Marcy calls to the attic hole

 

Marcy calls to the attic hole

where I’m banging around rewiring
“Come down right now!”
on a day the office is supposed to be closed.
Marcy needs to move a patient
so I walk into a room where a naked woman
lies on the heavy chiropractic table
with chunks of ceiling plaster,
a towel over her bum.

Marcy lifts the table, foot end.
I lift the table, head end.
Table-woman stares at my tool belt buckle
and smiles at the absurdity. We are all human.
We all maintain dignity.

In the hallway Marcy explains
“It’s her attendant’s day off but her spine
went berserk so here we are.”

Later, Marcy asks me to help lift table-woman
who is now in flowered dress and hat,
lift from wheelchair into a Rolls Royce
so Marcy grabs beneath the arms
while I (dusty with attic dirt)
grab table-woman’s bottom
and together one-two-three we hoist,
my hand of necessity on a soft spot.
Which is briefly weird, I tell you.
Marcy notices, cocks an eyebrow.

Table-woman thanks Marcy, then smiles at me,
above me, sweetly but with condescension
as if I never, squeezes the hand controls
and drives stately away.
My hand remembers.

Marcy whose job is bodies says
“You touch a person, something changes. Right?”
……

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig—thank you editor Hayley Haugen

This longest night

 

This Longest Night

Gusty snow rattles
    window glass
as one child wakes with a bloody nose
    which wakes the youngest
    which wakes the middle
chain reaction
all sleeping in one room
    for warmth
as nesting mice huddle
    among woven grass
    under sheets of ice.

Mom and dad juggle
    tissues, laps,
in this thin-walled house
this longest night.

We are poor.
We are parents.
We are not poor parents.

……

First published in CultureCult Anthology "Nocturne”

Note: The winter solstice of this poem was 4 decades ago in harder times. We shared our warmth.

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse.

 

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse

Please don’t tell her.
Not that she’d want it.
She’s 40, lives far away.

The furnace broke,
there’s no sunshine in December
and I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
that I built with scraps of pine from a paying job
for a Nobel Prize professor of economics,
a fancy wall of bookshelves that I underbid
one cold December long ago
for a moneyless Christmas
full of joy.

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
that I painted white with a roof of red
with finger-size doors on tiny hinges.
From bits of wire I made tiny coat hangers.
From scraps of mahogany I made
a double bed for the mommy and daddy
plus three small beds and a cradle
that I oiled and polished until they glowed
so she could be proud.

I’m burning my daughter’s dollhouse
where meals were cooked,
where babies were born,
where children grew until gone.
Giving warmth, an orange flame
tinged with blue.

……

First published in Steam Ticket

Note: In December of 2018 my furnace broke, so I was depending on my fireplace—for six weeks, midwinter. At the same time I was cleaning out my garage and burning stuff for heat. Some I regret…

Lester and Maggie and the 4-Wheel Bed

 

Lester and Maggie and the 4-Wheel Bed

Gruff gray Lester and Navaho Maggie
have no offspring but treat me like one.
For Lester I knock down a wall
and install fat rubber wheels under
the walnut monster of a double bed
they've shared 60 years—so he can roll
Maggie to the dining room and kitchen.
Magpie of Dawn, Lester says.
She keeps an eye on me.
Maggie's delighted, room to room
joking and chattering sometimes in Navaho
and you get used to the scent of urine.

Rolling is difficult for Lester who limps
and later more cumbersome with oxygen tanks
so I'm replacing cupped floor boards
when Maggie who is watching me work
points to a pair of coyotes—
one large wary male, one smaller calm female—
outside the window sitting on haunches
by the broken-down tractor staring right at us,
not unusual for a ranch house outside town but
then we hear a gurgling sound like water in a drain.
Lester a big man leaps to Maggie's side.
Bends his head to her heart while outside
in broad daylight those coyotes start to howl.
The two. Aroo-oo.
It tingles.
The air itself seems to glow.
Lester grabs his rifle from the wall and runs
to the window but those coyotes don't flinch.
Aroo-oo.
He lowers the gun with shaky hand, says
They're calling her home.

A couple weeks later after the service
Lester in his old wedding suit tight and ragged
hands me a cardboard box containing the wheels
he's removed and there's a note:
    For the next.
    Help them go home.
Now I'm no coyote but that box is
on the top shelf in the garage.
I'm telling you, son, so you'll know.

……

First published in Sheila-Na-Gig

Uncle teaches how to drive on ice

 

Uncle teaches how to drive on ice

Like falling in love, Uncle says.
Steer into the skid, not away.
Feather touch on the wheel.
Bridges freeze first but—Sammy frowns—
one time near the Snake River
hidden ice not playing nice
sent his old pickup skating
so he steered into the slide, pumped brakes
and stopped plumb at the canyon’s edge.

Not far behind him
an AmeriGas delivery truck.

Even in a blizzard you can foresee future,
headlights through a veil of swirling flakes
so he bails from the old Ford face-first
into a snowbank just before a 16 ton tank
of liquified petroleum gas
like a giant hockey puck
plows through the pickup
down toward the Snake.

The cab submerges. Bubbles.

Soft the silence,
snow falling in sheets—

and a woman appears
clawing up the embankment
spitting curses
ejected halfway down
fractured arm but she can climb.

She’s a blue-black ponytail,
a white parka, red blood dripping,
she’s an eagle with broken wing.

Says she’s gonna sue somebody’s ass
sure as her name is Sacajawea Jones and then
go home to Louisiana where it’s warm
and purchase land down there.

Aunt Sac. Why her crooked arm.
Already on the black ice
Uncle Sammy’s in love.

……

First published in The Ekphrastic Review
The image is a painting called “Winter Chaos” by Marsden Hartley to which I’ve added an eagle. The poem is a true story which I’ve improved likewise as everyone does to history, especially the history of the American West.

Message to a Womb

 

Message to a Womb

She feels your hiccups
knows when you’re sleeping
says you move toward me
when I place cheek over womb

Gurgles but
all communication seems two-way, within
I’m without
It’s so quiet out here

In a belly-bare contest
    she wins on convexity
    and stretchity
I win on hairity

In a breast-bare contest
    she wins on utility
    and again, on beautity    
I, on muscularity

In a time-keeping contest
    I win on wrist-watchity
    She, on moon-cyclity

In a baby-making contest,
    no contest. We win.

I’m just the outsider DNA-supply
can’t nourish, can’t caress
the curly fingers twitching legs
the lips mouthing baby lyrics
when I sing to the navel call-response    
    Me: Oh you can’t get to heaven—
    You: bup lup, bup lup
    Me: —in my old car
    You: bup lup, bup lup
but we both know you’re in heaven on earth

What I’m trying to say is
you touch my spirit
and when you bust out
you’ll call, I’ll respond

……

First published in Red Wolf Journal. Thank you editor Irene Toh.

Note: I send poems on postcards. Lots of poems, lots of postcards. Playful or serious, depending on the picture. The stakes are low, the audience is a single person, so I feel free to make up spontaneous poems — some good, some terrible. Last year I came upon a series of pregnancy images and composed little poems to go with each. Good ones. Later I combined several of the poems and edited them into a longer poem. These are images of 3 of the postcards.

bust-out photo by Anouk van Marsberger
silhouette photo by kalhh
belly baring photo by Patou Ricard

Bell-bottom Jeans

 

Bell-bottom Jeans

At a suburban garage sale
on a wobbly table among lava lamps
I find bell-bottom jeans, one pair,
lovingly patched.  
Peace, brother, the ancient man says
as he pockets my single dollar.

Never in that style mood,  
I store them like an old photo,
mellow in my closet.
A quiet vibe, these threads.

Until my daughter
discovers, wears the jeans
as a hippie Halloween costume
to a high school dance and looks great.
Absolutely great.
Groovy! she shouts.

Now may her children find.
May peace endure
like pants.
Patch. Love. Dance.

……

First published in Monterey Poetry Review. Thank you Dr. Jennifer Lagier Fellguth, editor.

A big thank you to Katie Col — with love and dance — for creating the painting at my request for this poem.

She grows bristlecone pines

 

She grows bristlecone pines

as house plants, drops little seeds
into paper cups with harsh soil
from Sierra mountainside,
sunburnt seedlings frosted,
parched, neglected for weeks
fitting nature’s plan, her
windowsill a forest growing
with the speed of centuries.

Her bedroom is cramped.
She sleeps by the door.
Her love is prickly, remembers
wooly mammoths, survived asteroids.
She gets angry when I suggest orchids.
The landlord wants her out,
wants to build condos, turns up
the heat.

In cups her love grows
for grandchildren to transplant
to faraway years, unfriendly soil,
to ever struggle, never thrive.
Please, may they survive.

……

First published in Amsterdam Quarterly. Thank you Bryan R Monte, editor
Photo by Rick Goldwaser

Last time we see Bogey

 

Last time we see Bogey

A three-tooth smile on a rattletrap bike,
refugee from a warm place fled to a cold one,
he sweeps sawdust, unloads bags of cement.

Pointing at the face printed on his T shirt
he says Hoom-fray Bah-gurt
so we call him Bogey. Nearly deaf
except at the boom of a lumber drop
he ducks for cover, searches the sky.
Tremors, the hand.

Bogey brings a single mango for lunch, so we
“share.” He loves bologna and peanut butter.
We give him steel-toed raggedy old boots.

Autumn comes fast with a sleet storm.
Kerosene heaters indoors (not safe)
hanging drywall when we hear a rattle outside.

Bogey’s in an eggshell of ice
cracked at knees but frozen like glued
to the bike so we wheel him inside,
pour a thermos on gloves and boots,
then stand him dripping in front of the heater.

Jumping up and down trembling laughing
in a puddle of Guatemalan coffee he shouts
Cray-zee! You cray-zee! Won’t let us
drive him home. Snot nose, body shaking
he cleans up scraps of drywall,
coughing at the gypsum dust.

Sleet ends, sunset is gorgeous,
color of passion and peace.
Bogey is shell-free, wobbling,
riding away with his small pay.
Not crazy. Gone.

……

First published in Anti-Heroin Chic. Thank you James Diaz, editor

Alone, Moose Mountain

 

Alone, Moose Mountain

Foolishly alone
he climbs into clouds.
He snaps branches, cleaves cobwebs
to reawaken an abandoned path
found on a faded map,
first footprints to this loam in years.

A final, steep scramble up rocks.
Clouds lift.
Atop Moose Mountain a brilliant view,
shared: perched on a spar,  
an alert falcon. Companion.

The descent, again no escort.
Crossing a creek, he hops to a
green rock algae-slick he upends
flipping like a cartwheel so fast
there’s no time for hands, for reflex.
Jaw slams against boulder.

A moment, stunned.
He's in cold water, soaked.
Stars spin across eyes.
He springs up to scream at nobody,
the gods, the cussed green rock.
But can’t scream—jaw too sore.
Where's the hat? The camera?
He stumbles down the creek, spies the Nikon,
and slips again. Crashes. Aargh!  

He's too tired, too wet,
too banged up and crazy with pain.
Farewell, beloved Tilley hat.
Socks squish inside boots. Jaw throbs.
Arm, shoulder, stabs of heat.

A doctor purses her lips saying
"You're crazy, hiking solo where nobody
would find you. You almost broke your jaw.
And didn't it occur to you," she asks
shaking her head, "you dislocated your shoulder?"
She pops it into place.

Above Moose Mountain,
alone, a falcon soars.

……

First published in Peacock Journal
Note: Yeah, it’s about me. At age 60-something I set out to explore rough country alone. This particular Moose Mountain is in the Adirondacks of New York State and was seldom hiked by anybody back then. The camera was ruined, photo film got soaked in the creek when I fell, but this picture I salvaged—falcon’s world.

Blonde, tight skirt, leather vest,

 

Blonde, tight skirt, leather vest,

she knows her privilege and uses it
smiling at the young JetBlue attendant
who mentions nothing about size limits
as he helps her pummel a gigantic
purple duffle into the overhead bin
occupying the space of two bags.
I have the aisle, she the window.
From her body, a powdery scent
like fresh-cut sugar pine. Perhaps I stare.

“Something wrong?” she asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “First time I ever
smelled sawdust on a jet plane.”
“My first husband,” she says as if that explains it.
“I just spent two weeks at his cabin.”
A chatty woman. I soon learn she woke
to the call of loons, had to brake
as a dozen geese held a family meeting
on the road to the airport. She wished
she could stop right there,
paint plein air on Interstate 89.

She’s bringing maple moose lollipops
for the evil stepchildren. “They’re frankly
glad I’m gone,” she says. Now we’re over
Lake Champlain. Destination JFK.
“Goodbye Vermont,” she says to the window.
“I’ve cleaned his cabin, I’ve brought you
his ashes. Stay green and and may we all
dwell in peace.”

……

First published in Freshwater
Photo by sumanley on Pixabay

People who rise in darkness

 

People who rise in darkness

From the street long ago
you see glow of windows
frosty and foggy
as you toss a roll of news.

You’re just a kid
breathing clouds into the air
but you know they will pay
when you ask each month,
sometimes with a tip
though not large.

You catch glimpses of bathrobe,
of coffee pot, scent of bacon
or they wave, bundled outside
scraping windshields of warming-up cars.

The houses still dark
might make up excuses,
dodge you or complain
or be so rich you don’t exist
but the people who rise in darkness
are on your side.

……

First published in Poetry Breakfast — thank you Kay Kestner, editor.
The painting is “We'll Make It Through” by Richie Carter.

Birthday—August, 1979

 

Birthday—August, 1979

After scary sickness, weeks in bed,
    today I’m better.
Head clear. Body hollow,
    sixteen pounds shed
    in sweat and snot.
So I call Dial-A-Lawyer,
    write a will by phone.
Drive to the city, Social Security
to register my daughter
    who is unknown by the state,
    born at home
    one year to this date.
Bring her along as proof.
Paperwork.
Plan a death and record a birth.

My beloved bakes a cake. One candle.
I’m still a bit shaky. Can’t rest.
Where’s my tool belt?
It’s time to build toys. A wagon.
A house. Soon.
A life for this daughter.

……

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in Snapdragon
photo by me of her

Note: my daughter was born at home in the back yard on a waterbed under a full moon—your basic hippie home birth. Then I got very sick. Recovered on her first birthday, saw the light and felt a rush of energy, wrote a will (by telephone), drove the old car to the city and made her an official person. It was time to get organized about this whole fatherhood thing.

Helping Ken

 

Helping Ken
 

"Hey Ken, need a hand?"
"Nope."
"Can I help anyway?"
"Doubt it."

Old Ken couldn't lift this dock alone,
but he’d manage
with the wile of eighty-odd years
to winch, drag, set it in place.
His movements, stiff.
His knees, weathered.
His grip, when we shake hands,
like the clamp of death.

Job done,
he climbs aboard his
skeletal tractor,
a relic, 'Fifty-One Ford,
for the uphill journey home.
Maintained where it counts,
the naked motor
purrs.

……

First published in Northampton Poetry Review 

Photo by me of Ken’s old tractor from the rear

Ken Laundry of Hawkeye, New York was one of my life’s heroes. I’ve written extensively about him in my Clear Heart blog here.

First Aid

 

First Aid

Timmy is skinny as a skink
from a dysfunctional school,
a sad father who beats him for having asthma,
but for two weeks Timmy worships me,
rookie counselor of Cabin 8.
First time from inner city
he meets crawdads face to face.

Timmy follows me chattering with delight
at the rituals of summer camp
so he is right there when Jamyl tumbles
like a cartwheel from a buckeye
onto his wrist creating a new joint sideways
like cracking a drumstick.
“Timmy!” I shout. “Run for the nurse!”

Timmy knows pain as a bird knows a cage.
Speaks not a word through raucous
dining hall dinner until I question him
alone and he whimpers “I didn’t help.
I didn’t know how. I didn’t do anything.”

Thank you, Timmy for running to fetch the nurse
who arrived so fast. It was just what we needed.
And you could take a class in first aid, Timmy,
you could learn what to do. Who knows —
you could be a doctor.

Doc Tim. Yes. He follows me
chattering with new purpose
the remainder of camp. Then
he busses home to his old man
and I can only hope.
.....

First published in Freshwater

This

 

This

Quail Court
is a manicured plot
where dwells a schoolteacher
named Jane who this once
in the entire span of our lifetimes
I meet for a few minutes in her bungalow of
flamboyant art, orchids in pots.

Jane outlines my electrical task,
a new circuit plus a couple of floodlights,
and then with schoolteacher gaze
both merry and serious she asks
“Are you honest? Wonderful and all that?”

“Um… Yes.”

“Then here’s where I hide the house key.
Just leave a bill on the table. I’ll pay it because
I’m also honest and wonderful and all that.”

And I do. Next day. Alone.
And she does. By mail. Promptly.
And I love. All that.

……

First published in Poetry Breakfast

Learning to touch-type

 Learning to touch-type

Closing eyes, I typed blind
making up jingles, whatever came
to my eleven-year-old mind
like one about a cocker spaniel 
    Who knows
    but the nose?
or one about my crush, neighbor Elaine
    Eyes of amber
    change your timbre
which I thought were brilliant.

The old Underwood I called Miss Understood.
In a cranky mood her legs stuck together,
her tongue would jam. But touch her kindly
and  her lips would clack clack clack,
her little bell would ring
and I would slam the carriage return.

I miss her physicality.
I could literally write up a sweat
as she taught poetry in her machine gun voice:
    Make each word strike solid.
    End with a period that punches a hole,
    clear through, to the light on the other side.

……

First published in Pulsebeat Poetry Journal—thank you editor David Stephenson
photo by Johanna Nikolaus on Pixabay

Airplanes

 

Airplanes

Trees grow craggy and cranky, says Noah.
One old oak grows sideways
so you can walk the trunk
and we do, Noah and me,
we walk up the tree and down again
balancing with our arms stretched out
like airplanes
which is cool if you’re four
or seventy-four.

Noah decides to tour the drinking fountains
of Flood Park. Why not, this fine day?
So we run a circuit of twenty acres
with wings outspread, sampling.
Most fountains are concrete,
a few are shiny steel,
most in sun where the water comes hot,
a few under trees where the acorns fall.
One dribbles a bath for birds,
one blasts your nose.
Most of them paired—one high and one low
for the thirsty, for the curious,
for the very young or very old
with so much to discover.

……

First published in Birdland

Lily’s small hand fits like a spatula

 

Lily’s small hand fits like a spatula

inside the peanut butter jar
scraping corners that hide the best stuff.
All the rainy ride to preschool in deep
depressing December she licks fingers.
    “Goombye”
A peanut butter kiss.

Today’s job an auto body shop
replacing fluorescent ballasts.
Amid clanking wup-wup-wupping
I overhear one guy say on the phone:
    “You mean he’s dead?
    Actually dead?
    Did the kids see?”
Neighbor hung himself in the back yard.
Had children, a family. Jesus!
So at lunch break we talk about why
and about another guy who went out drinking
with 5 friends and shot himself in a bar.
Splat. And we wonder when dead
do you care what people think?
    Yes, I say. You care.

I pick up Lily. Burritos to eat in the truck
driving home in the spicy-stuffy cab.
Today she took a field trip, got to ride
an alligator (she calls it) to the second floor,
got to push the button.

Next morning the rain has ended.
A new jar 100% peanut all natural, no sugar.
A spoon, she licks. That man, not here.

……

First published in Rat’s Ass Review —thank you Roderick Bates, editor
Photo: my rarely clean truck. I must’ve just washed it.

Newsboy

 

Newsboy

Carlos tosses my Mercury News
from the window of one bangedy car
after another with dead-eye aim
to my brick step year after year.

At Christmas I tip him.
Started with a twenty, now it’s a fifty
which come to think of it
follows his age.

I delivered the Washington Star
from a Radio Flyer wagon.
Saved up to buy a hatchet and a knife
with a sheaf I could wear on a belt.

I went to high school, college.
Wrote books, worked construction,
raised a family, lost the knife,
still have the hatchet.

Newspapers dying everywhere
but here comes Carlos with the sunrise.
You can hear that holey muffler
and when he’s gone, here’s what’s new
in the lingering smell
of blue exhaust.

…..

First published in Red Eft—thank you editor Corey Cook

Pocket Pie

 

Pocket Pie

The boy clambers
out of mother’s arms
—nothing can stop him—
into my brand new
fresh in the driveway pickup,
seizes the steering wheel
and shouts FWUCK!
so we go for a spin.
Stop at mini-mart.
He points, asks, “Wha?”
I answer: “A pie that fits in your pocket.
Want one?”
Of course. Back home, parked,
we stay in the fwuck.
He turns the radio knob,
chooses rock. Classic rock.
I drink a beer. He bites crust, apple goo.
Saturday afternoon, April,
sweet as pie.

…..

First published in Your Daily Poem
Note: The photo was taken the day I drove home in my brand new pickup truck. My son adored trucks, would point them out shouting “Fwuck! Fwuck!” causing odd glances from passersby.

Bunny Blue

 

Bunny Blue

A blue-gray rabbit
stirs in her cedar chip cage
as dawn pours
through the big window
onto the shaggy rug
I should vacuum
where my son
new to the realm
outside womb
lies kicking
as he kicked
while within,
we each on our backs
on soft wool rug
waving hands and feet
in the sunbeam air
while mama sleeps.

Do I mimic him
or he me? We kick, wave
smile in bare air.

Quinn the German shepherd
sits outside in birdsong
keeping guard of me, of baby son,
of sleeping mama and Bunny Blue
maintaining our only shred of dignity
when I should vacuum
this simple silly
leg-waving morning.

…..

Uncle teaches how to drive on ice

 

Uncle teaches how to drive on ice

Like falling in love, Uncle says,
and laughs. Steer into the skid,
not away. Feather touch on the wheel.
Bridge freezes first but—Sammy frowns—
one time approaching the Snake River span
hidden ice not playing nice
sent his old pickup skating
so he steered into the slide, pumped the brakes
and stopped plumb at the canyon’s edge.

Not far behind him
an AmeriGas delivery truck.

Even in a blizzard you can foresee events,
headlights through a veil of swirling flakes
so he bails from the old Ford face-first
into a snowbank just before a 16 ton tank
of liquified petroleum gas
like a giant hockey puck
plows through the pickup
down toward the Snake.

The cab submerges. Bubbles.

Soft the silence,
snow falling in sheets

and a woman appears
clawing up the embankment
spitting curses
ejected halfway down
fractured arm but she can climb.

She’s a blue-black ponytail,
a white parka, red blood dripping,
she’s an eagle with broken wing.

Says she’s gonna sue somebody’s ass
sure as her name is Sacajawea Jones and then
go home to Louisiana where it’s warm
and purchase land down there.

Aunt Sac. Why her crooked arm.
Already on the black ice
Uncle Sammy’s in love.

…..

First published in The Ekphrastic Review.
The painting by Marsden Hartley is called “Winter Chaos.” I added the eagle.

Daybreak, Drought

 

Daybreak, Drought

Sun rises in a dry sky,
we walk a dirt road,
the dog and I.
Rounding a bend
little Mickey halts,
one paw lifted.

Three deer—a buck, a doe, a fawn—
senses ablaze with the twitch of ear,
quiver of nose, blink of eye
take our measure.

The buck has a handsome rack
but I can see ribs, count the bones.
I once saw a doe maul a dog,
cracking the skull with her forelegs
to protect a fawn. Mickey
with uncommon good judgment
stays frozen by my ankle.

A moment, mild,
of silent negotiation,
the domestic and the wild.
With such hunger the fawn
might eat from my hand
before the buck spears me.

The doe breaks first,
up a hillside so vertical
her hooves can’t hold.
She slides back,
then on a switchback leaps again
followed quickly by the fawn
as the buck remains,
impassive and supreme,
gentleman and protector,
what you wish in your own father, frankly,
and then he follows
with that head-bobbing walk
balancing antlers
into the parched brush
holding our gaze
until vanished.

…..

From my book Foggy Dog
First published in Plum Tree Tavern—thank you editor Russel Streur
Photo by Andy Choinski

The new stove speaks only Serbian

 

The new stove speaks only Serbian

but who cares? The old stove
spoke no warnings because
back when we built this cabin
if we didn’t know about touching
hot metal, we found out.

Instead of potbelly, this one’s a cube
with black iron doors, gray steel sides,
ugly. Practical. Price was right.
Like this cabin built of salvaged
lumber and discarded doors.

Like our child, conceived at no cost
right next to old potbelly without
instructions or safety warnings.
He loved that stove but grown and gone
to another continent, another language.

Frost this night as we arrive late.
In the gray steel box behind black iron doors
sits a tipi of kindling over crumpled old news.
One match and it flames like hunger,
the kindling crackles, the little logs catch
and the stove makes popping sounds
which is Serbian for Welcome hello get warm.

The bed is like an ice-plunge
so we pile up quilts, spark our own heat.
At dawn the old cabin clicks and creaks
as if stretching bones in the morning sun
while the stove softly murmurs 
which in any language is how you say
Build another tipi before you go,
I'll be ready when you come back.

…..

First published in Autumn Sky Poetry
Painting by Susan MacMurdy

The last father, the last mother,

 

The last father, the last mother,

the last little girl toddle to their old sedan
leaving me alone on this beach
beyond sunset —

Oops, not alone.
A single seagull at my feet. She tries
wobbling to stand—on only one leg.
Flops into wet sand beak-first
like a nail into a board.
Stuck. She’ll asphyxiate.

No. Awkwardly she struggles, flops,
frees her beak and hops one-legged,
washed by creeping edges of surf
which the ocean deals, and deals again.

How did she lose one leg?
It must hurt. Is bird pain like human pain?

Could I capture? Take her home?
Google how to rehab seagulls?
Make crutches?
Do I want a bird in my house
squawking at my dog, pooping
on my bookshelves, flapping in my kitchen?

Post-sunset the sky is a trout-blend of color.
A cold wind, salt smearing eyeglasses.
Smelly rotting kelp washed by a
rogue wave, icy water to my ankles.

And the seagull —suddenly gone.
Where did she go?
I’m surrounded by carcasses of crabs,
mounds of mussel shells, sand dollar saucers.
Surrounded by death which the ocean deals,
and deals again. Where did she go?

…..

First published in Plum Tree Tavern
photo by analogicus on Pixabay

This is a poem about a full moon

 

This is a poem about a full moon

which I never saw rising
because I live in a valley
covered by fog.

Night by night just before bed
I soak in a hot tub and listen to owls.
Night by night a different phase of moon
which must rise high scaling mountainside
and then pierce the fog
which keeps the redwoods alive.

The fog is a dance of silver shafts
hovering among branches
like beams from a celestial projector.

This is a poem about a nose
touching my elbow at the edge of the hot tub,
a black wet nose,
a raccoon cub wide-eyed with life,
fur thick and glossy,
curious, electric, spirit of night.

Startled delighted I exclaim There you are!
like an idiot and the cub, scared,
scampers — gone.

This is a poem about the felt,
sometimes seen, ever there:
the fog and full moon,
an elbow, cub nose,
the damp touch
of the wild cosmos.

…..

First published in Plum Tree Tavern

Ghost dogs

 

Ghost dogs

Ghosts of every dog
who ever owned you
fetch you from your bed
to lead you unleashed
through moonless forest.

Ghost dogs pause
to study scat of bobcat,
blossom of possum,
suit of love-struck newt.
Four-footed cannonballs
boom through brush
chasing a rabbit
who always escapes
and dogs ask with shiny eyes
Why won’t you help?

Senses enhanced to canine pitch
you hear footsteps of spiders on the hunt
snores of squirrels cuddled in nests
heartbeat of snake
spooky silence of owl
as pant-pant-panting
tongue flap-flap-flapping
you gallop with spirits
who can smell your fatigue.

Yes they will guide you home,
they will replenish your water,
they pour kibbles of comfort,
a bowl for your soul.
Unseen they will curl on your bed.
Unconditional, they love you still.

…..

First published in The Wild Word
photo by Martin Tajmr

I woke from a dream that all my old dogs had come for me. At first I thought I must be dead. But it was a reunion of spirits. There are joys that we feel down to our bones. Such a blessing when they return, if only in dreams.