PEACEFUL REFLECTIONS

PEACEFUL REFLECTIONS

Months after your passing, I hid

clandestine notes under a brick

behind a statue of Jesus.

I imagined the words skipping

free, delving beneath the gravesite,

and you, dousing the crimson pyre

Of past pain with my smudging tears.

All quiet here. Peaceful reflections

flutter skyward like summer doves.

In sadder graves imps gnash their teeth

in other-worldly cacophony.

I watch the children kicking

a soccer ball across the green.

I shudder at sneakered feet

walking across my someday grave.

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WRITING BLOCK

WRITING BLOCK

Whoever locked me in this dungeon

threw away the key, but promised to

release me at dawn if I compose

a poem that could smelter from raw ore

the gold that pompous poets insist

are filigreed, interwoven starlight

in every line, a rock opera

clamoring narrative medleys,

a school of goldfish swaggering fins  

like underwater flags, magical

lines to dazzle and delight the senses.

An inner voice turns to laughter

raucously still. It wants to set

the jailer straight: “I have no magic.

They are only words,” but he threatens me

with an early morning breakfast of lead,

that same unchanging lead the alchemist

wishes had turned to gold. I scribble

my best while the firing squad waits.

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KISSES FROM THE PORCH

KISSES FROM THE PORCH

When dusk softens spring greens to gray
and I shut one eye as I climb the steps
on my return from yielding crop-filled fields,
I can see you rocking through the haze of time,
your face beaming in the half light-dark.
Without words, Grandma, you say again
how much you love me. In the bleeding of day,
The absence of sun and technicolors dimmed,
you toss your hand to me, a paper-thin wave,
fingers set free of kisses buzzing deathless love.

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