Monday, December 26, 2011

Hot morning--

hot morning
sudden silence
the cars' muted rush ceases
wind's breath
warm and moist
and a single brown
feather
barely an inch long
spins and swoops
hanging by an invisible thread
from the still green tree

8/21/01

Monday, December 19, 2011

Gladioli--

gladioli
thick
textured
color

7/4/99

(What? I like gladioli. Say it five times fast...)

Monday, December 12, 2011

I see--

I see
fingers pointing
they point at me
I think
I see
them laughing
at me I think
I want to crawl and hide
but then I find
my shell is shattered
I stand outside
a circle
peering in
but when I look
to flee inside myself
I find
I am an outcast
even
within

2-23-1998

(Ooo, genuine teen angst! See, I had a normal childhood!)

Monday, December 5, 2011

I like--

I like the feel of a pencil
smooth
knobby
gliding scratchily
across the page

5/30/98

Monday, November 28, 2011

I am sick of sound--

I am sick of sound
     screaming children
     pounding feet
     foolish quarrels.
I would like
to bury my head in a stone
and drink up a thousand silent years.

2/15/00

(I had an older brother who, like most oldest children didn't get along with my parents. Two younger and very noisy brothers and a sister with a voice like a soprano trying to sing over a fire engine. Srsly Anne, you were a shrieker.)

Monday, November 21, 2011

Garden Plans

I would have redbud
Wisteria
Chinaberry
Flowered and scented
No smooth green lawns
No clipped hedges
Everything wild and growing
Iris and roses
Wildflowers
Vegetables – full and good in the sun

(This was actually a list of ideas and things for a future garden. But then I realized it had a nice ring and poked it a little...)

Monday, November 14, 2011

Closets

There are closets in my mind
I’ve locked a lot of things in them.
Old hurts, past dreams
Quite a few people
I’m opening them one by one
I sweep out the skeletons and brush away the dust
They’re empty now
Only the dry stench of bones still clings

(Yes, bones do smell. At least old animal ones do. Trust me on this.)

Monday, November 7, 2011

Wild Garlic

Wild garlic
Crushed
Beneath my feet and fingers.
Summer is here,
Hot sleepy days
Blue sky blazing
I ache with desire for the summer.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty, lying fair
upon your bed, atop your stair
did you really want a kiss?
did you long for wedded bliss?

or did you wish that you could say
“Beat it prince, scram, go away”
and climbing on your marriage bed
sleep for eternity instead.


(This, on the other hand, I definitely remember writing. I was in college, taking a full load of classes, working three jobs, and I was SO TIRED.)

Monday, October 24, 2011

Reader and the Pea

It’s piled up
A thousand mattresses high
If you remove them all and find the pea
It’s hardly worth it
I, personally, would rather bounce
Higher and higher still
Off of the mattress pile
 (it’s only refuse and frosting)
and land rejoicing in a bin of peas

(I have absolutely no recollection of writing this. None at all.)

Monday, October 17, 2011

Enigma

enigma you are
your hair like a blossom
your face like a star
walking in a queer
apologetic
way as if you begged
of other passersby
the right to breathe

5/14/00

Monday, October 10, 2011

Electricity--

Electricity
Energy
Water
box them up.
 Who will sell light?
Low costs!
Low prices!
A moon in a jar
A sun in a basket.
 How can you sell energy?
Box it,
Crate it,
living, pulsing rays.
Open the Store
Show your wares
 Who will buy?
Rainbows! Going cheap.

8/14/01

Monday, October 3, 2011

Rain falls--

rain falls
pouring
drenching
green creeps slowly into the water-starved plants
the pounding water cleanses
dust
and death
from the wilting leaves
sickly
drooping
silently they lift and reach towards the clouded skies
and among the deadened leaves and sodden ground
in ugliness a small plant slowly reaches up and out
and raindrops glisten on a blossom
a spark of beauty in a place of abject filth
a little bud of carmine
perfectly shaped
and hesitantly opening
a glimmer of pearly water drops
on its beauty
a rose

(My dad made me plant my roses at the extreme end of the yard, next to the compost heap. Yep, elephants are nowhere in it when it comes to remembering stuff that made me mad.)

Monday, September 26, 2011

Rabbit

     Rabbit
           Mourning at My Desk

my brother bought you
     (heedlessly, with sudden vague compassion)
because you were too old to be “so cute”.
     And with you
bought the silent sharer of your mute existence.
     And you were
incomprehensibly, brought here
as a compensation
for the still white body in the pen
     And the children fed you
as they chanced upon the thought

then, as heedlessly as you were bought,
the silent twin of your black duo died.
     And there you were.
     And there was I.

i fed you,
gave you drink.
     (we were, in our strange way, the same)
we lived a silent survival.
not from pity! did you find
existence in my hands
but from a shared realization
of helpless dependence.
arbitrarily, I chose.
     And you had life.

i was your physical breath
     And asked nothing:
no silent stillness
to touch your sleek fur
     (you asked, like me, no soft caress to live)

carelessly,
they gave you death
leaving you gasping
in the burn-dead heat of the sun.
you twisted
convulsed
on the brown rug
     And slowly stiffened
until you became
an unnatural hard lump of flesh
brushed with satin fur

animal
     (dead-dumb your eyes)
why should I care?
i who never owned you,
i but gave sustenance
     And suddenly became
your last touch.

i dug a hollow
in the rocky dirt
my eyes misted grey
     (i gave no tear)
my tears were the drops
of hot sweat on my back
as I broke through roots
     And crushed rocks.

i lifted your body

i had never touched a thing so dead before

i heaped the dirt upon you
     (your face was not covered, the earth touched it)
     And breathed a mourning chant
in rhythm to the shovel swing
for I am still alive

animal, I never called you mine.
why then, do I see
your glazed eyes transposed
over the piano keys
     (ever and ever there)
as I play the Pathetique?

(This was the only poem I ever spent much time revising. Obviously, not enough time. However, I will say that once you've seen a rabbit convulsing to death from heat stroke, it kinda sticks in your head. Especially the screaming.)

Monday, September 19, 2011

Tornado

                Tornado
whirling
     hissing
           windstorm
                coming
                     sky
                          so crazy
                                green
                                     blue
                                           gray
                                                white
                                                     wind is
                                                screaming
                                           tearing
                                     leaves off
                                trees and
                           ripping up
                     the grass
                then whistling
           coming    
     high
hot 
hissing
           train whistle
                harsh sound
                     ripping
                           black cloud
                                surging
                                     picking
                                           pieces
                                                of earth
                                                     up and
                                                throwing
                                           them down
                                     then it
                                passes away
                           rain pours
                     making    
                shaking
           frightened
     trees
close tight
driving
           beating
                it lulls
                     then rushes
                           again
                                struggles
                                     to outdo
                                           and pile
                                                wreckage
                                                     higher
                                                admits                                                     defeat
                                     and ceases
                                quietly
                           the sun
                     walks out
                and shines
           upon a
ruined
scoured
     world.


2/-/99

(It's supposed to go back and forth, but I couldn't get the formatting to copy quite right. Oh well.)

Monday, September 12, 2011

Winter

a white sheepdog silently beckoning
calling his flock to follow
covering the blue sky and the summer sun
with the dingy gray of their wool
a gardener
blustering through clothed in gray and black
angry he still deals gently with his plants
giving each an icy coating
then forgets them
and brusquely
noisily
bitterly
leaves not returning forsaking them to their fate
a silent woman draped in chilling white
heavily burdened with her baskets of crushed ice
wielding her willow-bough broom
she brushes her burden across the streets and yards
smiling to see the children laugh and slide
she passes on

then comes the wind
from lonely icy planes she sweeps down
not understanding her own cruelty
even the sheep in the sky shiver at her
but I know she is waiting for me
to slip silently out of my prison
and come to her
to receive willing
the message of pain
she has brought:
for me,
there is no spring

(In defense of my teenaged self, please bear in mind that in Texas the first frost releases all the mountain cedar pollen, which made me sick. Constantly. It's hard to be cheerful when you spend most of the winter (and spring, and summer, and fall - I'm allergic to everything that grows in Texas) not being able to breathe)

Monday, September 5, 2011

Water Chant I

Frost sparkles on grass
earth is turned to steel.
The trees tremble, imprisoned in crystal.
Weeds slowly bend, hiding their faces for shame
that people strolling by should see
their yellowed stems against the white dirt.
Water stares at the sky which deals it death,
hurling bitter winds and chilling frost until the pool
lies
motionless
frozen in horror, gazing with leafy eyes
at the grey sun.

11/16/97

(I vaguely remember there being more Water Chants. I have no idea what happened to them...possibly retitled something else?)

Monday, August 29, 2011

Young believers passing by--

young believers passing by
the bloody emblem of our foes
strongly we led
bravely we die
the anxious dead
will not deny
us
they; the cause
they come behind
a silent mist of voices
the bodies lie where they are found
their spirits rise above the ground
to whisper forth: our liberty!
is worth all deaths and tears
is worth the ash-scarred sky
beyond the blackened trees

(I believe this is the result of reading John McCrae's poetry, a variety of nonfiction about world war II, and a bunch of dystopian science fiction concurrently. I don't recommend the mixture)

Monday, August 22, 2011

Isolation

raindrops click
from trees
onto the sodden ground
meowing quietly
a grey kitten passes
misty grey
rain-sky grey
upon the blueless lake
shimmers
the rain suddenly rushes
then returns
to its
dripping
refrain

9/12/98

Monday, August 15, 2011

Rustling--

Rustling
like rain on grass
the cottonwood dances
bows
in the wind.
laughing with the stormy sky
the horizon
darkening
softening
the whisper
of wind on the leaves remains.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Two Birds

Two birds
black shadows in the evening
swoop across the golden sky.
They alight on the telephone wires
and lightly touch
wings
beaks
bodies
then swirl away into the blazing sun.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Darker than dark--

Darker than dark
the incandescent rays lie humped and cold.
I crush them with my feet
and they pour out
                             (freely, unasked)
sticky globules of shining light.

2-18-2000

(no, I didn't write this after I stepped on a slug barefoot. Which, by the way, is an experience never to be forgotten)