CAT TRICK

I have a disappearing cat
who loves to play in snow.
He doesn't need a magic hat
to carry on his show.

Because, you see, his fur is white
from ear tips down to claw.
He does a trick that's out of sight
until the noon-day thaw.

Lavender Blue Haze

Butterflies in a cage of emotion,
longing to be free, calling out with the notion
that inexistent is the key. - Michel Dargis -1996

Poem temporarily missing, pending publication rejection notice :-)

May Morning

Open wide as a market umbrella,
a white crape myrtle shades my front lawn
newly pebbled with patches of yellow
knots of dandelions. Just after dawn
I wake to the sound of glad singing
breaking forth in a song without words.
There’s no need for a language, the meaning
resonates from the joy of the birds.

To their open air concert I’m bringing
only bare feet and sleepy, green eyes,
and my coffee, of course, while I’m flinging
on a tee-shirt and blue jeans. I rise
up sky-lighted on many-a-morning
to the beauty of nature’s adorning.

The Watering Gate

This very well be the only sestina I ever write, so I thought I'd post it.

- The Watering Gate -

Two people stood atop a distant hill
I saw them as I left today from work
as soon as I had closed the wooden gate
behind me and had drunk a cup of water.
There was no place I really had to go,
and so I took my time. I didn’t run


the way I sometimes do – I often run
as if life were a race. There on that hill,
the silhouetted couple stood. I go
and come the same way every day from work,
taking for granted earth and sun and water.
Familiar things get lost. Sometimes a gate

will make me pause and think; a creaking gate
especially so, and sounds of things that run
like trickling brooks - the peaceful voice of water,
its liquid echo circling down a hill
from clouds that have released their burdensome work,
and like me, found the peace of letting go.

The lie of time says moments come and go
as fast as little lambs run toward a gate
in search of freedom. There is always work
enough to keep us feeling ‘on-the-run’.
The move toward pleasure seems to be up hill,
against the laws that govern moving water.

But nothing is alive where there’s no water
that’s stirring. Living things must ebb and go.
Stagnation lies beneath a silent hill
of graves - behind the locking of a gate
of wrought iron coldness. Living things must run.
An idle body has no means to work

to keep the spirit flowing. Life needs work –
and workers need a living well of water
to keep the heart from fainting as they run.
Recycling is the only way to go.
Our life’s a circle and each of us a gate
that God has set upon his lovely hill.

I bike to work near waterfalls that run.
They’re brisk and full of life and through the gate
I drink the sun-rise lilting on the hill.

Sometimes You're the Windshield - Sometimes You're the Bug!

Maybe there's a moral hidden inside this poem that was waiting till now to be revealed~

L A D Y B U G

(A Wee Morsel Of Nonsense)
- with homage to Edward Lear -

Lady bug dangles her delicate feet,
hanging on edge by the tips of her toes,
dancing her digits to Beethoven's beat
while gorging herself on the leaf of a rose.

Over and under, the aphids they go,
just for a peek at her red petticoat,
towing and rowing through chlorophyll's glow
on the miniature stern of their pea green boat.

Lady bug blushes to see such a sight,
this parading of morsel-sized, tiny, green men
watching her feast on the garden's delight,
so she hides underneath a wild rose-petal's stem.

"Lady bug, lady bug, feminine one,
come out and stroll in the beautiful sun."
shouted Sir Edward, the aphid's fine king,
"Come through the garden, there to you I'll sing."

"Lady bug, lady bug, why do you hide?,
hop on my raft and I''ll give you a ride,
climb up onto my wee vessel of love,
I'll take you sailing on oceans made of
all of the liquid I've pressed from the leaves
of finest wine roses. I've rolled up my sleeves!

Lady bug turned, gave a smile and a sigh,
doubting that she could resist such a guy!

Trees Talking

POEM TEMPORARILY REMOVED PENDING PUBLICATION

Where Flowers Bloom

Where flowers bloom in desert sun
a passion from the heat is spun.
An unexpected beauty buys
the wonderment that lights our eyes
where flowers bloom.

When cactus-yellow and pink adorn
the sand, dead-dry from lack of storms,
I'll find my faith, though paper thin,
renewed as life springs up again
where flowers bloom.

And when the day is finally gone,
now put to bed, the flowers dawn
in dreams as we retain the prize,
a comfort for our lazing eyes
where flowers bloom.

A Klee In Blue

A Klee in Blue

Abe sketches trees in charcoal
as he rides the train to London,
makes sure they're true-to-season
without the luxury of color.

He pauses now and then,
the same as when
the rain rests intermittently
beneath the underpasses.

Abe moves his pencil once again,
rakes smudges into fruits,
then curves his thoughts
to what stays in the main:

a day in March two springs before
when all was new
and leaded lines of Oxford's trees
had not turned lavender
to shades of mourning blue.


©1999 - first Published in 2RiverView

Sunrise

Sunrise

He makes love to me in the mornings.
We are a sun rays striking a tree.
I am a leafy Queen. He is a Monarch.

He lights upon my branch,
then with a sudden hush
I turn pale green.

I might have fainted
had he not given pause,
a softly measured reprieve.

Once, then twice again
he flutters up and down.
Crescendos dawn
to waken every vein.

First published in Lucid Rhythms - Winter '07

To Vincent

To Vincent

I wish he could have seen the fields of Spain,
the massive blocks of sunflowers,
their pug-nosed faces upturned toward the sunset;
more than enough to paint past thirty-seven's gate.

Have you seen yellow ochre past a tender age,
its vintage kept by shaded, airtight glass
beyond the pale of early learning years,
still wet enough to draw the latter rains?

In Holland there are colors known to few
where pails of silver poured the milk and lime.
I saw them once and never left behind the taste
of umber's golden sunburn on my tongue.

I wonder if he listened to his peers,
which paintings that we'll never chance to view,
forever buried under yellowed graves,
and if, perhaps, the best were left undone?

- first published in Fall/99 2Riverview

****There are other versions I've written of this poem. I can't seem
to settle on just one. So I keep them all scattered about.