Thoughts After a Mary Oliver Reading

Thoughts After a Mary Oliver Poetry Reading

"Appreciate the violets before they disappear,

The heron swooping over the pond is the poem 

I wish I had written"...her voice fades away.

The US in financial ruin, one trillion dollar debt

every year for the next ten years, no hope.

Climate, education, health care, police and fire

protection, jobs, homes, industry all crumble.

Politics as usual, a dirty little game played to

stay in office, line pockets, laugh all the way

to the bank, while the middle class disappears

two classes now, many poor, wealth concentrated 

Wars the world over, brothers killing brothers

Japan devastated in the latest natural disaster 

while Haiti and New Orleans still strive to recover

Donal Trump is campaigning for President

courting the Tea Party vote, a ticket I envision:

Trump/Palin in 2012, "and the beat goes on."

"Some days it's not worth even chewing through the restraints."

Viruses

 Viruses

They're family you see
one week housed
visit as they please
immunes doused

they could stay forever
no possible eviction
as hard as we endeavor
to rid the affliction

our armies reconnaissance 
goes after their own troops
autoimmune intelligence
kicks us with their boots

I am rising from 
my week of misery
coughing done
I'm ready to make history

I do a 5K in the morning
hope I walk across the line 
I will give the golf carts warning
I might need to take a ride

Seven

Seven

Rain rises

off cherry stained pavement

I skid along in torrential

downpour

Sam are you

my Guardian Angel

circular you appear

from your blog that

rounds back to my

Guardian Angel poem

et vous timide?

Your poetic responses

play pinball psyche

with my soul

Against My Window

Against My Window

No rain appears across fields

that roll gold to the wind break

hazy sky over blue mountains 

sheers billow in on breeze

moisture coming I hear his truck

grind up the road kicking dirt

while I watch by the window

he's been gone three days

his customary practice for which

he allows no conversation

I suppose I should be happy

that he returns home to me

takes me to bed and pounds 

out his fury upon me

No rain appears across fields

burned to brown to the wind break

clouds over blue mountains

sheers lash in gusts

lightening strikes I hear his truck

grind up the road kicking clouds

while I wait by the window

he's been gone three days

his customary practice for which

he allows no conversation

today he gets his chance to talk

rain is here sheeting in rivulets

running quick to gully washers

flushing everything away 

From the Tropics

From the Tropics

Don't let summer come too soon
this spring day will float away
brief butterfly two months gone
iridescent wings flutter my cheek
grown damp in summer advance

It's April

It's April

I want to write a poem

a poem a day for April

National Poetry Month

but, I'm down and out

a bad cold, exhausted

uninspired

I want to write a great poem

the best poem for today

but I am tired and worn

my whole body hurts

drugs waft through my brain

coagulating my intension

I want to write a poem today

I know it's stuck in gray matter

disrupted all night by coughing

not sleeping well, just tired

so damned tired, third cold

this year, what gives

I want to write a great poem

I am limited by my slow brain

so I am trundling through 

getting words down to try to

explain why I am stymied 

I can't write a poem today

If The World Never Knew Me

If The World Never Knew Me

Is the timbre of my voice such
that it rhythms perfectly 
cascading outward forever
a part to balance the universe?

Some say there is a lesson in everything.
Was I an instrument of edification for those 
whose paths have crossed mine?
Did I bring pain because I was pain's purpose?

Was I a vehicle of growth or destruction?
If destruction, was our karma intertwined?
Would the world be unfolding better or worse
or no different if I had not been born?

Were there people I touched who were happy
because they knew me, angry or disappointed?  
I have known both and not known how or if
I may have affected some. 

Would the world have missed my daughter
could it have gone on without us, could it
have been better or worse?  Are we born
for a reason or is there no plan, no design?

Were there lovers I knew who still remember
that night we lay together in sweet new bliss?
Do they wonder where I am, if I am or whether
I was a figment of their imagination?

Has the world heard my sweetness and my
anger and were they both part of the whole?
Is the world a big jigsaw puzzle and I don't fit
and are there others who wonder the way I do?