fish bowl poetry II.

The scare-crow is strung up,
sullen in the bled field.
He is bruise-packed; soaked and seed-shedding
in the wet, tangerine night.

The rain runs down fence posts,
and collects in the road.  The dog
sleeps on the covered porch;
somewhere, the cat listens.

The grass around the driveway
has grayed and bends low,
The tractor like a tin drum.

A torn, disintegrating tarp
in the rafters of the barn
moves in the wind.

The children have left
little things:
buttons, a thimble, bread crust, rust pennies
in the scare-crow's pocket,
the keeper wordless
of the un-bound earth.

fish bowl poetry I.

Cupid prayed!
          -ugly and round like a trampled peach-
that love would come his way.
          After so many affairs started-or ended-by his arrows
Cupid had created a confrontational love-world, little islands
          of doubt and playfulness.
Cupid hoped, bursting from the window into his new life,
          that owning himself would be sweet and selfish.

s p l i n t e r i n g t h i n k i n g

why do I feel dead; or a hundred

people at once,

a hundred stories

and a hundred feelings.

did I already live?

A hundred years ago,

with white hairs like thoughts silvering

and thinning and burying themselves beneath

a heaving and sheltering earth.