Category: POETRY
Again, look up “poem” in the dictionary if you don’t recognize the word. Or, better yet, just have a look at what’s here and form your own impressions.
The Carpenter
Cherry blossoms charged pink,
blinked of rich red future rush
of fine new fruit,
falling
freshly to me;
only too soon did I see,
reposing in now-familiar limbs,
that smooth red wood would so well suit
for carving fine rich furniture;
cutting and milling it
I moved on.
Ranging
in wide rolling tides of pine,
forests of firs, all the coniferous brittle
turpentine trees
breathed on me
a fresh crisp needle-fragrance;
I grew as wild and wide as that common tree.
But then I began to see
how broad pine beams
build structure into dreams —
and again I saw
timbers toppled and trimmed,
treated for use.
I moved on.
Along a lonely road
a live oak leaned and spoke
roughly in rich tones to me:
moss-bearded sage,
issuing wisdom gray with age,
grumbling green solidity.
I grew tough,
drew up gnarled and huge;
but soon enough
hard floors and solid stairs
called for the oak, broken and cut.
Nothing was left then but
to move on.
Kneeling about the base
of a towering cypress temple tended
by storks and egret priests,
I needed to grow to know the grace,
the grand patience of the place:
insular spike of pride,
mystical spire spun with thin green.
But then,
again at the edge of understanding,
I stepped away and wanted
weatherproof wood
so my structures would stand when I
moved on.
Save me the still willows,
silent, to wait on —
soul, let me sit awhile,
shifting and watching,
softly waiting,
sifting my will
slowly away.
(1966)
Suicidal
Adam,
cutter of cords,
died giddily in a greedy gamble.
Fading intuition knew and rang the only knell,
and in the reverberations of that solitary bell
mindstrings stirred into mad ensemble,
seeking lost chords.
Death —
resting, maybe —
is this the time to take the test,
to stalk and trap my anmal defeat?
But no. The echoing knell recedes and bares my grave,
I hold on to my bones and guts and meat,
forget this death like all the rest,
greedy zombie —
living.
(26 Aug 1974)
Now Goes
The present flashes in and out
raising a spray of instants
in its wake.
Riding the moving moment
on a fresh-waked mind
I am in time
until I’m twisted away afraid
out of the stream
suspended
slowly to sink in the lake of today
and swim in all the
used seconds.
(14 July 1974)
Shakespearean Monosyllabic Word Sonnet 1
He
smells
sea
shells,
shrimp,
fish.
Imp
wish:
vault
harsh
salt
marsh:
turf→
surf!
2022
Fish Haiku
Lurking by mangroves,
the snapper explains his name
to shrimp and fingers.
Vegetarian
mullet eats no other fish,
and yet is eaten.
Fearsome fangs belie
the graceful delicacy
of spotted sea trout.
Beloved of snook,
annoyer of bait fishers:
The humble pinfish.
A patch of bottom
comes loose, grows fins, gills and teeth,
bites the unwary.
A cruising tarpon
sucks in what appeared to be
one misguided shrimp.
Fiddler crabs will tempt
banded bandit by pilings;
barnacles are saved!
Finny bayonets
slashing in the morning sun:
spanish mackerel!
Flash, swirl, strike and run:
scalloped silver, pink and white
redfish at sunset.
Pilchards flock in green;
suddenly a snook attacks:
showers of silver!
18 February 2009 – revised 23 September 2023
Ode to October
O Fall, how do I hate thee?
Let me count the ways.
I hate thee for the slaughtered leaves,
sweet green symbols of Spring and Summer,
now brown and dead upon my lawn and drive.
I hate thee for the chilly nights
that make me break my own Green oaths
and burn sequestered carbon to survive
and don the altered fur of other beasts
to replace the pelts we lost to evolution.
I hate the way you celebrate belief
in supernatural nonsense:
ghosts, goblins and demons galore.
I hate thee for the darkness
now descending on the world:
the sun sinks deeper every day.
I’d sooner live on Luna, where
we’d have to burrow underground
and make our own air
but energy is free
and there is no snow.
2019
Zelenskyy’s Tripwire
Native blackberry vines advance
like Putin’s army, fast!
Reaching out a foot a day,
Leaving behind long green feeders,
vulnerable to my gauntleted hands.
HA! I pull you up.
I am more than a match for you every time,
but there will always be a next time
and every time you draw some blood.
You will be here long after I’m gone
unless I resort to Roundup.
2022
Sea Word Sonnets
Sea
smells
from
afar
bring
memories:
mangroved
mud,
salt
marsh,
crabs,
shrimp,
flashing
fins.
Sea
grapes,
cabbage
palms,
phlox,
morning
glories,
spider
lilies,
hot
sand:
this
is
home.
Sea
shells:
like
life,
most
beautiful
in
pieces.
Here,
have
a
piece
of
me!
Sea
breezes
waft
salty
caresses
across
my
face.
But
dark
clouds
promise
rougher
weather.
2022
Little Gasparilla Island
Miles up the crumbling asphalt
I smell the mangroved mud perfume
whispering of mullet, crabs and shrimp
and fish – lord, the fish!
Agile snapper, snook and reds;
Cat- and ladyfish galore.
My fingers tighten on remembered reels.
The boat trip to the Island
wets my face with saline spray.
It dries in the scents of sea grape and palm,
floating in atop a zest of salt
from ever-restless surf shouting
over and over “I am here!”
So am I.
Never so much elsewhere.
2022
Leap!
Atop a jetty rock I stand,
fragile flyrod in my hand,
trying to ignore the surge
that breaks to spray me on the verge.
I need to climb still further out
to cast, but I am filled with doubt:
I hesitate in fear — I freeze
and tremble in the ocean breeze.
Am I too old, my balance lost?
And if I fall, how great the cost?
Is this how I will kick the bucket?
What the hell, I’m fishing! Fuck it!
3 March 2020 originally