Poetic Ink

The bee returns swiftly
and often

to a pink blossom

where poetic lines
are composed
with honeyed ink.

      Smell of Success

Bukowski burps out poems

like prednisone hiccups. Cigarette 

ash smears the Remington's worn

out keys. Stench of stale beer, 

crap gin and sweat floods his room 

hidden at the bitter end of a greasy 

hall. 

Yellowed fingers pound and drum away;

suddenly he's become a crooning 

Vatican castrato as angels of 

staccatoed bliss re-make him. 

My bad dream is I'll not be taken by,

never mate a muse, as fragrant, flush

with life, profligate or dangerous 

as his....

My fear is I may indeed 

sniff her late one eve hovering 

mischievously above my pen 

and if so ecstatically invaded, 

who then 

will raise the dead, 

mow the crabgrass,

spank the brats,

scare their friends, or

pay the goddamn garbage bill?

                          There Came A Day

when in early morning I sipped green tea and gazed out

the living room window at the Melaleuca shimmering

in sunlight, fledgling tree stretching up and out to sky

beyond the borders of my vision, when I chose to sit erect,

to wholly offer myself like a tree to Life and all she would

ask of me, rooted as I was, reaching leafing longing

from dirt to cloud, and back down again.

                       There Came A Day

when, as I sipped green tea in early morning and gazed out

the living room window at the Melaleuca shimmering

in sunlight, the fledgling tree stretching up and out to sky

beyond the borders of my vision, that I chose to sit erect

and to offer myself wholly like a tree to Life and all she

would ask of me.

Melaleuca Morning 

At the heart of it 

Perhaps we're all

Just tuning our 

Instruments.

One pink sphere

Surrounded

By the orchestral hum

Of green leaves

Swaying to sun’s

Music and

A buzzing soloist

Oblivious to the audience,

returning again and again

for gold.

                                      Wordless

is a word, yes….yet, none of these moments, none of these phenomena exist

because of the scaffolds of human language:

Mushrooms in the park nestled on wet lawn

The rain splattered sidewalk

The thick-legged girl booting a soccer ball beyond the goal

The bird pirouetting along the grass, worm-searching

The bench where we sat and where you’re not now

The clatter of window shades in wind

The tingle of my feet after today’s run

The presence of your absence now

The memory of hugging Therese in her kitchen in silence

The bougainvillea blossom on the running path, red with a white dot

The shine and shimmer of my grandson’s grin

The bird alone on a bare limb overlooking the lake

The thought of an underlying evolving energy prior to all thought

The downtown Portland library in the afternoon

The emptiness in my gut

The attempt at welcoming this emptiness

The poet whose fire to express herself in beautiful evocative words blazes on

My desire to live for a while, like the blossom on the path, wordlessly…….

              summer

barefoot and beaming, enfolds
us in leafy arms of August, our lips
our chins our teeth stained purple
from this juicy fence of brambles

as along a dusty road we grinning
ramble, you and I lust-filled sampling
hidden treasured berry pleasure!

   Blossom

a quiet presence
shimmers
color into

the wide world