Monday, July 20, 2015

Cattails, September 2014

Featured Poet


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moonglow . . .
a thousand jellyfish
in an ocean of sky


a slate sky
knows the calligraphy
of trees


at the jubilee
bohemian waxwings
eating cherries


white bells
ringing the changes
lily of the valley


pussywillows
the swollen bellies
of feral cats


night drive . . .
a deer leaps over
the moon


on the tundra
caging a winter sky
caribou bones


transplanted . . .
a bleeding heart
in the surgeon's garden


red-tailed hawk
on a telephone pole . . .
the prairie listens


blood-veined leaf
on your upturned palm . . .
these life lines


broken spider web
drifting between the roses
you caress my face


at dock's end
a yellow ladder
steps in sky


asteroids
collide and shatter
in silence
you taught me to speak
with interplanetary lies


small songs
rolling off your tongue
like fog
weaving between the bones
of my heart


grandmother's
tarnished teaspoon
stirs memories
in bittersweet cups
I swallow her tears


slipping between
midnight's torn pages
the morning
rewrites our story
in slanting light


a starling
m u m u r a t i o n
sifting the sky
she recalls the moment
her life changed shape


the lake's black skin
tattooed with starlight
and aurora
remember that night we dipped
ink-stained hands into the moon


they called us
to collect her things
not knowing
what to do with her teeth
we left her smile in the trash


the seeds
of forget-me-nots
I planted
in her mind's wilted garden
could not recall her blooming


sister
of the earth
you sang to me
until harmony
sprouted on my tongue


blue glacier
calving into the narrows
a bloodless birth
our letting go of progeny
that too soon drift away


on father's coffin
the cowboy hat and polished boots
of a prairie Gael
the skirling pipes
that sing him home


at the stoplight
she squeegees
car windows
her scrawny arms tattooed
with poetry and addiction


when I began
to lose my hair
I wove
a shirt of myself
for your shroud


blood moon
and dwarf star
how red
the dimming day
settling in your hair


gardening
in the hat you gave me
I am undone
by faded ribbons
and the scent of lilies


with ink stick
and wolf hair brush
on rice paper
I paint the unlikeliness
of my married name



























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