World Trade Center

This one was started on September 11th.

                                        World Trade Center

                               I wish we could trade this world

                             for one in which one man’s faith

                             was not another man’s fear,

                             one person’s gain was not

                             centered on another’s loss,

                             and what we build would
                             
                              raise everyone and tower
                             
                              over no one as a taunt
                             
                              or a target.

Drawing 101

          Drawing 101

                  1.
               Line
             not the shortest path
            between two points
            but the scenic
            route, wandering beyond
            them both.

                  2. 
               Edge
            the place where one thing ends,
            just before another begins,
            separating the bird
            from the sky
            and the fish
            from the sea
            while conceptual artists
            explore the narrow space
            between beauty and
            bullshit.

                3.
     Negative Space
            It is what
            it isn’t.
            (Absence makes
            the art
            profounder.)
         
               4.
    Two Point Perspective
     In space, the farther
     the fainter and smaller.
     In time, some things grow
     larger with distance.
   
            5.
        Value
Squint and blur your sight
for a second and the world
becomes more light and dark,
not black and white exactly
but more than fifty shades
of gray.

 

           

           

 

Autumn Rain

A short one this week as I scramble to get ready for school.

                                            Autumn Rain

                                    The leaves have fallen face down
                                    on the damp, forgiving ground,
                                    as if leaves had faces,
                                    as if the ground cared.

Faith

Wrote this after almost falling by trying to look where I was going when I really couldn't see.

            Faith

When going down stairs in the dark,
best descend by feel and trust
the regular rise and run of the unseen
steps rather than stare in fear
and stumble over what you can
only dimly see, if at all; a final
jolt is better than a long fall.

Alternatives

This one might not need the last two lines.

      Alternatives

A young lady sits with her yellow pad
at the picnic table, pauses, writes, pauses,
then writes again. Is it a love letter,
a shopping list, a legal pleading, a poem,
or some other inventory of desire?
(Why do we not recognize or remember
some wants and needs unless we write them down?)

Here's a different version that leaves more up to the reader. If anyone has a preference, let me know.

          Inventories of Desire

A young lady sits with her legal pad
at the picnic table, pauses, writes, pauses,
then writes again. Is it a love letter,
a shopping list, a lesson plan, or a poem?

Downward Mobility

For foreign readers, mobile homes are large trailers that are usually put on permanent foundations and serve as houses for families.

     Downward Mobility

Why are so many mobile homes
so sad and stationary,
just marking time and losing ground?
Not so much the ones gathered
in neighborhoods, defiant tornado
targets with small gardens
and backyard pools,
but the solitary ones
abandoned along country
roads, like junked cars
that ran out of gas between here
and there,
old dream cars now
not worth the towing.

Proper Identification

    Proper Identification

From a distance, they look like prisoners
of war or a ragged line of hostages –
hands to head with elbows out, all standing
at stiff attention around a clump of trees.

But then they reveal themselves as birders,
binoculars raised to transfixed eyes
while they strain as I do to see and name
correctly all we can before it flies away..