Cedar Park

I was waiting, gazing,

out the front door of my hotel at

orange poppies swaying beside a tan rock,

when an bright orange cab parked in front and

the driver got out, sipped his water and stood

waiting; revelation ?

 

a brief glimpse eclipsed,

a moment first lifted to the faceting light

then dropped to the floor of the world.

 

                                                  Guy

Wendolene

  

just here

a small dog, paw on my leg

where has she got to?

Lené Gary from the blog Counting Petals was kind enough to send me 
the following link to a site displaying spine poetry, the process of creating 

a poem by making a stack of books and reading the spines. I actually 
found this  to be a fascinating progress. It was almost a physical manifestation

 of the process of editing a poem described in Ted Kooser's wonderful 

book The Poetry Home Repair Manual in which ( my interpretation) 
you might move the first line to the end or vice versus or remove

 lines entirely even it is the best single line in the poem or the line that was 
the original impetus for the poem if it prevents the overall

 poem from jelling. I have done this in my own work and felt 
it helped and I removed and rearranged books here for

 the same reasons. I also think this would be a great way 

to get your creative juices flowing before you own writing.
So here are my versions of spine poems. I suspect I will

 create more. Since I used my collection of SF, horror, fantasy and 

poetry  the poems may have a bit of a morbid cast

( insert Vincent Price like evil cackle here ) enjoy.

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/08/17/book-spine-poetry-reader-submissions/

Thanks Lené

A Wine of Wizardry

Whispers in the Night

Stories That Could Be  True

Death is a Lonely Business

And Afterward, the Dark

Reluctant Voyagers

Pilgrims Through Time and Space

Other Dimensions

The Hounds of  Tindalos

Shambling Towards Hiroshima

Disclosures in Scarlet

The Wind from a Burning Woman

Her Smoke Rose up Forever

Beyond Remembering

Only Begotten Daughter

 

 

Crows are back, Carrack Carrack

The great phalanxes of autumn slipped back unheralded until today,

now they make the aspen tremble, with their heavy bodies, strident calls.

 

Silent  magpies assemble, white chests still gleaming with the rime of winter,

watching these noisy posers, who carried spring home on sleek black wings.

Spring is back, Carrack Carrack

 

Finding Beauty

" Our kinship with Earth must be maintained; otherwise, we will find ourselves
trapped in the center of our own paved-over souls with no way out."

                                                       Terry Tempest Williams
                                                               Finding Beauty in a Broken World

I would never disagree.
I understand the world needs another weedy lot covered with satellite dishes,
signs extolling all you can eat lobster and 24 hour hamburgers. I know our cities
are sheltering atolls in the wilderness busily excreting their coral rings of big box
stores, car lots, and airport hotels to welcome the weary traveller. And I know this
is both proper and inevitable, who am I to stand in the way of the organic growth
of the inorganic.

But when you have the asphalt ready for the next mini-mall. let me know so I can
descend into the excavation past the condoms, cable lines and storm sewer
pipes. There I will lie down among the grooves left over when the last glacier
peeled clean the world. And let me take with me the unneeded, the unwanted,
the dispossessed fox, the back porch skunk, fast food gulls and the crow with
the broken beak. Cover us with the hot mess and let the world wake us
when your done.

Guy

Eye, Fly, Awry in this Landscape of Words,

They say don’t feed the birds, you encourage

dependence, promote non-native species.

who knew, it seemed such a harmless lark.

And what is the result of my two week vacation,

starvation throughout Brentwood stretching to

Dalhousie and Charlewood, or is it more widespread.

They do fly after all and we go through a lot of seed,

will they be dropping in Shanghai and Topeka,

and if not mass starvation, perhaps delinquency.

The whole of bird society breaking down, begging,

sexual license, belling cats, downing power lines

pushing each other into the air intakes of jets.

Or could it be positive, native species returning

Bluebirds, Martins sundry Warblers all jostling

wildly for the vacant nesting boxes and bird baths.

Maybe we should think big, Passenger Pigeons,

Carolina Parakeets, Labrador Ducks, who knows

what these misplaced Weaver Birds were up to.

Maybe we will see the great brown spurts of Bison

moving out of the river valleys with their attendant

packs of Grey Wolves and lumbering Plains Grizzlies.

And if I stop feeding the sleek Black Squirrels

that hang like misshapen fruit from my feeders,

what can I get for that?

                                                                                      Guy

                                                                     

by Max

The Cat Wishes to Use the Pen

To write doubtless,

about the space under the rug where he keeps things and

the spot under the coffee table where he also keeps things

including himself, dreaming of jungle, he would like to

immortalize lurking unseen.

Unless he wants a drink in which case he will write

of the white porcelain tub where he sits demanding

a drink from the faucet. Or yowling through the house

until someone follows him to his dish to witness

the wonder of a feeding cat.

He would include a triumphant inventory of the

clawed furniture, the red leather chair, the sofa, the

good  Lazy Boy. The declawed cat broke lamps but he

is all about fabric, sweaters, wedding dresses,

comforters and of course the good Lazy Boy.

He would surely write about laying across a warm chest

with one paw extended purring happily. But there will be

no mention  of the small white dog who sniffs his butt,

let him write his own poem.