Writing :: NaPoWriMo 2006
Note: full text is only available to logged-in site members.
Dear Poet,
We expect it’s quite a shock for you
to find us gone. We’re tired
of living within the lines you’ve drawn,
of sketching out a dead man’s life.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Early Winter
I know you are unhappy with the way I closed
the cottage, but you store those words away
for next summer, when we’ll open doors to find
spiders swinging between the pitcher and tea cups,
mold creeping across the floorboards below a shutter
not quite shut.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Guy Calls George and Travis In
Across Mongolia’s endless steppes you say you’ll go,
on ponies wet with sweat. And yet I know you’ve never ridden.
Sumo wrestling in Japan? You weigh 110--you’ll be smushed--
and still you’re keen to squint your eyes and slap your thighs
and step into the ring.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Lament for the Untimely Death of Leslie’s Rooster
Oh Gods, Oh Benevolent Spirits, Oh Guard Dogs,
all Fairies in the Gardens! Witness this, Ancestral
Ghosts and every Boy Scout who ever helped
Granny cross the street! I call on you, Bartenders:
I grieve!
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Ship Creek, Alaska
Don’t bother asking
who’s had luck--they’ll all deny,
hoping you’ll keep walking. Scan
the banks for stringer lines or buckets
lined with silver.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Leslie’s Ruddy Rooster
Look at Leslie’s ruddy rooster,
snuggled smug a’ right up in her
lap. Watch her preen his feathers,
kiss his beak
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Because You Love Like Scientists Dissect Frogs
May your bleached hands crack and crinkle.
May your nose smell disinfectant and mop bucket.
May your feet know only the path from house to lab
and your parking space be in a concrete building.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
In the afternoon, alarms
Twenty fighters scramble after you,
baste the horizon with their exhaust trail,
tack the sky in place while I watch
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
For the Love of Perfect Toast
The crumb tray is jammed, crooked--
scatters crumbs from counter to floor
if the toaster is moved, catches enough
to smoke the apartment if the toaster
isn’t shaken empty.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006
Postcard from Vegas
Dear Mum--You remember Guy, my co-
worker, the one who went skydiving the day
his mother died?
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus