The Dirt Bag is Back!

And so bright you can see them from the street. That’s right, there’s a fiesta going on in my backyard this year. Poppy and periwinkle and pretty darn precocious. After my initial purchase of a lettuce grow bag two years ago, I was very pleased with the output and convenience of these funky cloth containers that fold away neatly for winter storage.

But the outrageous color is what sold me. It wasn’t long before other bright hues started popping up in a lime green planter, azure watering can and cobalt blue coil hose. Forget those dull mousy browns and clays, my roving eye rests only on containers straight off the rainbow these days.

Yep, they’ve created a color-wheel monster dancing to her own party on the patio.

May Day

Yeah, it’s seventy degrees and
snowing in my part of the yard

so don’t look now there’s
a worm that didn’t quite make

it back to the loam, but flowing
fringes of procreation still

shed off as light as ribbons
twining lilac haze with a dance

toward sweet interludes inside
dawn’s cabana drenched

in wet morning song full
of pollen and propagation

and progeny and purity and
proliferation and seed.

Never Finished

To the piles of patterns with
unsown expectations

To the everlasting cracks full
of weeds and wanting

To the dirty car of conveyance that
begs for a bath

To the older body pushing away
diets like a toddler

To the love of my life who
never has to explain

To the ache of looming loss unable
to reach me

To the unwritten lines boiling up without
rhyme or reason

I say

tomorrow

NaPoWriMo #30

*And also have to say that I’m amazed to have made it, glad to fulfill a commitment, encouraged by the act of writing every day, and really impressed with the poets and poetry I’ve encountered along the way. Thanks for the support and hope to see the poems continue!

I wrote a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?

Identity Theft

Behold a single drop in space
unable to stop the march
on youth and fresh starts.
You have a limited number
of tries before the sign in
is blocked, before security
questions become irrelevant.

What will you have when
you forget your mother’s maiden
name or submit the wrong
address from childhood? Just
beyond your grasp lies a memory
of knowing who you really are,
as you punch in the wrong password
over and over.

NaPoWriMo #29

I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?

Flying South

Taking apart the nest
is hard work, so many
flights of stairs with legs
too old for dorm life, as tales
of drunken pre-graduation
escapades coast through
open windows while we
struggle to land on our feet
carrying an uncertain future.

Tomorrow’s a strange flyway
now, the academic dust
from secondhand advice
disappearing fast with feathers
of pomp and prospects. Yet
we stifle all doubts inside
the U-Haul’s gaping mouth
and turn our best guesses in
the opposite direction of spring
geese heading toward their
transitory summer jobs.

NaPoWriMo #28

I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?

Wonder Bread

Old Mom rides low
In Son’s silver Camaro
Slinks into Stinksburg for
Miracles of the white loaf,
Jacks into General Store.

She wants some Wonder Bread.

General-behind-counter salutes
To the Pepsi Girl and Cherubs
Under counter with the cold cuts,
Special only on the frozen harvest
Sheaves in cellophane and chips.
He promises Ice Cream with all
Artificial Preservations.

No, she says, just the bread.

General shakes his head.
Understand there is no
Demand for the harvest,
America don’t grow
Good sons no more.

No luck at the store.
Mom drives away in
Silver to try another
Display.

No bread, no wonder.

NaPoWriMo #27

*This is a poem I wrote in college, probably around 1979. At the time, I was very influenced by the Beat poets, heard Allen Ginsberg read “Howl” and Ferlinghetti from “Coney Island of the Mind,” watched Patti Smith and Jim Carroll perform their magic onstage, and lived for a time in the same town as William Burroughs, who read Poe’s “The Raven” at the local radio station every Halloween.

I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?

Fragrance #5

Sweet notes of tropic
getaway wend their way through
rooms unaccustomed to anything
better than cat pee and sour
winter endurance. I’d throw
open windows but don’t want
to share this cloud of exotic
wellbeing with any of my neighbors.
They’ll have to understand why I
am transported by an oriental ecstasy
that dims the lights of ordinary and
makes me forget the stench
of an average day.

NaPoWriMo #26

I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?