Poetry Month: April 22: Good Intentions

 Good Intentions

I am surely on the road to hell;
I recognize the paving.
In fact, I think
I own the truck
and all the equipment
required to resurface
this slippery and sloping
path to perdition.
I’ve been at it for a long, long time:
books I meant to read,
diet resolutions,  junk removal,
aborted dinner parties,
the poems never submitted,
the classes I never took..
the multiple colors of my misled life
coalescing in one great pattern of regret,
with a purposeful double line
leading to the flames.

Poetry Month: April 16: Evening News

Evening News

I often wonder if the world

Is as terrible as it seems.

Each day brings rivers of horror,

new pictures, new evidence

of old evils, rampant still.

None of this is new;

we simply have

immediate access to it all,

and are inundated

by the images, the stories,

the information gushing forth

from our electronic screens.

Years ago, news traveled

in a slow drip:

Like an inkstain,  it spread

from occurrence to report

to city to town to neighborhood.

and diminished itself

in the journey.

Today we are immersed,

wholly baptized in

the water of violence,

born into a frightening world,

and we are drowning.

Poetry Month: April 15: Paper Towels

 The Paper Towels

Two to wipe the counter,

one to wipe the door,

eight to clean the oven,

maybe ten to clean the floor,

three for each appliance,

(a little generous there)

but, hey, this is an estimate—

and three is pretty fair.

Ten to dust the woodwork,

tables, bookshelves, all

the knickknacks, frames

and pictures that are

hanging in the hall.

Say, fifty for the bathrooms—

they get a little spotty—

and just for kicks,

we’ll add on six

for wiping round the potty.

That adds up to ninety-nine:

you’d think that that would do it—

a quick  once-over all the house

each time she goes right through it.

But that is not the case, I’ve seen,

whene'er this lady comes to clean.

A hundred? Nay, three hundred more

paper towels depart this door.

One wonders how they disappear

and where they wander, far or near.

They flutter down the street, I guess,

and don’t clean up, but MAKE a mess.

Or maybe she’s developed

some monumental stash,

or sells them door to door each day

to  gain some extra cash.

Whatever her plan,

the result is, I’d bet,

my paper towel budget’s the national debt.

Poetry Month: April 12: Bleat

Bleat

There’s a poem out there somewhere

waiting to be written:

A tree, a flower, a piercing insight--

but all I hear is the insistent scream

of the leaf-blower next door,

the fire engine racing up the street,

the bleat and chirp of my assorted electronics.

Where is the music of the spheres

when I need it? Where is my muse,

or do I even have one?

Perhaps all I’m doing is

writing disjointed sentences,

as out of tune as the leaf-blower,

as hurried as that fire engine,

bleating and chirping away

on my laptop..

and calling it poetry.

Poetry Month: April 11: April, Part 2

April, Part 2

Again the sun-bright days:

the gentle greening of hedge and tree,

the newborn herbs tucked in their beds,

and geraniums packed snugly

in their boxes by the wall…

once more, the transformation

from bare twig to budding flower,

from silhouette to three-dimension..

Bird and bee and burbling fountain

celebrate their homecoming,

and animate my garden

with sound and movement,

as it takes a breath and steps

from sequestered chill

to spreading sunshine.

The earth is new

(or so it seems)

and I am

resurrected.

Poetry Month: April 9: Haiku

Back to haiku...

Clues

How to explain spring?
When God created the world
He left fingerprints.

Recipe Box

There are index cards
for every sweet memory
of my lost childhood.

Poetry Month: April 8: Drinks at the Bar at the End of the World

Drinks at the Bar at the End of the World

We are stardust
and a little bit of moonshine,
we people of earth, 2013.
When God created,
(or the Big Bang started)
this earth-ball spinning,
billions of years past,
the gases fizzed and
the elements danced,
and molecules spun out of the jukebox
we call evolution--
from which it was simply a giant step
to life as we might have known it:
as unimpressive one-cells,
as proud owners of complex properties,
as emerging sea creatures
taking their first land-steps,
life as dinosaurs, as  apes,
as drag-knuckled, heavy-browed men:
life as us.

We are stardust, by heaven,
the product of  pre-historic  cataclysm,
exploded god-knows-where
in whatever cosmos we once called home.
We are splashes of stardust
mixed in a cocktail of carbon,
oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen
in specified proportions
that change in response to
where we are and what we do,
a recipe known but to God,
the Supreme Bartender
at the End of the World Bar.