A slight,
Wakeful thought
Betrays sleep.
Jilts
My cup of dreams,
And spills them
Into morning.
Breaks faith
That I might hold you
For just one more
Moment.
Slight
Month: June 2017
DIY
You can make your own holy water
At home.
I found the recipe online,
And there’s a good YouTube video
About it.
Basically, all you need is
Water, salt (if you want a hint of tears)
And a kitchen bowl.
There’s one really tricky bit
About Transubstantiation,
And I didn’t follow everything about
“Multiplying loaves and fishes”,
But I think it’s just a matter
Of practice.
Mix the salt and water
And speak over it
That which you find in your heart
For benediction.
Or you can skip
The water and salt and bowl.
Just look in your heart
And bless
Those around you
With your love.
Haibun – Sundowner
At dawn after the Solstice, I shiver involuntarily in the heat and humidity. The sun will soon begin to dip below the horizon again on my early run. I’ve only just become used to its latest angle, know where I need to shade my eyes, how to manage the morning’s swelter. The temperature will continue to rise in the months ahead, but I will track the loss of daybreak. My daily touchstone in the world is first light. Morning has broken.
Every July 4th
Mischief in my Mother’s eyes –
“Christmas coming soon!”
Bugging You
My intentions
Might seem honorable,
But beware
They could be infectious –
If I bite you,
Mad with passion,
You may get heartworm,
A desire you can’t shake
Working its way toward
Your soul.
If I nibble
Delicious poems
Around your ears,
Bookworms might unleash,
Conspirators to keep you awake
Just one more chapter
At night.
And if I feast
On the light in your eyes,
How the glowworms
Will show their slow way
Through the caverns
Of your dreams.
Can you welcome these all
Instead, as friends,
To your imagination’s garden?
Bringers of air, mineral
And looseness
To the soil?
Habanero Eyes
I want to see your
Habanero eyes
Señorita,
That crazy hot
Look
Like wild peppers,
Like no way José,
Like you’re too hot
To handle,
That say: “If you can’t take
The heat mister mister mister
Then get the hell
Out
Of
My
Kitchen”
Landing
Crickets and weeds cooked dry
In the great dirt skillet
Of the Colorado Plateau –
Record heat crackling
Across to the Panhandle.
In 1942, men of my family
Put down ranching
And took to the sky,
Their tillers trained on Tokyo.
First settlers in covered wagons.
First Lieutenants in flight squadrons.
The Dust Bowl had left
A hard piece of scrabble,
Not enough topsoil
To hold any roots.
The ground grumbling,
Angry, stampedes of B27’s
From Pueblo Field –
Beasts of the earth
Transformed by speed,
Heat and wings rise
Shimmering from the land.
Maybe from the air
Flashes of feldspar
Were a beacon
From the bare rock atop Pikes Peak –
That original, distant promise
Soaring up from the prairie.
Haibun – Summer Sports
The apartment pool is finally open after so many weeks of cold, wet days here in New York. One group stakes out a table early, and outside our window we hear marathon drinking and hilarity from the morning through to the evening. We are good sports about it, but barely. Dozens of toddlers and children sport about on their floats and pool toys, with plenty of splash wars and Marco-Polo competitions. The twenty-somethings oil themselves up and jockey for position on the lounge chairs, sporting the latest in skimpy swimwear.
Summer has its sport –
Thin clothes don’t cool fireworks
Set off by eel and fawn
Murky, Navigate, Organic
I’m a happy mudshark
(Family: Squalidea,
Genus: Backyardus,
Species: Lawnranger)
In this summer heat.
Squishy swimming
Through cool, wet dirt,
Finned above the grasses,
Yapping the crickets all
Toothy and open-mawed.
I murk about
As I wish,
Navigate dead reckoning
By sprinklers I am
Peaty of gills
Organic and muck-blooded.
Why tell you all this?
Beware the
Toe taking, the
Catnapping.
Catch me dogfish
If you can.
Last Word
I’m sorry.
I don’t think my poem
Can keep you alive.
If a river of woe
Overruns your banks,
My words
Will not be enough.
I will do my best
To sit with you
And watch the sunrise
Together
One last time.
Maybe you will hear my whisper
That you were never alone.
Tempest Made
My love, your fierce will
Is tempered steel –
Storm forged
From prevailing winds,
The strength of maelstroms
That beat the sky
Back upon the sea,
Anvil’d sparks and strikes
Of lightning –
Watermarked layers
What look soft as damask
But gives you
The sharpest edge
qbit 