Tag: poem

Poem 20150718

crow

the clock ticks
erratically
and you wonder
–why won’t the damn thing
keep time
the way it’s supposed to–

one second after another
one minute after the next
not
long stretches where the minute hand
doesn’t move
or jerks suddenly so far ahead
that the hour hand is dragged
along in its wake
or actually
moves backward
an impossible dance step

but never far or
convincingly enough
to change a single letter
in this poem

Poem 20150716

crow

shouldn’t we take the train, you ask

on trains
the country slides by
like frames of film
like an illusion of life
or a series of photographs
or paintings
granular in change
so subtle from one to one
so different from first to last
like the station where you boarded
and
the station where you stepped down
in another place
and another time

sure, i say
and i go to buy the tickets

Poem 20150713

crow1 Comment

i don’t know what
happened to the brakes

but everything seems to
require

more pushing of the feet
to effect
more slowing of world

maybe if we all applied
the brakes
at the same time

there might be some squealing of tires
the smell of burned rubber
–but the sweet silence after

Poem 20150712

crow

a million bees
is what he said

a million bees in the
hollowed out knothole
of the old oak

in the rising heat
under the shade of its own branches
the sluggish bees crawled
around the entrance
to the hive
each bee
a drop of water in a wave
an undulation of apiary activity

we stood on the trail
talking in whispers
though you couldn’t
even hear them humming

in my neighborhood
you used to see them swarm
inside the water valve boxes
near the sidewalk
escaping the concrete covers
through little keyholes
to look for nectar or maybe
better digs

in the end the city
would send someone to remove them
i never found out if they were relocated
but the evidence of their broken hives
cracked wax chambers dripping honey
remained, drying on the sidewalk
swarmed with ants

Poem 20150711

crow

the lump is solid and dead and wet
when you unsack it

you don’t even pull it out
just let it slide out on its own

gravity does the dirty work
you just guide with with your hands

watch it impale itself on a wooden stake
not that it has a heart

not yet

and you hear it separate from its skin
which you reserve

the peeling off of skin
the baring of red flesh not yet alive

after all, this is eden
you haven’t breathed life into it

not yet

as you take it apart
cutting with wire and knives and fingers

you save the pieces for later
keeping the bits in the old skin

keeping them wet because when they dry,
they are useless shards