Cast Iron Stop Sign

for Totally Optional Prompts

A cast iron stop sign sits in the corner
of my badly lit room.
I read ancient poems and contemplate
the life of a retired minister

of censorship, a beloved daughter
brings noodles to the hermitage
and strums a lute, old friends share
a jug of wine and recall

encounters beyond the Jade Pass.
I watch a small spider at home
under my lamp.
The cast iron has new paint,

but she's hard, and cold to touch,
and she's always sitting in the corner
with her one word message.
The spider is happy to catch a gnat.

Face Ku

for One Single Impression

tall grass prairie -
ten thousand black eyes
look up

~

the other end
of the horse

~

in the eye
of a web
a spider

~

at the river's mouth
a gravel tongue
tastes the surf

~

in the clouds
a ghost face
blows away

~

a glass of red wine
reflects the moon
and a face

A Small Noise

In geologic time we're a small noise
some rock believes they hear, maybe not,
maybe it's my imagination,

it came from the yellow dust under the tree.
A shadow moves, or it's an illusion,
now it's gone, it left a small noise.

Sid's Café

for Totally Optional Prompts

The young woman at Sid's Café dances
behind the counter with a short stack
and a Denver omelet with hash browns
for wages that don't interest the young men

at the counter, she serves for wages
and dances for tips to feed a child
that doesn't interest the young men
who bend steel until they break.

At Sid's Café young men play games
and young women dance.

Prairie Falcon Disclaimer

Nature provides this falcon “as is”
it’s not a duck feeding in a marsh
it’s not a sandpiper skittering up the beach
it is a falcon
slicing the dry sage-scented air.

And Nature does not give any warranty
for this falcon
or other assurance as to its operation
functionality
ability to shelter pinkish-white eggs
on a cliff-face ledge
or fitness for any particular purpose.

In no event will Nature be liable
for direct, incidental, special, or punitive damages
or the demise
of preoccupied ground squirrels
resulting from the use or misuse of this falcon.

This falcon is made of the finest
sandy colored feathers
flesh ripping beak and talon.
If there are defects in materials or workmanship
this falcon will be replaced at Nature’s discretion
by another
of the same kind.

And the natural environment
assumes the entire risk
related to its use.

Sand Pass

Low clouds bring snow in the night,
large spring flakes, wet snow
that hangs in the sage, turns dirt to mud,
blocks the way back to Gandy,

slows traffic down to idle
at a wide spot in the road,
imposes indolence, compresses the valley
to an interim hermitage,

reduces me to an onlooker, a spectator.
West winds move balky clouds along,
dry the mud back to dirt while bluebirds
hawk for insects, hawks twist and dive

into courtship displays,
grass shivers in the wind,
snowmelt drips from junipers,
sooner than I’m ready.

Asperger Syndrome

Phil walks a river trail
with something on his mind,
he always has a notion caught
in the mental web, he's distracted

by the crunch of gravel, a bird song
in the bush, three women
who won't stop talking. Phil's social
conventions are of a different social,

he's often accused of not being cultured,
of standing and waving in the swirl of a flood.
His home has a low ceiling,
he stands straight and bangs his head,

he didn't see it coming, Phil's getting tired
of the headaches, he's learned to hold his tongue,
to not say a word. A strand in Phil's web
is broken and he doesn't feel a notion

fly in. It shakes out and flies off,
the notion leaves a blank space,
Phil can't remember what was there,
most of the mental web is dark matter.

Holes In The Bottom

for Totally Optional Prompts

Pious Mary bakes brownies and frets
about my afterlife, but not about
the Idaho river that just sinks
into the ground and goes away.

We sip tea and Pious tells happy stories,
I tell her I'm not worried,
I'll get cremated and dodge the casket trap.
Pious looks appalled, until I say

I'm counting on her to dump my ashes
where I can hear the coyotes sing.
Pious gets a crooked smile
that worries me, she's planning my hereafter.

So I change the scheme and buy myself
an elegantly-grained planked-cypress
toe-pincher coffin with a royal-almond
velvet interior, matching pillow and throw,

contemporary styled swing-bar handles
in a black and nickel finish,
and locking mechanism.
Pious gets warm and sweet as fresh brownies.

She leaves and I drill holes
in the toe-pincher's bottom
so I'm able to escape down to the river,
wash off life's debris, drift downstream

to a spring trickling below a desert cliff,
and rejoin the living.

Insect Ku

fleas don't drive
they catch the dog

~

summer sun
stirs freckles
and ticks

~

the hole
in my sweater
warms two moths

~

plum blossom –
insects buzz
spring's drawl

~

mosquitoes buzz
in the dark
sleep comes and goes

Burning Bush

for Totally Optional Prompts

There's a burning bush on the coast,
it's a sign the air will be thick,
will scratch and choke, it smells bad
for a reason, it's a speed trap.

The burning speaks of life reduced to ashes,
a yellow quilt brought over from the old country
will join Great Aunt Etta who died of the flue
in nineteen-seventeen, and the cat.

The burning speaks of ruin, and rebirth
at a big box store full of cheap stuff,
of burning through savings, donations, benefits.
A burning bush on the coast shows the way.

Politi Ku

no Florida
no Vermont no Texas
English only

~

lion hunts
peccary gathers
jackal taxes

~

sandpipers
work pacific flyway
undocumented

~

untested
fruits and vegetables
farmer’s market

~

electric vote
on virtual ballot
executes choice

~

political grease
paper
or plastic

A Scheme Changes

The devious huckster at the corner
puts on a slippery street smile,
breathes a cloud of space dust
into the night air,

the cloud twinkles
like a river of oily stars.
The scheme is steal privacy,
unearth a secret dread,

disclose the mythical wolf,
and be the snake oil.
Devious peddles foul herbs
certain to enhance the end of life,

certain as the family of planets
sailing around the sun,
until the judge says
don’t think that way

and the scheme changes.
The cloud is only smoke,
Devious is not king,
and the family has new planets.

Road

Standing in trees I look out,
elders, pairs and stragglers rush north,
stragglers, pairs and elders flee south,
in a primal dance to elsewhere.

Irregular rhythm, back and forth,
from long to lush, forth and back,
a cloud swirling and flashing
follows prey in and out,
evades predation out and in.

I think along a path that brought,
in eighteen seventy-six,
from Denver to Pine River valley,
a thousand head of good grade cattle,
thirty-six draft animals hauling
twelve wagons and nineteen souls.

Standing in trees I look out.

Amy

for Totally Optional Prompts

Blond hair cascades down a graceful neck,
Amy strolls through a foreign market
testing, sampling, greeting the curious.
Blond hair's been on display before,

she's a special case, the curious
are on display too. Blond hair
cascades into a dust storm,
the curious pick through the bones.

A good hearted cross dresser says
make sure you get paid enough
to really want the job.