Poetry – Underground Turtles

To the Morning Robin

June 23, 2023 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

The early bird catches the worm,

the early worm catches the bird.

To the morning robin listen closely.

There within you will find,

there within you will hear

the hoot of the owl. Dawn’s crack comes as a door open

but only so slightly.

It comes as a muskrat would gnaw at the edge of night.

Take a walk. You will forever remain in the present’s wake,

therefore, “take” remains—and is always—took.

Within the shadow of the nightshade

I could smell and taste the milky sap of the morning glory

and within the morning glory:

moonflowers.

Present is always one step behind.

As we advance we retreat into dawn.

And dawn’s sister is dusk. And dawn’s reflection is the moon.

No matter how well-meaning, the present could not sustain.

It could not tolerate or weather or endure or stand.

The moving-mirror-time-space-continuum,

this menagerie of moments, this battleship of molecules

and inertia,

always pressed—always presses—close,

forever compelled near,

at last, falls in upon itself because it cannot stand upon itself.

It’s as but bones without its skin

and eternity wins.

Trans-action

September 27, 2022 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

Ripples on a lake

trans

act. Glass

on a beach,

lies,

continues to be: glass,

polished smooth by interchange.

I watch a sparrow

as if it were tomorrow because today arrived early.

I throw a rock as far as I can;

it still sits, same indentation.

I cannot see past this fallow moment.

PETRI DISH

April 4, 2022 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

Those little mosses that press forth—

what are they thinking

in their eyeless, earless, tasteless world;

they yawn into dawn;

who told them to be just moss?

In our own little biome

we traverse our inner courtyard,

round and round.

We break the rules, stretch the rules,

keep the rules

in our own little biome-niche:

time.

We walk the perimeter—

its edge—

borderless, fenceless,

invisible barbs from which we are defenseless.

Time.

When it rains the rains fall,

when it snows the snows fall—

or is that simply singular:

snow,

rain?

that’s all,

each droplet one in the sea,

each flake one in the sea:

Humanity:

you, me:

hair, lashes, skin,

bone, teeth, flesh

to meet the molecules

to meet the cells

that splash and sing among

the DNA

(to meet the solemn moon in its rising).

That’s what I am

barking in the shadows

punctual (right on time)

one tree in this great universal petri dish

forest.

GOD IS A GENTLEMAN

January 11, 2022 ut1 Comments 3 comments

He is above all,

yet, He—the second Person

of the Trinity—in the fullness of time

became low—as animals looked on—born in a barn.

What mere mortal man could have dreamed up such a scene?

Wholly God, wholly man

Holy God, a Holy Man—

God is above all,

and being above all,

above all,

does not—would not—

force Himself or His plan

on mortal man. Indeed,

God is a gentleman.

Therefore, when I tell the Christmas story

of God—so willingly shedding His glory

for a while—exchanging home and throne

for a manger and a cross: for God so loved the world—

I do so in the same Spirit

not as prosecutor, not as proselytizer

but more as Paul—

who as Saul

had once persecuted the Christians,

who as Saul had once seen the blinding light in the desert—

not as judge and jury,

not as cross examiner or crucifier,

not even defense attorney

but as Paul singing from prison

and Silas—

praying for his persecutors and as such saying

God is a gentleman.

THE TRADE

November 13, 2021 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

What is poetry?

The skunk curled up in the feed bucket?

Or you as you unwittingly carry it down

from 6 to 9,

set the bucket on the flat of the flatbed?

You watch it scurry, a bit shocked,

that is, the skunk.

We have just gotten back with a load of sawdust from Maywood Furniture Factory on Bulb Ave.

Or was that Thompson?

The dust would be covered over all our clothes.

At home

my dad would take a broom and sweep me off.

We breathe in lots of fine dust-

fine indeed–

as well as ammonia.

One day my draft notice comes, one day

I guess as it should have been:

it was fine.

I trade my shovel for a rifle.

SHEEP…

August 8, 2021 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

O, slow,

I am sheep in fog.

Dolorous,

I see through a glass

darkly; nevertheless,

know who my shepherd is.

The Egret

May 31, 2019 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

A white egret
Is juxtaposed against the moon.

If not for its dark silhouette,
You would have missed it,
The white on white,
Bone on bone—
The way the scene was lit.

T.S. took a back seat
And so did Whitman.
The miracle of meter
No longer mattered or so it seemed;
It all flowed together

So seamlessly,
O, in such symmetry
And endlessly,
Or so it seemed.

This whole universe stood still,
Stands still,
As in a tableau. Yet
The egret
Flew;

The egret;
Black silhouette;
Death;
Unseen, save by the light of the moon.

And Wyeth,
N.C., came, and comes to mind.
And so did Sassoon.
And I thought of Monet. And Rilke:
Poets, painters, “poet-painters,”
All of the same ilk,

All, breathing from the same turgid tube;
Not pretentious, not dull from storm,
But solemn—
Somewhere where Plath and Keats
Met,
Meet,

Somewhere where the sea and the path forget.
This is no longer dry land.
Flies the egret.

Succinctness 2

May 15, 2019 ut1 Comments 0 Comment

Keen the sharp edge,
even redundancy,
life, as with poetry,
is best facilitated by brevity,
point a – point b.
But there are the exceptions

leading me to the question,
that detour, that out of way venture,
that rendezvous long way home.
And then when you ask the question
it’s already been answered–
to the bone.

Underground Turtles

When nothing worth saving no longer seems right

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Category: Poetry