Turpin Lake

for 3 Word Wednesday

Four migrating pintail ride the smooth top
of Turpin Lake, half are reflections.

A geezer with a bottle of reminders
thinks on vintage intimacy.

Two young women approach
from the lake, both are reflections.

Get Ready

for Totally Optional Prompts

The get-ready man says get ready,
a duty, a mission will emerge, a notch
looking for a cog, a shovel

looking for an undug hole, get ready,
all the rest was practice. The sun comes up
cold, it's time to check the size, the tilt,

write down the details, the particulars,
spread the alarm when dawn is out of spec,
out of kilter, get ready. Three more sunups

and the job is done, it's time to go,
the shovel looks for an undug grave,
the notch needs a cog, get ready.

Winter Ku

for one deep breath

winter's forever nights
guitar improvisations

~

early snow
covers garden
weeds

~

three flakes
on the path
think the moon

~

crisp air
smells of snow
and wood smoke

~

seed head pokes
through snow crust
juncos flitter

~

all day snowfall
lowers
the ground's ego

~

wet snow falls
into slush
of spring

Across Mountain Passes

I wander hard-edged basins
in the dry interior, prowl for lizards
in the desert scrub, breathe alkali dust
rising from distant dry lakes,

travel rock roads from tule choked springs
to muddy waterholes, watch birds play
out their customs at derelict ranches.
As the Girl-in-the-Moon travels the River-of-Stars

I think across mountain passes
to my cottage near the western coast,
a softer bedroll, walls to frustrate the vermin.
Standing behind the kitchen window

I watch a misty fog press down
to the deck rail, a blackbird on the feeder
perching out of the drizzle, blossoms tucked in,
waiting for better conditions.

I think across mountain passes
to the dry interior, and Walter Spring.

Little Hogback Island

for Totally Optional Prompts

A freezing fog is over the sunrise trail
to Little Hogback Island, only an island
when offshore storms push the high tide
across the last mile of mud, past the driftwood

and into the marsh grass. Today it's not an island,
it's an old man with white cloud thoughts,
longing for an amusing guest with a jug of wine.
The old man composes short poems

for the season in the ancient fashion
and waits beneath a cedar tree. Above the freezing
a heron flies by on methodical wing beats,
beating out a slow clock across the sky.

I'm the only warm thing left, in a surprise
move the sun peaks over the horizon
and skips across the tops of the fog bank.
In early light three ducks fly time

on a faster beat across receding tide,
and I can just see the few cedars on the island
poking through the freezing. My thinker works
at one speed, it ponders the same on ducks,

tides, and cedars. Then time stops
when an eagle soars down the hogback
and lands on a dead snag.

Western Grebe

Over the harbor a dapple gray mattress
holds down the wet chill, a crabber
sets bait in the glassy water,
near the breakwater six grebes are folded

like fancy napkins at the Half Moon,
the crabber orders a coffee, two napkins
unfold with a start, one dives
under the table.

Walking the Dog

for Sunday Scribblings

I'm an old man walking home
from the tavern on a sunny day,
I wander through Porter Park
where three young women watch

unruly children risk their lives
on playground toys that resemble
a damaged bridge, a rundown building,
an open sewer. As I wander along

I'm held with the esteem of a stray dog
without a collar, a dog that will shed
fleas on young women and bite
the unruly. A few ducks

are on the pond doing 'duck' things,
out of the brush comes a vagrant dog
with his nose to the ground, wagging his tail,
looking for a friendship handout.

I don't chase the vagrant away
and we walk together through uncut grass,
a patch with red seed heads,
then silver gray, then a green

as dark as broccoli. Wandering the street
we attract a few smiles and greetings,
nothing's as affecting as an old man
walking his dog, but our lives don't fit together,

I turn to a door, the vagrant with his nose
to the ground turns to the unruly.

Empty Pocket

I had money in my pocket
I had Ben-Franklins in my pocket
and I spent them on
a love that’s long forgotten
and now my pocket’s empty
there’s not a nickel at the bottom
there’s not a jingle at the bottom

I had love in my heart
and I spent it on
a girl who’s long forgotten
a girl who’s long forgotten about me
now my heart is empty
there’s not a flicker at the bottom

I don’t want your handout
I don’t want your sympathy
I want a nickel in my pocket
and a girl who won’t forget about me
a jingle in my pocket
and don’t forget about me.

Muddy Dog Flats

for Totally Optional Prompts

The map of Grant County shows
a little used gravel road winding
across Muddy Dog Flats,
Cabin Creek meanders through

the hummocks where a yellowlegs
whistles a sharp complaint, then south
through the pines on the Douglass River,
standing waves join with rocks

and shadows as the snowmelt seeks
a lower place, then on past
tired ranchland to the highway
at Drewsey. But the road isn't there,

there is no gravel road
across Muddy Dog Flats.

Feeble End

On an ancient shore three or four
million years ago, a meteor hit
or lightening blast, a real point of beginning,
amino acids are forged into protein slurry

before there’s a thinker with the wits
to name it a protein - or a slurry,
maybe it was an enzyme without a name,
or a hormone, or a sea shell.

The slurry grows to a stream with rivulets
trickling off to disappear in the sand.
The slurry-stream continues into a river
where the slurry gets lumpy, still rivulets

trickle off to pedestrian ends.
Lumpy thinkers spring up
in the lumpy-slurry-river, they name
other lumps in the slurry, and organize

them to categories. Slurries, lumps,
and thinkers with the same point of beginning,
and soon enough they trickle off
to a feeble end on the beach.

New Age Karen

Getting slimed with fodder
breath’s vacuous voice
and listening to her tie-dyed

dreamerie is reading a Rube Goldberg
poem when the oblivious writer
has nothing meaningful to say

and doesn’t know when to quit
twisting the brain nail.

ISWD

In the short-days, long-nights,
dreary, cloudy, chilly, rainy, foggy,
bleak winter months I can't get
in the mood and don't know why,

I have Idiopathic Seasonal Writing
Disorder. I still get plenty of sleep,
watch snow drift past the kitchen window,
fill my face with Screamer Stir-Fry

and Red-River Curry, but I can't find
a reason to sit down and word.
For ISWD I get
a six-pack of Black Hook Porter

and watch Hockey Night in Canada.
The Black Hook-Hockey Night
isn't a cure, but I get
to a point where I really don't care.

Do not operate machinery or get
into compromising positions, there is
always a risk of dependency
with over-the-counter hockey.

Early Spring at Ruby Marsh from the Front Seat of a Truck

Form One

The cold is overcast all day,
ground fog plods over the marsh,
the tules display shades of drab.
A coyote lopes down the dike road,

cranes rattle and dance,
marsh wrens bicker. Even raven
strut and display on a fence rail,
ruff and crest raised,

grotesque beaks agape.
A snowfall clears the stage
and muffles the background song.
The melt shapes a layer of damp smell.

I wipe dust from the dashboard.
A meadowlark restarts the marsh.

Form Two

The cold is overcast all day. Tules display shades of drab.
A coyote lopes down the dike road. Cranes rattle and dance.
A snowfall clears the stage. The melt shapes a layer of smell.
I wipe dust from the dashboard. A meadowlark restarts the marsh.

Big Noise

for Totally Optional Prompts

A few more cranks and a cylinder fires
up with a big bang, hot gasses
expand, a piston starts its frantic dance,
and everybody moves back.

In the next aisle a big noise,
an argument over beer, a kid screaming,
we could get out of here sooner
if you'd just help. The pile driver begins,

we put on hard hats and turn
the other way, gain some distance
from the hot iron, diesel fumes,
the griping about broken tools,

dirty toilets and old lovers,
the big noise.

Tied to the Core

A cord connects me back to a forester,
professor, muleskinner, hotel cook,
blacksmith, postmaster. The cord
is an inheritance, a connection

to old pictures and hand tools,
to a lineage of worn out haulers
who dragged their freight down the road
this far. The cord is joined to my core,

to the hollow on my center,
tucked in under the arch of a back
leaning into a stinking old harness
hitched to a forester, professor, muleskinner,

hotel cook, blacksmith, postmaster.
I strain against the load but it’s hitched wrong,
the harness doesn’t fit, the road is dark
and getting darker. I break to the side,

to a different path, and where the cord
is cut there’s only belly button fuzz.

It Sleeps Alone

At night the mind sleeps, but sleeps alone.
The feet think hard on the sound of gravel,
walking past blossoms on a frosted path,
a garden gate closing. The heart recalls

bridges breaking apart and falling,
small bridges with elaborate structures.
Raven at the center perches on a cedar stump
and takes in ocean dust. At morning

a tear is on each lash for what they saw
in the night, and the heart sleeps alone.

New Sponge

for Sunday Scribblings

It's a week after solstice, the clock is ticking up,
in the wintry sunset a windstorm blows the river
jagged with debris. At the noodle shop
the kitchen scrapes and sizzles, the counter girl
talks into the phone, a geezer sits

at a side table with old eyes
that don't see dirt. Tonight's distraction
is Rochelle reading 'Tales from Plum Pit'
with hanging inflections that evaporate
into the burned out light fixture.

'A tree frog listens to its echo. The tellers
at the bank want to remind you
this is a good time to replace
the old sponge in the kitchen.'

The old eyes voice approval,
the distraction bows from the chin,
finishes her tea and walks out
into the windstorm, a seed
heading for a new life in the alley.

Up Late

The Moon came in late last night,
well after the sun had gone down,
after the day’s heat had whiffed away,
after mosquitoes and bats, after the owl

had eaten and gone back to bed.
The Moon came in late last night,
and I was waiting up. The rest of the night,
the two of us hummed along

with the trees, counted stars
as they passed by, drank in
the fermented air, waited for twilight
fragrances. The Moon asked about you.

Poem to the Editor

for Totally Optional Prompts

WASL
(Washington Assessment of Student Learning)

We test the kids to see if they can think some
and compare the scores from Westport to Clarkston.

Then we notice there're not many passes
so we schedule weekend makeup classes,

or perhaps the bar's been set too high,
we should kiss the inflated standards goodbye,

or maybe the teachers need more education
and higher levels of compensation.

There's an underlying problem it seems
no one tested the test to see what it means.


Government Spending

My toys were got on daddy's pay
I took them to the park to play.

When I came home empty handed
wasn't the dog that got reprimanded,

no matter my dramatic protestation
new toys weren't in the equation.

Now I'm the one who works all day,
the kids in Congress are at play.

It's a better deal for those girls and boys,
they get to purchase their own toys

and send to me the bill for collection,
at least until the next election.

With my meager vote I'll denounce
toy depletion, and rotate the clowns.