshot poem

flat-bottomed clouds, piled high
ice-cream scoops in a blue dish

home-made chocolate sryup
wind chimes singing

what is fundamental? what
is superfluous?

mockingbirds, cactus wrens,
hummingbirds at the sugar water

a woman, forgotten, in an outdoor cage
heat waving up from the pavement

the thin & frightened girl, wild-eyed,
weighing in for chemotherapy

recliner chairs and IV stands
row after row

palm trees recently pruned
looking entirely artificial

a different mother, the consequence
of some spontaneous transformation

parchment skin, brittle bones,
charcoal bruises beneath the eyes

plaster rabbits, plastic geese,
rubber dinosaurs on a green gravel lawn

unfamiliar flowers, thick and brilliant
fleshy plants with thorny warnings

waiting rooms, benches, vinyl walls
petals on the surface of the pond