Another Old Poem

Evil Dreams, 10/20/92

Awaking cold
this morning, I hear
cunning crows bark out my night
secrets from atop
wet black balding

trees. They spied me
last night, wild again.
I haunted the field, stalking
newborn rabbits, mice.
I gnawed timid

bones and still taste
blood. How fresh your pink
face laughs, unaware of my
noctural feasting.
I wish you would

hold me again
in the darkness wholeness
of your pupils, like before
we slept last evening.
I prayed in vain

to be anchored
tight, for once, against
your human warm sleeping pulse.
I fear you will hear
the crows mocking

me, warning you
of my evil dreams.
They claim I'll try to devour
you, too, some desperate,
flesh-hungry night.

Where did the time go?

Reading a friend's blog has inspired me to update my own. Why did I stop posting? After searching through old boxes, I've finally found my poems and other writing from highschool and into my early twenties. I might post some of it in the coming weeks, and perhaps other things that I've been working on recently.

Here is a metered poem that I wrote in 1992 for a college poetry class. I think that we had to use the title phrase (that the class had arbitrarily brainstormed earlier) somewhere in the poem.

"Pining Cow, Herring Smitten"

Pining Cow, a lonesome cat,
eccentric and a little fat,
loved a swinging,
country-singing,
feline fishmonger named Nat.

She would watch him from afar,
selling cod, playing guitar.
He love her too
and wished she knew
she was foremost in his heart.

Ol' Nat thought that he'd propose,
stuffed a message and a rose
in a herring,
flung it, bearing
straight for Pining Cow's pink nose.

Pining Cow, herring smitten,
found the question he had written.
She screamed, "Yes!"
put on a dress,
and in due course had many kittens.

Hood Canal at the Bridge

It wasn’t a secret that you could go beneath it.
We descended stairs and found
men with green buckets, poles jutting
over the railings,
lines hanging all the way down
to the North chop,
or the South calm.
My friend asked what they had caught,
or expected to catch.

In our concrete and metal shelter,
salt wind grazed our cheeks
only to smooth over the canal side.
Expansive glad shades of gray
prepared for military subs.
The bridge center could
slide back anytime
to frustrate a highwayfull
of drivers
itching for peninsular retreats.

Does stillness ever seep backwards
to quiet its source?

Turning around towards the open Sound,
we found a tumult of tiny bursts,
small, frantic, painted strips
(magenta, purple, blue)
reaching upwards out of the depths.
Water ladies called us,
dive in.
We stood close, desiring their lush hues,
bewildered.

We waited there as the oblivious sun
prepared to finish
its glacier-bound course.
We easily forgot
how both sides held the same water.

revised 12/28/08

My mantra has no words that stay

Seeing Mother Meera today was refreshing... I have a hard time writing a description without feeling cliched. Let's just say she has a joyful, playful, delightful look in her eyes... she is purity, goodness. I came home and wrote this poem.

My mantra has no words that stay,
they float away.
Knock on letters, grammar, vowels,
you’ll hear a sound - wispy hollow -
through which spry meaning runs.

Beyond rough language launch the thread,
gather it down fine instead
from the Divine,
yours or mine,
several visages or one.

Holy messengers inspire
as long as we desire
many names and none.

Encounter at Daybreak

Amid early morning dreams
your form comes before me
unknowably thin beneath the hooded
black robe.

You have a face that is lined and pure.

Absent of expected fierce expression
or sickle, you have tired eyes
faded down to watery grey
oceans deep.

You hesitate to take my arm.

Dawn appears warm and vague
with its white complacent cotton sheets
and cocooning husband, angel daughter
still asleep.

You wander back to the Unseen.
And I resolve to buy a juicer.

Birthday Conversation

Mommy, said my daughter, you forgot something.
What did I forget, sweetie?
You forgot to make a wish.
You are right. I didn’t make a wish when I blew out the candles.
I looked at the wavy candles, only six had come in the package, not thirty-seven. She and her brother started to lick the frosting off the bottoms.
Kissing her forehead, I told her, I guess I didn't need to make any wishes this year.

Send Your Love

I heard this song recently. Time to heed your call... what is your calling? How does your past prevent you from following it?

This ain't no time for doubting your power
This ain't no time for hiding your care
You're climbing down from an ivory tower
You've got a stake in the world we ought to share
You see the stars are moving so slowly
But still the earth is moving so fast
Can't you see the moon is so lonely
She's still trapped in the pain of the past
This is the time of the worlds colliding
This is the time of kingdoms falling
This is the time of the worlds dividing
Time to heed your call

Send your love into the future