Beach Walk

Beach Walk

Along the stony tide line

Kelp and clam shells glisten from the beating

The waves have given them. Hiding their

Sunken eyes their missing teeth  

Indigents of sand

LFM

Dry Falls

Dry falls last drop lands

Whose heart was watching, hearing

Silence full of sound

If You Ask Me

If you ask why

I burned down my house

I will tell you.

In the morning

I came to my sacred space

Careful construction of my own hands

Over years beautiful and ornate

and every prayer

was hollow

my household gods

wore my own face.

Filled with sorrow and shame

I purified the good earth with flame

Now, because I must have some place to live

I am at peace making new bricks.

LFM

For WCW

Hyku for WCW

Who thinks of such things      :

A dog injured in the street     –

A naked genius                    ?

LFM

Creation – a Sonnenizio*

Creation – a Sonnenizio*

(After D.H. Lawrence, “Piano”)

Softly in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Her song is the dappled flavor of sangria

Pressing – pressed –

Into a singed bowl.

Sing and cry, O, my companions!

Sing, “O, Bless us with a blessing!”

Cry, “We have come to hear the world unsung!”

Sing the sensual crossing –

Singers! Name

the missing and the dead!

Sing the world into being!

Sing these readers read! Yet

Pressing shapes us – shaped by terror

Love, or some quite singularly dusty error.

LFM

*14 lines.  First line borrowed from another’s sonnet.  One word from the first line repeated in each following line.  Last 2 lines rhyme.

Meet Son for Lunch

Meet Son for Lunch

I arrive early to order and pay
          Not like the old days
          When I used to pass this place
                    With empty pockets and
                    Six mouths to feed

I get our order early so
          We can talk for the full thirty minutes.
           I hope he knows how
                    The time he gives feeds me.

We have taken turns
          Being one another’s nightmare
          Now we are both trying
                    To turn a nightlight on provide a cup of water

We are sharing surprise at how
          Dry a workingman’s throat becomes
                    By noon


 LFM

Diction of Employment

Diction of Employment

Somebody else’s hands are

doing my hand’s work today. 

On a keyboard that was never mine

In a chair in a country never mine

Somebody’s backing 18 wheels up to a dock

Somebody’s working a bucket and a mop

Somebody’s puttin’ on a uniform

Somebody’s answering phones “Please hold.”

Hey! Somebody’s taking money, taking orders, taking shit

Making change @ window number one

Yo! Somebody’s handing out bags and the coffee all saucy

@ window number two

Somebody’s opening a register with a

log in learned last week @

HR’s health insurance, drug testing

You-too-late-two-days-you-gone orientation.

One is opening a classroom door

One is opening email

in a cubical where she is under orders to keep

her voice low and her opinions to herself.

One is making lobby coffee

turning up case lights ‘til the financial

product line glitters like cross sell and

cold calls warm to Midas’ touch

One is stretching 3 forty-hour employees

Like pizza dough to fill 150 store hours

Calling home “I

have to pull a double shift.”

$omebody’s getting paid. 

Not me.

Somebody else’s hands are

doing my hands’ work today.

                                                                                             

 LFM   #2  1.9.14