May Mary Mabelle

I just saw this bit of something in my desk, and though, wow, either I was crazy when I wrote this or... !



My name is May Mary Mabelle
I was sired in a Saddlebred stable
I wash chamber pots and brocolli tops
and sup alone at the table
When I was a girl of three or of four
the height of a sapling Maple,
I saw my mom die, writher and wryth
now they say I'm mentally unstable
My heart's a sore and the world's a bore
so I drink ale whenever I'm able
they say if I wed it'd clear up my head
but it's lofty and false as a fable
for no man would marry what no man can carry
a miss who still sleeps in a cradle.

Come Hope

Oaks clutch falling leaves
Chill winds encircling for months
April cavalry


—  a haiku version of a previous poem: Winter Months

haiku

Question for k-ren:
I'm the wannabe rockstar?
You're a mind-reader.

Monday

Two leaves separate
from a familiar branch
the wind howls.

What I Thought When She Said No

My love is home for her dear soul.
And if in other homes she lies?
It's hers in truth — no less than whole.
The 'giving to' is most the prize.

Love is innately giving free,
and thus it does not need to take.
I can love her as does he,
and wait for what high loves can make.

Never filled in present time,
future will know truer love.
When in ages hence sublime,
we will know the truth thereof.

But, for now, we must grow hot:
to love, as flame does what is not;
to burn, for that is what it does;
for love consumes what evil was.

Invitation to Sod a Hobbit House

If I didn't sod
I'd be worse than a cod
I'd be a septically putrefactive dyspeptic
But I shall sod
Till the sun begins to nod
And the bullfrog starts to sing his song eccentric

Luxury

I am a house divided.

divided time, divided heart, divided mind

I house a hundred potentials

a tug and pull of 

left or right

ийшээ тийшээ 

여기 거기 

this tongue 

or that place

that love

or this faith

help myself 

or help everyone else?

In the wake of my disunion

lies a morbid trail

of unfinished, unforgotten pursuits:

ghosts in wooden shoes

trod behind me

clambering for resurgence 

crying for rebirth.

I'm unable to assemble

all the contradictions 

into a Frankenstein 
of human ingenuity.

But if I forsake insanity

and toss them all away

there remains one thing:

to know You,

and in it, measureless gain.

make it your every ambition therefore

to live a quiet life before the Lord.

The Memory of a Morning

a memory I lay out before me:

of sunlight slant
and bedroom morning air
accenting the syllables
of manifold beauties pronounced

oh how the delicate turnings
of phrase in a face's form
may suggest, may evince
untellable loveliest things
of the fount of the woman who spoke!

I read her all and studied with care
the execution! the eloquence!
well-said! well-said! I honored her motion
her rhyme
and pleased to so bring in the day

but alas! our days have nights
and our springs their inverdant winters
that we might love the days and springs the more
that by our missing we might gain them
better next we met

thus duty called her forth from our new home
and I sought shortly with intent
with gifts to bid my fluent darling part

but time withheld its favor from my design
and winter's night came harsh and early
to the sound of crashing worlds

and there stood I for a moment
mid-road
slack-jawed and bloodless
with a flower and a banana in my hand

the busy world of r. scary

heavy heavy heavy, hangs over your head
looms over your bed
enshrouds you with lead

tight tight tight, draws up your heart
pulls on your scarf
and squeezes your arm

round round round, my entangled mind
run shadows of times
love left behind

light light light, enters my eyes
simple words guide
and lay heartache aside:

on a solid rock I stand
all other ground
is sinking sand, sinking sand.
sinking sand that swallows.

Copiapo, Chile

I think of these men, alone in the dark,
feeling privileged that I can see the stars just by looking up,
that my water pours freely from a pewter faucet,
that my spiritual peace stems from the winner of "Project Runway."

And even unhinged jealousy swells,
that these workers never earned their celebrity;
they earn $1 an hour,
and Anderson Cooper praises them,
simply for living.

Thought for Food

my mind is overpopulated
with thought bubbles which
launch,
stretch,
thin,
and pop
into perfection
into production
or obscurity,
becoming a thin film of
cognitive ability floating
to the floor in a sticky mess.
mopped up and run down the drain,
some become the pipe-dwellers' breakfast

office noir by crystal

silence
is not as disconcerting as contemporary soft rock playing
through the speaker above my cubicle.

humidity
is not as uncomfortable as frigid A/C blasting
on the top of my head and messing up my hair.

my futon,
old and creaky as it may be, does not promote poor posture
as badly as this dated desk-chair

sports injuries
are less painful than papercuts.

garbage
is less stinky than moldy carpets.

rats
are less likely to induce carpal tunnel.

work
is less likely to not completely suck.

office noir

murmuring opens the scene
a dull white light flickers
above a cubicle on the corner.
the view is
pixilated
digitized
beige and grey.
a solitary figure
hunches over a cup
of day-old joe.
geometrics strewn in black
and white,
low and high--
it's the 21st c. landscape
the 9-5 skyline of
inbox and outbox
and everywhere in between.
our protagonist sits between bars
of black shadow cast by venetian blinds,
punctuating ripples of burgeoning cellulite
and wafts of smoke
from the fax machine.
Femme fatale isn't sexy any more
she's cancer
and carpal tunnel,
and back pain--
it's lame
it's lame
it's lame--
and all the action is going down
the monetized
prosperized
sold-out
drain.

Spring Comes

But spring does not abruptly come.
It waffles with the winter some.
Like an epiphany slow-dawning,
It wakens with a stuttered yawning.
Do not expect a sudden pop
Of color green, or leafy top,
Or meadow bloomed, or forest groomed,
Or winter doomed, or cold entombed,
But gradual return from grey.
So listen closely what I say,
And to my former promise cling:
There will be, oh tree, a spring!

more farming memories (probably because i am aching to go outside and enjoy the weather)

The Bull

Brett put on his boots to drive the four-wheeler;
I put my retainer in my pocket.
My cousins were still cleaning the sheep shearing,
chasing tufts of wool lilting on the breeze,
settling on the surface of the cow pond.
When he started the engine, my heart jumped - 
Clutched the vinyl seat with my fingernails,
all the while hollering with Brett at the men
in the mud, rakes in hand, toiling while we rode.

Soon we were on the dark side of the hill,
couldn't see the sun past shadows of grass,
and there was The Bull -
grazing, staring, tail whisking flies with fury.
and then The Engine Died -
coughing, sputtering its last dying breath
spitting just enough exhaust to catch His eye;
We froze in our seats, reluctant to breathe
or talk. He snorted fire. He blinked slowly.
We jumped at the same time when he charged us,
leaping into certain manure (or mud),
scrambling like june-bugs flying to the porchlight.
His horns ripped through aluminum siding,
splintering the ATV down the hill.
We saw it land in the ditch, glancing back
as we sprinted, screaming, with arms flailing.

Progress

He did not know how to love well,
      but he loved as well as he knew.
And now not one can love so well,
      Than he who did what he knew.

And plodding on to do, not think,
      he learned a good deal more
Than he who plopping down to think
      forgot to do any more.

I'd only one thing have you learn:
      to do what you know to do.
Oh, my friend! the things you'd learn
      if you'd do what you know to do!

Interrupted

Blue fire sparks in the light
as you rise in flight:
a current of black feathers
washing the Western sky.
A call, and a call back,
barks the way,
and a cacophony of wings and consenting calls lands
on branches just beyond my window sill
where I
lie in wait with a gun,
hungry for some crow meat,
and some fun.
"No offense, but you drive me crazy, and I can't sleep."

snow day in bloomington

Ravens gather in stark branches,
black ornaments adorning ashy trees
against white grey clouds.

Wind moves the snow from roof to roof,
revealing glittery patches of red clay,
water droplets shiver with each sudden gust.

The bell tower erupts with a chiming shout;
the ravens scatter, the bright sky obscured
by thick vibrating bodies.

meat poem

Dry smoke floats over the wilting orchard,
coating swollen apples with heavy musk,
masking red cranberries, streaked rhubarb,
fat dimpled gourds in a hazy ash.
The henhouse, since '98, has had a chimney
stacked with clay and brick above the chicken-wire windows.
There is no hay or feathers, but billows, string, and salt.
The meat spirals on a slow spit, brimming in a feedsack
stuffed with fennel and rosemary.

Spices mashed under my fingernails, thick lard coating my palms,
I sit on the porch steps and smell my hands.

Suburban Skyscapes

1:
This morning the yawning sky was witnessed,
a puddle of orange juice seeping upward
into the fabric of frigid black night,
through a dirt-seamed windshield.

2:

11 am's dusty blue sky is blind
to the building slicing
Glory with a rust red razor edge,
to the puncture
of a cell phone tower,
radiating the scene.

3:
Our smoldering star ticks
off celestial bliss,
with a long low sigh
that steams each window sill
and fries the laundry hanging to dry.

4:
Tonight the crooning sky will be haled--
a Hallelujah chorus of lights
hung on a deep blue scale --
through the crooked bars of plastic blinds.