I Don't get out of Bed

I don't get out of bed anymore to catch a rhyme, line or stanza, to sit drinking reheated coffee at the pendulous hour of 3 AM while children sleep and the refrigerator sings white lullabies. Oh, they still come, the visions, epiphanies, simple scenes that mean so much, and it's only a matter of hearing them correctly, their music, and rising to find words, knowing polish will come in the morning or next week, next year, that it's the idea that must be grasped and held. But, no, I lie there and fall asleep, letting them drift into dreams that vanish upon waking. I think it was Updike who said poetry was a young man's game, maybe someone else. I could look it up, but I'll let that go, too--it doesn't matter--but you, hey, get your ass out of bed and write that shit down.

Ultimate Autumn on Lake Hamilton

When it's ultimate autumn,
a fog bank moves on the lake,
early morning crows call as they emerge
from the grey-white stir, turn ebony overhead,
and wing toward the sunrise; when it's ultimate
and the lake lies like blue marble,
no longer laughs on the seawall,
tresses of cloud curl through shoreline trees
that hang and weep with dew; when it's ultimate,
and footprints on the lawn scuff like weary soldiers,
sometimes seen in circles, sometimes stopping,
stepping back, but down to the mere blue edge;
when it's ultimate and leaves go free
and mist there starts to rise,
an outline of a mirrored scene
forms on the other side.


(Remembering the Past, Poems by Roundtable Poets of Hot Springs, 1986)

The Carpenter

Shh, shh, shh.

Quiet!

Listen to the carpenter.

Byron's Babies

Any fool who walks on land
can make more love than Byron can.
Kings and queens rode purple fate,
but never drove on interstate.
All the wars that ever were
could not match one good nuclear,
and all the knowledge of the dead
is smaller than a baby's head.



(Sentinel-Record, Hot Springs, 1983; Poems by Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, 1985))

Haiketzer

Civilization,
come here old friend and look,
see your psychotic child.

McLarty's Weavers

Three weavers
behind an uncertain loom,
motherly metaphysicians,
pulling concepts out of chaos,
weaving precepts for the world.
They are ever at their work,
heads inclined toward the task,
emotionless they stand,
making sweaters one can wear
through a coup d'etat of ice,
and afghans for an evening
in the garden with a god,
beneath stars and cosmic clouds
with a black backdrop of drapery
in a circle all around.


(Views, Mid-South Watercolorists, January 1985; Poems by Poets Roundtable of Arkansas, 1986)

Earthworms

You see them on a sunny summer morning,
squirming on a sidewalk,
lost on hot concrete,
not knowing which way leads
back to the loam cool soil of birth,
back to the world of damp tunnel
and familiar root, brothers, sisters,
and fathers now the soil itself.

It must have been the night that drew them out,
a Stygian breeze chasing dew drops
down a blade of grass.
It must have been the moon,
half full and filtering through a cloud,
making the sidewalk seem so simple.
It must have been a swarm of stars,
each laughing down the lie that little earthworms
are free to crawl and not get caught.

But see them now on sidewalks,
their fine slick skins wrinkling,
turning brittle with the heat,
as the sun, its back toward them,
pulls itself slowly up the sky,
and ants begin to gather
from a sure methodic line,
part them into pieces,
and haul them away,
heart by heart.


(Arkansas Magazine, Arkansas Democrat, July 13, 1986)