I still show up to find out
what happened to me
and the rest of us, to know how a plot
continues without the characters,
how my turn of phrase
feels in someone else’s mouth,
in a different land, in a
country beyond our imagining. Continue reading “On the Line”
Tag: nature
The List, The Poem, The List
I am not a poet.
I don’t understand poetry.
I can’t write a poem.
I am not poetic.
The mantra of negatives,
Half spoken truthfully,
Half intended to hide
The fact that Continue reading “The List, The Poem, The List”
The Second Isolde
I hired the best musicians to beautify the background
through dinner meals or as we sat at the fire,
and I played the violin, taught by a traveling magician.
I learned the songs of my people and of his also.
I had a voice the animals in the field would stop to hear.
I bathed in herbs the magician gave me and smoothed
my arms and legs with perfumed oils that came Continue reading “The Second Isolde”
Biking Toward Poetry
I used to ride my bicycle all over the place when I was a kid. We grew up on bicycles. When we lived down on Snake Creek, we routinely rode any bike that we could get working down to the Dip (creek named for the yellow warning sign in front of it). I’ll never forget the Christmas the four of us kids were led outside by our parents to see a row of shiny new bikes waiting for us: bright green things with tassels on the handgrips, bone-white banana seats, and plastic wicker-like baskets with blue and pink flowers on them. Continue reading “Biking Toward Poetry”
From Those Unknown to Us
I just read the great poet Pablo Neruda’s description of a lifelong inspiration in his poetry. He was playing in the lot behind his house when he found a hole in the fence:
“I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps, because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen. All of a sudden a hand appeared—a tiny hand of a boy about my own age. By the time I came close again, the hand was gone, and in its place there was a marvelous white toy sheep.
“The sheep’s wool was faded. Its wheels had escaped. All of this only made it more authentic. I had never seen such a wonderful sheep. I looked back through the hole but the boy had disappeared. I went in the house and brought out a treasure of my own: a pine cone, opened, full of odor and resin, which I adored. I set it down in the same spot and went off with the sheep.
“I never saw either the hand or the boy again.” Continue reading “From Those Unknown to Us”
Igraine’s Letter
It is not a chaste kiss
One wants from another
Who is the focus of drowning
Desire
It is not that
Merlin: a life of magic with no love
–only obsession at the end
yet
His empathy for Uther
His empathy toward passion
Propelled enchantment. Continue reading “Igraine’s Letter”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 