Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

not just car crashes
and winter weather forecasts
there’s quiet news, too.

Here, in this small town
tiny miracles each day
fall from the gray sky

the girl who dropped out
found her spark to try again,
came to tell me so
And Reader, I swear she was
Smiling—her shell cracked open

another looked up
paused in searching for his path
took a breath, and learned
to play the saxophone, loud.
In this bright world, new music

At all our abandoned email addresses
I picture piles of tiny white envelopes
accumulating on an invisible doorstep
somewhere in the universe

Sales at dress shops and book stores and bakeries
deep discounts from car dealers
announcements of concert dates in cities
where we don’t live anymore

Virtual or not— once in a while
don’t you too feel the weight of it?
The whisper sensation that all those offers,
greetings unclaimed, unwanted, unacknowledged
are huddled together, shivering
in the snow @ that abandoned address

is this where we dreamed up
the idea, this long custom
of holiday tree-toppers
shaped like angels?

because actual angels
prefer pine trees above
all other varieties and
have been known to perch
for hours nestled in
mountainside evergreens

prickly green needles,
sticky sap, and
needless to say,
heights
do not deter angels

They so enjoy the view
from down here amid
treetops and the tickling
sensation of evergreen—
of touching this thrumming life,
of holding on to something so
deeply rooted to this—
this fleeting, flying world

turkey-heavy morning—
across the road, I know
someone’s awake because
the television is flickering
Over here, candles
do their own flickering
sunshine comes and goes
on the walls, greening
the deep graceful green
of the rescue fern.
Your cat stretches, sighs,
turns in her half sleep
on the warm radiator cover.
Come in—here
on this busiest shopping day of the year,
let’s rest…. Rest
not in remembering what we had
or imagining what we’ll acquire
to bring out that elusive and fleeting
Flavor of Joy. Rest.
Here it is,
come round again. Peace
amid strife. Calm
in the middle of craze. This moment
this small sunny oasis in the hours
of this, our given day.

all of us, strivers
training for something—
the big race or the
cook-off, 100% compliance or
garden club best of show,
weight-lifting contest or
quarterly projected sales.

We are all in training. The gift is
we each decide what it is
we’re training for
Today. May we train to be joy-filled
Let us begin with the snow
how it falls
how it sculptures the ground

Today two new recruits arrive
at our local training ground
beautiful black skinned boys
from Florida. They arrive stunned
by travel and by so much whiteness
in skin and snow surrounding them.

Today, joy is handing them passwords
to our school, all the access codes I have
to wide-open rooms where they may
Choose for themselves
what exactly they want to train for
Today. Let us begin with the snow
how it falls
how it sculptures the ground

the purple asters
in their clay pots
surprised by winter

the flowers and I
had time to sense it
Change in the air.
Instead, we spent our days
faces turned to the sun,
humming.

Who knows? Maybe
unprepared
and startled awake,
Maybe this way is best
for me and the flowers

Here, a new proposal for measuring distance
rather than as the crow flies
the new measure is
as the cat naps. Like so:

as the cat naps
on the warm radiator
the room lowers itself into
quiet like an unsteady old
person lowers into a chair
(slowly, with relief upon arrival)

The distances are all within.
silence may terrify you
with the space it leaves wide open
for loneliness, regrets, wishful thinking.
As the cat naps,
the distance you must travel to
the horizon you wish to touch
is the moment, this moment
when the same quiet room
at the same hour and day
becomes sunlight and water
for a cold thirsty soul
as the cat yawns and circles
settles into a new and cozy curl
you arrive and drink deep
This quiet this refuge
And how far? And how long to get there?
Oh, not far. Oh, only as long
as the cat’s nap

Embellish is her talent.
Others call it exaggeration or endless gossiping, this thing she does with stories about everyone she knows and everything they do.
Embellish.
If she’d been a seamstress, this would be yards of lace, seed pearls, decorative rows of tiny unnecessary buttons. If a farrier, her horses would flourish sleek oiled hooves and manes braided with silken jewel-tone ribbons. A baker and we’d all be feasting on lattice crusted pies and cakes coated in bright ganache shells topped with spun sugar sculptures.
But she is not these things. She is an almost ordinary somebody with a busy mind and empty hours who only needs a willing audience.
Embellish is the gift the godmothers whispered at her christening and oh it must be said—she’s made the most of the gift she was granted.

glides the highway verge
passes all the humans
in their traffic jammed shells
he is reassured again
about the superiority
of wings over wheels

November’s first snow—
field of leftover pumpkins
wearing snow white hats