Paintings, Poetry, Digital Collage, Fiction, Crafts, Cards, Non-Fiction & Web Design

I didn’t argue with you when you told me
Robert Todd Lincoln had a summer home in Vermont
but I didn’t really believe you until I read it
in that travel guide we picked up at the House of Cheese

He’d been there with his mother just before his father
was shot in the head – he’d stayed at that gorgeous inn
right near the fly fishing museum.

We passed by and talked about stove-pipe hats
old photos – and how small the green mountains seemed.
“His birthday was a couple of weeks ago,” I said.

“Whose?” you said. I laughed at you.
“Never mind.”
“you’d look good in a hat like that,” you snicker and run
your hand through my hair.

if eyes are eyes and feet are feet
i can neither see, nor walk
as you do. if words are words
and hands are hands, i can not touch
as you do. If lips are lips
ears are ears, i can not sing
as you do. if love is love
all else fades – you can not love
as i do.

an emu walks into a bar
squawks three times
and leaves – featherless and free

a naked emu leaping
out into the acrid city air
in search of a tall one
then gone

‘that’s something you don’t see everyday,”
the bartender said, swirling a rag in a glass

I just nod.

It must be poetry month
the words are starting to show
on the trees, Paula has a smile
and she is telling a friend
about Tom Sexton’s carving in the park.

Dave is wearing a hat and playing
with his boy down by the river
because he knows the value of a sunny day
and it’s too early to surf.

Michael is sending messages out
to all the poets within two hundred miles
to come and love words with him

Paul is talking to Richard about this city
again, how great it is to share it all
with townies and tourists and anyone
else who happens by.

Dan is passing through on his way
to the train station, on his way
to work, on his way to help
just a few boys not so lucky as his own.

Bill is laughing by a big blue lake
with his beautiful son in the beautiful sun
worshipping all creation – because it is good.

Brenda is sipping a Mai Tai and eating fancy food
talking about her grand daughter
and the wonderful painting she will paint tomorrow.

Steve is selling paint to a new guy in town
ready to fall in love
with the mills and the river and the sunsets.

It must be poetry month again,
and there’s just so much to say

it is may – maybe, maybe june
cold spring road is quiet
by the pond at the corner
i watch the tall grasses reaching
toward the the first best sunshine
a black and gold sun turtle
rests on the bit rock
part of a poorly constructed raft
thirty feet away on the short
half-submerged, i wonder
if i can make it float
if i can reach the turtle
if i can catch the turtle
if the turtle will wait for me

he hears me on the short and slides into the water
and away.

There was no gentle in the Dallas air today
only the rumbling voice of maybe-God
the debris of all we can not have

There is no heart beating in the twisted steel
no angel’s breath in the mottled laundry
no archangel’s sword to kill the plunderers

But there is a smile, not ironic or warm,
hollow, maybe only the echo of a real smile,
but still – lips upturned and grateful tears

Mothers in crowded rooms singing
where the world did not fall apart
to scared babies unable to sleep, afraid to dream

There is soft gentle in the air in Dallas tonight
tender gentle in the fingertips of strangers
holy gentle in arms that hold and the tears that fall.

into the muck, my foot
all the way to my ankle
I pull and hear the suck
as my shoe stays behind

the smell of skunk cabbage
and decomposing plants
twists my nose in a knot
as i reach down to pull it out
by the tongue

a few steps later, i do it all again
because I learned the wrong lesson