NEC Ku (4)

Not Elsewhere Classified

Kleenex lovers
popup and separate
easier to use

~

a tall glass of water
is hopelessly lovely
in this desert

~

three great spices
wait for a great stew
on a park bench

~

meteors cross the sky
in a flash
of recycling

~

Scrub Jay
lacks a bird-god –
worships peanuts

~

light does the work
shadows get the rest

Bored Ku (3)

waking with
a dream cow
what to say

~

punctuated pedestrian –
a quiet street
looks busy

~

saying she loves you –
not negotiable
with a free agent

~

even a broken wheel
likes to feel useful

~

cutting through the trees
her voice
a chainsaw

~

fun in the sun
recharges batteries
and more ‘ku

~

quit wasting time
vacation starts
when you leave

Summer

Summer doesn't wait, she pushes spring
out of the way then saunters in
through the kitchen window, glances

rainbows through a crystal glass,
says that things are going to change
around here, we're going to warm it up,

and walk slow. I cruise the docks
at Westport, a string of pelicans ride an updraft
down the jetty, the crabbers grouse

about the coffee, the way the election
is going, girlfriends, boyfriends, the sun
beating down out of a clear sky.

The wind off the ocean picks up,
I go for a glass of wine at the Half Moon,
and summer waits outside like an old dog

asleep on the pavement. A broken surfboard
is hanging from the ceiling, the barkeep
is uncommonly slender but that amusement

is short-lived, I head back out to my cabin,
summer gets up with a groan-sigh
and we walk slow into July.

Nesting Material

Forgetting is a bother
so I make notes, broken phrases
on scraps of paper stuffed in a shirt
pocket looking for laundry, lines of verse

on yellow squares that blow off
the bench at Cooper-Martin point
and land two-hundred feet down
in the sage, notes on a napkin

the mouse shreds for a nest
under the front seat of the truck.

Fishing Pier

for Totally Optional Prompts

Seventeen girls line up
on a fishing pier
like plum blossoms

on a branch hanging
over the garden wall.
A passing breeze stirs

blouses, carries fragrance
to bugs and flies
the blossoms endure

for casual sex.
Seventeen blossoms lean over the railing
and drop a line,

there's an incoming tide
and the fishing is good.

Brain Dump

There's a frumpish poem in the basement
of my brain, the frump won't come up
and show its face, I get ticked off,

give it a kick in the butt and twist out
a right-brain dump. I take a close look
at the frump and park the sad thing

away, I might get back to it later,
but for now I just noticed a frump
in the basement of my brain.

Obama Claims Nomination

Seattle PI headline, June 4, 2008

for Totally Optional Prompts

There's a new colt in the pasture,
he's a little unstable, he stumbles
but he has good lines, good muscle,
he could be a keeper.

There's a new colt in the pasture
and he's testing the old studs,
they don't take him seriously now
but soon enough he'll show bite marks.

The new colt has a home here
if he's good with cattle, can work a herd,
if not I can always ship him to slaughter,
he has good muscle.

Natural Citizen

I arrived at New Orleans on a thick humidity,
a bona fide citizen my first day
in the country. The hermitage of my mind
is the only continuous residence yet today.

I couldn’t speak English then, or read, or write
in any tongue. I didn’t know the country’s history,
or that it would intertwine with mine,
or understand the government, and I still don’t today.

Moral character not good enough for the bible
thumpers who pester my door each day.
Constitutional principles beyond my grasp
drop in the mush, in mental disarray.

I only claim a favorable disposition
toward the United States,
although I don’t think much of Congress,
or the Administration, anyway.

Sichuan, 2008

for Totally Optional Prompts

Gray clouds drift away,
the plum tree shudders
and blossoms fall to the ground,

they sweep into piles
and wrap in shrouds,
dark silence sinks my center.

Night Storm

Night Storm has a temper on,
dipsy-doodles in under the moon,
flickers the hills, taunts the earth,
baits patient eyes, grumbles down

to One-Time Pasture. Night Storm unloads
angst in sobbing moans and gulps of breath,
dumps a flood of disquiet. The cabin
at Trouble Spring breaks up,

flows to the river like insects swarming
through the grass, and it’s not coming back.
Down valley the smell of angry rain,
the rising sound of crowded water.

The morning sun stands behind
broken clouds, the turbid river
is high with brush and debris.
Kingfisher perches on a rocker

washed up on a mud bar.
Night Storm turns away.