First Things

we call him

Morning Report, and he is  

frailer than I remember,

  

he taps

the open gourds

with his cane

tells me

where the elk went,

how many golf balls

he held, quail

how many

and how young, do I

recall the wildfire

that peaked the ridge

and the goats

imported to clear

the underbrush—was it

willow? did I know

a tree can still burn

underground

creating a bowl

of embers, like

a heat puddle

capable of cooking

a javelina, step

carefully—even days

after the smoke clears

but the roses

did so well

that summer, 

the ashes

do it

daybreak’s

watchman walks  

with phonetic

patience

past the Pioneer

Cemetery

eyes the stones

like a bachelor

pondering

his dance card,

building

tomorrow’s

report should he be

blessed 
with one more
morning

Walking in Gratitude, Poets United

Someone must be searching for you

with a quiver 

fashioned from

a cardboard tube

my son 

advances

on the straw bale

Five arrows

into the neighbor’s yard

 

he suspects gravity 

is an abandoned god

pushing his prayers 

back to earth

oh, ancient one

reworked a small poem where the title functions as the last line

posted to Poetry Pantry #177

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I told father

I wanted my stout legs

to slip into nylons. Miraculously,

he nodded and planted

velvet flags around

the house. The earth

opened, femme fatale. Strangers,

can keep to their sidewalks,

            their filthy eyes and awnings.

I have the sound of my father

laughing in eyeliner, wiping away

his tears with blooming rivers.

Before he died, he waved

his steelyard hand, in prayer

for the Pleiades to watch me in his stead.

He gave me Lou Reed, the strength

of all-weather flesh, and a full heart

to see

and work it.

found this poem from the opening salvo of Dreaming in Satellite, original since removed

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I follow the split wall

down through the cage bones  

there is an urge to cup

the entrails, to bewitch

feel the carcass flow

in union with the downslope grass

meat relaxed, unlike the numbers

pressed into the casing   

snow in dialog with sun, an equinox

of hunt and hunger

shows how good it is to struggle

to redden, like indebtedness

the hammer of a final zero

its empty mouth quantified

or the revelation of three digits

quivering in the still warm cavity

rolling dice, stirring tea

spending a Saturday stacking rocks

so I can clear my throat and step

into the black, throwing it over my back

taking it to the vault to cool, and breathe
where bliss is golden


 ________________________
my response to the prompt of something quite ordinary