PERSPECTIVE
The ibis of OZ
has a very funny schnoz
Yet other ibises it seems
see long crooked noses in their dreams
Tag Archives: Attraction
ODE TO NERUDA
ODE TO NERUDA
You have gifted the world with your being
and your words the fruits of your being
You have seen the mother and the lover
in the sea tides rocking rhyme
In the flowers of her hair
in your politics of care
You remind us of the role of all poets
to open and meet the world naked
To perceive the world naked
to receive the world naked
To sing the world naked
naked as your hand
SMALL TOWN – GRADE SEVEN
SMALL TOWN – GRADE SEVEN
In a town of six or seven hundred
you get a cross section of the country
One classmate’s father’s suicide with shotgun
splattered walls
One boy my age, drowned
in an upturned truck in a muddy ditch
One with leukemia, white as the snow
One redhead, Leslie French, as beautiful and
mysterious as the language
One blonde, Shirley Long, to long for
She’s only interested in grade 9 boys
One bruised heart
Not yet hard enough to be broken
BUTTERFLY
BUTTERFLY
I had this urge to turn
and touch my lips to yours
ever so ever so lightly
My softness to your sweetness
like a butterfly’s
first taste
of
cotton candy
EAGLES
EAGLES
I watched them glide and wondered
Do the eagles see the air
I know of course that I can
When there’s enough moisture there
But I was thinking about something extra
Like how a dog can hear high notes
And I can feel you from anywhere
When there’s enough moisture there
MONA LISA
MONA LISA
I’m so thankful you were there
like a Mona Lisa fair
To show me things I’d never see
and to model for my poetry
Which is not to compare
the artist or the style
But only to confirm again
the value of a smile
DARK EYED LADY
DARK EYED LADY
An instant connection
with richness and light
that’s deeper than centuries
and warmer than life
Though if death’s darkness
is as welcoming as this
no wonder people hurry
to sink into that bliss
An though I’m pretty sure
I’m not ready to be dead
I’d like to sit by those waters
and rest my weary head
And drop pebbles of my poetry
just to watch the ripples spread
SHEEP IN THE NIGHT
SHEEP IN NIGHT
It was in the old Taos Hotel in New Mexico. I had just spent
the night there on my way back from the Light Institute in
Santa Fe, and picked up a book in their little reading room.
It contained this wonderful description.
A poet is something strange and apart, a favourite of the gods, who have bestowed on him an extreme sensitiveness and sensibility,
like open doors and windows, to subtle and delicate impressions that but bruise themselves against other men’s walls; these he captures ad coaxes to sing to him, and intoxicated by the beauty of their melodies builds for them a golden cage and feeds them on honey from the sweetest flowers in his garden: till they in their happiness become so musical, fancying themselves in heaven , that Jove conveys immortality on them, and swinging in their golden cages they sing sweetly forever, lifting up the harts of men in every clime and generation.
As I read in the lobby a lady sat down opposite me in a comfortable old sofa, about four feet away across a gently rugged coffee table.
I had heard the desk clerk greet her as she entered and ask her how the writing was going. We smiled at each other as she sat down. There was a warmth and a recognition in the smile and a knowing that we would each have liked to say something, but we didn’t.
I really would have liked to share the paragraph with her,
but I didn’t.
Later I passed her and a companion having lunch and we again shared the , “Hi, old friend I’ve know forever,” smiles, but didn’t speak
A couple of hours later I was sprinting across the street on the way back to the hotel when a car stopped to let me cross in front of it. It was her again. This time we both laughed and smiled and went our separate ways.
Maybe we were laughing at fate and it’s three good tries, and
our ability to ignore them all, or the lack of courage that had
allowed us to pass – like two sheeps in the night