Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
B.S. alert. If you’ve come for enlightenment, you’ve come to the wrong place.
a great grey worrybird
chirping in my ear
the key to a sugar maple high’s
downward spiral
or white lightning bugs
going on on on off
these are the winged agents
of an implacable cosmos
the scarlet manager
on vacation in the tropics
chickenhawkers online
flipping whispers
engorged hornbills blowing
for a credulous newscanter
shock-jawed death heads
emptying their payloads
till no unfallen
angels remain
and it’s back to the fire
and brimstone age
don’t look
you pillars of assault
in response to an Instagram clip by Janet Lees (janetlees2.0)
we meet ourselves between
two thrown stones
how can ripples not reach
the edge of each other
a mirror dancing with itself
grows boneless flesh
translucent skin meant
for an angel of onions
how can ramification not lead
to a kind of godhead
dwelling in absurdity
like the invasive species we are
a tree-of-heaven nursing
its litter of lanternflies
we become monumental
in our blind trust
rust blooming
in the rain
oh holy ghost pipe
let creation somehow survive us
one-flowered
cancer root
let our names break down
into a tilth
What does it mean to look forward to something any more, in a world hurtling toward ecological collapse if not thermonuclear destruction? There was a bestseller back in the 1970s called Future Shock about the social and psychological damage incurred by modern society’s relentless drive toward progress… or so I imagine, having never actually read it. But it’s been on my mind lately despite that minor detail. I’ve also been thinking a lot about ignorance, both in epistemological and sociological terms, and not coming to any firm conclusions because I rarely do. That’s a poet thing, I suppose. Not knowing the future, though, seems essential to mere survival, let along progress, as the Rene Char quote in the sidebar here says: “How can we live without the unknown before us?”
This has been a horrific summer in many parts of North America, but here in central Pennsylvania we went from a severe spring drought to a very wet but relatively cool summer. Trees went from nearly dropping their leaves at the beginning of June to massive growth spurts in July—aided, I’m sure, by all the extra CO2 in the atmosphere. And part of what kept things cool for us was the haze from burning forests elsewhere, as I’ve mentioned in various poems. But one of the pleasures of haiku is being liberated from having to explain things. They can just lurk in the background, mostly inaudible to the reader. Distant flashes that can mean whatever you want them to.
The fireflies, who had been scarce early on, had their highest numbers toward the end of the season. I shot this 30-second clip of them on my phone at dusk last week, just as the weather was turning from muggy to cool. Three nights ago the katydids started up; in a week or so, their throb will be all we hear. I look forward to weeks of good sleep.
millipede under
the lip of my rock
curling into a question mark
as i stand to go
among mountain laurel blossoms
their sticky white cups
falling in the drought-stricken woods
with audible ticks
we’ve had a taste of rain
the moss is soft underfoot
the breeze carries the despairing
rage of a pair of birds
watching their children die
in the sunless tunnel of a snake
who is presumably savoring
her only meal of the week
knowledge of good and evil
extracts a terrible toll
while two trains
meet at a crossing
two broken chords disharmonizing
clear to high heaven
the way my two grandmothers
sometimes meet in me
the strident one
and the contemplative one
on bad air days when everyone
else also sees
this achingly beautiful planet
through a veil of ash
and i don’t know how it seems
to extraterrestrial visitors
but on earth the truth is bitter
it’s an acquired taste
sun in the crowns
of the oaks
ringing less
like a church bell
than the beeper on a truck
backing into a quarry pit
coming over top of the mingled
voices of birds
whose throats each mix
two vocal tracks
into a single braid ah
the wood thrush
redstart red-eyed vireo
and that alluring odor
from a bank of dame’s-rocket
trembling in one spot
i thought just as a chipmunk’s
tail was disappearing
into the lilies
of the valley
*
Natures are close to one another. It is by practice that they become far apart.
Kongzi, Analects 17.2 (tr. Brian W. Van Norden)
paradise never sticks
it’s too purpose-driven
the first wings lacked feathers
the first feathers lacked wings
i used to love the idea of giving
my body to medicine
now i’d rather go back to dirt
and grow mushrooms
paradise in the sticks
may require some assembly
the first godhead went nova
the second is a donut hole
i used to be content
as a content creator
now the cold creeps in
through my hobo coat
paradise on a stick
would taste of oppression
the forest pool in new ice
is a thing with feathers
it goes away in the autumn
a blessing for the frogs
whose eggs would be eaten
if it had year-round residents
wood frogs are wise
and live under rocks
paradise sticks
to the script
can seem threadbare
down-right holey
a door opening in a tree
nothing coming out
nights when frost gets lost
in drawing ferns
a fly on the windowsill
rubbing the dust from its eyes
a feral cat hunting voles
the fear in their fur
a joy glossy as bitumen
playing for small change
on one roof two dishes
set out for the same satellite
above the hospital
a cemetery angel
stone wings growing
a new green coat
what do the eyes know
about touching
or the ears about this precipice
of a yawn
whose designer feet
elude the water
you squeaky cleaners
fighting for your lives
even your signatures twist
into moth or rust
my electric heater
may be possessed by demons
but inside my lungs
there’s a city of light
even at the edge of the forest
limbs reach out
such is the hunger
for god’s own sun
i hold the holy book
against my chest
it sits between my nipples
like a little black dog
burning some old barn
beams for fuel
the 19th-century knots
pop like pistols
and my train of thought
goes off the rails
forlornly blowing
its figurative whistle
into a night bright
with fallen snow
we’re all fugitives
from the present moment
in our distracted states
of america
no wonder it takes gunshots
to wake us up
i hear footsteps
in the kitchen
and find myself
in the bathroom mirror
happy to dwell
in this icy stillness
it’s the future
i’d like to escape
a choose-your-own-
doom story
we picture as a shining city
on a hill which once
might have been more
like a mountain
ravens have come to out-
number crows here
so we have fewer murders
but more odd cries and gurgling
the October sun glows
in a dull white institutional sky
but in the small hours
how the stars had glittered
Taurus’ V was no bovine face
but a wolf sharp with purpose
clear antagonist
to the well-hung hunter
while Astarte the morning star
had gone over to the morning—
stories to convert a sky
into the heavens
even beyond belief
to be at home in it
this cold milk
curdling overhead