Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

There’s no poem hidden inside today.
I’ve looked in all the regular places,
deep into candles lit before dawn.
Nothing.
I’ll build one anyway—
Proving I’m just as selfish as he said.
So here’s a poem shaped from heavy gray air
in a cold marble courthouse
where lawyers step in to deliver
something else I can’t make on my own.
The only prize is no poem,
just a pair of scissors
wielded by a serious-faced judge
with the awful job
of helping me cut this snarled tie.

You, and your two companions
who I only know as “trio”,
soften my heart every year,
on the strength of that one piano line
playing below the children’s chorus
from a simple world drawn in clear lines.
Back there, Charlie Brown and Lucy are ice skating
and tasting snowflakes.
This makes it easier to breathe, here where I live now,
the same way construction paper trees
masking-taped to classroom windows calms me,
this comforting sameness across the years.
I’m almost certain I could peer through that classroom window
and see myself, at 5, carefully gluing colored circles,
counting 1,2,3,4,5 as I pressed each link together,
concentrating, building a paper chain to the future.

I captured two enormous oak leaves
and brought them home.
Dark brown, thick and leathered,
kept for weeks,
they were meant to star in a poem:
Something about plenty and treasure
and being carried on the wind.

Yesterday, I let them go—
tucked them under
the lavender bush in the garden
to escape my attempts to pry them open,
or shape them into a message.
They deserved a rest, having
taught me all they could
about not disintegrating
or growing brittle.

I drift away, like a fickle lover.

Poetry never stamps its foot,

or chases after me,

or texts me late at night

with outrageous demands.

No, poetry goes all quiet.

Then tosses me something—

In the used book section of

the temple of Barnes & Noble,

it slides a book into my hands and disappears.

And we’re off again—

I remember how it is:

A crate full of words,

the lines of a face

arranged just so

and it’s crazy love all over again.

Today I woke up

with my head full of numbers.

Click of calculators in my ears

tumbled me out of bed

to clutch my red checkbook.

Numbers in, numbers out

and a sleepy number 3

who tried to sneak away

for a bit more shut eye.

I only allow myself one (two)

poems per morning,

doling out this treat of language

to make it last.

After a poem (two)

I put the book down,

look out past the candlelight

to the dark, then lightening

world, the spray of snow on

my neighbor’s roof,

and dream of Wales.

“Her eyes shone like two bright stars, but there was no rest or peace in them.”

From The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Anderson

Eyes full of rest, of peace

is the gift I’d give you, daughter–

Hunting everywhere till I found it,

asking crows and witches

in every village I passed,

willing to pay any price.

I would carry it home tucked in my red cloak,

Then wrap it in bright green paper, to

remind you of holidays and growing things

and tie it with a red bow.

I would tell you, Look for this

one gift, tucked beneath the tree

to delight you in the morning.

Because I’ve bound my heart to you

my gift would be to see you smile

and mean it.

When you’ve been walking

in circles, wrapped in old conversations

that can never keep you warm

and every moment is another moment

she’d rather be somewhere else.

When you’re weary because your heart

is tied to your child

so it is always traveling

or packing its bags.

When you can’t remember

how to reach her or how to get home–

Rest on the road.

Talk long into the night with the other travelers, who are

all searching for their wandering hearts.

Light a fire and sip something warm together.

Swap stories and laugh.

Though this is not the place you sought

you can learn to let it be, for now, close to

Enough.