The Addiction for Mermaids

Oh beloved,
I lay naked under the sea
contently kelp-anchored
and serene.

Oh beloved,
you call on each and every wave
frothy and young,
erect

in the wind of my memory.

I swim once a year for a season
wearing rust and red
on my silver breasts,
my tail flashing like teeth.

Oh beloved,
you throw lines hopeful
to entice a fight,
one glimpse

of my rare back
in the morning as the sun
heaves into town.

Oh beloved,
will you drift in a red or green boat
all day, sitting or standing,
murmuring prayers

you won't allow
any others to hear?
I hear the bass notes

as they fall like small black stones,
voiceless
and vibrating into my bedroom.

I am not hungry
you understand,
I do not seek you

and only if you chance
the right place,
perfect time

with a hoax
of color and feather
it dawns on me

to bite.





c2009 Flood Water Press

thepostofficepoems.blogspot.com

News!

Hello dear readers. I've posted the new poem on the post office bulletin board. There was a tiny note tacked onto the last poem--we've been invited to have some of the poems published in the Fall City Newsletter.

Well, pour some tea or brew some rich coffee, settle back and read the poem "Sherry" below. It is dedicated to a special young woman so many of those living in Fall City knew. Especially if they enjoyed a meal or two, or a cup of coffee at the Raging River.

May your holiday be safe, full of family, friends, and pie.

peace,
Anonymous

Sherry

The river hangs bells for Christmas
along the sand turned crystal.
My steps disturb them just enough,
and the gentle chimes
and watery words
say this:

Goodbye,
to the sun we remember
crossing your girl-moon face,

goodbye
to words dropped on the table
between you and the rest of us,

my coffee cup,
our napkin,
a plate of all good things.

And more than the food,
the sweetness,
more than the sun,
now before us this winter
without you,

more than your children,
your family,
more than our grief,

is this--

ice bells on the river,
silence,
the frozen steps in sand,

--reminders you're closer now
to everything.

I feel you here even at the farm,
as alpacas saunter from the barn
and the air warms

before the next snow comes.

I will feel you at the gathering
of mourners, we'll talk about you,
you'd be embarrassed but it's ok.
We're all bringing lucky pots,
I made brownies.

I will feel you in the teary eyes,
the gulp of air your sister takes
while telling the story of your passing,

how your heart skipped away,
Thanksgiving was an unsteady boat,
your oars fell, you slipped from us so gently,
like water, like a song that ends too soon,

like the sun turned cold for a day
and a night,

we looked up
and you were gone.

But I remember,
and when I see the photo on the poster
on the door to the Saloon

it all comes back.
You come back in the telling,
in the memory,

in the thousands of bells
chiming the completion

of your interrupted song.




for Sherry
because we love you

c2009 Flood Water Press

Tread Lightly the Salmon are Listening

Steelhead churn up the flank of the river,
four fishermen up to their knees
angle their lines into the sky,
I drive over the archway
twisting right at the roundabout,
jealous because it's Wednesday
and they must be taking the day off.
What did they say, "I'm sick,
I've got an appointment,
the kid's sick,
the kid's got an appointment"?
Maybe the boss was on the river too.
All I want to do is walk
that rock-filled shore
in the gold light of December.
Froze last night.
The river's down.
Not much wind
and thank God, no rain.




for Jerome at the fish tackle store




c2009 Flood Water Press

New Poem Coming and Update of the Bulletin Board

Hello Readers. So sorry for the delay in posting the latest poem. I believe two weeks went by while I was preparing and moving to an alpaca farm. A charming English cottage on a few bright acres, four alpacas, two dogs, two chickens and two cats, along with a British nanny. Not that I need one, well maybe I do. She owns the cottage and made me oatmeal and coffee for breakfast.

The new poem is titled, "Tread Lightly the Salmon are Listening". It was written at the North Bend library last night and posted on the bulletin board in Fall City about 9:30 pm. I don't know if you've been by the post office lately, but the bulletin board is beautiful! Someone has taken great care in arranging the various holiday posters, announcements, for rent notices, etcetera and the last poem I posted had matching tacks, two purple at the top and two blue at the bottom if I remember right. I took a quick cell phone photo of the board and collected my mail.

Enjoy the new poem. Still wanting to be out on the river instead of working since the sun is out again today. Take care, hug your child today, tell someone you love them.

Anonymous

Old Man on the Bed

Kerry's father is dying.

While I sit writing at Creek Sister,
while Jommie sits in the woods reading.
While the creek hurries past.

One old man approaches the darkening,
looks up at his daughter to say what,
goodbye?

"Hold me,
open the door,
see, I have found what I was waiting for;

make my bed in a soft place,
in the back of the pickup;

take me to the mountains,
take me to a river,
take me out of the walls
of my life.



for Kerry



written 7/17/06

"Creek Sister" was a small log cabin on Christmas Creek,
off Edgewick, where I was working on a draft of a book.

Fall City Artists' Economic Stimulus Fair

We went to the artists' economic stimulus fair on Saturday 11/14/09. See the photography album for images of the event. I was surprised at the number of artists attending and the quality of their work. An extra treat were the children's paintings, all donations going to the Seattle Children's Hospital. We even discovered little cupcakes decorated by the future artists of Fall City and Snoqualmie Valley. So, take a peek at the photos and enjoy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/RiverhouseMassage/FallCityEconomicStimulusArtFair?feat=directlink

Note - Fall City Artists

Beautiful event this past weekend. We saw some amazing work all done by local artists. I will put up an album of photos soon. There will be a new poem posted this week so stay tuned.

November a Year Ago

Before you knew me

I was a river stone
I was a king fisher swift from the tree branch
I was the long legs of the north fork

Before you knew me

I was a cabin
a swing
I was the sun in gnarled arms of firs

Before you knew me

I was a melancholy wind
the sadness of rain
I was a brown barefoot girl

Before you knew me

I was the sheer and silent snow
I ran from shadows
I ran away

and found a home on every street
I dreamed of

I was a mother for myself
I was tender
I gathered stories of injured women
homeless as I

Before you knew me

I came home
to the English cottage
dancing in the morning
across the kitchen floor

until I found you
dancing and singing
an image of me

and we recognized
each other

from the faint songs
still on our lips
we had been singing

all along.





for M. with all my love

Mystery at the Post Office

Hello Readers: Well, there is something interesting going on at the Post Office! A friend, who travels to the Fall City post office to read the week's poem, reported to me that the poem is missing. That's right. For the first time since beginning this writing project for the lobby bulletin board, the poem has disappeared. It's title is "Under You". If you see it, could you tack it back up?

My friend had a few ideas about where it may have gone. I thought maybe an employee took it down. She said maybe someone liked it and decided to take it. My last idea is since someone has been stealing tacks, maybe there was a shortage and they took the poem's tacks? What do you think?

I wasn't able to post a new poem last night as I am dog sitting and out of town. However, I am working on a new one and should have it posted on the bulletin board today or tomorrow.

Have a great week, stay safe and hope you are enjoying the sunshine today.

Anonymous

Next Poem...

Hope everyone is doing well. I'm working on the next poem and out of town so stayed tuned. Will try to have it posted on the bulletin board tomorrow evening. If you have some written work, send me a sample of two to three poems or a short story. Would love to post a variety of literary work on the blog. Take care and have a great day.

Under You

In class while observing palpation exams
I sneak into this page. It is a cool glen,
a harp of leaves.

Inside of me is the wound of your being sick
and my fear of losing you.

I could lay down like an injured animal,
wild and noiseless, but you are the animal
in this story.

I will be your glen,

the warming light falling around you,
the air that greets your life.

the sounds,
the cool dark,
the earth's hands under you.



for Charlotte

October 27, 2009

Shotgun in Kentucky

“My grandfather handed me three shells and the shotgun
and said, Go get dinner.”

My friend leaned forward telling me the story of himself
as a young boy, eight, nine or ten years old
walking out into the autumn corn fields, looking
at the sunshine, feeling the slight breeze, hearing
something and seeing a jack rabbit, thinking about
how his ears are so large. Pointing the gun without
looking and the sound it made, and

“I looked down at it,” he said, voice on the edge,
“and I’d blown it apart.”

His voice crumbles into a dark place of sweetness,
sadness a gully below. He digs a hole and buries it,
telling his grandfather when he gets home,

“I missed.”



For Jimmy, who I don’t think shot another living thing,
though he did almost kill a man he caught raping a girl
in a city park, but that was a long time ago.



October 20, 2009

...the next poem

....stay tuned. This poem will be posted this evening.
It was told to me by a friend about an experience
when he was about eight years old back in Kentucky
where he grew up.

If you have a memory of a time when you were young
and would like me to include it in a poem, send it via
a comment on this blog. If it includes Fall City or the
surrounding countryside, even better.

Anonymous

Seven Pigeons and the White Angel

For two hours I hiked along beaches
of the Snoqualmie, fog gray fingers
played in red and gold leaves,
dark-faced shadows shrank behind
the stones, and the sun shot pins through
purple green water on bushes.
The beach was deserted.

The great salmon burrowed their heads
as far upstream as they could.
Their tired backs looking frost-bit,
spotted tails churned troughs of
black silver. I stood spellbound.
Listened to water singing so low
I could almost not hear it at all,
but there was a hunger to the notes.

Above my head a flock of pigeons circled,
one white angel in their midst. I found out later
they pulled a young man from the river
drenched and unbreathing the evening before.
They worked on him a long time, they said,
but the spirit just kind of leaked right out of him.
I think it rose up into the fog coming that night
like a blanket, like an unexpected answer
to a life unevenly driven,

I think it turned white like the salmon,
I think its wings opened--
right there in the midst of a flock
of common pigeons,

you should have seen it,
circling a few times

just before leaving.


***


for Mac

October 13, 2009

Four Feathers from Fall City

For days I walked the streets of Fall City,
an unusually grounded little town,
its farm houses egg yolk and pond blue painted,
dormer windows shy and alert,
old porches nodding off,
mowed lawns, red barn hen house,
chickens reciting poetry over their morning egg,
and I passed by two feathers
and didn't pick them up.

Today I stopped and looked into a tree
like a wide hand curving its fingers open
with five crows fidgeting into different poses.
They interrupted and complimented each other
constantly. One flew off. There on the ground
at my feet were four crow feathers.
Two long wing pinions and two wide tail feathers.
Blue spears. Traveled shadows.

I put them fanned out like onyx knives
on the wood table by the soft light and three
rock candles Heather gave me.

At night, they float over me singing
old Beatles songs, tapping lightly on the window,
forgetting their names, how they got here,

where they misplaced their
warm black bodies.



for Shoeless Joe,
the greatest one-and-a-half legged crow
I ever met.

October 6, 2009

The Post Office Poems - Bulletin Board

The idea for the Post Office Poems began with a simple posting of a poem on the bulletin board at the Fall City Post Office on October 6, 2009 by an anonymous poet. Everyone in town has a post office box, there is no delivery within the city as it is pretty much out in the boonies, "rural". When you pick up your mail after hours you enter the back door which is always unlocked. To the left on the wall is a large bulletin board with a typical assortment of small notices for rentals, items for sale, upcoming events and business cards. Once you read these, the next time you come in the reading selection becomes pretty boring. There is nothing else on the walls, though I've noticed lately as you come in the door the wind has blown a large handful of brilliant orange, red, yellow and brown leaves across the floor.

Thus an idea was born to enliven the lobby experience for townsfolk. Once a week a poem is posted on the board. The first was called "Four Feathers from Fall City", it was posted on a Tuesday night about 9:30 pm with three white tacks, on a sheet of white typing paper. When I had just pushed in the last tack I heard a car pull up. I looked out the door and there was a cop car just outside. Was I breaking some unknown Postal Service rule or federal bulletin board law? As I walked out the door, an officer in full uniform walked in and said, "Hello there, how are you?"

I said, "Hello, fine thank you." and nervously left. I wanted the poems to be anonymous. When people of Fall City read them, I want the poem and it's images to be exerienced and enjoyed. This project is interactive. A piece of plain white paper, a poem, the quiet lobby, and then whatever happens next in the reading, the feelings of the reader, etc. will be a discovery. Something new. A gift.

The second poem was posted this Tuesday, October 13, 2009 in the evening. No one was in the parking lot or the lobby. No police came. The first poem had been neatly folded to make a long column of a half sheet of paper (bulletin board rules) and the white tacks replaced by flat gold tacks. The poems is titled "Seven Pigeons and the White Angel".

You can read both poems here at ThePostOfficePoems.blogspot.com. There will be photographs taken locally in Fall City and along the Snoqualmie River. If you have any comments, please feell free to leave them here on the blog. Remember, this is an interactive endeavor. If you have a chance, stop by the Fall City Post Office and experience the current poem. Then let me know your thoughts. Enjoy. Have a great week.

Anonymous

Welcome!