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?  

Red

Red

White snow world
black tree branches
glimpse of tan deer
leftover berries startle
winter worn existence 

How I Got Here

How I Got Here

I seem a sharp spiked bit of plant
a seed stuck on a flannel shirt ride for thirty years
exotic invader without direction
ever on the move farther and farther from my roots
unable to loosen my fierce attachment
put down new roots and bloom on my own
at last I look from this flowerpot at a foreign scene
can only hope my chosen vehicle 
remembers to water me