Technicalities
By now I should know
to build a fire
on a distant slope and fan
the flames so sparks
dance to the sky,
wishes on their way to wings,
and warm my bones,
old and getting older,
while the fire dies
low enough to belch these poems
into the world
onto the wind
furled up by a blanket,
not this glowing screen
and clicking keys
and fingers tingling
from the strain.
Mercurial
All the papers, and my Internet astrologer
warned me about these days,
these uphill climbs to scant reward,
a view of a dull valley and another slope
to climb.
Usually I like things retro,
a round-toed pump, a seamed stocking,
a martini or Manhattan in a wide, chilled glass.
But this Mercury thing
is for the birds,
not even them, poor things,
perched like the rest of us
on a limb about to crack.
Found Poem
Scrawled on a scrap,
a soiled sliver of sales receipt,
or maybe a slip from a cash machine:
"Remember the picnic..."
Did you?
Was it wonderful? Or plagued
by ants and other bugs, or cancelled
because of rain?
Below, in letters faded to some abstract, foreign
alphabet, spidery and thin,
is that a name? The one you loved?
A secret you couldn't have kept
any better
if you hadn't written
it down.
My Hands
Wrestle the lid
from a pickle jar,
wring blood
from an orange,
wrench something like a poem
from a language less elegant
than the grunts and howls
of the jungle
before Adam gave names.
A Morning Poem
Light is the first
one up, oozing
through canyons,
shadow cradles
where alder and cedar
sleep standing
in regiments,
sweating dew sweet,
like a fresh batch
of memories freed
from some grandmother’s attic.
Wake
Words fall like raindrops,
inconveniently urgent,
unavoidably dense,
battering and pattering
like fingers
on my brain.
I shut them
up
out
into
a tiny metal box,
a talking coffin,
that I drop
overboard,
through the swirling froth
into the cold,
smooth,
salty
water.
Patina
It starts with the smudge,
a careless caress,
an accidental embrace, trace
evidence of something between magic
and magnetism.
Then comes the darkness, the memory
of breath like tropic winds
painting swirls and smoke
along the delicate curvature
of that which is exposed.
Then the tick-tock, tick-tock time
of no reply, no sign,
no dancing lights from beach
to bower to bed.
Now rediscovery, a gentle nudge,
the polish of thumb on brass,
the breathless agony
of unlocking the genie
and knowing these wishes
must be good.
