Another installment of poems still waiting in the archives to be heard. Finishing up loose ends.

If you want more details, here’s the Big Long Explanation. Otherwise, just read as many or few of these poems as you’d like. And thank you, as always!

These poems are all from Repairs, published 2017.

Bicycle Thief

The bicycle has a flat tire
has been in the garage for two years
with a flat tire
is never going to leave the garage
flat tire or not
You see how it is.
Surely now would be a good time
for someone
to want to steal a bicycle
and solve this problem for me.

4/20/17

Evolution of a Straight Line

Started off as a sway
a tilt became a slant
progressed to full-out diagonal
This tree and gravity
Two parts of a triangle
on the way to folding up on itself.

4/20/17

First One Awake

First the bathroom light
never the bedroom.
Don’t wake up anyone else
anyone who still has time on the clock.
Then the kitchen.
Just the light over the sink.
You want to take your time
turning up the lumens
at five-thirty in the morning.
Let the sun do that for you
against the closed curtains
you open to let in
pale squares slanted across
the kitchen floor.

4/28/17

Truce

The room so quiet
a luxury of silence
and it’s all for you
as much as you want
this volume of space filled
with nothing
Overflowing. Take both hands
pull toward you
and again
as many times as you do
it will renew itself
for you.
Sit
in the healing presence
of enfolding absence
in the generosity of alone
in the relief of being
in silence.

4/28/17

I Had a Vision

I want to paint sun and trees and moon
people dancing
houses full of furniture
kitchens and tables
dishes in the sink
Cars at the gas station
swimmers in the pool
sunbathers on the beach
a flock of birds
that carry a message
to a woman sitting in a wood
Nothing saleable
unless
the right person comes along
and gasps in recognition
and not
Not nobody who has a dollar ninety-eight
and thinks this one here will do fine
above the sofa because
it matches. People
have seen plenty of
what they have already seen
but not of what
I’ve got to show.
Look.

4/28/17

The Extravagance of Infinity

The endless flat green sea
ending here with me.
I am the center.
Just beyond the surf
I put my feet down
shaping them to
the cool ridges
of the sandy bottom
under
the endless flat green sea.

5/5/17

Headlock

Marriage cut down on the traveling
paid off the role-playing end-game
convinced me that I wanted orange
never to answer the door after midnight
and it’s Friday and I need ninety grand
yesterday.
Has anyone seen my suitcase?
It was a gift from my husband.

4/28/17

Meddlesome

I peel the onion
uncover a stone
split it in two
a walnut
its core filled with seeds
spilling out raindrops
flickering in the sunlight
the least little bit
with laughter
at me
and my desire to peel
the onion

5/11/17

Phalanx

Slicked-up roof tiles
red turned silver
in the straight-down pelting-hard rain
all along the rows stepping up to the ridge
turn their backs
to the flat gray sky

5/5/17

Revive

Can the bush
so bowed down in the rain
the weight of the white blossoms
yesterday such an attraction on a sunny day
now bending the branches to the ground
Can it come through
Can it raise itself to the sun
again?
Can it?

5/5/17

Turned

Once
I took a bite of that cake
thinking
so sweet
so delicious
the more the better
Cut me another slice
Another.
Now
I cannot raise my fork to it.

5/5/17

When Then

I liked being ignorant.
If I look back on things
Having no idea of anything
I was happier
and maybe better off
most of the time
There’s no substitute for it
that state of being in the dark
it was a great place to be
having no clue
living unseeing and stupid.
Now I’m smarter
understand clues
see in the dark
and
I’m going to tell you
I’d turn around right now
if I could.

5/5/17