ekphrastic poem:  after Young Woman at a Window – Salvador Dali

through the window, and across the bay:
a sailboat, and a tree-lined shore.
the sky is flat and gray, yet luminous,
what’s more: the breeze that touches water
goes its way, lifting curtains, curls, and sails
like this, like this, like this.
the waves on the surface; the folds in her dress.
the eyes that take in without focus
and forget the wall and window sill
to hold and remember and feel

(I really hope I haven't posted these before. Apologies)

Haiku

#945

first autumn night
under the stars and over the dirt
I wait for first autumn dawn

#371

with the baby
at the window
watching the moon across the car windshield

Limericks

Once, these were for L.

*
I'll smoke just one more cigarette
because I can never forget.
Borne in heart and in bone,
weary things I have known,
and all that I have not yet.

*
The trees outside of my window
cast lush shade on the yard below.
The lusty sunshine
sifts through the treeline;
fills my room with a green-gold glow.

*
A lady must always believe
that at any time she can leave.
She's a cagey beast
at the very least,
and not willingly retrieved!

*
No matter the era or season,
Love grows without coaxin or teasin.
Lawless are the laws,
and causeless the cause;
Love is it's own reason.

Station to Station

I'm too young to feel true nostalgia--
like new wine;
bitter without depth
and stinging blood-bright body.

And I am too old to be so new--
haven't I been paying attention?
There's a suffering world out there;
and billions of victims
bleeding life from life's sweet wounds.
Mind cannot hold all it thinks it can hold:
the great joke of the mind.
The cask influences the aging,
"For the love of God, Montressor!"

And another empty glass
I pass,
I pass.
I'm too young to feel this way

age

i

grow older;

i mean

to say more

with less.

hooks

pumping breastmilk
and writing poetry--

ain't it interesting,
the way life
gets its hooks in you?

Once, you were a 13-year-old
thin-gypsy heart.

Now:
the house and laundry
baby, dinner, dishes
got you
caught you
as you let the dog
out in the yard.
And all is drawn out from you.
Soon,
(if yr paying attention)
you see
that none of it--
not yr energy
not yr effort
not yr poetry
was ever yrs.

You are a conduit
and a merry gate of living.

that is yr immortality.