Turning Point

 I work at this but my command of Middle English is poor.  I like the sound of it, though, for certain subjects and moods.  

New Year New Life

 We are hopeful.

Arrival

 

Had you sneaked yourself here

From among the stars

A bit of mischief

Arcing across the quiet dark

To take your place before me

I’d have come up short in wonder

Listened for a boom or a whoosh

Cocked my head for a better look

To see you turning yours up to me

Ready to jump

Ready, ready, ready

Go

More Boys Coming to the Party

 A poem for December, 2020, inspired by the twin boys who will make their appearance as members of the family in the early months of 2021.

Twins

 

Like you, I know no moonlight where I sleep

A swish—one passing car—wafts through

My windowpane

 

I wonder what you sense

Your purchase fresh but strong now

There within my girl

 

A world without abstraction

Warm and wet at least

But what is that to you

 

You two

 

Entangled in the mortal sprint to light

More like me every day

Or what I might have been at least

 

At best my night surrenders to

The morning soon and soon enough

We’ll all three bathe beneath the moon

Something Political for November 2020

 There is usually a wafer of a firewall between my politics and art.  Hard to maintain that these days.  U.S. Attorney General Barr declared Seattle to be an "anarchist jurisdiction," for the purpose of extorting something with the threat of withholding federal money, or something.  It was silly, but not funny.  So, too, the poem.

Abcdarian Jurisdiction

 

Anarchy

Becomes us in Seattle,

Coming as it

Does with Nordic sense of order.

Effortless in

Fact. Who would have

Guessed? We make everything so

Hard as a matter of course.

I think we should thank Mr. Barr

Just this once. I

Know it seems so strange but

Little isn’t anymore. I

Mean he saw it on TV and

No one can doubt he had advice

On what an anarchist

Place would look like on the tube.

Quite frightening, I guess. I was

Remiss in not

Seeing the report on Fox

TV. It seems OK here though,

Unless I’m missing something

Vital, as I sometimes do.

We’ve all learned something new,

eXactly what I can’t yet say, but

You should know I love this chill

Zen Emerald City—anarchy & all.

 

Tardy Posting of the October 2020 Poem

 This one is based on a real set of memories of a short period of time many years ago.  

Hong Kong—First Approach

 

The ship pushed aside thickening new air,

Warm, damp, candied by the breath

Of people in precarious urban hives

On the musk green hillsides—

A caramel perspiration over

The fresh salt of open sea.

 

Flat glass and steel shards intimidate

The shore, rising like kept promises

Between the teeming bay

And the random ridgeline.

Stark puffs preen with quiet impudence

Across the brazen blue above.

 

A world uncanny that calls to me

“Welcome home.”

Chosen

The new reality has put each of us into a bubble.  Some are obvious or essential members of the exclusive container.  Judgment is required.  Judgement of risk, and of trust.  I'm old, and it seems to me to be a more familiar decision than one would expect.  I've had my bubble for some time, and I admit new members with care.

Chosen

 

In our bubble, overlooking another man’s mown grass,

              (Still bright wet from morning sprinklers)

              The stark dagger of a fir shadow threatens from the south.

I see it all through the iridescent film of our isolation.

The sunlight plays on the lawn at the speed of the light breeze,

              Highlighting the subtle shades of your eyebrows.

We breathe easily—no one is upwind or down. We are chosen

              And we choose with care with whom to share

              The warm and lambent light that makes it through.

Gifting

Gifting

 

The other day you popcorn-popped

A skyfull of stars for me

And with each rounded stride

Placed spheres among them

On their courses.

You then held a comet

Gently as a fern

Between two fleshy fingers

Spouting dust beneath a bear. 

Allowing me a taste of it

You chuckled to yourself

And held my eye as surely

As the rising moon.