Raining Manure (this poem won 2nd Place in 2016 Iowa Poetry Association Contest)
January 22, 2017 § 2 Comments
With cows in the barn all night
things pile up—that each day I shovel
wheelbarrows full, walk them out
and up the narrow plank to dump
what the hay has become
into the spreader.
The Farmall—good as an old tractor
can be, its rear wheels so tall as to
leave tread marks on the clouds—
pulls the spreader through the fields
tossing the good stuff skyward, while I
stay mindful of how the wind blows…
that it not rain down on me.
Thus the grass having taken a ride
through the cow comes home, as we
all sometimes do—amazed at where
we’ve been and more than mildly
transformed.
11/9
September 11, 2016 § Leave a comment
On 11/9 the Twin Towers stood up,
planes flew back into the sky,
and firemen throughout the city
ate pizza and played ping pong
on a day without fire, without
alarm.
After 11/9 everything changed—
troops deployed around the world
came home and the makers of
weapons made flowerpots instead,
leaving enough in the treasury
to buy everyone flowers.
If you can’t see this, if you are yet
in the rubble of one day’s collapse,
then you need stand with that
which does not fall, to sit where
the earth is one with the sky,
and you too will be the maker
of flowerpots—and make them big
enough for the blossoming of all.
Magic Light (Winner of the 2012 Norman Thomas Memorial Award-Iowa Poetry Association)
August 28, 2012 § 3 Comments
Ansel Adams sits up
reaches for his camera—
his arm bony as a tripod leg
for it is “Magic Light”
the golden light of sunrise
and sunset.
But then he lays back down
and focusing instead
through the lens of his soul
in the black box of his skull
he sees… all the light
that ever filled Yosemite
or blazed the crosses at Hernandez
and with his brittle jaw
with its few teeth remaining
there in the dark room of a coffin
he smiles.
Mud Poem
September 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
Muddy-shoed mud poem
walks across the page
going as poems go
from line to line
and down,
and the more it rains
the more the ground agrees
to take up with whoever
comes along
and replant itself
on floor, carpet,
sofa, bed, in teacup,
on toast, until we are all
muddied, even rain
before it lands, even cloud—
dark with who knows what.
But fear not mud, but make
with it what you can
in sculpture, on canvas—
finger painted on a face
you kiss,
and in a poem.
Autumn Poem
September 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
To write an autumn poem
crumple a piece of paper
and throw it on the floor,
then crumple another
and throw
till the floor is covered.
Let what has lived die,
except that deeply rooted
and the new inch
each branch extended.
Yes there are yellows and reds,
pumpkin fields and hayrides,
but an autumn poem
is a crumple of paper
that thanks to the wind
might yet make it
to the sky.
Canned Poems
September 9, 2011 § 1 Comment
It began with the war,
our soldiers overseas,
that so much of what
grew ripe or fat on farms
was entrusted to cans
and rationed to those
who survived
yet another day.
But food is never enough,
that poems too
were salted and sealed
and more often than once
when such a can was opened
a rifle was laid down,
a uniform removed,
and a man in his underwear
walked the land between two armies
every rifle pointed at him,
every mind thinking
is he mad
or drunk
or does he hear a voice
from heaven saying—
this way to peace.
Biography of a Nobody
September 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
A woman—breast bulging with milk
gave birth and nobody was born.
There where building blocks and
a rocking horse and nobody played.
When a girl with crooked hair
moved in next door nobody
cherished her glance, nobody
spoke softly her name. But
somebody was born and nursed
beneath a mother’s melting eyes.
Somebody did with those blocks
build a castle and rode a rocking
horse through its gate, and remember
the girl with crooked hair? who grew
into a woman with crooked hair,
well that same somebody filled
her mouth with kisses that
breast bulging she gave birth
to nobody, who yet is somebody,
and might even be you.