Reversals

Just playing around with some famous images.  (Sandburg, Pound, Poe, and Frost if you're wondering.)  I'm not sure it means anything yet, but I'm having fun.

   Reversals

The cat comes
on little fog feet
then melts away.

White petals wait
on a wet, dark bough
as if the wind were a train
that’s always late.

I rap on the Raven’s chamber door
and call out, “Hiya, cutie. I’m Lenore.”

When two roads diverge,
I tromp through the yellow wood.

Memory Laps

This started with the pun. I hope it ended up with something more.

            Memory Laps

My one track mind circles the same
moments, runs round the same events –
always leaning towards the left, time
after time: counterclockwise to the past,
ending exactly where I began.

Just once I’d like to reverse my
run, lean right and race clockwise,
fast forward to a future where
I could begin again where I once
did end –

                  or better yet, break free
of all measurement to roam
with Roethke and find by going
where I need to go.

Apologia Pro Oblivio

I wrote this after leaving yet another umbrella someplace.

Apologia Pro Oblivio
                            -To the last of my lost umbrellas

Foul weather friend, forgive my forgetting
You every time it turns fair, leaving you
At some Cineplex or under a fast food
Chair. What is so expandable should not
Be so expendable, but what is easily
Carried is also easily left behind.
What can be replaced cheaply can be
Abandoned with just this second thought:
This time, I pledge to keep you close though we
Both be worn round the edges, slow to open,
And prone to sudden collapse. This is my
Compact with you since you have been compact
For me. And, perhaps, when the sun shines, you can
Be my parasol, and I, your anchor against the wind.

Family Plan

A short poem about communication problems.

     Family Plan

When you speed dial me
as I speed dial you,
we’re so busy calling
we never get through.

Easy Pickings

Sometimes things come too easily.

       Easy Pickings

Turtles, quicker than their reputation,
proved elusive in that summer lake,
swiftly sliding from their sun spots
when I rowed closer to capture them
or flash diving deep when I turned
to catch them catching their breath –
leaving only a bubble trail behind.

But in the muddy creek that fed that lake,

they turned half-ostrich, confident they were
hidden when they could no longer see.
I gathered them, still as stones – 1, 2, 3.
By the third one, turtles had lost their charm,
and my mind turned to slippery frogs,
leaping, leaping just beyond my reach.

The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet

During my childhood, I spent many summer vacations at my grandfather's cottage on this river- the longest non-navigable river in the U.S.

             The Susquehanna: Something Short of a Sonnet.

                                                        

                                                          the Algonkian name, Susquehanna,

                                                          has been interpreted to mean “Long, Winding
                                                          River.”
                                                                    Susquehanna River Basin Commission

The river widens as it seeks the sea

gaining breadth but losing identity,

its Long Winding buried in a bay.

The Chesapeake is cherished, or so

the license plates say, while its birth

waters are forgot. That which cannot

be sailed is seldom romanticized.

That which cannot support commerce

can only be dammed with faint praise:

its poisons are not of its own making

but flow from the crops that feed us all;

its rushing power was ripe for the taking-

its muddy waters now part mirror, part wall.

Pot Luck

        Pot Luck

It’s one of those nights when
neighbors wander the suburban streets
carrying casseroles and salad bowls
and store bought pies – like random
wise men bearing different dishes
and following separate stars:
some bringing their family
favorite, some trying something
new, others unloading the unwanted
in the name of economy.
With luck, such a lottery will
produce a solid meal; without it,
rows on rows of insubstantial
jell-o molds. So much depends upon

what we all bring to the table.