at the hotspring.

Silver moon bath on snow

Through a veil of gauze

My hands slide against pebbles

the june bug on my porch

 

While lively green moths

and papery powder-white ones

flutter around the lightbulb in a kind of midsummer orgy,

the june bug walks the porch floor alone,

stopping now and again to wave its front legs in the air

and lift its head as if sniffing. It walks blindly, alone,

following a bearing neither of us can see;

body heavy and lumbering, a bug

that crashes into window screens and thuds off walls,

clumsy and endearing.

Resolutely it plods along the cement floor, blind

to the daddy long legs that now strides across its path,

blind to the crane flies in the air,

to the spiders behind the door,

the earwig in the cushions –

blind to me, writing about insects on my porch

as my own neighbor walks by on the sidewalk

and the purple evening fades to dark.

unintentional poetry

Taken from a mispelled Facebook posting.

Finely finished with the wood
The boys said when they get there own houses they won't
burn wood we will see

April

What is there to say of this water,
of nights when the rain beats down hard,
falling straight and sideways
all at once? It is a drum
spurring you to battle,
its beat coursing through your veins:
April! stand ready with mop, or pen, or paddle.
Rivers rip trees from their roots,
maneuvering their sodden trunks through torrents
twisting and gushing,
tearing through a landscape of tattered browns and grays.
At home I sleep with the windows cracked open,
half-aware of the violence outside,
knowing, even as I sleep
that birth is a kind of violence; spring a kind of birth.
Slushy snow clings to the shadows,
tendrils of green nudge through the tamped down leaves;
the world is birthed in water, dripping, gushing, pooling under every rock.
One night we gathered,
drawn together from all directions,
each following lines on the map
that led to one street, one building.
We rushed through the downpour,
and leapt over puddles, laughing,
hugging in the doorway -- wet arms, wet hair.
We danced the rain off,
shook like wet dogs to drums that pounded
more loudly than the rain against the roof,
and later, when it was over, when the room
smelled like the inside of a tent,
warm with human bodies,
we stood under the awning on the sidewalk,
our ears still ringing,
marveling at the volume of water pouring from the black sky.

merry christmas!

I'll start posting again in January; for the past month I haven't had internet access except while at work. For now, December's lone blog posting: a poem for the holidays, for warm houses full of people, for the times you'll look back on.

the music one looks back on
stephen dobyns

in early autumn, there's a concerto
possible when there's a guest in the house
and the guest is taking a shower and the host
is washing up from the night before.
with each turn of the tap in the kitchen,
the water temperature increases or drops
upstairs and the guest responds with little groans--
cold water for low notes, hot water for high.
his hair is soapy, the tub slippery
and with his groaning he becomes the concerto's
primary instrument. then let's say the night
was particularly frosty and now the radiators
are knocking, filling the house with warmth,
and the children are rushing around outside in the leaves before breakfast,
calling after their Irish setter whose name is Cleveland.
And still asleep, the host's wife is making
those little sighs one makes before waking,
as she turns and resettles and the bed creaks.
Standing at the sink, the host hums to himself
as he thinks of the eggs he'll soon fry up,
while already there's the crackle of bacon
from the stove and a smell of coffee. The mild groans
of the guest, the radiator's percussion,
children's high voices, the barking of a dog,
even the wife's small sighs and resettling
combine into this autumn concerto of which
not one of the musicians is aware as they drift
toward breakfast and then a leisurely walk
through the fields near the house--two friends
who haven't seen each other for over a year.
Much later they will remember only a color,
a golden yellow, and the sound of their feet
scuffling the leaves. A day without rancor
or angry words, the sort of day that build a life,
becoming a soft place to look back on,
and geese, geese flying south out of winter.

i am thankful for beer.
for hot food and warmth when it's cold,
and cold pools to jump into when it's hot.
for fresh water, dark and delicious.
for friends in every season,
solitude too. i am thankful for the rain,
and the wind, the snow and the sun,
the deep drifts of february
and the steady drip of april.
i am thankful for alpine meadows
full of yellow and purple flowers
and a sole orange tent against the sky.
i am thankful for my bed.
i am thankful for the people who write books.
for a hard day's work.
for those who start revolutions and make art,
who smile easily and think deeply.
for continents and maps.
i am thankful for my hands and feet,
the air i breathe, the confidence to state cliches,
knowing they're sometimes true.
i am thankful for mountaintops and the rocky edge of the sea.
for medicine.
for knowledge, and for all that we don't know,
all there is to explore, and all that we'll never understand.
i am thankful that this list could go on all night,
forever and ever,
amen.

two poems about lazy afternoons.

(2010)
When I take a bath
on June 6th
the condensation
(such an unpoetic word)
beads on my beer bottle--
deschutes brewery, inversion ipa.
the bathroom mirror fogs.
the overhead light slightly
too bright for my liking,
but candlelight proved too dark to read by,
and reading the atlantic, listening to duke ellington
proved necessary to my satisfaction this evening
after eight solid weeks in the field.
it proved important, also, to my perspective of my legs--
foreign objects!--
as i stretched them out of the water,
knees at eye level,
recently shaved;
even--i thought optimistically--remotely tan-looking
in this artificial light.
my toenails are painted a startling fuscia
to hide the fact that the two big ones
have split in half horizontally from being wet 10 hours a day
paddling down the river.
i can make my knees become small islands,
connect the dots of the freckles on my arms,
pool water in my bellybutton
and push it out with one big breath.
sit up, rest my chin on my shoulder,
and examine myself from a new angle.
threads from my old towel dangle off the curtain rod
and my absent roommates' shampoos and razors
line the edge of the tub.
i lose track of time,
bathing here amongst words and scratchy trumpet sounds,
and i don't know if it will be dark
or light
when i open the bathroom door.

july 21 (2011)

today I came down by the garden at 2:39 p.m.

and hung my hammock in the spreading boughs

of some great tree of unknown species.

I told myself, one hour on this hot afternoon,

one hour of sitting in the hammock, reading and writing

and savoring the light through the summer leaves.

But now it's seven o'clock, and I'm still here.

The air is cooler now, the light diffuse.

Hao came by at four, and I helped him

check the honeybees, and then I did something

that would shock my mother:

I left him to clean up

and I guiltlessly marched back to my hammock,

where I thought very good thoughts

well worth an afternoon's time. 

 

easter, 2010

adam sits on the edge
of a giant piece of old industrial
driftwood a beer
between his knees
please recycle, it says,
though it will be crushed
and tossed into the plastic
trashcan.
ben with his white fang teeth
flashing in the sun,
john on the sidelines
with an absurdly oversized camera
around his neck,
beer cans and a banjo,
books and sunglasses.
i pick up pieces of seaglass
and lay them on the weathered boards.
long shadows
stretch back toward the woods
where we pee
standing
or crouched in the crushed pine needles
steaming warm earth rising
up toward the branches,
the ferry in the distance,
shawn and cat walking north
in the april sunshine--
we feel we're such good friends
through we've been so for two weeks, only,
and on this holiday, on the rocky beach,
after brunch and a plastic egg hunt and ham and
sweet cinnamon rolls
we feel like long lost relatives.

I think I wrote these poems in 2009. No one has ever seen them. Isn't this a thrilling first?

Yesterday there was a tsunami.

I saw it on the news

Three-inch tall, wind-whipped palm trees

Suddenly sprouted on my TV screen

Or maybe those were from the hurricane

Last week.

I can’t remember.

Today I walked to the jewelry seller

On the corner, by the subway stairs,

And I bought a wooden bracelet

from the woman there

For four dollars.

I said,

Maybe this will help your brother

with the hollow eyes

But I never spoke those words.

Instead I thought how nicely

The bracelet dangled on my wristbone.

I stayed out a long time

Even though it was cold, and raw.

I took the subway all around the world.

I walked through the neighborhoods

And got lost,

Avoiding the train that would take me home:

There were uprooted trees

And hollow eyes

In my apartment.

 

Whew. Sharing poetry is tough. Glad I got that first one out of the way. These photos are from the same time period; it's a miracle they survived the Great Computer Theft of 2010.

February.

I cannot let myself think

About work

Outside of work

Nor about my life outside of work

When I'm here.

They are two separate me's.

At home, rocking in front of the stove,

Chopping an onion in the kitchen,

Standing dripping in the shower

Or easing into bed with hair still damp,

I do not think of absent bosses

Of my low status

Or of the articles to read and letters to write

Tomorrow.

At least,

I try not to.

And at work, talking about the weather

While I wait for coffee to trickle into my mug,

Sitting under ugly lighting,

Picking at my cuticles

And listening to the irregular clicking

Of eight hands on four keyboards

The occasional tapping foot

Or muffled cough,

I do not think about you,

Needing to borrow my car once again,

And will you put gas in the tank

And will the dishes be done when I get home

Or must I do them myself, again,

After I bring up wood

Stamp away the wet snow

Let the dog out

And back in again.

Taxes wait in a file on the glowing laptop screen

And our future rests

In glances, words, the slightest gestures;

Is rubbing your back as you sit, forehead buried in your palms, right

Or wrong?

These are questions I do not ponder at work,

Or at least,

I try not to.

One more? Shall we?

Home

There is a crusty muffin

Several days old

Sitting in of the cabinet

That I tell myself I will eat.

But really, it will be fed to the birds.

There is spoiled tomato soup

In the back of the fridge

Behind the ginger ale;

Hair balls under the couch;

And a pair of dirty underwear

Scrunched up at the foot of the bed

Along with the sheet

Pushed there by hot, impatient feet.

There’s a mostly empty bottle of shampoo

That outlived the conditioner,

And clothes I no longer wear

But think I might, someday.

There is a picture that makes me cry

Slid behind another that doesn’t.

There is a stain you cannot see on the floor,

And a toilet scrubber that I handle only very, very gingerly.

These were all written when I was 24 and living a life meant for someone three times my age. That's how it felt, anyway -- I couldn't wait to break free. And I did.

tonight it stopped raining
for the first time in three days.
streetlight bounced off pools
on the sidewalks,
reflections
shattered by my boot.
be gentle,
he said
as i left.
i'm fragile.