"Scattered leaved with poetic imprints." My new collection of poetry. |
P.(tree)Log ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Well, it's now mid- 2019 and this is still the only book I use to house part of my new poetry. I began using it years ago due to a lack of storage space in my over-700 item WDC portfolio. I really need to do some spring, summer, fall and winter cleaning. There are still lots of static items which have never received any mention by other members here. But that's part of the problem of being a writer ( musician, artist, actor ... ). I do not know how to network. Thanks for discovering this link. Please leave a comment. Bookmark it, please.... This is a writing site and not FarceBrook where it's so easy just to press the button "LIKE." (( And I am not a fan of the fact that WDC has added it. )) |
and too soon things we write resemble poetrys trees sprouting deep roots into a new ever-changeable society say hallelujah say grace all my friends (over twitter limit delete or save) where is the flow of her flowers orange gowns gone down two the rivers and drowned in sunlight filtered by the white noise of fog-smog clouds spoiling the mornings eclipse same day as spring solstice say what thats witchery dont you mean equinox websters says same thing sam dont shoot im the pianist short-circuited by quickness [2015.20.3…a] |
you never notice a simple pair amid the multitude of brightness in a Dutch tulip field aficionados jostle for a vantage point in front of the Mona Lisa the Easter faith at the Vatican facing Saint Peter’s Basilica crowded elevators to the sixtieth floor in Manhattan towers a family patriarch crosses over tears shed freely joyous first snowfall children catch flakes on their tongues but when two men kiss on the street only one odd couple [2015.19.3…a] |
in this skyless place the dream abandoned itself to these flowers they appeared fully grown as if a spell cast on a rock I saw no buds pierce through winter’s freeze nor a gentle opening of leaves before orange petals unfolded in a grace seen only through stained glass windows of worship as if they were not birthed anywhere but had always been present appreciated growing wildly on every continent at every latitude, every longitude and I had simply never noticed I woke late beyond the shutters a cool minty blue a north wind dominated the afternoon clouds did not remain poised for photography here nothing is floral a semblance of reality [2015.18.3….a] |
eastern light arouses rippled reflections flowers suspended from the clouds like giant elaborate-formed raindrops always twisting to avoid the shadows the inverted theme of a fugue hallucination after Freud who wrote of Oedipus and the complexity of loving too much a small child reaches up, to grasp a beloved hand held too high eager to touch to belong to feel connected a mockingbird enticing trees to blossom a ripple in the reflection of becoming something more important than speckled smudges on my eyeglasses fantasia on a thought [2015.17.3…a] |
we your sisters see all from behind our glass even though only our backs have been painted with watered down clarity, without vantage of our vision we watch your tiny bud buttons thicken, push, reach outwards from tall tree branches that point towards the heavens we see hope as flowers open praising the paths of tiny pale green leaves greeting the gold light summer’s dark rich foliage, the colors that herald death, we see the ever present blue, nurtured by fickle cloudburst from behind our glass our eyes, our eyes alone see the future looking beyond the glass [2015.16.3...a] |
footsteps back and forth moving through a puzzle of innocence one corridor at a time not allowed in her wing I was not allowed to draw the curtains darkness threatened my nights not the clear flowered patterns shading her rooms from the sunlight shadowing our covered porches not allowed beyond, after dusk a dull roar of torment wrenched my ears the humming buzzing power of the emergency generator moving clouds through the darkness to catch my sleep in nets throwing minnows into my dreams they are my appetite the floor was always cold for some reason I pace now, back and forth waiting on her dwindling breath to inherit her flowered patterns of orange nighttime solace a scream - mine? hers? stars never lit my steps harsh footfall [2015.15.3…a] |
mix lullaby and lamentation sung with a Quebec accent alms of orange wildflowers and sunshine heavy with desire falling from heaven to hold you to keep you close closer than forever in the circles of your absence your starlit kisses my dying heart let me fall out of love, boosted into the impermanent orbit of your life-giving clouds and sleep warmed by your magic fire why is it so far? I wanted to stay [2015.14.3…a] |
"Clouds are thoughts without words." Mark Strand perhaps on a backdrop of blue clouds are children’s wishes transforming seamlessly from red fire trucks to mommy and daddy staying together a prayer that new flower buds caught by winter frost will burst into orange brightness fantasy dragons spouting sunset fire beamed up to another world when prisms darken the battle between red and yellow, caught in the middle highlighted in a vast field like a text book before an exam then, of course, turbulence counters hidden, brooding, erupting, corrupted war dusts the clouds with explosion hope devastated, no rain to clear a cleansed way to mourning diaphanous, they underline Michelangelo his apogee of creation religion and angelic symbolism or reality transcended by Turner’s brushed layers of dark hues back-dropping a seascape what poet has never written a sonnet on the impossibility of love blue skies bursting from thick grey fluff or rhymed with the sadly proud disavowed by soft gentle weeping for the shroud of death those moments request quiet overhead cover leave the most clement skies for our departed as they enter the after life of golden light below, survivors stargaze upon unblemished anthracite skies counting pinpricks of light before sleep tomorrow we will wake unshade the window sigh or exclaim clouds may envelop our thoughts in words deep from our hearts say them aloud 13 cloudscapes [2015.13.3…a] |
impossible to slide into its depths imagine for instance the delicate brushwork of a Wedgwood plate when you view it only from underneath so much is absent here, beyond this small square of blue and a hint of cloud formation centered are twin stem-leaf joints delicately inked does the uniqueness of the plate’s useless surface encourage our appreciation of its place on a fine table? to divert our attention from unseen subjects a soup bowl slowly reveals its beauty once ornate carved spoons are set down and appetite satiated imagine the goal of showing only the unessential like a portrait of a woman with theatrical eye make-up highlighting only a uniform blankness instead of living pupils these orange petals exist to hide what we covet their illusiveness lets us imagine a limpid pool of water with gold fish in a Picasso twist rather than a stopping place for honey bees making our morning toast a bit more enticing the thinker outside the frame [2015.12.3…a] |
on my street, a kind of Wisteria Lane where I’m a central character, everybody knows what to do when I have to be wandering no one there called the police that was an excuse to molest another black man I usually take off all my clothes when I’m scared enough to wander when it’s urgent to breath fresh air neighbors know not to complain about me, it’d be silly perhaps I put my hands up in a Ferguson position that’s what you gotta do nowadays neighbors would have told them I’m harmless and about Afghanistan, the shrapnel I really don’t frighten people I don’t know what they said to me but I do know they like to rough up black men they sure don't like naked ones the police, they shoot like soldiers not injure and disarm the heart is their target neighbors would have said yeah I’m big and tall, but I don’t fight no more I laugh with my eyes, I like everyone even if I can’t always tell them all I want and sometimes I forget my medicine I didn’t sign, when I’m out wandering I forget, bombs grab tight onto my brain policemen know how to misinterpret peaceful gestures quick to feel life-threatened with hip-holstered guns and pocket tasers the heart is their target I do know that when the other me saw my body fall in a bloody mess I remembered my dad, his garden and his favorite orange flowers not the color of blood but close enough, he didn’t like red now there’s too much of it things we never knew [2015.11.3…a] A poet's response to: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/10/police-shooting-unarmed-nak... |
we distill the drought with iced piña coladas orange paper umbrellas downpours come in pints next morning Bloody Mary's steel reason to carry on I see sunrise in a sky of flames cracked lightning, dry forests fields of wildflowers wilted khaki war, missile to missile the earth’s rage heaves against humanity hope migrates to diaspora they carry naked children across barren ruins waiting for rain to return color knots of grief [2015.10.3…a] |
pollution has become a way of life children learn gray before primary building blocks dust and coughing before grass and laughter a gallery featuring promising talent there were a hundred shades of this misery sculpted, painted, splattered with hints of other hues forgotten in paint stores the nakedness of the barren land laid too exposed, too chortled, too distorted to co-exist with the notion of passing time one young woman with a newborn child painted a field of orange floppy-stemmed flowers with a china blue sky and fluffy white clouds pure colors not mixed to reflect the daily befouling it was titled from our ancestor’s eyes people disbelieved its simplicity comparing it with the upheaval of tortured forms so often repeated in place of contemplation critiques said art is the interpretive power mirroring some reality of daily life or its nightmarish commiseration breathless, people mourned the green fields their ancestors toiled, where fresh air was not poisoned by chemically enhanced soot theirs was no cultural revolution the notion of passing time [2015.9.3…a] |
heed the growing amplitude of voices for they will overpower your untimely dusty gray squalor as you obliterate vestiges of beauty and eliminate each vessel of belief in your quest to purify your enemies and purge them of other ideas of freedom will you come into the fields and gaze upon the vast peacefulness of our simple orange flowers growing from the ground nourished by the wind, the sun, the rain will you destroy us too remembering that at one time humans in their quest to understand life worshiped the elements with equal fervor as you, warriors with ancient visions of Allah? letter to those who deserve no name [2015.8.3...a] |
the serious of the situation was flagrant he wanted to divorce, there was another woman more attuned to falling in love than I had become after a two decades of marriage, four children two acting careers and my raising the girls single-handedly as he sheepishly admitted “it’s not like I don’t still love you” my mind wandered to the back flower garden flimsy stems, probably not enough fertilizer in the plot of helenium on the east side perhaps it was the orange sweater he was wearing his last birthday gift, that color-coordinated my thoughts to the garden, naturally he would want to keep the house I politely reminded him that my career paid the maid and he had no inkling of one: running a hoover two: cleaning windows three: loading a dishwasher four and five: making use of the clothes washer or drier six: and who would take care of the two thousand square-foot garden I had created for his relaxation? this first list of things he couldn’t do alone went beyond twenty it was not worthwhile to speak of love mundane things I do for him [2015.7.3…a] |
in suspension above two maple branches one arcing westwards the other rounded along the sun/ moon trajectory the long graceful stem of an orange helenium secured by a shoe-lace of leather dangles from a tall slim bamboo shoot a second flower, there are only two adorning the unglazed square vase, is placed carefully between red maple leaves to reach upwards and meet — no caress — the wishful petals of its mirrored reflection for it is thus a photographer framed and zoomed not the ancient codified presentation but the upside down encounter of two flowers arranged so pistils and stamens invisible from the focal point of the bouquet cannot kiss and exchange life for this romance, bees drink virginal nectar discreet twittering, coming from sunny skies before the immortalized snap might help explain "the birds and the bees" variations on Ikebana [2015.6.3…a] |
stay away from this place where by nighttime twists flowers worship darkness never showing their faces they spin in silent gusts faster than ocean undertow grabs swim-stitched sides a kaleidoscope of distorted color discarded on a painter's palette their dance weaves and churns while elsewhere sweat inebriates tossed and shorn sheets one scream, its agony, a curse unspoken since summer camp harassed childhood beware of this place, forsaken innocence to perish visions: a distorted life [2015.5.3…a] |
they brought my favorite things to make this last room a home this place where I counted my final days a checked afghan, my striped bathrobe a gift from the 70s from my first love the comedies of Shakespeare and the French poems of Rainer Maria Rilke, begonias lined the window sill a favorite cut glass vase with floppy, long-stemmed orange helenium blossoms fresh from my garden, their place on my mahogany dresser, gay company for silver framed pictures of the entire family I touched each of their smiles during these hours biding time we shared a few tears, too many for Father Richards whose steadfastness often made me feel guilty for being too emotional, he cast no blame but held my hand the weather during these two months was clement, blue skies beyond the single window never more than a few buoyant cumulus clouds the candy bowl was constant giving chocolate we all needed its endorphins my inner storm brewed slowly ending mid August when, instead of fading quietly into an epilogue everything seemed so bright and alive the garden still tended [2015.4.3…a] |
left haphazardly a de-fizzed can of Pepsi a set of fluorescent high-liners missing the purple one two cell-phone chargers, a first generation iPad, a leopard faux fur scarf turquoise leggings, a pair of Hawaiian print flip-flops, an e-cigarette an old video joystick throning slightly off center on this red and yellow checked formica table two plastic flowers reach high from a glass bell jar daring you to smell them beyond the window, real clouds glued in place by sparse wind suspended in a baby blue sky altered reality [2015.3.3…a] |
do you remember before permafrost annihilated our millions I don't see Venus so much more light now only two of us, freed to float we had colonized the northern plains we were browner too more petals, longer, will they grow what's the white stuff above heavy ozone and methane stench lethal, too warm, we’ll burn look another stem, hairy one we can't repopulate without the others too long ago, it was fun, pollination a half-breed, turning away from Venus hey why do we telepath in English aspects of transcendental evolution such vocabulary will we wither again without our invasion twin males, you tell me look, another stem, smooth and lovely shall we re-interpret Genesis, Abel Cain, we’ve no more thorns suppose she's a self-pollinator unfrozen solitude [2015.2.3….a] |
This is a response poem based on the article following the text. Along oak-lined streets I wear my full length multi-colored dreamworld bathrobe, just like Joseph in the Bible, my feet are bare like every day. PJ’s underneath fit warmly. Mama’s been dead now for ten years, always said if I get lost or afraid to go to the church or the police. I like their uniforms the navy blue their caps the shining star badges, not so with Father Murphy’s costume. He still scares me worse than when I was a boy. I carry mama’s oversized handbag, it reminds me of her turquoise Plymouth convertible car in the nineteen-seventies, crying hooray as we drove down the highway to grandmama’s home town across the Mississippi. I see the policeman, he faces the station, he doesn’t hear my bare footsteps as I approach. I tap him on the shoulder. He spins around, quick, oh how he spins. ‘Mama’s dead and I hurt my hand’ showing him the bloody one not clutching a can of peach air freshener among other familiar things inside mama's overstuffed handbag strung across my chest. He isn’t Officer Pete, she told me he always understands my funny ways, it’s a new guy I never seen before. ‘Mama’s dead and I’m fifty-five years old, I'm lost my hand hurts.' No I can't get calm, I got my spells today, never have been when the spells hit me, but I’ve got my multicolored dreamworld bathrobe, it’s special like Joseph, people know me just like him. I wake before the policeman that isn't Officer Pete shoots me in the heart right through mama’s handbag. There are tear stains on the newspaper article I read about a girl who didn’t get to wake up before they shot her because she too was hurting and didn’t talk better than me. When the world spins too fast to understand [2015.27.1…a] http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/01/26/mentally-ill-teen-girl-shot-dead-by-thre... |