FourFiveTwo: with scales

Greed is the creature with scales
that dwells in the darkest depths
slithering so easily around Humility
and longing for longer legs,

And with the sharpest tongue, cuts itself
and coils tight to stop the bleeding
that tension sutures and dies blue red faced
that fire would also feign

I too, have heard the low-lying rattle
and been prey to leers from low in the fallows
yet, always, a path broken
gives every thing away.




Artwork by Arthur Rackham [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A bluebird likely named Emily D.

This afternoon I saw a magpie that was having a bad day.

He landed in the driveway, 

his breast was heaving and his head cocked at me-

Who found herself smiling. 

With a twitch she switches sides, 

she strobes a cocked moment. 

A second later, he shook himself, 

his feathers fluffed and re-stacked,

he unpacked his folded wardrobe, 

whipping out wrinkles

and flew towards the mountains 

-East. 

Warm body, she faced the fading sun.


Painting by Rubens Peale,1865 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

The people flocked

To see a bird in a dream
I looked it up and it seems to mean
something more than freedom, more
than reading Emily Dickinson before drowsing off...
It was not until I reached this peak
that I could see
the birds or Emily fully
from above.
Born again,
by seeing trees for the first time too
we are blessed by birds and nests
the air we share, the weight we don't...

and a wee spotted wood-pecker
that taps the fence post
by the rain gauge

Or the Orioles
befriended by our two brother crows
from when the ficus finally got cut

And that Cardinal
caught by the cat,
¡olé!

Yellow-bellied fly-catchers
curious about coming insde-
demanding even!

Hummingbirds in harems at the fountains
and in your face, buzzing your body
as though they own the sweet place.

A lion's lair
with four proud but lazy cats
on the prowl
Those falcon feathers we found
must have been provoked in part
by the mockingbirds.

Homey chaste egrets
cruise the coast
high and aloof
cool and superior.

Pet parrots, emancipated avians,
piss people off, like loud immigrants
simply because they cannot understand
the squawk, making crackers into crumbs.

Couples of doves,
whose coos irk none-
because we relate to love
and at some point read Emily-
observing migration
in a dream or wide awake
from up here
it symbolizes liberty
in limbs.


Image By Jerry Segraves (en:User:Jsegraves99) (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/photos/64091) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mi casa es su casa

You dwell in poetry-
A vulnerable Place to linger-
Barbed wire Words on windows
Galvinized steel-for Definition-

Of Places inside, nested under Forest-
In seas of Autonomy-
And to the Horizon
Poetry meets the blurry eye-

Guests-the wandering-
For chance-serendipitous-
The unfolding of another Dimension
Fused within Imagery-

(A mimicry of Emily Dickinson's #466 I dwell in possibility...)
Image by Peleg, Wikimedia Commons, March 2008.

The stuff we're made of

The things that make the People
Gathered by Hunger
and insatiable growls
and Justified, Need
The goods are Good
And stuff matters
The Hunter and The Gatherer
tied at the waste
Harmonize their Note
A Mantra of Meager and Impoverished
and chorus off key-then the dreams shatter
Leaving you Naked-

(This poem is a mimicry of Emily Dickinson's #729, The Props assist the House)
Image By en:User:Smm650 (en:File:General Picture.JPG) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A child asked Emily-

Where do tears come from?

Wet-I've been-Where

Tears come from-You have

dipped in the Abyss too?

Sprung from spaces-unseen-

Joy has never been-There

to melt away the bitterness

of an icy raw day

Seeping and Weeping push through-

guarded Gates-solid as Blinking

little trifles-Tears-like watercolors

Bleeding flowers drooping wet in the Garden

Image of painting by Winslow Homer (1878) 'Girl in Garden' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.