Shells kidnapped from sand and tidal rocks
rest below a watercolour all cliché,
beach and ocean prettified and benign.
Green, blue and orange buoys
once marked sites of submerged nets
but bob and ride waves no longer, doomed
to be garden or mantelpiece ornaments.
On 27 November 1840
an oar hoisted a spray of foam
over the Rio Negro.
At first light
on 30 April 1882
clouds formed in the southern sky.
In an unnamed city, on an unspecified date,
he once caught a glimpse
of a book’s marbled binding.
Book in hand two old clerks
gazed at the Normandy sky
and tried to distinguish
nimbus from cirrus, stratus from cumulus,
but saw only horses’ manes,
scattered islands and mountains of snow.
I have long been a devotee of Rudyard Kipling, both for his talent as a novelist and as a poet. With respect to his poetry, my favourite is “On the Road to Mandalay.” But I am sad to say that Mr Kipling has a failing grade when it comes to geographical knowledge.
place a kiss on the back of my neck
the coffee is still hot
steam is gently rising
and we leave the patio door open
men finishing off a new building
groan and hiss of bus lines
writing again ........
* poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue.
moonwalking … I’m dreaming of moonwalking …
kinda like Michael Jackson, I guess,
only not so silky smooth,
I’m shuffling backwards ’cross the stage of time
when some millennial in the crowd calls out, “OK Boomer” …
guess we’ve had that coming
I mean, too true,
we Boomers pretty much left one god-awful mess
more than half a century partying on our parents’ dime,
glacier retreats
signal the freezers are all but cleaned out
and records, they’re spinning
as floods and droughts play on …
The doctor settles Mom in a chair facing her own. I sit in a third chair facing both the doctor and my mother, as an onlooker, a spectator.
Wild sweet peas spill over the sidewalk.
Their pink flowers & curly vines
dance in the wind,
a tangled wave goodbye
I run past on Stewart Avenue.
They weren’t here last week,
but many things
grow quickly
like the fairy-tale world
in my grandmother’s trailer.
* poem, in its entirety, is available in the printed version of the current issue.
