September Haiku

September suns rays
slice across verdant gardens.
Cold nights chill my toes.

—

Summer emptied.
I use days up as they come.
Silk breeze on my thigh.

—

Kitchen counter full.
Fall bounty clogs big pots.
Earth oars down the clock.

—

Rake dreams with windows open.
Kaleidescope trees.
Leaves need many big bags filled.

—

Pace this day’s flight with tastes
of Summer’s ripe bounty.
Pesto’s delight greens my mouth.

—

Morning mist weighs down dawn
Between Summer and Fall.
Coffee tastes better in cold weather.

Technorati Tags: September, short poems, haiku

Iceberg

Emotions bulk under the surface.
Parched thoughts search through drawers,
looking for lost socks, ones missing a matching twin.
Burly ogres guard the door, eying me with cyclops grins,
thousands of books piled high around them, dog eared ravenously.
Next to me I find a strip of old photographs, proof sheets,
black and white miniatures bordered with numbers,
thin shavings of the early years, glamorous tinted skin,
debutante attitudes with the light always shining from behind.
My face looks back at me, learning from my lines,
taking notes on little scraps of discarded catalogs
lost under the sea, rolling among waves of salty tears.
Cordoned off are rooms with freshly cut flowers,
bouquets of roses stripped of thorns, just beginning
to wilt, though the shades are drawn, the door key-less.
Saints and sinners meet in the room next door,
a détente to sort things out. They share a meal
of smoked ham and lentil stew, homemade with love.
The weather holds its breath, waiting
for the key to the stopped clock on the wall.
But they leave by a secret door, un-noticed.
The tub overflows, drowning
all the roses, whose petals float out
with one note scribbled on each,
notes of a song of gratitude, randomly humming
as they hover out the window and out to sea.
And the wind chimes pick up the tune
as if they already knew.

technorati tags- poems, poetry, postmodern poems, modern American poems

Infinity

Infinity

A word
with eight letters
which points
in all directions
at all times,
a zillion rubber arrows
traveling out from me
forming a sphere
of unfettered completeness.

There’s comfort
in it’s cold consistency
of Always, Forever and Everywhere;
where tomorrow
and a billion yesterdays
are still and always original,
where toast popping up
warm and crusty brown,
calling for butter
to melt into into it’s textures,
is always there
waiting to be eaten.

And time
does not pass
through an hourglass
but spins
back into itself
like a huge, pink gyroscope
floating in my heart,
telling me
I’ll never be dead
only scattered.

This empty moment
as I stare out the window,
is neither here nor there,
is full of every molecule
in history, is
a fresh Fudgesicle
which never melts,
which tastes like
orange jello
or caramel pudding
or any flavor I imagine.

When I feel infinite
I expand like a red balloon
to engulf my mother’s
birth and death
my grandpa’s pain
my sister’s spinning
clutch of daily strain.
I cover them all
with endless adoration
even though I may never
see them again.

My fear sits
in my body
but I fear it not,
for it is a tender baby
to be caressed
and held lightly aloft
by my big, bulging
garnet jello heart.

I flow into my seat
and ride in my jello car
around mountains which
melt in a few billion years.
I slip down glaciers
a mile every century
and crawl up on muddy
banks with amphibian feet.
I fly over seas which boil
and then cool to salty abysses.
I breath through tree leaves
and drip sap to the forest
floor, where I compost
and form the carbon
jewel sold at the diamond store.
I ride up through the atmosphere
on a thought full of helium
and burn in a second
before visiting Luna
as a magnificent crater
is bursted open
by a star chip flying in
from infinite space.
I rage from the magma
bold belches of earth,
over the molten
eras which brew at her core.

Lime yellow jello time
wiggles around
me, in my ears
and nose, tickly
movements back
and forth, always
here and there
and never far
from Andromeda
or the Pleiades
Sisters seven stars.

When I return to my seat
in front of this screen,
the sun’s long shadows
have tuned evening’s chord
down a notch to a purple melody.

I smile an infinite smile
and no one knows who I am
but they do know, they do!
If they could just see what I can.

Technorati tags- Infinity, poem

Jingle Ironies

A day can seem like forever born,
a year but a passing shadow.
Ten hours in a car to nowhere, forlorn,
stellar travel just out on the patio!

There’s a feast before us, ready to consume,
yet the largest, glitziest package may be hollow
while the tiny, cardboard box may perfume
long winter nights with dreams one can follow.

A world in a word, sealed with a kiss,
yet years mayn’t ever heal a kiss wounded.
Who’s to say what the meaning is, ’til
you see that “you’ve got to choose it!”

Jingle ironies or love’s frivolity, it’s
not with whom, but how we share life, clearly.
Be gentle by your spirit and kindle its fortitude.
Share with those who might need it so, dearly.

technorati tags- Christmas poems, friendship poems

Places Too Close

There are places he’d rather not go,
closets where clothes are too tight,
pants with belt buckles which still latch
to the shortest length, but now
he can’t hold his breath that long
anymore. He wants to be padded with
Pillsbury dough, something to grab
when hands are available to grope
his half century folds of skin
dessicated and pinched from too much sin.
His big heart chokes the tight collar.
He feels safer in the puppet theater, where
the extra strings keep him from floating
away from so much hot air.
Watch him standing in the sun, waiting
alone for the train north, not willing
to make eye contact for long.
Smile and lift him without saying
a word.

I wrote this after seeing the movie ‘Into the Wild’ by Sean Penn. The poem is not so much about the movie as how I related to it. It’s about frustration with social artifice and the strictures of decorum, within which one wonders how much real love and spontaneous feeling is lost. It’s about feeling limited by discomfort in that system and also about wanting to just fit in and be one’s self.