Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
She brought me a cardboard square
from the farmer’s market—
fruit box with a wire handle.
I had wanted it for some other
purpose: desk caddy, mail sorter,
if only for the ghosts of pear
or peach or apple. Mellow skins,
stippled rinds of citrus
—ripe summer smells
teetering on the edge of fall.
In response to small stone (143).
An epic cast of characters, girlfriend—
tearful child, black witch, miserly wife;
slavish husband, jealous neighbors. Star-
crossed sweethearts, jilted old maid.
She darns socks; she howls at the moon.
Be careful: even Prince Charming has
a sordid underwing. More twists to the tale:
a virgin betrothed to a snake. He comes
to her bed under cover of night and demands
all lights be doused. At dawn, the sound
of a key turning in the ignition; wheels
screeching up the mountain road. Dust,
desultory chickens pecking at the stones.
How does it end? In tears, of course.
Or at a crossroads, the dark sky raked
with stars for backdrop. And only
the briefest intermission.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Sin cere: Where did I read about this mark
potters stamped on the bottoms of earthenware, of drying
crockery? Without peer, meaning not a copy,
original; baked terra cotta, crackled brown, bread-like
surface of imperfections. Around the courtyard, in the day’s
last glaze of heat, curling vines gather. Fronds of fern
spiral back toward themselves at their tips. I tuck the ends
of my worries like that sometimes: like hair behind my ears.
What I would give for such a sign, to tell me
of the genuine, or promise what will not change again—
But for now, only something in the name of the lilac
to suggest its scent; something in the aspect of the moon.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Sometimes I envy
the blue jays yelling
in the trees, unafraid
they might reveal too much:
those hidden barbs of history
that always seem to travel back,
no matter on the slowest wind.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
“When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer.
You may want to visit the bee’s house someday.” ~ Congolese
Or it may be that the honey in the cells
has foamed to froth, has risen above
walls that could no longer contain
that sweet— So the hand that tried
to stay the overflow withdrew, gold-
sheathed. May such abundance visit
your heart today: not rue, not pity.
In response to Via Negativa: A beer thinker's guide to life.
That place where all unease collects, distills
its gritty sediments, like clumps of leaves
at the bottom of a cup— Inscrutable, they sit
unsifted, waterlogged, composting once
green hopes— Divine is often the verb
used to describe what shapes they’ll spell;
when heat has blanched and water cooled,
what futures might yet unspool—
In response to Marly Youmans: The gulf of night---.
Today, ambiguous rain. Clouds that screen the view— dark, light, broody, indecisive. Through my fourth floor office window at noon, the screech of tires carrying from the boulevard. Water scales and fish-tails down the panes. Who sees our faces from this height, behind refracting layers? I too am often pulled in several directions, though this is how most of it should go— the daily work taken up and borne, repeated, repeating. Long hours, hot taste in the mouth, the tremble in the tired and fevered wrists. My children’s godmother writes: This is how we made our way: one suitcase in each hand, an envelope with letters of introduction; a nondescript address, a name. A taxi ride at midnight after a 21-hour flight. The driver pointing out the monument— a spire gleaming across the river; bridge, underpass, and finally a chain-linked driveway at the destination: Good luck, lady, this as far as I can take you. At such an hour the long view of years has not yet kindled. Bills and change, counted out. Pockets full of change that can be used at pay phones, even for long distance; that could buy fruit from a corner store, toiletries, water. The little metal wheels clattering as you pulled your luggage in the dark.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Under the leaves, a chorus
like strings: Don’t flinch.
Don’t join in. …something
that I know so thoroughly I can’t
imagine or describe it, though it fills
my eyes. And the birds with those long
white necks? Lust— like love lost—
was the catalyst: exquisitely expedient,
unchanged. Then heat. Then rain—
all uncontained.
*A Cento is a poem made up of parts from other works; late Latin, from Latin, patchwork garment; perhaps akin to Sanskrit kanthā, patched garment; first known use: 1605 (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)
Source texts of lines in this cento: Deborah Paredez, “Wife’s Disaster Manual;” John Koethe, “Book X;” Billy Collins, “Report from the Subtropics” (Poetry, September 2012)
Also see another cento I wrote in July 2012.
In response to small stone (137).
In the depths of the freezer case at Four Seasons
Asian Grocery, a tray of cooked, frozen grubs:
the cashier tells me they are really
the carcasses of silkworms, harvested
in the hundreds, maybe thousands,
after they die from their labors
spinning threads that women
in Chiang Mai or Dalat will unravel
as strands of silk… So many bodies
burrowed in hive-like baskets—
What would you do for the promise
of wings rising over a bamboo porch?
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.