1
The distant percussion
of a woodpecker—
Let’s make ice cream!
2
Asleep on the edge
of the bed,
marriage is not for cynics
3
Sitting here waiting
for the coming disease,
smoking my cigarette
4
Moon bright enough
to read your poems by,
the yard aglow with dew
5
Sunflowers
break the cloudbank,
feeding eagles
I rolled into the pocket of
that eight-ball-sided dream.
I bumped out with the poetry heebie-jeebies,
crapulous and reeking of split-end angst.
I could not sleep until I brushed the clues away;
it was only then I’d filled the crossword in:
as quiet as the heron fishing
reluctantly in a culvert along the bleeding interstate;
as solemn as the screeching hawk perched in a sunset tree
meditating keen on its blind, nocturnal dinner—
At home amongst the long-legged power towers,
changing colors like a leaf, not afraid to fall.
Birds of the bureaucracy,
they made the country what it was
but did little for the land.
JBR.com 