Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

two blocks away
rundown house
with no garden at all
raggedy yard
scatter of random purple
crocus and small white
flowering somethings

another year and
you are still
gone though when we
say glio blastoma now
we don’t frown
in puzzled
confusion while we say
those words
that sound like
a poem in Italian
but aren’t. Instead
we plan puppy cousin playdates.
For all you and I
Always
disagreed on,
for the way we frowned
Puzzled
at each other’s lives
I know this: you would
laugh to see these dogs,
to see us
here, now
on the other ends of
those leashes
and these years

better than bad poetry
I wish for you
a puppy sweet as this one
to remind you —
go outside before
sunrise when sky
is pale and you can all
listen
to birds wake
all of you see
the half-moon through
still bare branches
right now, this minute

Pink
curtains, broken window
collapsed roof, pigeon roost
farmhouse
abandoned
by everyone else

across the road
the not abandoned after all
trailer in the weeds
this morning
after many quiet years
light at every window

springtime and the lines
between people show
where snow melted away
ice flecked gray lingers
in shadows sun can’t reach
But this is spring so soon
rain will help and melt
what’s left of winter
then it’s flowerflowerflower
everywhere

People tell you childhood
or high school or college. Pity them because
it might be true for them. Not for you.
For you, my wish is that
you notice every treasure age.
Some glow as they happen
all the taverns lit, music turned up loud
while others grow more lovely
mellowed by a backwards glance.
Don’t flip through the years of
all your ages searching for the
Best One. But still, this age right here?
Enjoy this one.
Every limb still works
though early morning creakiness
is a reminder to cherish what won’t last
Forever. And there’s enough money–
Ignore Anyone who tells you
that you need a lot of it or that it doesn’t matter.
They’re both wrong. But enough
to always know you can pay
the rent with enough left to buy
a book whenever you want?
That’s a very good age
Also it’s the age when
neither your parents nor your children
get to tell you what to do
!
This age of balance
when you juggle slow and easy
standing awake and almost
(almost)
effortless
on the teeter-totter of today
Whatever age you get there?
That’s a good, good age

because
I am so often
away

What better training
than him
to teach me
Stay

All these poems
don’t come from a teaspoon
sipped from a lake.
It’s closer to a net
a patched and ragged
net hauled up from the ocean–
Here’s the fact that
you’re going to die
and so am I,
but it’s tangled up
with my student’s earnest
face as he described how
to catch a mole with bare hands
and where in the wild
to set it free
And that’s mixed with
grocery lists, clean socks,
stray strand of tinsel,
whether or not
to buy a truck,
fresh eggs, phone bills,
and green mysteries
sprouting in our garden
and that bird, the one
singing right this second
Outside, in the dark

Here
there’s time enough to
pay bills or write poems, not both
this season of lack

There
at your house, socks, book,
under a blanket, hiding
till life gets better

Outside, spring is here
We compare vaccine schedules
Plot out our escape

Dear Friend,
who sounded so sad
on the phone
This isolation goes
on and on
and on
No new ships
stir the horizon.
It’s easy to forget
the one habit
this world
will never break–
things change.
Soon we’ll see a splash of color
coming closer
Someone’s on the deck
carrying champagne.
Listen just yesterday
in my garden
under the dead leaves
one tiny purple flower

Good mothers should get to decide
which memories their children hold onto
as if sorting through an enormous file cabinet
discarding that unfortunate dinner hour
keeping that rainy afternoon with cookies

Wait! That’s horrifying, you say
all you children of mothers
Who wants her poking around your mind?

Well, calm down. Only good mothers
get this option and who gets to decide
if they are good or not? Right. That’s us, sorted.

So then—easy fix. If none of us say
our mother was a good mother
then we’ve locked them out.

Oh. wait. There she is already
and always was–since before
you were born and there she’ll be–
rattling around at odd, inconvenient
moments as if our minds were mansions
and she can walk through all the rooms
examining the furnishings–picking things up
and setting them down again
forever