Mattress Land

Imagine a crowded mattress store, although many of them are mostly deserted.
(For foreign readers, in the U.S. it's not unusual for customers to try out the mattresses
they are thinking of buying.)

             Mattress Land
 

is where strangers briefly sleep together
on separate beds, wandering flocks of Goldilocks
trading places in search of the one that’s just
right - not too firm or too forgiving- for the price
they’re willing to pay;  or they lie on memory
foam, still as corpses, and pretend to be
the princess who can sense the pea beyond
the two minute test, the restless nights,
the bitter mornings, the pro-rated guarantee.

 

Late Fall

Another acorn poem.  Fewer are falling but with larger consequences.

                        Late Fall

When the last, lone acorn lands on the roof,
it’s so crowded with others the chain reaction
sounds like a small avalanche or a distant
pocket billiard break with the click and roll
of collisions and kisses until there’s
silence –  and everything is rearranged.

 

Alien Abduction

  Alien Abduction

All but blindfolded, the victim
is bound and placed on a glass
turntable, then spun from what it
was to what it will become,
sensor probed by invisible rays
until the machine roars like a
descending jet then beeps three
times to say the dish is done.


   This is a bit of a riddle poem.  I don't write many of these.  Does it become clear (or too clear) what I'm describing?

Early Fall

This is about things that go bump in the night- and the daytime, too. (Sorry about the irregular spacing. Cutting and pasting from Word seems problematic today.)

   Early Fall

The acorns thump the roof

like slow, heavy hail

then roll like tiny bowling

balls toward the gutter


or sometimes sound more
like a roulette wheel
spinning for a winning
number and the soil it seeks.

One in a thousand makes it
there and even fewer
get to grow in nature’s noisy
and silent games of chance.

Yet oaks will stand here
long after this roof
begins to  rot, despite
our lifetime shingles and  
limited warranties. 

 

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.