Corner of the Sky

Three Pet Poems from Grad School (1987)

Poem 1
Nikki’s Rhyme

Nikki was a stripper.
Nikki hated men.
Nikki wrote her poetry
with calculator and pen.

Nikki ate no red meat.
Nikki was so white.
Nikki hid her money
by investing in the night.

Nikki always chain-smoked.
Nikki wore no rings.
Nikki kept a picture
of her father with her things.

Nikki wore dark glasses.
Nikki slept past noon.
Nikki counted bruises
& heated candy in a spoon.

Nikki rode the subway.
Nikki walked alone.
Nikki made each dancer’s step
as smooth as weathered stone.

Poem 2
Let’s Pretend

Put away your accounting ledger,
my brave knight and I
will be the helpless Indian princess.

We will live in the forest of talking serpents
and listen to them tell lies
about each other.

You will take my feathered secret from me, leaving
your notched sword in its place; half-naked
we will smear war paint
across each other’s mouths.

I will show you how to grow maize
and how to dance with your heart
in a box of hot coals
to make it rain.

You will build a castle in the clearing,
with each stone
so hard-pressed against the other
that even your sword can’t slide between.

My people are hiding in the woods
all around us;
yours are overseas.
There is no such thing
as a telephone.

When the sun sets, I will be rescued and you
will be left here
stomping across a barren courtyard,
dressed in a woman’s finery,
believing you can make it rain.

Poem 3
Rural Benedictions

May the whimpers of your dogs thicken with patience,
becoming the bread on your table.

May the sun fall through your broken window,
pulling blossoms through the hardwood floor.

May your marriage bed be dark and deeply furrowed,
beneath the honey colored moon of isolation.

May the shade tree grow a multitude of calloused hands
to help you with your harvest.

May grasshoppers sleep, forgetting their hunger
in dreams of wire fences.

May water rise in the empty glass
you hold between cracks in the earth.

_________________________________________________________
These appeared in my SMU graduate thesis, “A Table without Chairs”

Cave Slayer

Three Vampiric Poems for Late September

Poem 1
The Kiss*

help me drive the iron stakes
into the unyielding earth,
help me roll coils of spiked wire
across their arrowed heads
help me keep the woods at bay

in the shadows of trees
they move like natural things
graceful and fleeting
their eyes lanterns swaying
in a windless night

we move inside the house
feeling the locks on doors and windows
weaving garlands of prayers
building great smoky fires
to obliterate the stars

through a broken mirror
one enters among us
I find my own vein
I lean into your shadow
for the kiss

Poem 2
Bethany**

one spring in Silver Plume
                                        I was a woman

in a gingham dress a brown horse
                                        -hair wig teasing

lonely miners with grime under
                                        scrubbed manners

behind the wash stalls an agreement
                                        on price pay first

it was all good until the preacher
                                        ‘s girl found the bodies

Poem 3
Never Enough Rope^

they always get me at night
which suits me just fine
noose me put me on my horse
whack him in the ass and yippy ky-O ky-A!
the mob cheers the bastard swings
and everybody goes home feeling
righteous and safe and cleansed
these parties end too soon
as I always have to cut my own self down

________________________________________________
*Dreams & Nightmares, December 1994, No.43
**Dreams & Nightmares, August 2004, No.67
^Dreams & Nightmares, April 2007, No.76

From “You Just Can’t Negotiate with the Living Dead” (2007)

Peek-a-Boo

Three Poems About the Boy

Poem 1

My Pumpkin Seed*

not every tale begins
once upon a time        occasionally
we hear
of a woman who swallowed a pearl
boxed her books
swaddled her child        and then
claimed her right and left

to roam far and farther
to pitch her tent in the desert
to raise her boy among lanky wolves
among dusty people
this woman plowed and planted
coaxed a cloud to squat
and water her life

so that her boy sprouted green and lovely
taller each season
sky-eyed and straw-haired
lithe as a vine
growing out of her heart
great wilting white flowers
symbols of what-you-will
my son        my pumpkin seed

Poem 2

Lines for My Son**

my tender sprout, my coy inquisitor
legs stretching long into dinosaur bones
mouth full of imaginary shark teeth
scarecrow arms strong as braided wire
torso a thick python writhing into boy-clothes

how I see wet blue worlds in your eyes
how I hear the vibration of fine crystal in your voice
how I feel the future beat in your heart
how intuition understands your uncoiling, your expanding
how green life rises in you, the sun silhouetting mountains

Poem 3

your young son rises from bed
sunlight filters through ferns
even sighs are cool and green

_________________________________________________
*This poem originally appeared in Anthology, July/August 2000,Vol.VII,No.4
**This poem originally appeared in Poetry @ the River Annual Review, Vol I, Summer 2008

mirror / melt

mirror / melt

Three Poems from the Woods

Poem 1

the heart’s lake

fills
with web-footed birds slinging water
silver flash of minnows muddy gleaming tadpoles
tremulous prickly kiss of mosquitoes
static dance of dragonflies quick slender snakes
water lilies flat and begging
lank blond grasses languorous sweeping branches
occasional footprints sliding down the slope
into the water a cloud of silt
the diminishing echo of a wave
rippling into the memory of thunder on the otherside
the old rumor of harsh weather moving in
with sure disregard for certain truths
found in almanacs and omens

Poem 2

Poacher

where that hart roamed
the brambles grew thick the fog
fingered the slim ankles of saplings

where that hart roamed
the poacher cleared a path as quietly as winter
stealing in between the betrothed’s sheets

where that hart roamed
the eye followed the mind calculated the hand
moved like a small bird circling outside of time

where that hart roamed
the lake mirrors the clouds mirror the fog
moving silently over our lives

Poem 3

Hike at Isle au Haut*
Acadia National Park, Maine

Having negotiated
the slick mossed stones,
the aged, emerging roots like worn steps rising
through the dappled dreaming of this forest,

you burst through the dark
onto an open air plateau.
From here, the sun ignites the world:

Far valleys explode
with color, clouds bulge with light,
crags channel waterfalls of cool
shadows into pools of deeper darkness.
The trail behind becomes

a string, a spider’s thread
strung through a verdant maze.
Ahead, there is no familiar way.
Trees lean, twisted by the whims
of the wind, boulders rest cracked and glowing
from the long days.

You discern a path camouflaged by wildflowers
and weeds. The golden bees
swarm in your blood.
this is what you came for.

___________________________________________

*This poem previously appeared in Avocet, Vol. VI, No.2, Winter 2003.

Humpty Beatified