30 Days and 30 Nights

are enough to finish reading a long book,
heal a cut on your thumb,
plan an anniversary trip,
eat 90 meals (and still have room for snacks),
grow grass on a chia pet,
use up a prescription of antibiotics,
order (and receive) a Bluetooth headset from Amazon,
log 160 hours on the clock at work,
watch the special extended edition
of the Lord of the Rings (but just barely),
clean up hundreds of messes,
settle a ridiculous number of arguments,
follow the first round of the playoffs,
live through a seven day week four times,
hug three children and one woman (repeatedly),
fill a notebook end to end with scribbling,
and drain the fullest pen.

Now for some sleep.

Revolution Never Dies

Today would be Décadi, the day of rest, tenth day of the month of Floréal in the two hundred and seventeenth year since the dawn of the republic, if the Calendrier républicain had stood.

I was there at the Bastille when we broke through. Léon, Gaspard, and I fought under Desmoulins, and even amid the gunfire and flames we felt the joy of new birth. Everything old would be wiped away! We would make all things new!

But the dream is never like the waking, n'est pas? And when the blood of the royalists was all spilled, we turned to drain the blood of friends. How could we think to write a constitution with such ink?

      Liberated from the monarchy, but not from fear.
      Equally able to kill and be killed.
      Brothers, but only once beneath the earth.

For me there is no day of rest. I must outlive it all. Forever forward, yet never fully alive. Is this the punishment for my crimes?

La terreur n'est autre chose que la justice prompte, sévère, inflexible.

The Calling

Follow me, you said one night,
and though I knew I heard it right
I found a reason not to go
(which wasn't really saying no).

Follow me, you called again
and so I almost did, but then
I saw some things I had to do
and thought that I'd get back to you.

Follow me, you spoke once more
and then, unlike the times before,
I knew I had to make a choice
and not ignore your still, small, voice.

Follow me.
            What if I fall?
Follow me.
            And lose it all?
Follow me.
            But I can't see...
Just take my hand
and follow me.

Broken Soldier

I’ve bought three tubes of superglue
but all their claims have proved untrue,
and still your pieces lie here, strewn,
because you’re clearly glue immune.
Now what to say? And what to do?
I fear you’re lost to the platoon...

The Features of a Familiar Planet

The glacial pace of these global changes
mostly hides them from our eyes,
but still, the features slowly shift.
Tectonic plates drift, collide
and uplift the surface like bones.
Wind, rain, and rivers erode,
carving channels down through the skin.
Gravity sags at the furrowed brows, cheeks, and chin.
And our terraforming efforts, too,
like the repeated formation of expressions
across the geologic epochs,
bring on changes –
now pinching up these frowning ridges,
now spreading out these lines of laughter.

What stories will be mapped out in the end
over the face of this, my earth?

Automation Expectation

I turn away from the urinal
but it does not flush.

I hold out my hands for soap, water, towels,
but nothing happens.

What is this strange, archaic place
where I must touch things
in order to receive them?

24 (C)

you are speaking
soap bubbles through a wand
and the air fills
with rainbow-pearled pollen
I gather them in
to receive
your words

24 (B)

mounds
of shredded paper
loom around us like peppered snowdrifts
the detritus of documents
what is this place?
they are messages missed
words unreceived

24 (A)

words
like prayer beads
fingered gently and shuttling between us
or little boxcars
laden with freight
and steaming out trusted
to reach their destinations

On an April Afternoon

Laying on my back
in the shade-marbled grass beneath a maple tree,
I watch a lazy cloud between the leaves.
This messenger of rain, far from companions,
is tasked with taking water somewhere,
but clearly has an open schedule.

I take off my glasses
and the view goes soft, indistinct.
Edges and lines are replaced with diffused colors,
nebulous forms, and swimming lights.
I see the casual stirring of green amoebae above.
I listen to the whispering of phantom flagella.

Untitled Poem About the Signification of Absence

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Fast Food Improv

Taco Bell hot sauce
on Arby's Beef and Cheddar:
two star-crossed lovers?

Disreunion

You say a girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name:
They sat by each other in class,
had mutual friends,
went to football games and dances?
Yes, of course I remember
a girl with your name.

Then the flicker of familiarity
is swallowed in foreignness.
The reaching for nostalgia
reveals dislocation.
And we stand awkwardly,
stranger than strangers.

A girl with your name
once knew a boy with my name.
But those people,
like faded photographs,
have passed.

Why have we kept the names
of the dead?

Let's Trade Jobs for a Day

You'll pass through security using my key fob,
log in to my computer,
sip coffee, answer emails,
and sift through lines of PHP and Javascript.

I'll catch the bus to kindergarten,
perch on a tiny plastic chair,
color between the lines with crayons,
and run around the playground, squealing.

Yes, I think it might be nice
to trade jobs for a day.

Schwimmender Kopf!

Schwimmender kopf means "swimming head"
(in German, that is how it's said).
In France they call it poisson lune,
which ties the thing right to the moon.
The Latin name is mola (twice),
but these are 'millstones' kept on ice.
Still others say sunfish instead.

My favorite name is swimming head.

Lost in Translation

Compare apples with pears!
Bring you to the palm?
Not like the towel throw!

As the nature of the language is enriched,
among the types of natural speech,
among the species of animal speech.


(This was Google's translation of the text in a featured content box on a German website.)

Little Wrestlers

Together, we have a fighting chance!
Like small pebbles in an avalanche...
ants biting on a caterpillar...
or Lilliputians with enough string...
the strength of our numbers can prevail!

Multiple Choice

A) Stay in bed now boys, and go to sleep.
B) Stop talking to each other, and go to sleep.
C) Calm down, lie still, and go to sleep.
D) All of the above.

Frame Rate

The grove of cherry trees is still,
and suffused with a warm, pink light.
A sighing of the air stirs the flowered boughs,
causing a light snowfall of blossoms
to drift lazily down between the dark trunks.

STOP. REVERSE IN 500-FRAME SKIPS. AND... HOLD.
NOW FORWARD, FRAME BY FRAME... AND STOP.
SET KEY FRAME 'A' AT... 03196.
QUEUE AT 50X SPEED. PLAY.

Cycles of day and night wash over the trees:
first the bright, scudding foam,
and then the plankton-flecked cobalt depths.
The branches cautiously unfold their pink tendrils,
like anemones, coaxed open by the rising tide.

STOP. SET KEY FRAME 'B' AT... 08441.
REVERSE TO KEY FRAME 'A'.
SHOW LEVELS HISTOGRAM. HMMM...
QUEUE AT 300X SPEED. SET PANNING LOOP. PLAY.

The sky strobes uncontrollably,
cowering under the fire of tracer bullet suns
as the trees burst and retract their blooms
in a pulsing rhythm, like hearts
now wounded, now healed.

11:45 AM

parents gather at the corner
as first graders flood from the bus
like cats
on fire

Incubating Beneath this Earthen Breast

An acorn is like an egg
that gives birth to a tree
instead of a chicken.

Napowrimo: Mid-Month Assessment

"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." - Winston Churchill

Alright! I've made it to April 15th! That means 15 days down, 15 to go. I have to confess that I've been dog tired of poetry for the past few days, and I think it shows, but I have the satisfaction of having stuck with the challenge so far, and have published something every day. I think slogging through my taxes over the past few days probably contributed to my mid-month slump, so I'm looking forward to catching a second wind now that the IRS joy is behind me.

So here's to pressing on. Buckle up, and prepare yourself for more bad poetry!

What Does a Dozen Do?

A dozen does fine as a number of eggs
or of cupcakes, or doughnuts.

Roses often come in dozens.
Tribes and disciples too.

Some dozens are dirty,
and others are cheap
(selling for as little as a dime).

Bakers can't seem to count them properly.

There are a dozen months in a year
and two dozen hours in a day.

A dozen drummers drumming
makes for a happy song,
but a dozen dozens can be gross.

A dozen does very well
in the duodecimal system.

With all these wondrous things a dozen does,
I wonder what a dozen doesn't?

Rendered

My tax
is paid in full,
and Caesar now is glad
to render back to me a coin
or two.

Escapees

The tears
unavoidably
find a way out.
Like crickets
in a pet store.

What Size?

Small.
I mean, Tall.

These words
are not interchangeable
under any circumstances.

Except at Starbucks.

The Final Word

The final word was finished:
accomplished and achieved.
Sorted out and brought about,
and now at last complete.

Compassed and concluded,
decided, dispatched, done.
Through with and fulfilled.
Over. Overcome.

All had been performed,
ended and resolved.
Satisfied and settled,
and paid out for us all.

And so the work was finished,
and so the word was said,
but life was just beginning,
for Life cannot stay dead.

Dinnertime Overture

Lisa asks kindly for carrots and peas.
Levi wants veggies, but doesn’t say please.
Logan wants chocolate and candy instead.
Cambren is throwing his peas at my head.

“Here you go Lisa, there’s toast on the way.
Levi, remember your manners,” I say.
“Logan, you can’t have dessert before food.
Cambren, stop doing that – throwing is rude.”

Lisa is chewing and smiling at me.
Levi is working on phrasing his plea.
Logan decides he wants ice cream tonight.
Cambren resumes helping carrots take flight.

National Ignition Facility

Limitless, safe, carbon-free energy!
Tiny, pea-sized fuel capsule. Micrograms:
deuterium and tritium atoms.
Newton's Third Law. Inertial confinement.
Giant lasers, experimental shots.
Explode! Break the megajoule barrier!
Trigger rapid, intense heating! Plasma
temperatures melt any known substance!
Thermonuclear fusion reactions:
the power of a miniature sun.


(I synthesized this poem from the news article "Friendly 'Death Star' Laser to Recreate Sun's Power". It uses only words and phrases found in the original article and fuses them into a metric grid format consisting of 10 lines of 10 syllables each.)

Salt

I tell a story,
and my words are a grain of salt
on a roasted almond
in a bag of trail mix
near a shopping cart
in the grocery section
of a big-box store
built in a growing town
on the western edge
of a sprawling continent
wrapped with an ocean
and spinning on a planet
flung out into space
amid the endless stars.
And those stars,
like salt,
tell a story.

Bread and Wine

You say I must eat your flesh
and drink your blood,
or I have no life in me.

And so I shout,
"Not just into my mouth, Lord,
but into my heart as well!"

From the Diary of Horatio Fookes (1855-1895), Who was Killed While Assaying Lindsay Spur on the Eastern Face of Makhagiri

October 17 – Weather clear. Feeling well.
Should summit tomorrow in good time.

Walking Along the Columbia

Lisa and I saw everywhere the signs of stirring:
cherry and plum trees heavy with pink blossoms;
a nesting swan and her mate, looming white in the marshes;
bright green blades of grass emerging from the haggard straw;
a heron perched regally on a stone in the shallows;
dog tracks across the sun-warmed mud;
scaups and cormorants diving for fish in the lee of the jetty;
and a black cat eating a baby squirrel.

Foraging

My hands plunge spear-quick
into the sun-streaked pool,
but the quicksilver words
escape me.

Cropped

The mowing of this hairy hill is like a backward harvest:
The combine, with its buzzing mouth, comes rolling
over the crown, leaving a lane of stubble, and
the thick, standing stalks fall aside. Then
the billowy piles are gathered up
and discarded, while
the barren field is
combed and
kept.

Three Sons Under Seven

Sometimes I stop to stare amazed
at what my boys have done:
the messes and the wreckage left
behind each busy son!
The couch is split from jumping feet,
they've drawn their artwork on a sheet,
I'm feeling ready to retreat,
and this day's just begun.

I try to stay on top of things,
but they outnumber me.
For every mess that I clean up,
They start another three.
The bathroom's shot -- the bedrooms too,
there’s no sense asking why or who,
the only thing that’s left to do
is love them, honestly.

A House Removed

This blackened ruin
smokes and sizzles in the rain,
bleeding pools of ash.

The flames have eaten
all that fire could consume,
but the stain remains.

So the sky pours forth
to wash the field with water
where children once played.



(For Alycia Nipp.)

Toys in the Dark

Bare feet softly sweep the carpet
seeking safe passage
through this minefield of sharpened playthings.

Ohhh, I'll play your game, you rogue!

My friend Vinnie has inspired me to finally do something with this here dormant blog: I'm going to take up the NaPoWriMo challenge and write at least one poem a day for the whole month of April.

If it goes well, I might strike on a few ideas worth developing further. If it goes poorly, I can always pull the plug and delete all of the embarrassing evidence. At the very least, it should help me knock some of the rust off and get back into the habit of writing regularly. So, we'll see.

Here we go!