April 30 thank God it doesn't have 31 days

The epimedium's leaves spread into hearts,
rimmed with purple, to match the flowers
that are dying already.

A light at the end of the corridor,
yes, that corridor,
switches off.

April 29

Ripped from today's headlines


Miss Kreshi re-rediscovered Noah's Ark this morning.
She was just out walking her goats and there it was:
"I don't really think I noticed it before,"
though this was a well-worn route for her herd.

Noted archeologist Lord Blankenship claims it was there all along.
"It's right where I last discovered the irksome thing!" he exclaimed,
only peeved because the site had gone undeveloped all these years
though the grounded vessel offered terrific opportunities.

You could build a hotel-- or at least a cafe...
His Lordship was last seen wrestling one of Miss K's goats
for the branch it was chewing, the explorer believing
the stalk may be the very twig carried by a certain dove.

April 28

Epiphany

An ordinary college evening,
okay, maybe a Saturday, tripping,
and suddenly the pieces fall
together. Of course: the universe
could only have been created by Love.

Obviously hidden.
Mysteriously clear.
Laughter ensues.
Religions right after all?
What's a sophomore to do?
Repent? Too funny!

Love. Pure love permeating
black holes in space and nova
lox. Salmon, nebulae and the dot
matrix printer, newly invented,
adding to the perfection of it all.

Just like the day at the armory,
when I saw what happens when a tiger
bats its paw, just like my cats,
when annoyed, but causing three red lines
to appear through the trainer's white shirt,
lines visible from across the vast armory.

I remember these stripes
and the tiger. I see them now,
tiger and trainer, in eternal embrace.
Love is so different sometimes.

April 27

Acrostic


Clouds

Caused by collisions of more weather than you are ever
Likely to disentangle
Or even hope to
Understand, they nevertheless continue to hover:
Discarded dream fragments
Slipped skyward.

April 26

Poems from Scraps.

This continues an abandoned project of making poems from pieces of the guide to wildflowers.

Some White Flowers


I've sung praises of the Buffalo Soldier
while stepping on Buffalo Clover
with its heart shaped leaflets (notched at tip)
and trodden the despised Hairy Bush Clover,
a branch of the family no one wants to know,
dwelling along roadsides.

But none so hated as the Gall-of-the-Earth.
Though it flowers creamy white and bears
pinkish bracts, surely it made some damning pact
to earn such a name. In dwells in moist woods.
In the book, it besmirches the page
devoted to loose clusters of dangling bells,
rattlesnake roots. No innocent white flower
is without its malevolence.

April 25

I'll admit it: spirits are flagging. I'm crawling to the finish line.


Everything is boring.

Yes, everything is boring
now. It wasn’t when I was your age.
We’d sprinkle our heads with fairy dust
(luckily no one had allergies)
and the abandoned garage became a dungeon.
Don’t even ask about the tortures.
Even the internet is boring?
All the interesting sites want money
and you have none.
The television?
Only sports and you don’t care who wins.
It only matters when friends –- or foes--
are playing and today they’re all away.
I saw a program about a man
who was talking on a landline
when lightening struck.
He became a pianist.
I wouldn’t try it though.
You might end up a baboon,
flinging feces, the way our luck runs.
Just listen to the nuthatch
with that same tweet
over and over again.
What is he calling for?
Yesterday he squawked
and I thought perhaps I scared him.
But usually it’s just this tone.
I hear it all the time.
Sometimes it annoys me
that long, piercing note,
its meaning impenetrable.

April 24

Find a phrase


May my vessel be shattered by such fierce winds
not a board remains to bear me aloft on the seas!

The very formal pirate always tried to honor
his tyrannical English teacher

and never uttered such crass statements
as shiver my timbers

though the image of every slat
quaking with fear as the waves tore

and sheered it to splinters
might have won the pirate a gold star

and saved him a lifetime of seasickness.




Twist a phrase


Liar be square
Slime fries when you're having sun.
Truth is tasted on the tongue.
Pleasure twice: slut once.
A turd in the sand is worth poo in the tush.
A twitch in time shaves pine.
Dead guy at night, trailers turn right.