Upon Walking to Lot 6

I follow a brown leaf

maple on the wind

he scurries

the maple leaf follows

the wind I follow

the maple leaf

tasting the crunch

he would whisper

if the wind let my

foot catch him

his jagged dance

just before me

he dances with

the wind scratching

the pavement a jig

with the wind

in his jazz shoes

the wind follows

me but I do not dance

Organic

splintered
lemon
on the
operating table

yellow
citrus
slices

knee wound
soured
wince
sneeze
clean

The Cliffs

Inkling through wintry finger

Tips sunlight dazzles
Your chest warm with meaty
Sun on April afternoon
The hay itches
But your weight covers
Umbrellaed shadows
Granting cool waves
Juniper breath jettied droll
Green plaid boxers
Afghan two apples
Kissed by tight skin
In the pilfered breeze
Engulfed ragweed
Enumerated by your body
Known and sensible
To clothe the bends
My hungry limbs
Soothe me with the burden
Savory bones
Atop my breast slumber
Tan drink heal
Picnic until yellow boards the
Last train home

At the Waterfall

Two ducks yud and dawdle

Followed by two mallards
During the gargling
Of the puddle

Young mallard nears
Patriarch duck aggressively
Shoos - squawking jerk
His greased green neck

Forcing autonomy
On his son
Manufactured mallard
Independence

Ducks under the soil
In the uprooted maple tree
The soil fertile with decomposing bark
Next year I will return to mark
The roots and see if they have grown together again

Your Stop Here

I don’t know what is wrong with me but I am avoiding a writers conference that would help me become a better writer and I would rather take a nap. I am in my room doing homework rather than forcing myself to attend the workshop. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I feel all sorts of out of place and a little restless because I know I am supposed to be somewhere right, now but all I want to do is sit and think a whole lot of blank nothing. I don’t want to put the time and effort in to engaging in other peoples work, yes I enjoy some of it naturally, but it’s hard to listen when it sounds like crap. And why should I listen to your poems when I don’t care for them? What makes you so special? Your words so profound? Your mouth so delicious? That I should pin my butt cheeks to the cushion of this atrium seat and bleed at my ear lobes with the crap you call poetry? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Perhaps I have grown tired of pretending to be a part of something that everyone else is pretending exists. What is there to a pretense but looks and clothing? Fabric and skin with no pulsating veiny flesh beneath? I will have no part in robotics. I know what is wrong with me: I discovered. I discovered that poetry is not something to be shared between people for the sake of sharing it. It is a piece of the soul that will touch those it wishes to touch, you cannot force this beast nor hold him back. You cannot shackle his brawny neck or tame down his delicate fur – it will stand on end if it so pleases. It will shock you with its bristly warmth despite the humid weather. Stand not in his way; He is beyond your contribution. Your measly song through the microphone will not stir his slumber. He stirs your soul. I will not sit and listen, forcing myself to pang through the black tar that sticks to the bottom of my sunken sneakers, the gravely stench you call talent. Will not my eyes be drawn upwards with the passing of the beast, his unwavering, stately, bristly, clawing; intent on gluing me to my chair and making me forget I am even sitting in the atrium? I will travel with the poem if he so permits me the ticket. Until then, I refuse to board this unwarranted train.

Mason Jars

A collected community

Clear and cut the same size

Tarry in grandma’s cellar

Their glassy mouths

Scattered gaping

Covered sealed resourceful

Houses roofed

By sure tin lids

Murder the sun’s rays to rainbows

The upright dwellings

Emptied of fluid secrets

Await insemination

Late September’s traditional

Treasure impregnates each

Womb with applesauce

Sayer

I swim across the Susquehanna, fetch

three pebbles on the bank
together in my pocket coins and rocks
announce my stroll

sweeping the driveway, Norm nods
in my direction - I tip my hat
gritting the toothpick with a laugh
and pass a pocket full of change

 

two bells greet me at Beeman’s  

coffee waits on the linoleum
while the switch hitter waitress teases
about a different dessert

 

it’s Thursday, 4 o’clock

Time to pie with gramps