"titling"; or, "a poem"

the more i try to do it the more i discover that i really don't care for titling poetry. there are a couple good reasons i can think of, ones that i usually use to explain my aversion in conversation, but honestly, i think i just don't like to name them if i can avoid it--titles are usually explanatory gestures on the part of the poet, and thus often false names, and i would prefer they find their own names with the people they interact with. that seems a little odd and parentish, but it's the best way i can think to put it.

anyway, and with that windy and wordish disclaimer out of the way, i thought and thought about it, and decided, i'm not titling this--i'm not going to do it. i prefer to let it stand on its own and see how it does.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

chimes
type
on
windows
shuttered
from
frost
on winds
whispered
greetings
rise
in waves
flakes
of winter
knocking

venturing out of doors

i'm at starbucks right now, stealing internet from a nearby panera since it costs six dollars an hour in starbucks--yeah, like i'm gonna do that. this is the first time i've gotten up the nerve to go out in public in four days, and i get the feeling i must look pretty ridiculous: bandages down my left arm, completely encased right one, scraped up all over, and slowly, meticulously attempting to type with my left hand, face close to the keys--i think i was even biting my tongue, stuck out the corner of my mouth for a while. it's not that i'm particularly vain about all this--i hadn't stayed in out of embarrassment, but pain. but you know how it is when you go out and suddenly become aware of your appearance and feel very naked? that's how i feel now.

in other news, i have recently discovered that my brother, Marshall, has started reading this blog. hi marsh! he's leaving for Tanzania soon, and pretty damn cool.

anyway, this is something new i've been working on. i hope everyone finds it enjoyable.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

walking
sticks
tap
roads
lazily
run
long
afternoons
perked
above grass
rabbit
ears
with
lion heads
in sway
gray manes
fly away

farm-house-coffee-shops and revisions

i don't know how many of you saw my last post about the farm house coffee shop that i have started to use as my hang-out/writing-room, but i decided the poem with it (that had already taken six years to get to that point) was horrible, after all, and in need of revision straight-away. so here's the new version.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

neath canopies of storm
trees
dressed in green
and yellow leaves
on branches
that bear them
hang
near the ground
around me
with hands
in my coat
warming fingers
set my cup
on the lawn
in the bluegray
and green
whispering
passers
breathe
in the haze
smoke
with rain
catching
dreams
in nets
it's raining
in my cup

poetry about home

well, i'm home at last! actually, i'm about 8 hours from home, but i'm in a portion of the united states that is similar to home, and it's closer to my real home both in sense and sensibility than abilene, tx, where i've been living for the past 2 years. i'm in wisconsin, and it's lovely. if you haven't ever seen wisconsin, you must! especially in the fall.

anyway, in commemoration of finding myself back where land, weather, and people's accents are familiar, i have decided to post a poem about home. it's very nostalgic, new, and it has no title yet.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

stalks of wild oats
crash
in waves
on the wood
as rains
bring weight
to fields
unheeded
drunk
in midsummer
the grass
hangs in the wet
and shaking out
its odor
from my umbrella
i watch it
washing
my legs
and steal
oaty memories
crushed in my hands

a dancer, and a fan favorite

I wouldn't say that this is the best thing I've ever written, but people seem to like it. I hope you do, too.

across icy meadow
she dances
on her stage
in her play
she steals hearts
with tiptoes
along glass
and dips into the smoothed
porcelain surface
in the crystal theater
beneath the snow
as shining eyes gaze in
shake up the globe and play it again

what should I call this? do you like it?

in autumnal rains
wind stirrings
of leaves let loose
flutter
round me
and we
kiss
in the gusts and clones
yet i am weighty
in my collar
and folds
i catch them
in my pockets
with no intent
they fall
fall
and dance round their tree
in drizzle
and blow
but i am weighty

An untitled poem

This was first published by Weber State University.

the olding man
by the well
kneeling to drink
of an absent love
spins off words and rhymes
and kneels to taste another
looking for a place to stay
but finding none
he sits in this place
as the story becomes
another
throwing up leaves
and catching them before they fall
and bending to lift another
tonight he swims
in earthen ponds
tonight the night’s his brother
tonight he sings to morning dew
tonight he dreams of mother
the water splashes on his face
with no reflection
and his hair is entangled
in the dreams he slept on
and life is passing
and night is to fly
for morning comes on
say goodbye

Evening Painting

"Painting" in the title of this poem is a verb.

it snows
weighty
messages
on window panes
like bad fortunes
on trees
silver
leafed
flakes
drift
in warm companies
and paint
wooden canvas
and grassen earth
and warm hearth
to glow
red
in the wheated field
a fox prints
touching painting
messages
against the
hardened ground
‘neath covers
of wooded sky
she sleeps
nested
with nut and corn
and blanket tail
hidden
from early frost
to evening contentment

a title-less short story

Two men met on the road there headed different directions. They sat apart from each other, both more interested in his own time off the road and away from the wet, fallen leaves, and the wind that broke against the door and crept in the seals, than any other man who has not the same power to bless as coffee poured from a vending machine. The cold was outside and the coffee was hot inside. It warmed the hands and fingertips through the paper cup as it did the mouth and the lips and the belly.

Wind takes from you to the point of the soul. It will take your breath, immediate memory, flesh and bone, and leave a naked soul. Warmth is redressing. This need to redress is perhaps one of the only reasons for thinking there is such a thing as the soul.

A weatherman carried on from a TV screen overhead. The broadcast predicted more wind and more rain, not here but there, and not there, but just there, though it was not just there but here, and here seemed to be everywhere. Thunderstorms are moving into here, and winds are up to so many miles an hour.

Coffee is hot, and chocolate creeps into the stomach a healer. And both men held their cups in the same loose grip, and both took everything around them with a slow, deliberate breathing.

The weather went on predictably. The trees swayed and mourned and lost their leaves to the wind and the wet road, and passing trucks tore even more from them. The pines bent and sagged at their tops, unable to shed their clothes to relieve the strain. And the sky stirred restlessly, and birds lay low in the grasses and did not fly from the timbers. The air filled with leaves one moment, and they all stuck to the ground, or on cars, where they landed, and then they were gone. And then the rain came harder in passing sheets, and the pines whined and bowed, but the others leaned, relieved. And the earth kept the water for them, and the shed was fine, and the winter would pass.

The men crinkled empty wrappers in their hands. One man rose to feed himself again. The coffee was cooling, but the warmth had been got, and there would be more to be got later. But a man got himself another cup; with this wind there would soon be no more leaves or nothing to stop it, and all a man would have was his body, and all for protection was warmth. So he would drink another before he made him face it.

And then a man was no longer hungry or cold, and this shelter was all used up against the soggy freeze, and a man had a truck and a road. So he got him up, and he stayed at the door. The wind beat against it, and it rattled in its setting. He watched it push against the trees, and the rain, in waves, against the woods and the road and the window and his truck. He was warm, and the cold waited out the door. He sighed. And it was met by an affirming groan from the other man, close to “Yep,” but cut off, and so closer to “Yet.”