Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Sonoran Monsoon Season

(July 4, 2010)
                                    “I don’t know why bad ideas
                                    spread faster than good ones,
                                    but they do.” 
—David Sedaris

Folks sip margaritas and beer,
smoke babyback ribs, gorge themselves
on sweet corn and watermelon,
clamoring for the yearly fireworks show,
patriotic bombs bursting in air
to celebrate the unalienable rights
to send aliens back where they came from
and to treat everyone as an illegal
just for breathing the air of liberty
in the land of the free and home of the brave.
Storm clouds build on the mountains,
gusts whipping through the valley
shaking ancient saguaro to the roots.


------------------
First appeared in Agave, a Celebration of Tequila, edited by Nathan and Ashley Brown, published by Ink Brush Press available at Amazon.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Never Ending

“…he showed a little thing…”
              --Julian of Norwich

Julian handled a universe
in a hazelnut in her hand
and saw thrice-fairer faces
in a showing of God’s
making, keeping, loving.

When she saw this world
made, kept, loved so well,
she found her heart in him
who never stops being
Maker, Keeper, Lover.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Annual Talent Show


Junior recited the twelve apostles,
Sissy fumbled through the fruit
of the spirit, Grandma Nell thought
her mumbles were sure signs,
the gift of tongues, and Uncle Buford
strummed an old guitar and hummed
a ballad about the rise and fall of heroes.

Edna read something she called a poem,
words inspired by her fascination
with pockets. Blue-haired Ruthie warbled
love songs to widowers and bachelors,
promised hot cobbler and sweet cream
to lonely hearts and empty stomachs.
Violin and mountain dulcimer cried.

Dora fiddles with the microphone.
Feedback squelches and squawks,
then the voice of an angel rises above heads
of hungry penitents, falls like snowflakes
on shoulders, blankets the fallen
with strains of gloria in excelsis Deo,
makes for this moment on earth, peace.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Fight or Flight


                        “This may sound like gibberish to you,
                        but I think I’m in a tragedy.”
                                                --Stranger than Fiction

When he reads that the bus comes to squash the boy,
the hero is ready to face his fate, confront the bus.
He knew he had to die.
He knew his story.

But then some sentimental alien
toys with him, plays deus ex machina
on his ass and heart,
plunges him into comedy.

And they all know he needed to die
for the fiction to work.
They all know saving the boy
and dying in his stead

is the only way to make great art—
his knowing choice to give his life,
his love, his world
to save the innocent.

He rejects the instinct to stay on the curb.
He steps out, pushes the child to safety,
stands in front of the bus,
willing to die a hero’s death.

The audience and author can’t bear it,
insist on a tired happy-ever-after ending
Refuse to fight it. Rewrite. Revise.
They flee greatness in the end.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Toad and the Beetle










Out of the dark rains
emerges a Sonoran toad.
His skin like an avocado,
dark, dimpled, thick.
Red dots betray its youth.
In the patter of raindrops,
his kind call in the night,
like muted horns of ships
stranded in an ocean of fog.

This toad finds rich feeding
beneath the back porch,
bugs drawn to the dryness,
clamoring to the light.
This buffet of corn bugs,
moths, and roaches suits
the hulking green monster,
until he eyes a dung beetle
big enough to fill him full.

The toad is slow, lumbers
toward this boon. The beetle
is slower, has no idea he’s
about to become Jonah
in the belly of a monster.
One gulp seems sufficient.
The toad swallows him whole.
The beetle wallows in darkness.
A contest of wills ensues.

The beetle breaks free,
bursts from the maw,
sticky from stomach acid,
reeling from noxious slime.
The surprised toad decides
his stomach is bigger
than his eyes, tries again
to consume the beetle
who refuses to be eaten.

The beetle wins a second
and third round in this battle,
tickling the throat, slipping past
clenched lips, falling to the floor,
exhausted, stuck in toxic glue.
The toad contemplates the stillness,
seems willing to call it a draw,
rather than feel scratching claws again.
Still hungry, he flees his nightmare.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Mountain Passes

I weigh each message,
consider fragments and moods,
balance the imperative to
“watch for falling rocks”
against the need to eye
the edges of the winding road.
I see evidence of fallen rocks,
wonder who saw the falling.

The dash flashes eighty degrees,
but signs in July still caution
“Bridge may ice before road.”
I know oracles hedge their bets,
satisfy fate and unearth the proud
with ambiguity.  Sans meteors
and icicles, I dare cross the bridge,

resume the ascent up the steepening
last climb. This final slope
abounded with redundancies—
“Slower traffic keep right,”
“Left lane for passing only.”
Approaching the summit,
I find myself halfway there,
I hug the right, cling to life.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Unsettled Estates


Father died the year
her children hunted
eggs in snow on Easter,
blues and greens bleeding
in melted slush, hidden
in splashes of bluebonnets.
The next winter was warm.
Outside geraniums
bloomed until Christmas,
bugs thrived past New Year’s.

Mandated to bring an end
to this end, she begins
the dismantling of his house,
sorting attic junk,
giving Goodwill the goods,
boxing precious books
for a two-bit fundraiser.

Then, touched by dry leather,
yellowed leaves
and brittle spines,
a daughter reads pages
of ancients, history, philosophy,
and his favorite poetry,
finding one more hair
plucked from his brow
deep in the gutter,
left like a breadcrumb
to his presence.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

What if...



What if I actually believed
it was finished when he said it was done?

What if I stopped fussing
about casseroles, seating arrangements,
paychecks or job titles, and attended
the one thing needful?

What if I found a mustard seed
hidden under the piles of doubt,
moved mountains, saw oceans
as reasons for a daily stroll?

What if I stopped defending
myself against attacks,
embraced my enemies without plunging
daggers in their backs?

What if I really did the math
Of forgiveness, learned the grace
that makes one greater than seven
or seventy times seven?

What if I stopped explaining
away my gluttony and greed,
my wrath and wrongheadedness,
accepted my ignorance,

and owned the blessing he called down
when he asked his dad to let them off
because they simply didn’t know
what they were doing.

It was finished when he said it was done.
What if I actually believed him?

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Triptych

(after O’Keeffe’s Red Hills and Bones)
 









I.          In the beginning
were grand projects—
light, sky, water, earth.
In groundbreaking moments
after oceans parted and
mountains peaked, then
emerged another operation.

The dust settled,
was shaped, was sculpted,
so much dirt and breath,
a ghostly gasp, then the urge
to ascend jagged peaks,
beckon stars come closer,
settle within easy reach.

II.        One man, one woman,
halfway to sublime,
could not resist 
savoring sweet nectar,
and the fall blooms,
flowers into grace
for want of a savior.

Erosion cut to the bone.
Lines weathered deep,
until piles of sediment,
layers of canyon,
buried the bones,
pressed bone to stone,
made dry souls concrete.
 
III.       Rare rain falls, washes the draws,
exposes roots and tender veins.
This spit makes mud,
creates rivers deep in the gorge.
Red clay cakes on the table below,
awaits the hand to unseal
sealed lids and eyes.

Bones in the valley
rattle like castanets,
sing like reeds
as the spirit fans
the fire within,
rumble low and humble
as flesh fleshes anew.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First published in Faraway Nearby, edited by Lon Chaffin.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Gravity











People pretend
science and faith
are at odds

but even Newton, Einstein,
Wittgenstein, Vonnegut
and the Pope

knew the first law
was for Adam, Eve,
and the apple

to fall
at the same
rate

to fall
together
unchanging

until acted
upon
by another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in an Interview with Sorina Higgins at Iambic Admonit (June 2010).

Friday, May 13, 2011

An Old Refrain

The biggest screens of all stood at the drive-in
anchoring the northeast edge of town
to the Dumas highway, double features
for three bucks per car, a coke and popcorn
swimming in pools of butter for a dollar more,
then heroes and villains magnified
on the forty-foot screen, their tinny voices
piped in by metal box speakers that hung
suspended from half-down windows.

And the congregation had to wonder
when the preacher’s four-year old
began to belt out the latest musical,
a singing Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin
in some odd gold-miner ménage a trois,
this trio pushing aside the rightful trinity
while a little boy sings “who gives a damn”
to the titters of blue-haired ladies
and the chuckles of once-dour deacons.

And when he hit the chorus a second time,
“who gives a damn, who gives a damn
we’re on our way,” they knew they were right
about their suspicion that these pictures
robbed people of their souls,
and they longed for a simpler time
when people knew good clean fun
without sneaking peeks in the rear-view mirror
at the blue movies on screen two.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in Faraway Nearby, edited by Lon Chaffin.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

New Beginnings

“We die and rise the same…”
John Donne, The Canonization

The night before the fall,
they had no way to know
winter would freeze
the vines, wither the fruit.
In their joy they had no
idea their sin would prompt
birthdays and funerals,
holidays and weddings,
any excuse to turn
water to wine, toast fresh starts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in Riffs (November 2009). Reprinted in Thirty-First Bird, volume 1.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The Second Bar

Thin light skips the waves
as he wades out to the second bar,
a guess to find the flounder or reds
as they run into the bay.  Dawn breaks
as a calm surf rolls and swells at intervals
against his stomach, the nascent
pulse of a soul in utero.

Time and flounder pass him by.
The sun climbs high, beats down, and he
reaches for an empty water bottle as it floats off.
A rope stringer leashes three trout to his belt, a swell
morning until the swell of waves laps water at his armpits
with him standing tip-toe on the second bar,
stranded in the ebb and flow of the bay.

And he swims for shore, one arm stroking
the surging sea, the other hand clinging to the reel
he bought for his birthday.  He swims, urging the trout
on the stringer to swim with him, not out to sea. He kicks
off his shoes and bobs toward shore, wondering when to ditch
the rod, the reel, the stringer of fish in his fight
to overcome the suck of the undertow.

Happy hour ends just as he bellies up
to the second bar of the night, orders a beer
and makes jokes about anesthesia while the singer
croons jazzy tunes of life and love, melancholia made
sweet and deep. He hums along as dissonance strikes chords
out of reach, churns under-currents from the deep
rift beneath the surface of numbness.

He gulps another longneck, gasps for air,
spills his story of an unknown son or daughter,
a mother’s breathless cries, fruitless labor, ruthless
waves breaking on shoals of grief, rolling on broken hopes.
Then last call, bright lights, empty stage, cold room.
Sorrow swallows him whole while he drowns
in a sea-sickness of memory and beer.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in descant, Volume 48, 2009.

Lux Fiat

“Nobody’s in the kitchen,” my baby jokes
while staring at the walls and drilling holes
through the cabinets with eyebeams brighter
than blue halogen lamps. A two-year old
can appreciate the feigned surprise,
the sheer audacity of finding nobody
in empty space. When nobody reappears
in the tired pages of Goodnight Moon
she titters and giggles, indexing the blank page
with a sideways glance back to the kitchen,
fingering the void and making it something,
naming this nothing and becoming a maker,
a goddess on the brink of being the one
she was made to be, a somebody by fiat.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Number 29, Fall/Winter 2007.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Sirens in the Desert

                        “Ask not for whom the bell tolls…”
                                                —John Donne

The ambulance calls once or twice each week.
It’s only natural that people at the pool
of the retirement community should ask
for whom the sirens sound.
It’s only inevitable that somebody
makes a joke about Hemingway or Donay,
and for someone else to correct the name
to Donne, which leads to another round
of lame jokes about being done, well done,
or whatever. Still the sirens sound
and people want to know who has fallen,
who won’t be getting up tomorrow.
And when they hear about a drowned grandson
or a lightning strike, they know sirens call us all.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First appeared in Di-Verse-City 2011: Austin International Poetry Festival Anthology. Edited by Barbara Youngblood Carr. April 7, 2011.