RUMINATIONS

RUMINATIONS


On the steps
of the museum,
I sit pondering
our times,
when Pushkin
breaks in with his
melodic language,

a blend of Slavonic

and vernacular Russian.


The bits of years,
that lay hidden
and closed off,
are suddenly free.
They fly up from
my lap in a powder
of everyday words
that intoxicate me.


I cry for
Eugene Onegin.
“Life is so unfair,”
I say to comfort him - and,
"You hang in the

balance between

fiction and real life!"

Walking home
late in the afternoon,
I stop by the pond
to watch the reflections
of the swans, and not
the swans themselves.


There is something
about their reflections,
those watery
forms of expression.
I know what they are
when I see them,
but they are still unclear -
sort of like
19th century Russia.

A CHILD'S SUMMER NIGHT

Photograph by Steven David Johnson

A CHILD’S SUMMER NIGHT


In the absence of light,
the harshness of day
is sloughed away
into a reflecting pool of night,


where a billion things shine
that are not stars -
but fireflies caught in jars,
illuminating your face and mine.


Here what passes are not ships,
but silver dreams with golden masts,
with billowing sails sewn from the past,
moving in breath blown from an angel’s lips.

TIMES FOUR

The roses have nothing to do with this post.

I just wanted everyone to see my beautiful roses!

TIMES FOUR

I was tagged by Vesper at Chick With A Quill.

Looks like fun – so, here goes:



Four Movies You Can See Over and Over

The Quiet Man
A Streetcar Named Desire

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Godfather

Four Places You Have Lived

Pratt, WV
Hansford, WV
Richmond, Virginia
Pennsylvania

Four TV Shows You Love(d) to Watch

Miami Vice

Law and Order

Monk

The Deadliest Catch

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation

Jackson Hole, Montana
Niagara Falls

Sanibel Island, FL

Yellowstone National Park

Four of your favorite foods

spaghetti w/sauce
crab cakes
chicken and dumplings
salads


Four Websites You Visit Daily

Etsy.com
Poets.org
MSN.com
Poetrysociety.org

Four Places You Would Rather Be

right here at home
English Countryside
Key West, FL
Italian Villa

Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die

Turn 90

Learn to play the piano

Publish a book of poetry

Read Moby Dick… and enjoy it – I’ve been trying for 30 years!

Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time

Anna Karenina

The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Thorn Birds
The Secret Life of Bees

Tag Four People You Believe Will Respond

- Karen - Keeping Secrets
- Aniket - Melody of Dissonance
- Margaret - My Poems And Emotions
- THE WALKING MAN

THE TRUTH OF THINGS

THE TRUTH OF THINGS


with me
it’s not the
voices


sweeping me
with their
delicacy


it’s the ravaging
of the night
the digging


and the
fright and
the animal


sounds that shift
in the cavity
of my skull


like wind
or an endless
throb of thoughts


it’s the sifting
of earth beside
my dream


just there
a wall
between


where roses
let go their
petals quietly


in a
slight wind
of reverie


falling
at my feet
like concrete


with me
it’s not the
voices


it’s the
absence of
voices


that I hear
so piercingly
at night

A NEW GETHSEMANE

A NEW GETHSEMANE


Following Candide’s advice,
I cultivated my own garden
in rich black humus that was
as soft and as cool as the
earthworms that churned there.


I became a messiah
to the strawberry plants –
the expected deliverer of the fruit.
Day after day, I worried over them,
as if they had mortal souls to save.


They strayed from the righteous path and
climbed into the beans, tomatoes, and corn.
They were not interested in possibilities,
but wanted only to live for the here and now.


I absolved those murderous strawberry
plants that strangled the delicate snow
peas standing innocently in their way -
strangled them until their blossoms lay
white upon the ground like translucent
eyelids cut from tiny alien corpses.


Beyond tired, I would sit under
the tulip tree at night to rest.
I would try to forget the
strawberry plants for a while.
But always, looking toward
the garden, I felt restless -
as if I were about to be betrayed.