RULES
fear history
fear boats
fear tribes
fear isolated roads
fear freckles
fear sun
fear floppy hats
fear the battle won
fear infrastructure
fear trucks
fear robots
fear the machine that mucks
everything up. Fear stars
Fear light
Fear dark
Fear bumps in the night
Fear assurance
Fear calm
Fear fearlessness
Fear too much balm
Warranty
There are gremlins in the dishwasher
(or elves, possibly grumpkins)—
regardless
They are aggrieved
apparently they prefer Cascade Platinum
disdain Finish Orange so
they withheld heat
mucked up the circuitry
punched holes in the filter
The Sears guy says, “No, ma’am.
those Samsungs—read the reviews.”
“Or maybe gnomes,” I insist.
“Do you want the extended home plan or not,
ma’am? It would cover everything in your house
and drop your cost today to 80 bucks.”
“Does it cover Pixies? Fairies? Sprites?
Hobs and Gobs?
“Ma’am, I gotta truck fulla parts.
I don’t know nothin about no supernatural creatures.”
“Oh, sir! Thank you, yes. It could be a minor goddess,
a wicked water nymph.”
The repairman with his belt of tools and wifi-enabled tablet
looked into my soul, then glanced left, then right
and whispered, “My money’s on Aphrodite.”
Pass/Failed
Who decides
the grade drawn from life’s debris?
What highlights
(purely luck) get an A?
Are points
deducted when the creeks overflow?
Pictures don’t
do the scenery justice–earning a C
because the light wasn’t right.
We come
in second, a solid silver B.
In the
unusual seasons, when we gallop past the D-
straight on to failure in our big-girl boots.
Those are
the seconds of destiny we carry as ghost-friends
shadows from which we are never unsewn.
Basic Soup
Start at sunrise
in the CrockPot
soak up the patience of a day
let the butter
and garlic get
to know each other
get acquainted
with the holy mirepoix
add beans
Simon & Garfunkel spices
plus others. At sunset
turn the dial to Warm
Serve in darkness.
A Map for Samwell Tarley
The hills and rivers remain. That is all the map you need.
The scraps of lands where others have traveled ~ you will journey
Past all that. Bring your pen.
Roots will trip you
Ravens will fail you
You will mislay your bundle looking for light
Forward you face each long mile
When you can’t walk, crawl
When crawling fails, sit, not quite quiet
Fill in more of the map
Rainlessness
Drought is talented
chooses some streets, cedes others
The sky committee dithers over details
which house gets a proper rainbow
which zone deems dew
a deluge
Count each fleck of moisture
drop huddled to drop seated beside velvet drop
August
The beautyberry bush blooms just as school
starts. The green berry cluster comes out
about the time the yellow school bus pulls up.
Summer’s green purples, like the bruise
on my middle-left toe, taped to its buddy.
Suddenly purple takes over my yard,
the neighbors’s yard, the doctor’s office,
the post office. Every where we are hurt
can’t hold back, can’t wait for fall.
Behold, our pain!
Berries unripened, astringent beauty
unharvested.
Revenge
is juvenile
sic ’em with a poem
get the last word
in rhyme, attempt ragtime
say it slant
leave love
Reinata Caridorada
hot sunset steals the gay light
among once-wildflowers dead from drought
where oak and cedar meet — small birds
glean. We grab
phones, snap males sporting black eyeliner
females flashing off-the-shoulder wingbars.
A dozen endangered yellow faces
black throats white bellies
Warblers of charity
Crepe Myrtles
The technology of these perennials astounds me,
accustomed to trees that never turn and grass that turns
too soon. My blooms lag behind
these sentinels of sidewalk.
If I could resist my mountain nature
I’d stand tall in the summer sun
croon hot pink.
