Matching Poem

And now we return to sunlight

to the sky, this realm

where tulips taste like solace

where looking drains the clouds of omen

Time to compost the coats and blankets

it’s the season to rouse the lilacs in their wandering

to hoist the squirrels back into their occasions on highwires

time to season our pens with praise and inquisition

to luxuriate in the expanse of wind

to wring the last bit of wisdom out of the mud

No fear now

We see that we ourselves are but layers

Of salt and dreams

We awaken into this too warm half-light

We touch the dawn

We cocoon into Spring

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The Manhattan

 

                                                                               after Ogden Nash

There’s something about a Manhattan

the bitters, the ice, the vermouth

it’s smooth and it’s sweet and it’s something complete

and it may be a little uncouth

 

There’s something about a Manhattan

a concoction fittingly urban

it might be the clink

or the glance and the wink

but I think that perhaps it’s the bourbon

(written by Jason & Jane & I)

 

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The call of the Great Horned Owl

I hear a nighttime sound within my room

Who’s that, hooting right at noon?

a Great Horned Owl, a Screech, a loon

Whose call disturbs this sun instead of moon?

 

What owl hoots by my window right at noon?

my senses must be dampened by my sleep

Whose call could disturb this sunny room?

a false owl, raven, such a tiny peep

 

Surely my ears deceive me, drunk from sleep

it cannot be an owl, no not at noon

a false owl,  perhaps, a finch’s tiny peep

I’m not awake, I’m weary still from sleep

 

It cannot be an owl, no not at noon

perhaps a Great Horned Owl, a Screech, a loon?

I awaken, weary from my sleep

lulled by a nighttime sound within my room

 

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A poem about Portland, because that’s what happens

This is a poem about all the books I bought (Nightingale, After-Normal, Holy Moly) and all the potatoes I ate, also let’s mention the oysters, the white wine and the red, the IPA I drank among other Ducks, also Colson Whitehead and Atlas Pinto. There was some rain, numerous transaction involving credit card and grief, sunshine, and also ice cream made of hazelnuts.

What of the man who said, “We’re not worthy of God’s Love”?

Sir, there are so many things I’m not worthy of, but let’s begin here: shoes that cost $289, but there’s no tax in Oregon, so let’s begin here. 

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On Rhyming

There’s the modern rhyme of Nabakov

which the Police have paired with cough–

as in “he starts to shake and cough”–

Sting was a teacher, hence Nabakov.

We maybe should have started out with you,

which lovers and singers rhyme with blue.

These lovers are gone and also never true,

which gives the writers lots to rhyme with you.

The best rhymes, my poetry teacher said,

were in Don Juan, which we then promptly read.

We recited rhymes to hear what Byron said,

our lack of rhyming prowess conjured dread.

Byron called us ladies intellectual,

a backhanded rhyme with hen pecked you all.

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On Dreaming

“Dreams are tuning the mind for conscious awareness.”

–Dr. J. Allen Hobson

 

My late-night viewing provides the backdrop

for disturbing dreams: this one the exact nature

of my bitchiness. I am taken to task by proper

women, with perfect hair and furniture.

This is the exercise of last night’s dream.

In a nondescript kitchen, women surround

me. I recognize some of them, it seems,

but as I move through the dream, walk around,

I am lost in thought, dragged back to junior high,

when everything I did or felt or wore was wrong.

The women scream out a litany of my sins. I

am too cruel, my house messy, my hair too long.

In dreams, the simply thought or feared is real.

The landscape of my dreams is what I feel.

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Provisional City

I’ve built in my mind a provisional city

one that satisfies all my requirements

with hills covered in soft down

trees like tall, thin men

 

Every building gleams with tears

that reflect the joy of sunset

and children build the sidewalks

out of paper and chalk

 

Work is a scavenger hunt

that always ends at a park

filled with dogs that bark

and lunge, but never bite

 

My provisional city evaporates

every morning only to be rebuilt

in the same place day after day

like the Temple of Abundance

that is always the same

though the materials change

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Consider the Leech

Consider the Leech

Consider the leech, either with a jaw,

or not. It’s just like an earthworm, except

the leech feeds on blood. No big deal. I saw

my friend peel one from her skin as she wept.

After that, I wouldn’t swim in the lake. She

didn’t seem to mind, her skin weeping blood,

our ideas shifted a few degrees

to the East. I thought of the flood.

Why did Noah bring the leeches? Did he

believe the world needed parasites?

We don’t, though even doctors once believed

in their healing properties. We must fight

the belief that giving too much is good.

The urge to take and take is in our blood.

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Limerick for a rainy day

 

There once was a girl who was blue

and she didn’t know quite what to do.

The constant spring rain

caused mold in her brain

And the sunshine felt somehow untrue.

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Sonnet for a fool

There’s no fool like an old fool. Does

that mean that for the young,  foolishness

is a disguise, donned like a pair of gloves

meant to conceal motive and skin? In a sense

to laugh is to dissemble, rather than

to feel something real, to feel the fool

as when we inhabit the mirth. A span

of breath expelled, the inhale that fills

the lungs again with deceit. A man

walks into a bar and asks, Where’s

the bar tender? Wait. Not a man,

a termite. No point in ducking, there’s

a punch line coming. These days I try

to be the fool, the laugh that’s not a lie.

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