Tiny balls of pollen swirl
in the molasses summer wind
like specks of white in a snow globe.
As she ambles down
the gravel-lined trail
the path crunches
and crackles
a freshly frozen lake
threatening to give way
under the weight of each step.
She shrinks into the horizon
the way an ice cube thaws
into a pool of water
then evaporates.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Listen & Be Heard » Blog Archive » Stuck on Poetry // Apr 25, 2007 at 2:12 pm
[...] Tony, my husband, co-publisher, and co-conspiritor in creating Listen & Be Heard Poetry Café, and I have made the extra effort each year for five years now, to present a poetry marathon. It is an event that brings together poets and lovers of poetry from around the bay area to connect with each other and the community through spoken word. As I was writing this column, Q.R. Hand Jr. stopped in to tell me that he and Reginald Lockett would be combining their time and talents with the other members of Wordwind Chorus to inaugurate our 5th Annual Poetry Marathon at 6pm sharp on Saturday, April 28. We can make those kinds of adjustments because we are free. Free to express everything that needs saying. After Wordwind Chorus will come performances by Vallejo’s own young superstar Gabi Wilson, poetry slam queen Ilieah Thomas and the multi-talented Irman Arcibal. Coming in from around the bay area will be Kim Shuck, Slim Russell, Jennifer Foerster, Bill Vartnaw and Wordslanger. You can find more information about each of these fine poets at http://www.listenandbeheard.net/marathon5. [...]
2 David Plumb // Jul 9, 2008 at 6:45 am
Hello to Q.R. Poem for the belated 4th. Keep dancing Q.R.
101st Plasmatic Extravaganza
4th Of July 2008
In the blink of America, in the belly of Saudi Arabia
on the spine of China and Pakistan and Sudan
a day of magnificent explosions got sold in cracker boxes
Toys, and necklaces and underwear flapped everywhere
Digital cookies wrapped in tasty chocolate blowups
killed fish and babies and grownups and goats and chickens.
They killed the sky. It was a Fourth of July
Thanksgiving when everyone had their head up a turkey butt.
Johnny Upton stepped on a Baghdad bomb in Rudyard Kipling’s Afghanistan
and the country made super dressing with that, a celebration of bowed heads
green peas and marshmallows on sweet potato pie.
Guns echoed in the plasma screen, the teams took the field.
The pretty girls wagged their rumps, beer frothed in Paradise
and all over everywhere, purple mountains majestically
watched the clicking, clacking, babbling, flickering game
Somewhere in Texas an Attwater Prairie Chicken scratched for a mate.
Somewhere near Tuba City, Arizona, a pickup truck raced to a plate Indian fried bread.
Somewhere in Florida, Bacardi the nine foot alligator
choked to death on a plastic turtle.
Somewhere the President wore jeans and smirked.
Somewhere the Vice President hid in his fat listening to
his private heart machine beat him alive.
A thousand elephants with crosses tacked to their sides
and butterfly wings clipped to their ears marched out of the sky.
Mexicans and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans and Haitians
stood in line for the next trolley, the next truck or boat
the next something and somewhere in Chiapas, a Zapatista
sliced a strange Indian custom with a laptop.
America’s bugles hooted the alleys, the shopping malls
the empty schoolyards and the parking lots.
Movie stars wearing flashing teeth and short skirts wailed
cross-eyed songs in the Forget You Night. Flags flapped
in the bombed out brains of soldiers eating crow.
Babies screeched, mothers screamed and wives
stood at blank windows staring into emptiness.
They mail-ordered nine hundred dollar caskets from Costco
with “He Didn’t Get It,” printed on the lid.
Priests hailed Mary on her way to Dubai for a facelift.
Jesus took a good room overlooking the sea. Rabbis rallied.
Mid East kings sold slick promises of BEST Buy
in a Black Box with whores in the backroom on Sunday.
A man married his dog in India and Minnesota
opened five Bed and Breakfasts for single canines.
When all the announcements had been made,
all the prayers whispered, all the turkey stuffed in all the craws
and all the butchers closed their cash registers and Bibles
and all the tight canons and Constitutionals and the all overheards were overheard
and all the pundits choked on the babble in their throats
and all the pretty girls jumped all the pretty boys
and all the slot machines stopped at strawberries and 7
and all the Easter Bunnies died in waiting and all the
monkeys hung from their cages waiting for somebody
somewhere to speak up about something besides Freedom
Democracy and Terror, the immortal screen turned blank.
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