NUDE
Naked is not the same as nude
Naked is a baby
on a bearskin rug
Grandma in a nursing home
daily bathed by cold-eyed nurse
Nude is Venus rising from the sea
Nude is Marilyn
posing for a calendar
with nothing on but the radio
Monthly Archives: December 2013
POETS LIVING TOGETHER
POETS LIVING TOGETHER
As it is wrong to shut
one’s eyes to dream it’s
raining while it is in fact raining
Keith and Rosemary Waldrop
The thing about poets living together
is all the noticing
And not only
the noticing but the noticing the noticing
And who and why and what about
and if not about me, why not
HOW TO WRITE GOOD
HOW TO WRITE GOOD
(for Maia, age eleven)
Granddaughter I might say
read some Ernest Hemingway
A good place to start might be
“The Old Man and the Sea”
Watch how he draws arrows
pointing to an empty space
until a picture appears
If we’re going to know it
you’re going to have to show it
And if you want to say you’re sad
don’t say you’re sad – that’s bad
Try something like –
She came home after the spat
didn’t even say hello to the cat
Threw herself down
and cried her way through
two
pillows
and a mattress
until the drops began to fall
on the head
of her sister in the lower bed
FOR VICTOR
FOR VICTOR
The only trick an old dog can learn
is how to be an old dog
The minimum of turns one has to take
before lying down for that nap
That a bark is as good as a chase
for keeping squirrels off the deck
And that after all these years
of standing up for your standing friends
you’ve likely earned their kneeling by you now
DERVIL
DERVIL
Dervil was the only cat
I ever knew with opposable thumbs
He didn’t really have them
but you could see
that he remembered them
from a recent incarnation
as a slightly lower life form
Studiously unrolling the roll
and flushing it down the toilet
Standing tall to grasp and turn
handles on the doors
FUN WITH FRACTALS
FUN WITH FRACTALS
Every snowflake is a turtle
see the four feet head and tail
No two turtles are alike alike
One cannot multiply
things from different sets
My love is not diminished
GOOD GRIEF
GOOD GRIEF
And this, children, is the skull of Lucy
three million year old ancestor of us all
(If you can believe
anthropologists without bibles)
Who lifted the very first football
at the very last moment
so the very first Charlie Brown
could miss and fall on his bottom
After three million years
Charlie is still the hero of the piece
Never letting experience
change his trusting nature
FLUFFY
FLUFFY
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
Joni Mitchell
Pilots who fly in mountains
talk about
clouds with hard centers
People who fly computers
talk about clouds
with soft wise centers
Lovers lying in the grass
see them friendly fluffy floating by
now a puppy now a kitten in the sky
If Joni is right, and she’s usually right
The other side may be faster and harder
hunkered down in a bunker
all gathering all seeing all knowing
You thought you were watching a cloud
the cloud has been watching you
CANADA GEESE
CANADA GEESE
The Veeing geese fly freer now
across the autumn sky
No longer do they gorge
on my father’s golden grain
No longer do I lie in wait
twelve gauge at the ready
to bring them in for dinner
PAPA AND ME
PAPA AND ME
Lately I have been much with Hemingway
and happy to go where he has gone
and done what he has done
I have been gut-punched
shrapnel-laced and toro-gorged
Been as cowardly and brave as Francis M.
tasted Gulf Stream salt on sun cracked lips
and the moveable feast of Paris
I’m glad he didn’t leave a note
that spoke about that gun