5/30/13

AMEN

Except for quiet waters
there's nothing left to say.
- public domain -

5/29/13


YOUR HOME
is like a tree
I climbed as a boy.
It gives and gives,
surprising at every asking
with what it holds,
and yet so easy.

Common as daylight
on the rocks it is,
or sunlight through
an old glass bottle
in the window.

- peter ford -

3/17/13


WHITE MAN
in your blood
crawl sick white things.

Step with me now
 - a brother -
step into the machine.

(So what did you expect -
several thousand years of racist genes
exorcised by aspirin?)

Through these doors
- don't bump your head -
have a seat.

You may fasten your own straps
- or I will -
as you choose.

And let us see now
- you and I -
just how we exit.

Are you ready
white man,
white brother?

Turn on the switch
Mr. Cleaver, Mr. X.
Aahhhh...
GERONIMO!

-public domain-

10/25/12


WHEN CLIFFS
prepare to fall,
walk small.

Shadows
and most of mother's other
playthings fret.
Too late to get.
Abide.
Abet.
Rocks are smiling everywhere.
- peter ford -



TRUCK

There's something about a fresh rose on the table
or you in the morning -
I've always felt such an ache of freshness
was just too precious.
But now that I've got a truck
I don't feel that way no more.
-quarterman-

HE WAS THERE
and he called
and you loved him
and went.

I was here
and I called
and you loved me
and went.
-public domain-

BANISTERLESS
love is.
-public domain-

CHILD'S QUESTION

Grandmother,
I understand
that you must leave.
But why beyond
where broken rivers breathe?
-julia ford-

WHERE IN THE PRETTY LIGHT
is she tonight?
Lifted to wing
in the mouse-hushed air.
-public domain-

9/26/12


AUCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

Slow smoke, snow sky.
Sparrows, concrete.
Sparrows.  sparrows.

-public domain-

MAN WITH A WATERING CAN
struggling to remember
how much for this
how little for that.
And some will die
and some will live,
Man with a watering can.
-public domain-

- fsa -



O BLESS
this time of semination, lord,
this late and hungry tempo
when my joints are split to fleece,
when my turning thought whips and raps
like apples in the doe's mouth.
No Sundays then lord;
no bastings by the chicken or the dog.
Into this minor cavern song
I want to fall like dusted trifles
in the maid's bag home.
Come seek me, lord.
You're it.

- nasa -



A FINAL FINGERCLIP OF MOON
crossed her window
and the executioner came.
I counted seven sirens
between the melted sun
and 3:13 am
when my lady - her sleepy children reading comics
in the waiting room
because the head nurse called -
took her dying briefly,
O so completely.
Draglines worked a channel somewhere
as I went to tell the children
and take us home.
'TIL I'M EMPTY BY HALF
as a speckled shell
I shan't know gestation
very well.
-robt & michaela vicol-

9/18/12


WILD PLEA
If I could but stroke you,
any, many you,
my loneliness would surely rise.
Surprise - though I reach so mild
you turn oddly wild, and diffident.
My eyes fall. I've touched your fright.
I stand too tall in the light of night.
-public domain-

PEGGY SOMETIMES
I wish I were that hollyhock
at your morning window.
-public domain-

CALL HER RAIN.
And when the prairie summer
that is your soul
shall go dry in a long dry afternoon,
call Rain.
Call, and she will come
like a wren song across an evening field
and sit with you awhile.
She'll skip back then to friends and swings
and you'll turn from the window
and there, heart there,
delight of a meadow after fresh rain,
delight of a sky, rainbow bitten.
-public domain-

-public domain-



FOURTEEN
rides over and over my mind
like a white wagon over the wagon road,
a runaway slave watching
by a bayberry bush in the moonlight -
fourteen hours, fourteen hounds,

fourteen days, fourteen women,
fourteen yarrow sticks

between the fingers of my left hand.

PALE MOON HAS BRIGHTENED.
I work by it, can hardly see
what's gone before - 
as it should be.
What river looks back,
- nasa -
what wind stays
to listen to its moan?

I AM THE WATER,
harbor water.
When night needs rhythm
He comes to me.
-public domain-


-public domain-
CLOUDS CROUCH,
muscle and bone.
Hard and dark
is onyx stone.
Down my neck,
electric thing:
Cougar's thought caught
within her spring.

EMPTY WIRES,
August wind.
Until May then
swallows.
-public domain-

SO HARD SHE TRIES.
Beyond sighs tears well,
rise. Even so
she cannot tell,
cannot remember,
her mother's eyes.
-public domain-

FOR ME,
snap a dry stick.
Flick it upwater
like you might flick a fly.
Drop it down ripple
where the bulltrout lie.
And honor me
as it eddies by.


- peter ford -

REEDS
are round me, mate.
Perhaps I see you,
Perhaps I feel your soft
breast feathers rising.
Perhaps.
And so I wait.
And so we wait.
-public domain-

8/30/12


- jenna dalton -


CHARLIE

One time in the main house dining room
I thought I heard a god at song.
Big god, little god, I couldn't tell -
it might even have been
Miss Jesus flirtin'.
So I turned, looked, I listened -
ah Lady J do kiss me
if it wasn't Charlie Sheppard,
little Charlie Sheppard,
laughin'.
             -for Nomi - 3/11/09 -

8/29/12


SLOW WINTER LIGHT
dells the meadow
and the little deer go home.

I'll be here when you come
and like an old broken
leaf beneath the snow,
I'll hear you go.
- public domain -

NOW COME NOW
Sunday sister -
kiss this hand,
this boardwalk boy.
Upon the soft cursing of the moon
we'll ride and play
all the sandy castle songs
that daddy taught us
when the moon was new.
Now come now
Sunday sister -
the Lord's away -
Let's play.
-public domain-

8/24/12


O MOTHER
do you hear me
down the long white howl
of the white valley wind?

My mouth has arms
that reach down all this long valley,
over frozen waters and empty trees,
stiff in their February days.

O Mother, do you hear me?
Do you hear the white foot

of the rabbit -
a-thump    a-thump? 
- public domain -
GREAT GREY STONERAIN
daddy -
Mercy.
Grant mercy.

- public domain -

LET ONLY THE SIMPLE SOUNDS
come by.
Those sounds the heart makes
-public domain-
when you say goodbye
or when your partner
begins to cry.

And as you watch there
all your importancies
just die,
just turn to air.

8/19/12

SNAPSHOT

So it shall be a plenitude of children
in chaotic placement about the swimming hole.
Three boys kneel in the crawdad catcher's stance.
A young and pretty girl, american blonde,
vibing so sure to be another lost
shopping cart mama when she grows tall,
dreams a breast stroke revery.

-public domain-


8/18/12


FATHER

- public domain -
Into the hedgerow the goshawk flew.
Passing by
I thought I heard a twitter
but I'm not sure.
Summer noon
- car windows down
my handsome father and I raised dust
all along that alfalfa road.

Such a time away
still I ride 'side you,
still riding shotgun
my papa
to your sweet running soul.