Some More Poems

Four poems from the last year and a half.

Eve of the Prairie
I awoke from a walking sleep
Seeing nothing but darkness deep
Feeling dirt with my naked feet
Only thing that I had, a sheet

In an instant, through parting clouds
Moonlight shined, lifting off the shrouds
Cast around by the dark, and yet
Fog so light was still strongly set

Through a cloud which still hung aloft
Streamed a beam that was firm yet soft
It alighted on something slight
Where the mist had been twisting tight

Moving closer to see the spot
Sensing something was in the lot
Then I quickly beheld a straight
Form, erect with a strength innate

She was staring into the sky
With a fear stirring in her eye
Whether cold or her nakedness
Caused her shivering, I confess

I don't know, being too surprised
By a figure so undisguised
Taking one more small step towards her
Something snapped, moving her to stir

Seeing me only trebled all
She was feeling, and with a small
Gasp she ran towards some woods afar
In a line with the morning star

I pursued, both my feet in pain
From the dirt and the stalks of grain
Closing in, I then paused before
Entering, for my feet were sore

Lunar light lit wet bark so faint
Casting silver on silver paint
It transfixed me, I stood in awe
Of this grove in a place so raw
I began to observe a glow
Humming 'round, forcing night to go
Scanning tree after tree for some
Sign of her, feeling almost numb

There she finally stood, more calm
Now, at ease; stretching out a palm,
She was beckoning me come in
Yet I paused; for right there and then

Faintest sun streams cascaded down
From afar and began to drown
All around with red-orange light
Showing all of this stunning sight

I then begged her to come with me
Offering, calmly, peacefully,
Food and rest; taking off the sheet
I revealed from my head to feet

My own body, which seemed to shock
Her. She gasped, which then caused a flock
Of birds to start, flying towards the dawn.
I myself only gave a yawn,

Tired from wand'ring this stretch of time.
Still, I called, and she moved to climb
Up, though slowly, the wooded hill
Into the sheet to escape the chill.

The sun had risen just on the edge
Of view, its warmth past a distant hedge
Overflowing, beyond which there
Lay my home in the prairie air.

Leading her, calmly, with my arm
From her garden and through a farm,
I could sense that she felt reposed,
Freed by being now unexposed.
            - 8/18/2011

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Arse Nova
A Man tossed a Chair out a Window
            and declared that it was art,
Saying: “Indeed it is, it inspires
            Thought and is also from my Heart.

From his Heart that Chair was launched
            out of his high Windowsill.
“A Martyr for Art have I become?” thought Chair,
            “’Tis much against my Will.”

O Chair! that was thrust into Oblivion
            and made a Sacrifice for the Aesthetic,
You had a Life so comfortable
            and then a Fate so pathetic.

In the Alley this grisly Tableau
            attracted the leers of a Mob.
They contemplated it, these Critics:
            a Hobo, a Kitty, and a Slob.

The Kitty hissed, dissed, and left in Disdain
            while the Slob could only vomit.
The Hobo, however, took the Sacrifice
            and made a warming Fire from it.
-finished 8/16/12

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The morning yawns a groggy dawn
A throng, the early creatures, croak out their song
What a wetness wafts from the wheaty lawn
     -and the pall of another smell as well-

The shawl of night is not fully gone, so the air-
A wall of trees, long and tall, dense and hale,
     grabs the view, blocks the vision,
     until, in movement is sensed, through the thicket,
     a flicker of sound, a snap,
     sinews of lively light,
     intimations supporting the suspicions
     of the source of that smell-

And the air-
Moving past this proof appearing from the treeline,
     set for summer,
It is seen in surrounding fullness-

The vast sky smokes purple streaks of gray
     as the black soil bleeds fire up the hill.
Such a spectrum: green grass, gilded grain-
     but all gone, as grungy ashes seed the ground,
     and roaring ribbons of red and orange writhe around and burn each other

The scene slides along, ascending the slight slope,
When, even as a thing that suddenly-
A solitary oak, slightly aside!
Flames lap and lick on almost all sides,
     and though it would continue to melt and move past,
I stop amidst the infernic maelstrom,
     my mind in heat with envious thought:

The oak, though old in years, was young in season,
     seemingly behind its brethren in the treeline I past
     for the light, even against the stronger light of the blaze,
     still shone from its leaves;
The oak, in the fore of the fire, felt that which I could not,
     I who must still glide along safely.
Yet I can say I saw this before noon could say anything.
            -finished 10/8/12

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"Ave Avocado"
A Sonnet


Tear-drop emerald of our food
Seeming fruit in the conditional mood:
If your taste were less subjunctive,
And you were more easy to denude,
I would perhaps eat you more oft.
My salads, with your meat so soft,
Would be yet more inviving,
And my health raised aloft.
As it is, you are hard at heart;
Your character tasteless; we must part.
I cannot have you fully, anyway,
As your inner-self is quite apart
From any man's nature to digest you;
Your nature, then, of charm so divests you.