The Poetry Marathon

All Hallows Eve tanka ~

all ways    Hallowe’en
wear a costume wear a mask
hide behind sequins
someone else someone other
never never peel them off

Big sky mind

My grandson says god isn’t real.
I say we can’t prove god is or isn’t.
Somehow this leads to meditation
which is about Buddhism, GiGi.
Not exactly, I respond.
Anyone can meditate.
You don’t have to be Buddhist.
He thinks. But I think Dad is.
I nod my head. Your dad
your uncle & I are all kind of
Buddhist, I tell him.

Somehow this leads
to Big Sky Mind.
See the sky outside?
He nods.
See the clouds?
Thin wisps of cirrhus
feather the blue.
Are they always there?
He shakes his head.
No, I tell him: sometimes
the sun shines. Sometimes
it rains.
But what about the sky?
Is it always there?
He looks at me:
this is a hard question.
And yes, we agree:
the sky is always there.

That, I tell him,
is Buddhism. Clouds
are like thoughts –
they come and go.
But the sky and the mind?
They’re always there.
Even if we don’t know about god,
we know about the sky.

Real

They all said they were real.
I had – and have – no idea
what that means.
Is it hunger? Thirst? Feeling
the wind catching in your throat?
How do you know real
when (if?) you find it?
What do you do to attain it?
Do I want to?
Is it (as a horse once told me)
about love? About suffering?
Is it about giving? Knowing
who exactly you are?
I know no more now
than then, when I first heard
its siren call: real real real
I am older      worn and torn.
I have danced with death
ridden bareback on loss
held love in widespread fingers
and watched it sift between.
Real? As a horse in a meadow
a soldier in a war      a wren
carved by hand from ancient wood.
Real.

What is ‘normal?’ Who is s/he?
That all the world adore her.
I find, my friends,
that such a one ends
with family who abhor her.

Time and bone ~

First the stride goes:

no use for well-loved cowboy boots

my long-legged fast-paced movements.

Next the firm step goes:

the hip rebels, the knee adjusts

the foot feels tentative for ground.

Then the hobble comes:

the shoulders hunch for balance

the hand reaches out for help.

Until it’s all too much, and the cane

becomes a constant companion

worthy almost of a friend’s name.

Now, half a year and change later:

feet follow paths gladly, legs swing

freely from a cyborg hip.

Time that ground a bone to fragments

spears the remnants of that bone

with titanium. And then moves on.

Les oiseaux étrangers 

They say
and who are they
the wise who know so much about us?
that where you live at eight years
is always home.

Maybe that is true for more
than me: my home moored
to an unfixed object
floating through the years
tethered only to my leaving.

There were birds I looked up
no birds I knew only les oiseaux etrangers
Alien birds, I’m sure my grandmother
would call them. But mallards?
Wigeons? Pheasant & partridge? Foreign??

But then: what about a river lapwing
drinking from the Mekong?
Trogons and bee-eaters, barbets
pittas and thornbills, ioras
that masquerade as goldfinches.

My home plotlines blur like reflections.
I float above the villas, slum apartments
like that unmoored childhood. I have no
tether either. Here between these wild crags
I might be bird, etranger. Flying somewhere home.

“God bless us, everyone!”

So the master said (as did the Master

if you believe in him/it/her/them…)

We echo it with the fall of snowflakes.

But we don’t, of course.

Bless, I mean. We say that we believe

(although our actions don’t concur).

We rape. We steal. We murder children.

None of this rare. None of it new.

Blessings make the news, in fact.

So rare are they a 2-carat Arkansas diamond

that we are struck as if by a glimmering

of fireflies, rising from a damp grave.

I want more blessings. Not for me

but for the children who are separated

from their homes, from their lives.

For the women recoiling in fear

the men beaten into straight submission

those who wear strength like a torn mask.

Please, God/Great Spirit/Universe/Gaia

Bless us.

Everyone.

hawk and mice

my brain relentless

circling like a hawk preying

small thoughts flee down holes

flee like mice down holes

while hawk watches patiently

certain of his prey

I too flee like mice

trembling before the fear hawk

its beak rapier sharp

but fleeing like mice

will not protect us from hawk

inexorable

hawk watches, then dives

no more fleeing mice

my own legs tremble

hawk spreads his wide wings

I fall like mice before him

awakening blind

Real

I close my eyes, and all the world falls dead

There is no light, no sound, no music rings.

I think I made you up inside my head.

The housewren in the eaves is real, I said

defiant when you told me no one sings

I close my eyes and all your words fall dead

But when you cut your hand, I know you bled

Like wrens in windows spread their tails & wings

Did I make that up inside my head?

Reality is such a fragile thread

Unravelling faster than a coil of string

I close my eyes and all the world falls dead

I struggle with the dreams I take to bed

Their music is a spider’s web that clings

I close my eyes and all the world falls dead

I think I made you up inside my head

coffee and change ~

Portland

and the homeless encroach

like zombies

on the lucky

the ones who live

in houses   in apartments

have homes

have families who still speak

have coffee

and change

we who have it do not fear it

but without the silver glint

of coins burnished through touch

coffee is a fragrant dream

which might reanimate

an hour

transmute a zombie shuffle

to at least a tentative step

I offer bills to a trembling hand

and pray for change