what is this heaven
that you should reach to me
some modern marley’s ghost
warning
(just that the veil is thin
on longest coldest nights
a snowscape
of when you fell?)
or a gentle messenger
sent to wake me
from selfish dream—
roasted meat, mulled wine
hot fire
yet we can seem spendthrift
in any season scattering care
like birdseed on the ground, wet snow
no more weight on tree-shoulders
than skies gray or gold or blue—
and remember what you’ve done for me
shoring up my heart, careful
packing and piling
these paths through snow
with cold fingers rewiring
the whole house to sun-blaze
pouring joy through windows
and doors spilling love into the night
this skimmed-milk faith
glowing a bit, a movie-god’s halo
(but blue-white, LED, not incandescent)
trembling near nightfall
under sudden river-ice
*
and the reason we want a plot
a cheer-heart resolution
to this hapless wandering
(eat, sleep, cry)—who is writing
your story with its cast of millions
cross-referenced, pronunciation guide
at the end?
*
when we stood, this close
to touching a beauty hauled round
up-horizon, the glow you would know
for all its pits and crags
until you woke again
and lost it
You think you can prepare
for sudden loss. The late call
all the what would I do if
and what will I do when…
Much like you pause in the dark doorway
before quick-crossing moonlit floor
launching into bed as if
the monster can’t reach his long hands
snatch your ankles, yank you under
even so
The girl looks a lot like you
red hair (but dyed), the nose-ring
of rebellion and my pang
for her parents pulls up short
in self-excuse—I want to say
they are not like us
but can we know anything
of how? of their heart-tides
the thousand-faceted diamond
of one soul in one frail body
or its shattering fault
It’s the same old lava pit, one slip
from the beam and we’re lost
in boiling regret. Can we not
spend your lifetime in fretting
over who and what and why?
your path finds its shape
We’ve tried to measure this pit
pace it bit by bit
and examine, and not fear
its black pool. Could we submit
trammel soul to fit—
nothing? For nothing wells here
we slip, fall, fail again; quit
strife for dark (fine grit
of hope chafing deep, unclear)
An asefru for Yeah Write’s June poetry slam.
Mars at its nearest
still overwhelmed by brightness
of our own full moon
we sway to what fills our eyes
circumscribed by one small sky
These dusty ancestors: a matter of faith
when only the brightest still show up
to pierce the tattered clouds, the streetlight haze
tired and perfunctory compared to the blaze
of their mythical glory. They’ve been at it
eons, pulsing dreaming guiding
but now we spin these wheels to power
the night and can offer them retirement
close the book on their song
of glittering mystery
Urban (blank) prompt from Poetic Asides.
You think you stroll
a straightforward path
bits of thread-meaning only
someone has been before
(you) until at dead-center
end and broken
in the circle of dreams
the third fox appears
you begin to imagine
messages, force weary words
O Sly One, what problem
must I solve, task
perform to win
the prize, or
merely live?
Title from W. H. Auden’s poem “Casino.”
Wide prairie with a single tree
(add in your paint-blue sky
or cloud-dotted
or billowed with stormy gray
to the west
purple slashed from noon to night)
Wide prairie with a single tree
(make it a cottonwood, leaf shimmer
with a lonely farm—how small!
beside the lake
and give the lake a sunset glint
or a midday dazzle
and a few ducks or geese
or raucous scores of them among the reeds
cranes and herons, blackbirds
a finch?)
Wild prairie with a single tree
(strokes of swaying grasses
more than pronghorn-high
or covering the wheels of the covered wagon
the weary horses’ flanks
sweep it with flowers
purple, golden, red
or make it flattened, winter-scoured
with snow or sleet or death in the wind)
Wide prairie with a single tree
(have you found it yet
under the black, star-streamed sky
or why are you still here)
Graceful Press Poetry 