Three Poems for Mid-July

Poem 1

Encouragement for Writing a Poem

Oh, just sit down and do it. Make it
anything as long as you don’t use kisses
as a metaphor. Or chains, or black shirts, or
candy-bead necklaces, or tattoos, or telephone conversations.
Please. What do you need?
Clean paper, a new pen.
A cocktail napkin, a lip-liner pencil (nude-blush).
A boot, a blank screen. Viola!
The words should come like a swarm of bees
out of your honey-dripping head. They should fly
like darts flung from your fingertips
into your target audience. They should tumble
like alliterative dice out of the polished cup
of your mouth. See, it’s easy, even
I can do it. What’s the matter with you?
How hard can it be? It’s not
like you’re actually writing
a novel,
or something.

Poem 2

fossil

you are ever too busy
to go inside a fossil
the traffic the children the job
the news the mate the rules
everything conspires against it
even still you cannot but run
your fingers over its flinty ridges
admitting your desire for osmosis
for the smooth patience such stoneliness emits
if only you could be still could be breathless
could be an observer to the world
frenzied and unthinking all around you
if only you could cool yourself
under a museum’s indifferent light could slumber under
dust gathering like years on high
untrekked limestone cliffs

Poem 3

American Haiku

I can have a title if I want
and syllables clinking like too much money
nature is just what is outside the window