Bug Off

I made the video but did not
Notice until I played back and
Listened, really,
To the recorded device embedded
In that twisted hardware,
That birds sang to me
A luscious soundtrack.

My mind munched at the days'
Spectacle, tumbling
Moments disconnected from
The reality of the now.
I forgot to swat
The mosquito so he
Ate well.

Earwigs had to be soaped up,
Dispelled from the garden,
So that for an evening,
We could eat our pesto in peace.

It breaks you

To see your life
Scrawled out in wet ink
In the referreed journals
Of someone else's trophy case.

To see her well-tended garden
of poems neatly arranged by year
published, soil you composted
and left fallow for anyone else to love.

To listen to the thump of
Validating bass notes from her
low-slung guitar she learned to
strum because she wanted to, so she did
And practice didn't make perfect but it made something.

it breaks you to know you're nothing
because you're lazy, and because
law & order used you,
and because you stopped and scolded the tumbleweed
When she let it blow on through.

Remarks for a Nomad

Rita packed sandals and pens
And left the world on a Tuesday.

Into no-man's land, where
Ethnicity is rain clouds
And wealth is counted in
Hammock-swaying minutes.

Ballooning stomachs and
Heaving spider masses tramp behind
Her on a path broken by
Feet bare and worthy of a day's bread.

Into Maori candlelit concerts
And stranger's cars, void of concern
She strolls away again, and again,
From Bali love and American packaging.

Rita packs a scarf and heavy boots
And walks into the world.

All That is Hidden

Some nights--
We catch the search lights
Like fireflies. They are stuffed into
Spaghetti sauce jars, the broken beams
Squinting through a punched out
Metal lid.

A twisted Norwegian maple
Breaks the sunlight
Over our heads--
If we laugh, the rubber
Tire interrupts us,
Slams against the
Breast of her trunk
To remind us where we are.

All her tiny, nonsensical babble
Is a trip wire to last night's
Dreams, shooting up through
Us, like eel shocks. Still
We wade in deeper, and lay back
Letting the leeches suck on.

Green slime clings to
The white siding of our lives--
Still, and yet,
Our meadow hearts desire
An acid solution.