April 13th Poem--NaPoWriMo--A sappy poem about my fish

I got the call in my best friend’s kitchen,

watching her mom pour crepes.

We found Goldie this morning

gasping in the sink.

The weeks I’d spent teaching her

to thrust her copper body out

through the liquid confines of her tank

for a split second before splashing down again—

a hundred guided attempts clamped gently

between my thumb and index finger.

We tried to save her—Mom moved her through the water

pumping her little gills. We were just too late. We decided to wait

'til you got home to flush her.

I hung up without speaking, walked out front,

and sat at the edge of the driveway.

Dad and I rode home in silence. I made my slow way

to the kitchen where Goldie was belly-up

in her tank. With the tiny net I fished her

out onto a paper towel—around her

a growing ring of water

There’s nothing you could’ve done.

Mom rubbed my arms as if to warm me.

For a long time I watched the white porcelain

fade to grey near the drain

and prayed she hadn’t landed in that place.

April 12th Poem--NaPoWriMo--2 Haiku

forgotten iced tea

a wasp drinks from the backs

of drowned bees


plum-heavy, the tree
planted on our dog's plot
bittersweet harvest

April 11th Poem--NaPoWriMo--I'm contemplating a sequence

1

Like the shock of a sea lion

just off the dock

when your eyes are miles away, searching--

a letter, years old and and pulsing

with that old life

slips from the pages of an anthropology book—

remember the ways we wrote us?

fucking in folding auditorium seats—the creaks

of three hundred students, the tongue-
clicks of the !Kung tribe on the giant screen and me


with my throat in your teeth?

April 10th Poem--NaPoWriMo--Haibun #2

Heart-Rot


Squirrels splash in the sandbox—stagnant and squirming with larval mosquitos—stash seeds in the hollows of the old willow. Next spring the un-retrieved will sprout from the rich rot and rain channeled through the craggy bark. A ruffle of fungus cascades down the trunk's northern arc. The south face is fused with several seasons of saplings whose yellow leaves shiver and swirl to the grass. No doubt the freeze and thaw of this winter will be the old willow's last.

mulberry prunings

woven with willow whips

our February forts

April 9th Poem--NaPoWriMo

April 9th Poem--NaPoWriMo


the whole story


dim wall [of light]
sun, nape, sun, hillsides
orange sky [above] orange woods


granite and bone
the cracked and cross-legged branches
whip the windshield like a chain
the pulse of ice and rain
knuckles of sun
purpled branches


before branches
before the lung
twisted
the hem of her skirt [brought] balance [to] the earth


mother, outside in the rain
perched under the eaves with dark wings
[March’s] foggy windows
trees rubbing together like thighs
the crazed, open sky
thin and yellowed

April 8th Poem--NaPoWriMo--My first attempt at a haibun

The beach is black beneath the new moon. By the light of a flickering Bic my lover and I follow a white trail through the ambrosia. We lie in the cool sand and listen to boats grunt in and out of the river’s mouth, the hush of their breathy wakes.

It’s nine o’clock. The grunion will run within the hour. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of silhouettes gather against the barely distinguishable horizon, the twinkle of distant cruise ships.

In the first waves of high tide, the metallic flash of a single body, a dozen, then suddenly the beach, like liquid silver, shimmers in the beams of so many flashlights. The night rings with laughter and shouts—the chatter of countless tongues. Children, up to their chests in the Pacific, clutch shirtfulls; men and women, young and old, kneel in the froth, a slick fish in each hand—some with a third clamped between their thighs.

Within minutes, the long line of white 5-gallon buckets overflows with captives. Some slip free and wriggle back toward receding waves. Others gasp under bodies, suffocating in air.

Hands Only the law says, but forty, one hundred, five hundred grunion at once are swept into nets and slugged up the beach toward waiting pickups. Few of the egg-heavy females have time to bury their tails in the sand and even fewer males, it seems, manage to arc around them before being plucked like turnips and tossed in a writhing pile. A young man digs a deep hole with both hands. From this well he fills several bags. 

where once were grunion

saltwater

and a few tumbling stones

April 7th Poem--NaPoWriMo

spring haiku cont....

sand and scrub

pink with spring blush

April moon

April 6th Poems--NaPoWriMo (Again, I'm counting them)

Two Spring Haiku

from my Schnauzer's mouth
the final song
of a sparrow's first hatchling

webbed between rubber plant leaves
hundreds of spiderlings
spring's bounty

April 5th Poem--NaPoWriMo

I haven't been following the prompts but a friend of mine told me I should write a blues poem (day 4's prompt). Here goes! (By the way, I always wanted to have an excuse to say "Mama" in a poem!).

Untitled Blues

I headed south down the coast to start over.

I drove down that long road to start over.

I got me a new life now, Mama; but Mama, the road wrecked my man.

Was a time when I woke with the sunlight.

Said, I used to wake up to that sunshine.

But the light’s gone out on me, Mama; and Mama, the night’s an old friend.

The white owl is perched on the stone wall.

Yes, the old owl sits low on the stone wall.

Coyote got hold of its wing, Mama; and now it’s got no way to go.

The road and the sunlight keep calling.

Said the road and the sun they’re a-callin’.

You know I can’t leave him here, Mama; but Mama, I’m so far from home.

April 4th Poem--NaPoWriMo

the song I sang for you slipped                    

                                                                on a distant bank beneath cold stars

into the river with my new bikini bottoms            

                                                                that couldn’t do a thing for us I took you

and one blue canvas shoe                        

                                                                out with a sharp blade

                                                                 
                                                                shaped like pride                                      
                                                                                                 
my blood the last thing

                                                              before I changed my mind

April 3rd Poem--NaPoWriMo

We drag the found dogs home

with no apologies.

Precious beasts.

They sniff us through the walls—

clawed, cocked, and lock-jawed.

We fill their bowls, let the hose run—

they thrash and flash their teeth

in the mud. And the blood,

always the blood.

April 2nd Poem (missed midnight by a bit! still counting it!)--NaPoWriMo

Crane Fly

Could return it to the lemon grass, the aeoniums—

from its legs, pluck

my auburn weight, could flip the lights on—

—most nights without falling—I fill

and fight through the space before sleep. The space

between our bed frame and mattress vibrates—the drum

of struggle lulls me. And still, in the morning,

the silent form on the bath mat 

splits me like a stone. 

April 1st Poem--NaPoWriMo

Everything in its place

                                 the weeds

arranged by wind and bowels,

the starlings’ choreographed switchbacks

above the highway, jasmine

drying in the kitchen window. And beneath our feet

the decay of ancient eras. What was born

from them lives in us, in the jasmine and starlings,

in the wind and the bowels. Weeds.  All of us.