Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

deep blue sky over
rooftops before dawn—
Indigo
color that rolls off the tongue
in the same shade that swept
across the almost morning sky
of a new year

nights? full of crackling awake static-starred hours
mornings? no new words twirl through the cinnamon-scented coffee
It is so still,
here
where there is no right thing to say
reminder that words
can do many things but not
every
thing
puppy yawns himself awake
with a voice like a creaky uncoiled hinge.
When nothing else remains,
there is routine—he sniffs the back yard air
Barks at the morning runners
Every day, they do their thing and he does his
run and bark, bark and run
they all have their daily practice,
I have mine. Words no matter what
morning words amid the noise and feet
nothing new but we are still
here

she says things:
I was sure he was
right behind me.
And:
in two weeks, I lost
my dog my house my son my cat.

I listen.
We all do. Listen
to the sound of fresh grief
as it clears its throat
settles in for a long stay
the way some visitors,
long-winded or lonely,
stretch their legs and
nestle into the couch cushions.

What Kind Of Mother,
she says,
escapes a burning house
while her child
is inside?

The question forms itself from
smoke to solid.
I study it.
This gray, wrong,
unanswerable twist
of lies.
It has heft,
is heavy for a new born.

This is it.
All of us who love her
measure it from every angle
And we each take a deep breath
of the sooty air.
This is our opponent
our foe, forever
or
at least
as long as we both shall live.

unreasonable joy
arrives despite
how puzzled I am
it chose my doorstep.
I try to explain why this can’t be the right time—
We’ve got death, destruction, dementia
going on now—all the bad D’s.
Are you sure you’ve got the right address? I ask,
blocking joy’s entry with my whole body.
Yep, says joy. I’m here.
What else can I do except
open the door wide and say
How long can you stay?
Joy, of course, doesn’t answer
but just rushes in

Sometimes it just shows up
this reminder to love the ordinary—
Puppy asleep, my feet as his pillow
His feet chasing dream rabbits
while I write my way awake
and remember to say thank you
for the noisy day ahead
and this little cup of quiet

Postscript:
might as well laugh
when the first test of thankfulness
Immediately Arrives—
the way you press a finger
into the fragrant loaf of bread
to see if it’s cooked—now,
the kitchen heater with
the broken fan and a definite
scent of old mice kicks on
to remind me—this day also holds
an expensive repair bill
Still happy? Still think this Monday
Is a poem? Yes. Yes, I remember
and yes, I do.

One by one, we turn off these roads
head another way.
Have you noticed?
The longer I drive,
there are fewer
and fewer of us out here
still traveling at all.
Do the others veer off
for the road home?
Or are they aiming at
some other destination,
one that only occurs to them
there at the end?

Fine, a walk
I said when I didn’t want
a walk because it was
early. Before coffee early.
But we went. Wind died down
Stars from the sky and those green
and red stars from my neighbor’s
Holiday Light Extravaganza
spread across the dark above
and around us. Snow all melted
away. Rain in the night.
Lights meant to reflect snow
now glisten in the rain
and despite my grumpy
hesitation? It was
a fine walk.

Was there one moment
when you decided
to stop wanting things
so you wouldn’t be
disappointed?

Imagine you could travel
through time and
change so much of now
by blowing on the wings
of that particular butterfly.

When you rewrite the list
of hours, days, whole years
you would Do Differently,
consider putting
that moment
with that particular butterfly
at the top

country houses
not the kind featured in
designer living magazines
and Instagram accounts
but ordinary houses
deep in the country
how they huddle together

I have a picture you drew
of a girl, her back to us,
hands fisted in pockets
She walks with Great Determination
into the forest. I can tell
she is thinking hard.

Me too. Thinking about
what we all
ask of the world.

An interview with the interim mayor
of a city plagued by ills—
violence and poverty,
pandemic and code violations.
What’s next for you, asks the reporter.
“I would like to buy a little beach bar
in the Virgin Islands—grill shrimp,
sell margaritas, rent our snorkel equipment.
that’s what I would really like to do….

But
If your grandmother on Argyle Street
calls and says the storm sewer is backing up
and there’s water in her basement?
We can get that handled in an hour…
It has an impact.
It’s very rewarding.”

So. What to do with this?
He wishes for a tan and endless
limes, but I’ll bet grandma would wish
him to stay on the job.
Even though grandma watches the
water rise in her cellar and dreams
of being someone else, somewhere else.

Why are we granted this life in the world
and this whole other life in our head
where we dream of a beach or a love
A foreign city, or making art?

While I try again—
Again
to puzzle this out
the puppy who has Everything
can’t settle, obsessed
with dragging his bed onto my lap
And I run out of time to fiddle with words
because it’s time to get ready for
work in the world we share