The Kindness of Queen Anne’s Lace

 

Pretty florets, a sea of white finery,

filling up the cracks and empty 

spaces, from the consideration

of a lady and a Queen. A flower,

 

Queen Anne’s Lace, a gift

from Europe sent to fill in 

the empty cracks and space.

But if invasions we suffer, must 

 

then what a pretty assault 

upon our senses,as I look for 

the trace of you, driving by

 

in the valleys between building 

canyon walls, the glimpse from 

the corner of my eye finding 

 

only a bouquet of pretty white

flowers When you pass by that 

vacant  lot, think only of the kindness 

of Queen Anne’s Lace.

 

 

 

The Cubicle

 

The cubicle is the cuticle

of the modern work day.

 

A thin membrane separating

the fleshy part of work from

 

the erosive atmosphere

of the day. When we smell 

 

the lunch of a coworker or 

when we hunch over

 

the phone with a creditor, 

and when a loving whisper of

 

goodbye by phone or email

doesn’t cover our hurt,

 

our cubicle splinters and cracks

from the daily pressure of rough

 

trade around us, and we are

surprised not to emerge

 

bloodied as a bruised 

finger-nail bed. 

 

 

String Theory

 

Against the hubris of the day

a piece of gift-wrapping at a party

floats lazily amid the chaos.  I glimpse

a piece of uneven bliss in a parallel universe

Mylar stars against a cerulean blue sky.

 

This is a world I would like to visit,

where I would be Mylar and cerulean blue,

I wouldn’t care if I were sill uneven

and just a piece of the larger picture. 

 

Park Dream

 

I am waiting in a trailer

and a cold winter rain is coming

I look out the window for you.

I see a horse and a bull fighting with

 

hooves and horns clashing, mane

and tails flicking against a backdrop 

of distant lightening.  I am waiting

for you as a cold winter rain comes

closer.

 

The solar lights dim, my eyelids heavy

as the golden book of dreams drops

from my hands, rain pattering against

the window like hummingbird wings.

 

My soul will remember the

mythology of tonight; I know it

because I am waiting for you. 

 

 

New Planet Indianapolis

 

“From July 25th to Sept 23rd 2001 red rain sporadically descended upon the southern Indiana state Kerala”

 

Today is just another day 

in Indy. The wind is calm

or balmy, humid or cold, just

another day.  Just another day

in Indy and I am driving 

down 38th Street and just like 

any day in Indy I am making

every frigging light or I am

zooming through traffic like I am

at the roller rink and

“The Pennsylvania Polka”

is playing.

 

Today is just another day in Indy

and instead of having

to sprint across 34th Street to the library

because there is no pedestrian light,

I stroll (which is not like just

any day in Indy), I stroll across 34th Street,

and I notice the shiny glint of a penny

embedded in the tar street patch,

whose says the street of Indy aren’t

lined with money?

 

Today is just another day

in Indy when everything

goes swell, or the whole day

is off kilter, kinda lopsided

and I have to struggle 

to walk upright like gravity

isn’t quite what it should be.

 

On those off kilter days

I half expect it to start raining

the red rain of extraterrestrial blood. 

or while I am driving down 

Meridian street it will start raining 

frogs and a Pentecostal grandmother 

will appear in the backseat of the car

praying  in tongues, and it’s not 

a boring planet anymore. 

 

 

The Green Man and Coyote

 

Lying on the bed after work

on this Spring Equinox, just after

the season of the Irish, I feel

Coyote the Trickster is afoot.

He is softly padding by

my bed in green fur, and 

he is not my dog.

 

It is Coyote, who with his 

bag of stimulus packages, is tossing

out commotion in my life so that

when I look out of the bedroom window

at the neighbors pine tree, I think

the branches are the backs of The Green Man,

replicated branch by branch,

linking arms and dancing

in Coyote’s breeze. 

 

Chicory Summer

 

Driving down 

the summer asphalt

heat rising with want,

a strip of desire fringed

in powder blue.   Driving

home I pass people on their way

to something about to happen.

 

My summer dissolves into

hot desire, trimmed in eyelet

blue lace that is rooted flavor

but I am still wanting that buzz,

still wanting, still wanting. 

 

Brother Raven

 

I met you at the Pow Wow, your hair not afro’d

but in long braids and your soft spoken words

telling me of your families coming together. 

 

Later that day I see four ravens in a tree,

waiting for a sunset, moonrise or a breeze.

 

I ask them “what are your signs?”

A mouse , a lizard, a worm, a pecan.

 

I watch them taking flight,

with the stars of the Milky Way

reflecting off their black.

 

 

Cymbal Tremor

 

Slow awakening

the stretch, the lazy

hrmpff.

Sweet dreams,

soft whispers, shimmer

of a night remembered.

 

Slow moving, sunlight flickering

and tapping at my eyelids,

bed sheets coiled ‘round sweaty legs,

pillow squashed.

 

I reach for the bass percussion,

the steady beat of the night before.

Reaching out and in the empty space

I find only dissonance.