denial is an art form

don’t worry, little red…
    we don’t have those here,
    we’re safe from all that.
    wolves and lynx pad
   the mountains anyway.
…tie a bow in your riding hood.

the blonde strawberry

 (a poem for B.D.)

At the coffee shop -

fee find faux fumbles: pull out
your wallet quick: see who pays!
let’s buy cookies from Heidi
and feed the wild geezers.

missed connections

he cocks a 14-carat eye at her (she of course
cannot) and then for fourteen seconds

a co-ed gang of Brewer’s blackbirds
settles by the fence. but don’t try to look -

you have already missed them –  and already
with no drumroll at all, fresh-baked twilight

is coating the landscape.  it must be time
to call it another day (for dawn chorus comes early)

 

wake up call

it is the crack-the-windows-at-midnight –
but-burrow-under-the-covers season
and time to pull awake from dreams of
public transit and airplanes in wind shear
to slow the heartbeat and listen and notice
what’s here, what’s now, like who is talking
in the lilacs - “spink!  spink!” - and to check out
the quarrels of starlings and the little
domestic sounds of water bubbling in a pan
and of tea leaves taking the big dive into
the mug with a poem on it. it is the crack
of midmorning and the cusp of leftover
winter storms; it is the exact center of
nothing much upon which hangs everything

A monsoon malingers on...

It started several days ago

  with great fluffy flakes of snow

and has been interspersed with

  "sucker holes" to lure the

     winter-weary, afield...

Ranging from drizzles to

  downpours to sleet covered

streets run slick with flows

  my gutters are full of winter's

     debris cluttering my mind.

attitude adjustment

you know, you can
hear no speak no think no -
or you can choose
to gossip like a chickadee or
blather like a blackbird. so
here’s a suggestion: turn off
the news for once, and go
feel for your own sweet self.
maybe you can get a new lease
on your very own life! however
you decide, treat it tenderly -
don’t void the warranty.

half sonnet for fish

down valley, another muddy overflow
takes over the stream, the field, the road, and
everything - or very nearly. so here's
the question: do fish wonder when the sun
will come again? do they whine about that,
never thinking of the anglers who see
it all, whenever it does? safety in silt --

and gritty clouds of Wallowa sluiceouts.

who pays? (half sonnet for mischief)

up there on the mountain the hired hermit stands -
boxes of cheap beads and fake bear claws
at the ready, dusty from being recently buried in
a nice dry hidey-hole. here comes a tourist,
a local, a friend, an innocent with no guile.
who gets the goodies this time? will they pay
in cash or credit, goods or services, this or that?

at the least, look 'round for a dollop of pure amusement.

not yet

in between      snow         flakes
signs of spring
stop     go        yield
to the sunshine                     or
the yet to be    it’s coming
maybe              in         august