Revisions

Magic Tricks (Revision)

Spring,

that conjuror,

proves illusions—deft

slight-of-hand distracts us

from realities.

Distance (Revision)

I invent their faces

Give them eyes

For invisible horizons

I, Too (Revision)

Quite,

He says

With a twist of the lips

That does little enough

To reassure.

Short Piece

The Daisy Quinn

Her namesake,

Prairie born

And living ever

Within sound of windswept shortgrass,

Only saw the ocean

In a photograph,

But knew the terror

Of encircling horizons

Blank and distant.

Short Pieces--Part 6

Magic Tricks

Like a conjuror,

Spring

Distracts our eyes

From mud

Covered

Reality

To prove illusions

After Easter

When

The mass of lilies smothering the altar

Has been removed,

The hangings

With quotations relevant

To the occasion

Have been hidden in the back closet,

Bulletins are printed

Not on pastel but

Again on plain

White

Paper

He still is risen

Distance

People

With no faces

Follow dusty paths

I cannot see.

What One Does with Philosophy

I met today

A monastery gardener

With a barrow

And the world in his mouth.

I Am Human, Too

Quite,

He says with

A twist of the lips

That does little enough

To reassure.

Resurrection Day Poem

Mary

To me,

Blessedness means gathered grief

From years

Of dying sons and weeping mothers,

Given

In the promise of redemption.

Short Pieces--Part 5

Untitled 1

What if

I told you that I threw your sneakers

(yellow, size ten, with neon green laces and a mud stain on the left heel)

In the back alley

Because I didn’t want to call you

And tell you they were still here?

Untitled 2

They assume

Too much

About my life

From the words I string together

And call poetry

Untitled 3
 

Patience

Is not a virtue

But survival

Short Pieces--Revisions

Revisions

Choices

Mud or ice

Clings or cuts

Drags or does not yield

Guitar

Taut strings fight

The caution of my soft fingers

Stinging

Snapping

Biting

Felling

Rushing

Cracking

Crashing

And the dull thud

As the trunk falls

Sonnet

Velociraptor Sonnet

I pray, my gentle reader, heed this word

Of caution, and then call forever law

This precept: Never be allured

By sparkling white velociraptor jaws.

The shining teeth, with sharp and shapely points,

Arranged in rows along the charming grin,

It snaps with mannerisms stately, coy,

Or filled with charity, quite mild and prim.

Beware the lizard! Do not trust its smile

Nor venture to befriend it though it seems

Beneficent, magnanimous, benign.

I caution you, it only wants a feast.

For if you think velociraptors kind,

Your education will bring your demise.

Short Pieces--Part 4

Fruit

Spinning the orange globe

In one

Rough

Hand

While the other hand guides

The spoon

Around

Around

Around

To peel it

Impact

Rushing

Cracking

Crashing

And the dull thud

As the trunk falls

Dream

Gershwin

And the night

Outside

The window filled

With my

Own

Thoughts

Short Pieces--Part 3

#Philosophy

Who do you think you are #Kierkegaard

#More Philosophy

If everyone #Kant

#EvenMorePhilosophy

Moving on #Hegel

Short Pieces--Part 2

Guitar

Strings react

Unpredictable, confused

Against the caution of soft fingers

Guitar

Fingers stretch

Forget, remember

Patterns form, dissolve

Familiar, strange

Feeling

Mud gives, drags, clings

Ice cuts and does not yield

Short Pieces--Part 1

Snow

 A bride wears white lace

What royalty would think a gown of diamonds no

Extravagance?

Mouse

It froze

Like an explorer headed north

But unremembered

Snow

Spun clusters melted on my bare palm

An avalanche

Would have drowned me

Writing Plan Exercise

A Writing Plan

15 minutes

At 11 pm

Each night

Except when the hours build up on my eyelids and

I

Can’t

Stay

Awake

In which case

15 minutes

Somewhere between Philosophy and Chapel, or Chapel and Philosophy, or Philosophy

And that other class

Poetry

I will write with my computer

If I remember it

Or use the notebook

In which I scribble down those things people say and don’t realize are

Poetry

Scene Description Exercise-Part 2

White light seeps across

Mottled walls,

Chaotic desk.

Scraps of paper,
Half-a-dozen paper dolls,

Roll of duct tape,  

Roll of masking tape,

Books—

Poetry, devotional, play, biography

Borrowed from friends who probably want them back.

Textbooks—

Art history, political theory, philosophy.

They never went home.

Jeans, note paper, spool of thread

Peanut butter in a blue mug.

A children’s story book about dreams.

Relient K with “Sadie Hawkins Dance.”

Sonnet

On Soren Kierkegaard, Regine Olsen, and Fear and Trembling

You know I gave a sacrifice of my

own reputation, thinking it might be

enough. But that cheap offering God despised.

On the altar what I first withheld must bleed.

My God has power to make me just. So I

must act believing. Trust the strangers who

speak for me: “steady hand, unflinching eye

hide shaken, doubting soul.” They know the truth.

In slaying your heart I transgress, but not

as in refusing to accept the word

of God, or counting grace’s paradox

too hard upon impossible or too absurd.

This Abraham, knife raised, finds grace enough.

He must obey his God and not his love. 

For this poem's context, see

this and this

Scene Description Exercise

The white light from the window seeps across the mottled wall and spills onto the chaotic desk. Scraps of paper, half-a-dozen construction paper dolls, a roll of masking tape, a roll of duct tape, and a sheet of bubble wrap cover one half of the desk. Books cover the other half, as well as the shelves. Some stacks are tidy—the Pixar movies from the library; the poetry book, play, Henri Nowen devotional, and Charlotte Bronte biography borrowed from friends who probably want them back by now; the two Philosophic Classics anthologies; the political theory books from last semester that never went home. One collection of books used to be orderly, standing upright in a row on the shelf, until the art history textbook at the end tipped over and the others followed. Near the books, and beside the bed, sit several purple, blue, and white t-shirts, a deconstructed pair of jeans, a few spools of thread, and a pincushion. The computer cord stretches from the outlet across the t-shirts, makes several knots, and connects to the laptop. The laptop rests on the painted sky of a children’s picture book cover, which nestles among the wrinkles in the bedspread. Strewn on the bed beside it are a book on law, a plastic binder crammed with note paper, a coffee mug with smears of peanut butter inside, and a sweatshirt. From the computer come the twangy strains of Relient K’s “Sadie Hawkins Dance.”

Poetry

Poetry trickles like a stream gone dry or rushes like a cataract that carries away its banks. It hums the working-song of a bee or growls the warning of an empty-stomached bear. It sings like a wavering kindergartener in a school chorus or ripples and glides over notes with the skill of a virtuoso. It whispers unguessed secrets or shouts the truth that we all know inside. It lives. 

Rambling Brat?

From "The Author to Her Book"
By Anne Bradstreet

"Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view...
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My RAMBLING BRAT (in print) should mother call..."