oneword #9 incense

incense

In one section of Mysore, India, sandalwood intoxicates.
Orange brown carved statues are sold in shops
and on blanket covered sidewalks
laden with incense and trinkets—
by street vendors with betel worn teeth
treasures and relics of Indians’ lives.

The shops hold a dazzling display of carvings
along with soap, oil, perfume, and lotions
incensed to lure travelers deep into the store.
A man puts his hands together in greeting,
bows, and says, “Change money?”
He ushers us into a hanging maze of carpets
and offers a rate far surpassing
the current exchange
from dollar to rupee
obtainable in government banks.

My heart beats wild
in this room behind rug walls
sandalwood seeping into my pores.
Money changes hands
and I leave the shop
after purchasing
a serene sandalwood Buddha.

Filthy feet carry the child
of a street vendor to my side.
A monkey wearing a dress
dirtier than hers
hangs on her shoulder.

She wants to see my purchase,
and share with me the wares
spread out on her piece of ground
Nodding a figure eight,
she inspects the sandalwood Buddha
then laughs when she hands it back to me
and I close my eyes to inhale deeply
with Buddha pressed against my nose.

Her monkey screeches
as I pull bananas from my bag.
He jumps from her shoulder to the ground
and eyes me suspiciously as he peels.

oneword #8 towel

Towel

With smiles in his eyes,
he handed me
the smallest towel in the bunch
for our day at Wake ‘em Up Bay.

Grandpa and I practiced our snapping the night before….

Kneeling on the end of the dock,
I dipped one corner
into the waters of Vermillion
then pretended to dab at my face
like Grandma did whenever the day was hot.

Kent and Kevin ran by me jeering
Girl are made of greasy grimy gopher guts!
Their momentum carried them out over the bay
creating simultaneous water walls
that spread into droplets as they fell.

Then I dove into Wake ‘em Up,
a fish peering down
at the bottom blowing by.
I surfaced looking up at the sky—
no clouds today.

Grandpa polished a spot on the wagon
with the corner of his towel,
catching my eye.
With a wink he waved me in.

My towel soaked up
every drop of water on my body
then I twirled it on top of my head.

The boys soon tired of swimming
and joined us on the shore
they repeated themselves
with a disgusted glance at my headdress
What are you, the Queen of Sheba?

The boys dried themselves off,
and Grandpa started snapping.
The boys came at me,
like Grandpa said they would.
My right hand grabbed
the dry corner of the towel
from my head.

A whip in my hand
it twisted flinging out
until the end
almost straightened in the air,
then I snapped it back
and cracked it in Kevin’s armpit.
Contact.
Yeowch!

Grandpa engaged Kevin
and my weapon searched for Kent.
Contact again.

They both came at me,
when Grandpa pulled himself up tall
between us and began—
The Queen of Sheba claimed
the heart of King Solomon,
the wisest man in all lands!
His thick hands
drew hills and plains
in the air.

The Queen remains nameless in history,
she is referenced in literature
only through Sheba,
the land that she ruled.

Grandpa turned to me,
Queen Lila!
He picked up his towel
and twirled it between us
in the air as he bowed.
permit me to be a servant unto you.

I picked up the stick
we planted for this moment
and put it on one of Grandpa’s shoulders.

I knight you . . . Sir Solomon,
the wisest of my knights.

I raised the stick high,
and brought it to rest
on Grandpa’s other shoulder.

He rose, turned toward the boys,
and lifted a fist in the air.
Leave her be, or answer to me,
Sir Solomon, humble servant and
protector of Lila,
the Queen of Wake ‘em Up Bay.

Drums into Dawn

I thought that I had made it through a September blue moon without mishap, or mayhem, when at 3 a. m. I woke to pounding at my apartment door. The peephole exposed my neighbor Jimmi, wild-eyed and jumpy. I turned the knob, and she pushed through the open door coughing, exuding the essence of smoke. “You’ve gotta,” Jimmi coughed, “my room…” I pushed through the door past her and saw the problem. She had tried to stuff her burning mattress out the window onto the tarred roof of the Bon Ton building next door. It was stuck. Half in, half out. Her room was filling with smoke. We shut the door and went back to my place.

The windows in my apartment looked out at a four-foot wide canyon between our building, the Lovelace, and the Bon Ton. Jimmi and I closed down the Haufbrau more than once together and walked home to retire to that roof and talk under Montana stars. To make it accessible from my place, we angled a seven-foot plank, about 12 inches wide, from my window to the roof. The first time and every time she used it, Jimmi walked across quickly, with a dance in her step, while I always crossed on my knees, hands gripping both sides of the plank, eyes on the blackness below. Jimmi waited until I was safely across to berate my fear of walking upright. “What are you, a cat?” she’d laugh, and we’d settle into talk, KGLT pouring out of Jimmi’s windows into the night.

Jimmi wanted to cross from my place and try pulling the mattress out. She was tanked. I insisted on walking the plank. Jimmi pushed, and I pulled until the mattress let loose onto the roof. We drug it away from her window. Jimmi’s apartment was a single room, mine had a kitchen with a sink. We carried pitcher after pitcher after pitcher of water from my sink through her room, to the roof drenching the mattress before the smelly smoldering ceased. Then we set up fans to blow the smell from Jimmi’s room. We drug the mattress to the ledge on the building's backside and balanced it there. We looked up and down the alley. Nothing. We got the mattress in position to drop it, looked long at each other thinking our own private thoughts, then let it loose. The mattress landed with a splashing thump in the alley below. It was when we were sitting in our lawn chairs later, that Danny Choriki was on KGLT, laughing about some story he’d heard about the mayhem of blue moons and I remembered. Here it was, my very own mayhem, a blue moon story waiting to be told. Jimmi and I laughed and rolled Drums into dawn.

oneword #7 oven

Oven

Pizza in the oven
the remote is on the fritz
surfing through the channels
shouldn’t be as hard as this.

oneword #6 frog

Frog

The frog,
that hedonistic
eater of flies
sits in wait
for its prey.

One after another,
its meals fly by,
catching the tongue train
into the gaping
cave of death.

oneword #5 shield

Shield

Shield me.
Take me under.
Keep everything at bay.
Pour me another tall one.
Eradicate my day.

oneword #4 identity

identity

identity
is wrapped
in things

who we are
becomes
what we have
masking truth
with possession

oneword # 3 amber

amber

This poem is
a mosquito stuck in amber
a word denied
a phrase returned
an object of
translucent
desire.

oneword #2 click

*Click*

Something clicked
when he told me
that I reminded him of his mother—
the way her hips would sparkle
in the glistening wet
as water from the pool
slid down her side.

His eyes disappeared
beneath quivering lids
as he outlined her curves
in the air
with his hands.

*Click*

    ~~~

Your Aunt Jo's camera
captured
the very moment
I knew
that your father
was most definitely
not
the boy for me.

The Unfinished Marker

Deep on Chameleon Street
beneath a canopy of trees
children free dandelion seeds
in a fierce stampede of feet.
The little parachutes mirror dust
that bedecks the air.

Steel songs ring from
a chisel’s slippery slope and
collide with the liquid trill
of two wood thrush volleying
a back and forth dance
of voice blending into din.

White flecks fling as a steel point
uncovers an angel hidden in stone.
Up, from alabaster flesh it rises.
One eye surveys the tapestry it joins
to commemorate the soldiers
who pain our nation's soul.

Its wings linger inside calcite
waiting to be chiseled into being.

oneword #1 arrow

oneword.com offers an opportunity for immediate web publication of short written work.  Each day the website provides a word.  The instruction is to write for one minute, put a name to your post, and submit.  After submission, your post, and all others appear. 

Last night Len and I watched Woody Allen's Match Point with the classicly beautiful Scarlett Johansson.  In the movie, Allen creatively re-invents Dostoeyevski's Crime and Punishment.  The viewing of the film, and perhaps the macabre nature of Halloween may have inspired my response to today's word:  Arrow. 

Arrow

I shot an arrow in her heart
to make her love me.

Red spread through the broad
blue and white stripes
of her t shirt
and I thought of the Flag.

She will never love me now.
God Bless America

Bled out in an empty lot--
she's dead.

a dark flower falling

Her feet, wet from wading,
leave a trail of black blossoms
as she runs.
Curls cascade from her shoulders
and catch the sun,
mimicking the fecund petals
that furl at her feet.

Skipping in curlicues,
she creates a genius floral motif of paths,
curious crop circles
flirted out from her feet.
At the center point of design
she seems to stop in time.
With sighs in her eyes,
she stares up at the sky.

Passersby pick up petals
that wither in their hands.
A whispering child
tugs on his mother’s coat,
There’s the lady whose husband
got dropped in the lake!
Mommy, Look!
The woman yanks him forward
to hasten their escape. 
The boy rubs dead flower flesh
from his fingers, and turns to look back.
The lady lingers.

             ***

The moment her husband surfaced,
dark flowers began flowing forth from her feet.

Dark flowers fall
when she walks
on the land
that binds his sky
to this earth.

Dark flowers fall
when she runs
out into the lake
that swallowed him whole.

Dark flowers fall
each time she dances
to erase the look on his face,
the instant
his glider collapsed—
-right before his spiraling descent
through the shell
of the bay.

Watching from above,
she saw
his crumpled
fetal form
dissipate
spinning
as it sunk
a dark flower
falling
beneath the glider’s
colorful carnage.

Prejudice

I created this video in response to an assignment in Mr. Davey's 8th grade English class. 

angel grace

like a psychedelic memory
a raw electric experiment
a junk dream
her life approaches grace
as if it were the vivid silhouette
of a dazzling half-drunk angel
she can’t quite catch
an absurd shimmering miasma
lost in inner space

Silenced Whispers

I.

Riding westward rails,
government sharpshooters
slaughter fields of collapsing bison,
an undulating agony
that quietly sinks
into putrid piles
abuzz with flies.

They are opening a path to the future!
Building a brave new world.

Westward Ho!
Westward Ho!

Little regard falls to the lives this land-lust fouled.

Indigenous people
dance a sustaining give-and-take
with the earth.

Balance.

US policy fractionates land, and disregards people.
This is what my history books never told me.

II.

Today.
A stand of bouldered cliffs
whispers near the Dearborn River
when the air is cold enough
to lift its voice up
from the depths of its creviced nests.

It murmurs of murders
and beasts riding beasts
iron across rock
shooting and falling
sighing a message of massacres
when the freeze frees the stories it speaks.

The Dearborn’s solid surface
reflects clouds rolling past.
Crows call out from fence posts,
as the cliffs mark history’s march
toward tomorrows through this day.

A shot rings out,
and a rock chuck falls
from the face of the cliffs
silencing the whispers.

Modern sharpshooters hoot and howl
as they run toward the rock chuck’s carcass.
One of them lifts it high above his wool-capped head
spitting tobacco and cursing commendations
in his common tongue.

begetting now

I.

George Washington Carver said
“Anything will give up its secrets
if you love it enough.”

Receptive awareness
measures experience.

Mindtalk screams.

Judgements here--
Judgements there-
Passing judgements everywhere!

II.

Tighten, clench.
Listen to your voices tie you in knots.

Loosen, relax.
Attend to the physical aspect of breath.

All-helpful quiet fills.

Receptive awareness
measures experience.

now begets now begets now begets now

May all beings be happy. May all beings be blessed.

“Anything will give up its secrets
if you love it enough.”

Villanelle against Divisiveness

Divisive agendas inhibit discussion.
Psssst! Spread the idea: public schools are “government” schools.
Uncover the world, teach children to cut a critical path through public discourse.

Free-thinkers belittle evangelists sermonize.
Right-winged agenda undermines the radical Left.
Divisive agendas inhibit discussion.

Obama encourages the setting of educational goals.
Schools provide places for students to “opt out” of presidential addresses.
Uncover the world, teach children to cut a critical path through public discourse.

Threats of governmental abdication of parental control over children
mask fears that children, when allowed to think critically, draw conclusions of their own.
Divisive agendas inhibit discussion.

Children become policy makers, teachers, lawyers, and priests.
Plotting a course in any arena requires an in-depth analysis of the big picture.
Uncover the world, teach children to cut a critical path through public discourse.

Agree or disagree, but let the children listen to their nation’s president
Teach them to consider the message he sends with discernment.
Divisive agendas inhibit discussion.
Uncover the world, teach children to cut a critical path through public discourse.

Sunday Morning

I am sinking into my soft spotted chair on Sunday.
I wonder if Harpo the canary hears
the birdsong bursting from the fir out front.
I hear shrill whistles banter back and forth.
Harpo’s head tilts this way and that. He sings.
I see Hopper and Piggy lying side-by-side,
tail to snout siestas.
I want warm banana bread with butter,
and strong coffee rich with cream.
I am Scandinavian.

I pretend to be a Finnish princess.
I feel beautiful and strong.
I touch the ribbon
that ties off my long thick braid and
I worry that my father, the king,
will not permit his daughter to chop wood.
I cry under the weight of his words.
I am as capable as any boy is,
and I have more strength than many.

I understand that stories are born
in moments and events remembered, yet
I will always say
some stories write themselves.
At night I dream of
thousands of soldiers
controlling us all.
I try to wrap my mind
around a world beyond my living room,
safe here in the United States.
I hope life always brings banana bread,
and strong coffee rich with cream.
I am one of many humans living stories on the Earth,
in my spotted chair on Sunday, the canary on its perch.


~~~~~~~
*Authors Note* The "I am" poem I posted prior to this, was written following specific parameters. For this piece, the first two words of each line had to be those first two words, but there were no other specifications. After I wrote it I moved the line breaks to suit myself...so some of the first two words are "embedded."

I am poem

I am Brenda
I wonder what tomorrow holds
I hear students’ futures ringing through the halls
I see them living full and rich
I want their lives to shine so fine
I am dedicated and hopeful

I pretend to brush off rudeness, but
I feel squashed---a bug underfoot
I touch my childhood self, and remember
I worry that I’ll never measure up
I cry when students cry
I am compassionate and vulnerable

I understand the importance of action
I say “Practice kindness.”
I dream a world of words.
I try my darndest to get students to care about books.
I hope for Moodle Magic and more days like today.
I am Warren.

(This was written as an example for students.)

Port of Call

From the Lockport Caves
in western New York
through Cleveland and Lodi
on down to Pandora,
Grandma Jill’s Land Yacht sails
through deciduous glens.
Leafy vines swaddle
the driftwood flesh
of skeletal trees-
sentries amidst willows that weep,
and ancient alders.
A Dixie Chicks CD follows
80s soul, and DJ diva—Delilah
as we float on an ocean of sound
down US Interstate 71 South.

Dusk falls.
The Land Yacht sails smooth
onto Route 30 west,
The Lincoln Highway.
We turn down the AC,
and scan radio stations
searching for something
to sink into.
W-Y-N-T radio
out of Upper Sandusky, Ohio.
The WhY NoT oldies hit parade
plays songs we remember
from 30 years hence
testifying to the trek of time

Come on baby
(Don’t fear the reaper)
Baby take my hand
(Don’t fear the reaper)
We’ll be able to fly
(Don’t fear the reaper)
Baby I’m your man

We belt out the La, la, la, la la—
of Blue Oyster Cult’s classic hit
and dissolve into laughter,
because we are the oldies.

Narrowing the gap
between reaper and self,
we soar down a smooth black stream
from Lockport to Pandora
where Grandma Jill’s driveway
shines like a beacon unto us all.

The Land Yacht’s port of call.