"if peas can talk, should we eat them"

a heavier question to ponder than most,
these peas that look out for each other, can we eat them?
if we can't eat peas, is broccoli game, or butternut squash,
blades of grass sing together, weeds wiggle under fences
together, what if every plant talks, our ears will grow
deaf with their chorus of protest, their wilting
gazes, we will turn away hungry
for what, we wonder.

so quiet now

there is no one panting at the door
his tail perched as a statue waiting to swing wide
as the door, each golden wave a shout of joy at
our arrival,

it's quiet now, a small black dog sleeps in
the corner, tomatoes the most energetic
swaying in the breeze on the front porch
their faces following the sun
as it crosses the sky.

Buddy: In Memory

in memory, how many memories, how many rawhides,
how many walks, of frisbees, and barking at rocks in the water,
of broken windows, fences and gates, of cute blonde girls
calming him in thunderstorms.

from desperate barking to delirious happiness with the opening of a door,
snoozing all day knowing that Dad was just resting in his bedroom
behind a closed door.

in memory of Buddy, who tolerated little Portia nipping at his heels,
or little boys pretending he is a lion, or pulling his tail,

this nutty dog who cancelled dates, interrupted vacations, and slobbered
generously in nearby laps whether needed it or not.

all he needed was Dad, or you, in a pinch, all the rest was icing.
to Buddy, may dog heaven be full of rawhides and little girls on
rollerskates who giggle, then stop to rub your head and smile.

Buddy

delivering fresh bread to neighbors merits a rest after all
on a cool wooden porch, rubbed smooth over years
of life which have burnished these rich planks.

8/9/8

eight syllables long was the goal
between talk shows on the radio
and the traffic jam on thirty
six lanes each way, sixteen horns blaring
through sunshine turning to sleet,  one
might wonder why syllables have to
do with traffic, sleet, nightmares or
mothers shall ask their children such deep
questions only poets can answer.

leave well enough alone

software developers must not use their own code,
sacking what worked beautifully to earn their pay,
fire them, I say!  as I attempt to navigate this ugly
new interface, will le poeme go extinct ? 

headaches

they creep up your spine towards your occipitaii
up your arms, across your shoulder blades, sliding
along your scapula towards your skull, they skulk,
in fact, slinking along they continue to coalesce,
all those cranky crustacean crinks in your neck,
your back, they gather for their headache festivities
while all you can do is be a spectator at your own
miserable sideshow.

The lost art of reading

reading a book, feeling the texture of the pages
against your dry skin, your curse when the salad dressing
spilled across page 110, soaking through to page 112,
sacrilege to damage a book, even your own
with the tea stain on the front cover, your scrawled
name inside so no one steals this wonder of wonder,
a book.

I love your shoes!..heard at the 28th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs

Forget the missile launchers, satellites and conductive tape,
the tactical weapons, Delta II rockets and surveillance software,
the crowds of grey suits, grey hair, the hum of low voices,
The most enthusiasm I heard in that exhibit hall was
"I love your shoes!"


(then we got back to discussing accelerated life testing and other geeky things...but first things, first!)

No harp cases here

Please!  Keep your harp cases away from here,
in your own closets, there is no room here for you
and your harps, only tubas, sousaphones and
trombones are welcome here
the delicate touch of your fingers against the strings
is an affront to the big band sound
off you go,then, to other closets in other places
far from here.

ride a poem

ride a poem on wheels through the sunset
enveloped in an orange globe giving way to a
moon on the horizon, there is no coffee here
nor fellow poets or leaking fountain pens,
nor notebooks or books of poems by
famous authors, only the sound of the road
chattering against rolling wheels.

that's what phones are for

 

it used to be that you visited the family on holidays

to overeat, overstress, undercommunicate, heading home

a ravage of your former self

vowing never again

until next time.

you boarded the plane, gifts in hand, hopes in your heart

to be dashed again,

that's what phones are for, a conversation

dribbling to a voice mail, to

a text.

sweet.



On coping and adaptation

her feathers gradually faded to brown from brilliant white
to fit in on the trees, in conference rooms, at trade shows,
against snow that had disappeared into the ground leaving
bare dirt and pine needles, the beige of cubicle walls and
meeting rooms.
white, she would be eaten alive.

Fraudulent Women?!

You know them, Millie Dresselhaus, president of American Physical Society,
Marie Curie and Linda Buck, Barbara McClintock...
She famously said she had
"a feel for the organism" as she gradually became recognized as the preeminent
cytogeneticist in the world.
I bet she felt like a fraud late at night, or early, sitting at the kitchen table watching
the second hand move past 12 again and again, round and round, while trying to
figure out a problem that seemed to have no solution.
Maybe she wondered if her male colleague would figure it out.
Millie Dressehaus arrived in class at 9 am sharp, fresh from her
red eye special from Washington, DC, her grey bun neatly pinned back,
ready to teach us about Hamiltonians and quantum wave theory,
did she ever wonder
if she was a fraud,
probably
late at night while her kids slept.
yes, the young engineer, the published older woman, the Harvard students,
the ones at the local college all figure they're frauds from time to time,
look, instead, towards Wall Street
for the real fraud.

The Story of "O"

How confusing, or wonderful?,  to be an "O", a new choice
meaning Open-minded?  Original?
I circle F wondering what if I am missing something
Orgasmic or simply well Oriented, or not, or is
it an Zero, slightly fattened in the middle, that would
be sad indeed to be a Zero, I prefer the Original Orgasmic
Open-minded "O", and only feel a bit of sadness that
I am not "O", "F" sounds rather like a failure.

dog barking

dog barking
at nothing
not a soul on the street,
punctuated by a shush
a shush a shush
and she lies down
heavily on the floor
wishing for something
to bark at.

No more words on a Monday night

serious tonight, the empty coffee mug glazed with
foam, the pen still capped, no more words tonight,
only stars can write across the sky.
a negative of a family scene, black stark against white,
you would never know there is silver underneath.
a positive terminal of a battery seeks its negative,
techno-rock stutters in the background,
the table rocks to its own music.

Girl-catcher

he pulls air conditioners from windows,
chews door and window frames and barks incessantly
but he's a natural at girl-catching; tall, short, young, old,
they see him from the corner of their eye and are
drawn irresistibly towards his unevenly cut tail,
bald withers and big dorky head,
"he's so cute", they chirp happily, rubbing his
head and stroking his bony rump,
ah, the kingdom of Buddy!

identifying a tree

that one there has short dark green needles
its branches tower above me, yet I can scratch the itch
on my right wrist at eye level,
its bark dark and striated, cracks shimmering ghostly within
like the last remnants of snow frozen into rocky veins
of which I know nothing, neither genre or species,
geographical spread, diseases or joys like the one
of reaching across space to touch.

Tween Tomatoes

Out of their cradles,
into small beds but not ready for
being alone outside alone in wind and
full sun with no protection,
tomato tweens, leaping towards
adulthood.

Falling Asleep

I'd like to catch that moment of falling asleep,

ready with my lab notebook open, an accurate watch

I watch for the moment, sneakily, with my eyes closed,

but alert, eyelashes fluttering slightly.

Awake, awake, awake........Awake

but did I fall asleep during the ellipsis

awake debugging code

asleep flying above town clutching a kite string in my hand

awake worrrying about bills

my pen lies adjacent

no additional lab book entries

missed it again.

Looking out the window

I don't really see the world,

only a square of it through fine mesh and fingerprints.

looking up, truncated mountains; looking down onto legless passersby.

Steve's house to the east, the grey house with peeling paint to the west.

I miss so much.

not being able to see the color of people's socks

or the movement of clouds over the mountaintops.

I didn't see her dial her phone, only her animated conversation

as she paused in front of the house to admire the daffodils.

I saw a car pull away from the curb, not able to see whether

it would turn onto Arapahoe or Canyon.

I missed their embrace, the sight of her laughing

before she started sobbing at the gate;

who knows what she did after that, or if she

was ok, I am left only

wondering.



E

she sits in the same chair every weekday
gazing at someone else who is not me.
we are still there,laughing irreverently as
ghosts hovering just below the ceiling.
her hair has gotten brittle and dry from
too many attempts to hide the grey,
this, I understand
I follow her in so many ways.
yet her eyes are pools of wisdom
in this, I can only hope to follow.

Blue sneakers, pink backpack

she strolls the neighborhood in her blue sneakers
and pink backpack, heavy set with a large face, eyes
that see the world differently, shuffling over
uneven sidewalks, stopping occasionally to unzip
her bag to make sure all is in order and in place,
she hopes to capture someone's attention to
replace her endless strolling for an endless chat
that has no beginning, middle or end,
we turn away, suddenly eager to finish
the dirty dishes.