Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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
Tuesday, October 20, 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
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
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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
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
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
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