And suddenly
As Lot’s wife
Turned into salt
I meet my own drought
Of words, of images,
Of ecstatic utterance
And settle into
The calm of a Saturday evening
With ambient music
And one good book.
susan baumann
scbpoetry
So if you put a bass player, writer, designer, ideophile, and a couple of bananas in a blender, this is what you'd get.
Eleventh Hour
The heat of the day has peaked.
The house smells of mint and lavender
And new mown grass in the twilight.
Soon the frogs will raise their chorus
And the day will melt soft into shadow,
Calling the thousand memories
To yield their stories.
Losing My Balance
Things haven’t been the same
Since I broke my ankle.
It’s not that it didn’t heal–
Sure it puffs up now and then, but
There’s no pain to speak of.
It’s more the feeling that
This Judas body
Betrayed me,
Leaving me unsteady,
Unsure of my footing,
And old before I was ready.
Hey, Joe
I could use a cup of liquid alertness:
That mainstay of diners
That elixir of truckstops
That centerpiece of the
Family breakfast table where it once,
Rich and dark as grandma’s bedroom suite,
Competed with printer’s ink
For olfactory primacy.
On My Way to Pick Up Lunch
I passed the flower seller’s
White van
Parked on the side of a
Six-lane road
Like it always is
On the weekend.
But today
Instead of sheltering in the shade
Of her blue awning,
She danced around the nearest light pole.
“Now that ought to move some orchids,”
I thought.
Dear You Never Were To Me
And yet
I languish in a land of unforget
That will insist I set aside
More than a passing blink of clock
Or swell of tide
In sentimental debt
When I hear your name,
And raise a private glass
To the carrion of regret.
From Here To There
We honor portals.
Dress them with beads,
Hang them with wreaths,
Set mezuzahs in the doorposts,
Recognizing that we move between the worlds
And our transitions
Beg for blessings.
Across the Street
Red ball cap bobbing,
Neighbor raps to the stutter
Of her lawnmower.
Heatstroke
Three days running
This thermostat has reported
Its maximum temperature.
And though the skylights admit
A pearly grey luminescence
Hinting at rainclouds,
I can feel the humid breath of summer
Rising outside the circle of the fan
In vaporous rings,
A giantess smoking.
Wheeling Flock
Twenty-three cyclists
Sporting brilliant Saturday plumage
Tour the boulevard,
Three or four abreast
In tight formation.
One rider hugs the yellow line,
His taillight flashing crimson warnings.
They lean into the curve as one
Wheeling like a flock of
Clownish pelicans.