for Ken
The burn pile is full of branches
You wrested from a neglected arbor.
They will light the November sky
When we find the perfect chilly night. Continue reading “Nuisance”
Tag: poem
On the Line
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”
Poem for Lewis Black
NOTE: I am going to a Lewis Black concert in Tulsa tonight and will attempt to give him this poem. Wish me luck.
Oklahoma Welcomes Lewis Black
We’re angry, too.
We have teachers judged by the highest standards
Making the lowest pay in the nation.
We embody Labor Omnia Vincit
Because we are cowboys and girls, waitresses,
Truck drivers, teachers and artists, dreamers
And pharmacists, customer service minimum-wage
Fast wood workers and tractor repairmen, beauty
Shop Labor Conquers All Things operators. Continue reading “Poem for Lewis Black”
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”
Altar of Alliteration
Come out to the museum this Saturday from 6-9 p.m. and experience the . . . Altar of Alliteration! Did you say that in your head with thunderclaps in the background? You should. Treasure Time is Sep. 14: We are going to have a poem treasure hunt, refreshments, museum tours, and creating of much poetic energy and stuff. Please come if you like poetry. Please come if you don’t (I will alter that with my altar).
The commonly-confused word lesson you just got is free of charge.
Pick a jar from the altar. Each jar includes 5 items that begin with the same letter. Compose a poem or something with all 5 words in it. Display it for others to experience. You have alliterated, my friend. Continue reading “Altar of Alliteration”
Skateboard Blues
He cracked his skateboard in half doing a slide yesterday.
Though it didn’t work, “It was cool” and it made him grin.
Today he stalks the street, angling the lawnmower
Ahead of him, searching for quick cash to buy
Another deck, a more expensive one, righteous
With amped weight capacity, one that won’t snap
In two on a slide. I have maybe sixty-seven cents
In my purse, though yesterday I charged two pairs
Of boots at Penney’s. He stops a block away Continue reading “Skateboard Blues”
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 