While Walking My Dog’s Ghost
I spot a baby rabbit
lying still in a clump of grass
no wider than my hand.
It quivers, but I pretend
not to have seen, for fear
that the dog, ghost or not,
will frighten and chase it
into the brush, beyond
its mother’s range,
perhaps to become lost
and thirsty, malnourished,
filthy, desperate, much
like the dog when we
found each other that hot,
dry evening so long ago.
I was pleased to discover that the first issue of Bindlestiff is live. My poems “I’ll Turn but Clouds Appear” and “Human Distance” are included.
My August 30 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge poem is featured on Algebra of Owls.
The Military Industrial Complex’s CPAs Never Sleep
We so seldom bury people at sea
in weighted shrouds,
preferring instead sealed
containers or ashes
mixed with concrete.
Little girls skip
down the street,
giggling, unaware of their
value on the open
market. Dollars, oil.
Weapons. All fungible.
On the forgotten shelf,
the avocado’s flesh
blackens inside
its withering armor.
How is too much
never enough?
Targets based on
possibilities, innuendo,
cost-benefit analysis:
three men and a camel,
wedding parties,
hospitals, homes.
When morning comes,
they’re still awake,
collating damage, counting
opportunities, massaging
sums, ignoring cost,
harvesting their dead fruit.
Door
What would you conceal?
Or open to. Could you unfurl
your fist to daylight
and shudder loss away — one key,
one digit, one death — presuming the universe
and all its hinges available for inspection
behind yet another unlatched presence.
And this spinning disk,
how shall we step off? Every moon
sheds its coat. Listening, I turn the knob.
I Look for You with Satellite View
But binoculars are my oldest friend.
Watching you flash between leaf and branch, stone
and sky, I remember, as the black groans
in, obliterating light at the end
of the day’s voice, that everyone descends,
our debts counted, stacked and restacked, the loans
unpaid and endless, like breath or the moans
of autumn’s bed spiraling back. Light sends
you elsewhere – the silver-tipped moon leaf, a
wisp of fog tracing your leg’s passage in
the sand. That empty bottle. You could be
there, above ground, or scattered where I lay,
an orbiting eye forever open,
looking, searching always, trying to see.
This is the 31st poem written for the August 2016 Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge. Many thanks to Ken Gierke for sponsoring and providing the title.
“Waiting for the Windshield on the Freeway” is among today’s offerings of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project (9 poets have agreed to write 30 poems apiece in 30 days, to raise funds for Tupelo Press, a non-profit literary publisher). I am grateful to the title’s sponsor, Leigh Ward-Smith, whose generosity and good nature never ceases to amaze me.
Waiting for the Windshield on the Freeway
Take velocity into account, figure height and distance,
add trajectory plus time, then let her rip. Billy likes solid
paving stones, while I prefer hollow cinder blocks. Karen
chooses traditional red bricks, as she lacks the upper body…
Click here to see the rest of the poem.
While this is indeed the 30th of 30 poems, I’ll post one more tomorrow, thanks to the generosity of Ken Gierke, who sponsored a 31st title: “I Look for You with Satellite View.”
THERE ARE STILL OPENINGS FOR SEPTEMBER’S 30/30 CHALLENGE! If you’ve considered participating but have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. There are rewards beyond producing thirty poems a day…
The sponsored poems have been a blast to write; the titles and 3-words have led me to poems I’d not otherwise have conceived. Thank you all for helping make this such an enjoyable month.
If you’ve enjoyed reading the participating poets’ daily poems and would like to donate, other opportunities remain:
For a $15 donation, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my 30-30 poems. Your choice!
If you need something to read, Think Dink! A $30 donation will get you my 2015 chapbook If Your Matter Could Reform, Barton Smock’s Infant Cinema, Jamie Hunyor’s A New Sea, and Tim Kahl’s full length work, The String of Islands, thanks to the generosity of Dink Press founder and editor Kristopher Taylor! I hear that Kristopher Taylor is providing a little something extra with the collection. You can read about it here, thanks to Ken at RIVRVLOGR.
Or simply click here.
Thank you for supporting poetry! Only one more to go!
My poem “As the Gravy Flows” is among today’s offerings of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project (9 poets have agreed to write 30 poems apiece in 30 days, to raise funds for Tupelo Press, a non-profit literary publisher). I am grateful to Lady Phoenix for sponsoring this title and inspiring other delvings into food and language.
As the Gravy Flows
Viscosity is always a consideration, as is definition:
traditionally a sauce composed of meat juices and
thickeners, or, a sediment of melted tallow, which
somehow brings to mind a laborer rising early after…
Click here to see the rest of the poem.
Tomorrow’s poem, “” was sponsored by Susan Nefzger (Seeing Beyond the Ordinary), who provided these three words: fireflies, dancing, twilight.
THERE ARE STILL OPENINGS FOR SEPTEMBER’S 30/30 CHALLENGE! If you’ve considered participating but have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. There are rewards beyond producing thirty poems a day…
The sponsored poems have been a blast to write; the titles and 3-words have led me to poems I’d not otherwise have conceived. Thank you all for helping make this such an enjoyable month.
If you still want to donate, other opportunities remain:
For a $15 donation, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my 30-30 poems. Your choice!
If you need something to read, Think Dink! A $30 donation will get you my 2015 chapbook If Your Matter Could Reform, Barton Smock’s Infant Cinema, Jamie Hunyor’s A New Sea, and Tim Kahl’s full length work, The String of Islands, thanks to the generosity of Dink Press founder and editor Kristopher Taylor! I hear that Kristopher Taylor is providing a little something extra with the collection. You can read about it here, thanks to Ken at RIVRVLOGR.
For information on sponsorships (and my other incentives), click here.
Thank you for supporting poetry! Only 4 poems to go!
My poem “It was 10 A.M. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now” is among today’s offerings of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project (9 poets have agreed to write 30 poems apiece in 30 days, to raise funds for Tupelo Press, a non-profit literary publisher). I am grateful to D. Ellis Phelps, alum of the 30/30 project, for sponsoring this title on her birthday. Happy Birthday, D!
It was 10 A.M. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now
Forgive me for seeking clarity, but do you have a specific
destination in mind, or are you saying, with a little less
force, get lost, go away, I’m done with you, or might you
merely be suggesting that I go forth? And what exactly is…
Click here to see the rest of the poem.
Tomorrow’s poem, “As the Gravy Flows” was sponsored by Lady Phoenix.
THERE ARE STILL OPENINGS FOR SEPTEMBER’S 30/30 CHALLENGE! If you’ve considered participating but have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. There are rewards beyond producing thirty poems a day…
No more title sponsorships remain, but I could squeeze in one more 3-word sponsorship.
The sponsored poems have been a blast to write; the titles and 3-words have led me to poems I’d not otherwise have conceived. Thank you all for helping make this such an enjoyable month.
If you still want to donate, other opportunities remain:
For a $15 donation, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my 30-30 poems. Your choice!
If you need something to read, Think Dink! A $30 donation will get you my 2015 chapbook If Your Matter Could Reform, Barton Smock’s Infant Cinema, Jamie Hunyor’s A New Sea, and Tim Kahl’s full length work, The String of Islands, thanks to the generosity of Dink Press founder and editor Kristopher Taylor! I hear that Kristopher Taylor is providing a little something extra with the collection. You can read about it here, thanks to Ken at RIVRVLOGR.
For information on sponsorships (and my other incentives), click here.
Thank you for supporting poetry! Only 5 poems to go!
My poem “Prize money shall be equally divided between the Sunset Sisters even though Buddhism can be more accurately called non-theistic than atheistic and Kepler is now aimed at the Pleiades” is among today’s offerings of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Project (9 poets have agreed to write 30 poems apiece in 30 days, to raise funds for Tupelo Press, a non-profit literary publisher). I am most grateful to someone who wants to be known only as “an admirer of Okaji poetry” for providing this title.
Prize money shall be equally divided between the Sunset Sisters even though Buddhism can be more accurately called non-theistic than atheistic and Kepler is now aimed at the Pleiades
What is direction to a sphere’s center where
all points lead up or down, left to right, or
nowhere. While resting there, do I pray to myself?
To one god, to many? I brew tea and pour some …
Click here to see the rest of the poem.
Tomorrow’s poem, “It was 10 A.M. When the Angel Said You Have to Go Now” was sponsored by D. Ellis Phelps, an alum of the 30/30 challenge.
There are no more title sponsorships remaining, but I could squeeze in one or two 3-word sponsorships.
The sponsored poems have been a blast to write; the titles and 3-words have led me to poems I’d not otherwise have conceived. Thank you all for helping make this such an enjoyable month.
If you still want to donate, other opportunities remain:
For a $15 donation, I’ll send you a signed copy of one of my 30-30 poems. Your choice!
If you need something to read, Think Dink! A $30 donation will get you my 2015 chapbook If Your Matter Could Reform, Barton Smock’s Infant Cinema, Jamie Hunyor’s A New Sea, and Tim Kahl’s full length work, The String of Islands, thanks to the generosity of Dink Press founder and editor Kristopher Taylor! I hear that Kristopher Taylor is providing a little something extra with the collection. You can read about it here, thanks to Ken at RIVRVLOGR.
For information on sponsorships (and my other incentives), click here.
Thank you for supporting poetry! Only 6 poems to go!
O at the Edges 