The afternoon was long, and I was tired
from baby care and talk and little sleep.
“I’ll drive you home,” she thanked as she inquired
how best to help me get to well-earned rest.
But I refused the ride, for I desired
the privacy of public trains and buses.
I get to people-watch. I get inspired.
And though it costs me time, I plan to keep
my urban transit ways. I’ll rest rewired.
(Magic 9)
It’s just as well I have to leave my room,
for trucks are working on the street today.
I wouldn’t mind construction or the zoom
of chain-saw pruning, but the endless bray
of backups, when we haven’t any ruts,
incessant safety signals, have a way
of drilling on my brain to drive me nuts.
It seems too soon for Daylight time again,
but Sunday clocks reset, the backyard strewn
with Prunus petals as I pushed this pen.
It seems too soon.
Too little rain, and garden dirt a dune –
New fires taking trees and oxygen –
The light not long enough to feel like June –
Three days ahead the stars declare is when
spring season will begin. No one’s immune
from equinox, but I can’t say Amen.
It seems too soon.
(Roundel)
A candle on the mantel wafted scent
but sat too high for me to see the flame.
Aroma permeated air and lent
an herbal atmosphere I couldn’t name.
I love some folks who light and burn the same
so much their ceiling’s sooty from the wicks.
I went for vision and avoided stain;
I set the candle on my hearth’s red bricks.
(Huitain)
They’re not what I call nightmares, but they’re dreams
I’d rather not remember when I wake.
I’m not a bit prophetic but the themes
of death or sinking health repel my peace.
An infant drowned, a brother lost, extremes
of fleeting tragedy, including death
that happened 16 years ago. It seems
enough innocuous that I don’t quake,
but rising I’m replaying whispered screams.
(Magic 9)
Our lives are too complex to be reduced
to elegant synopses. Fairy tales
are straight; by myths we all can be seduced.
But black-and-white applied to being fails.
Reality is complicated – loosed
at us in living color. Truth entails
we grant it all its spectra and its twists.
Don’t libel it with slogans or blacklists.
(Ottava Rima)
Persimmon leaves bead
the tips of naked branches
and signify spring.
Those absent minds encountered on the street
are resident in bodies of all kinds,
and they are not aware. I cannot greet
those absent minds.
As if equipped with plugs in ears and blinds
for eyes, all sense devoted to complete
attention on their phones – the tool that grinds
them into zombie walkers, sends their feet
at waver on the pavement. So I find
myself alone among, on home concrete,
those absent minds.
(Roundel)
I think we sense our brains before our hands.
Or maybe that’s just how it felt to me,
for after all, the memory commands
within the skull. As far back as I see
I recollect impressions, thoughts, and sense.
The stimuli would teach and too amuse.
I seemed to harbor some intelligence
that sought to sort and learn and unconfuse.
Deriving entertainment from my head
continues even now I’ve aged to this.
I seem less stimulated though – instead
of filling with excitement, I’ve the bliss
of satisfaction. Maybe what I mean
is serotonin outlives dopamine.
Between the cold and travel, my routine
for daily exercise was put on hold.
And three-week interruptions always mean
a rough return to work now I’m this old.
I woke a little hesitant, and told
myself I’m well enough to ride today.
Reluctance won’t prevail; I’m self-controlled
sufficiently to postpone more delay.
(Huitain)
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