Mushroom Offensive
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out . . . ” —KJV Matthew 18:9
If mushroom offend thine eye,
Close it whenever mushroom is nigh.
If mushroom offend thine ear,
Do not listen when mushroom is near.
If mushroom offend thy nose,
Imagine mushroom is a rose.
If mushroom offend thy skin,
Do not fondle mushroom, fold, nor spin.
If mushroom offend thy tongue,
Let mushroom be and calmly move along.
My Son, Dissident Disaffected
for my second born, whose 10 semesters came gratis because of my employment at the university—“you get what you pay for”
He sported thread-patched jeans and tattered T-shirts
That several years ago he had tie-dyed red/black.
All his clothes had agitated and tumbled
To that red/black fade.
His feet mocked the organization—
Sporting one red Chuck
And one black Chuck
Held together with safety pins and tape.
For ten semesters, his red dreads
Faithfully attended classes
But finished off his last semester
Without a degree.
The records office tracked his diminishing GPA—
He sports a muzzy brain and a mangled education.
A rather different version of this American-Innovative sonnet appears in my collection Turtle Woman & Other Poems.
(or My Poem/Your Poem)
Good Poetry/Bad Poetry (or My Poem/Your Poem)
for Tom, Dick, and Harry
My poem is rich in emotion
Your poem is sentimental
My poem is free verse
Your poem lacks structure
My poem is iambic pentameter
Your poem is dog trot
My poem’s style is reminiscent of Yeats
Your poem sounds too much like Dickinson
My poem is experimental
Your poem is a mass of confusion
My book of poems was self-published
Your book of poems was printed by a vanity press
The Beauty of the Bones
Their splendor
outdoes
the dull shine
of your flesh.
That pink tint
fixes itself, not
like the blush
that rippled
down your jowl
and around
your fat neck,
guardian
of your worm-
plagued Adam’s
apple.
That belly swore
a greedy appetite—
this won’t do.
Give me
your backbone
straight-arrow,
your ribcage
circling birdless,
your hipbones
never swaggering
a promise
of a good pump
they won’t keep.
The click
of my bony
knuckles
on your dry
skull barks
a sweeter tone
than the chimes
of your voice box.
The beauty
of your bones
clacks a bare truth—
your ripe flesh
proved all
I cracked it up
to be.
I Envy
“I envy Seas, whereon He rides” —Emily Dickinson
I envy morning that breaks over his strong chest.
I envy noon that calls him to lunch.
I envy evening that sees
his eyes grow tired from screening,
and night—I envy her arms, her bed linen
enfolding his warm limbs
while he sleeps.
I envy his car: rear view mirror
catching his glances,
gear-shift knob responding
to his warm hand, clutch
knowing the pressure of his foot,
ignition accepting his key.
I envy the route his car takes to work
and the other drivers who might catch
a glimpse of him as he goes.
and I envy the music he listens to,
and I envy the clothes that rub
against his toned body,
and I envy all of his co-workers
who see his bright face
lighting up from cheery banter.
I envy his coffee cup, his fork,
and spoon, and the table under
which his legs rest while he dines—
most of all:
I envy the waitress with whom he flirts,
glimpsing her breasts, wondering
how they would feel in his hands
and on his naked chest, and how
she would sound moving under him.
A slightly different version of appears in my collection Turtle Woman & Other Poems.
Listening to the Oldies Station on a Saturday Afternoon
In my early teens,
I thought rock & roll
was God’s own message of love,
no sacrifice of guitar fingers
piano feet, or drum ears.
Radio stations were far off from where I grew up,
but I listened until the watts they turned off
faded the music, and it was time for bed anyway.
And now they call me baby boomer
and because there are so many of us,
some radio stations devote all their airwaves
to our own class of rock & roll,
which is now classic, you see,
and they sell us all the things we need
to keep us young,
but I don’t need those things.
I have a new sound that moves me
through the music that blinds the young
and confounds the old. Let’s just say,
“well, that was good—let’s listen again
like we did last summer.”
No Sharks
an American-Innovative villanelle inspired by my little story “No Sharks” from my memoir My Life in Little Stories
The flat rock had gone missing from the sheet metal covering the well.
I saw it but then turned it from my mind—
Then a headline flashed my thoughts, “Boy drowns in well.”
On a cold March day to Granny’s we visited for a spell.
Rodney and Kelly ran to play in the cold March wind.
The flat rock had gone missing from the sheet metal covering the well.
Granny’s houseplants held us talking, so much to tell.
I heard a thump, guessed a ball had hit the house behind?
Then a headline flashed my thoughts, “Boy drowns in well.”
I ran outside, not knowing what I’d find.
Kelly stood a few feet from the well looking stunned.
The flat rock had gone missing from the sheet metal covering the well.
“Where’s Rodney?” She pointed; I ran and nearly fell.
I lifted the metal, saw pale eyes; the worst stabbed my mind:
Again, the headline flashed my thoughts, “Boy drowns in well.”
Granny screamed, “He’s alive!” She held my legs. I pulled from him from the well.
No water in his lungs! no injury him befell!—
His only fear was that sharks might dwell
In the big pond he thought was connected to the well.
Water
we never walked by the river.
we never ate at some little diner.
never watched the sun come up together.
never made poetry on the back of a turtle.
never made songs out of riming fish.
never rested at some little motel,
else I’d hear you say ‘i’m hungry, ready for breakfast?’
and I’d say ‘yeah, let’s go’.
sprawled across the bed with old books.
a river of words rushing my fancy.
it’s not a dream, it’s drops of chatter
distilled by windowless silence, I need water—
I’ll just float here awhile
and rearrange the strange clouds
My Onions, My Opinions
“Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness. For thou art a stiffnecked people.” Deut. 9:6
When Auden said, “About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters,” he meant my parents.
They went about it loud and long.
My mother lost her father when she was twenty,
married mine when she was twenty-one
& practiced a vinegar tongue.
He cursed the weather and my attitude.
But they knew how to grow a garden.
When my husband plants onions, he doesn’t set
them deep enough. They sit there growing
like little pots sticking out of the ground. That’s wrong.
They need to grow deep in the earth. So later when you
pull up a green onion, the useless layers
sluff off.
I never knew how they worshiped,
I never knew if they prayed.
I sat on the floor cross-legged like an Indian
but as stiffnecked as an Israelite.
I do, however, plant onions right.
August
Moon of the Black Cherries
Stretched out like this on the sand,
my body browns,
while my mind circles around
your moon and the browning of cornstalks.
These ears have listened all summer
to my Indiana garden.
Now they absorb the sweet roar of the Pacific.
You opened school and closed summer vacation,
and too soon snow slickened the roads
and made that big yellow bus
that hauled me to school slide and threaten
to slip off into the water down River Road.
But now I know you are as fair as April
who promises flowers and warm skin
but sometimes delivers a blow
that crashes houses and sucks up trees
before keeping those promises.
Black cherries are the sweet ones.
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