Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

The world and I
are not on speaking terms
these days. This world I
usually hold at an
affectionate but wary distance
(as if it were a big, floppy dog—
friendly looking but a stranger)
Oh this world growled and lunged
for you. I’m waving my arms to distract
it, on guard and worried
what happens if my arms get tired?
One day at a time is what I tell you
what we tell each other
and repeat to ourselves and to
the wild dog you’re trying to tame

Someone’s got seven years
Of bad luck coming their way
But who—the breaker or you
Whose house it’s moving to
Or the new owner of the place we
Left behind or what about the
U-Haul driver who slammed
Brakes or the boy on a bike who rode
Dreamily into the road or
Startled dog passing by or you who
Swept the broken glass or
The girl who held the dustpan
Oh, let us be generous of spirit and
Split it among us all as if it were the pizza
And beer we hope to enjoy soon.
There.
Bad luck done and gone
In the time it takes
to write this poem

at the door to the world
Someone should be stationed
to hand us each a sign
as we enter sign that
says Ahead! Many Opportunities
To Practice Letting Go Of
this sweet darkness, for example
of favorite toy soft yellow
blanket with the silky edge
homes friends schools
libraries barstools slate sidewalks funny
men gorgeous men generous
men awful men more homes
more friends particular slants
of light on summer afternoons
asparagus ferns several cats
including this one a couple of dogs
garden herbs nasturtiums words
your children and the whole
generation of your parents before you
jobs money clothespins smells
cooking and the ocean
crystal bowl of seashells and the onyx
elephant from Pakistan who lives
on your desk. Instead of trying to
fit it all on the sign imagine if
Someone just rewrote the sign to say
Open Your Eyes or Pay Attention
Look Around or Enjoy The View or
Hey, Did You See That?

The point of books is to have way too many but to always feel you never have enough, or the right one at the right moment, but then sometimes to find you’d longed to fall asleep reading The Aspern Papers, and there it is.  ~~Louise Erdrich, quoted on The Writers Almanac, 7 June 2016.

Once upon a time I hoarded books
haunted used book stores gathered
dusty treasures reaching always
for one more that familiar itch
a low grade accumulation fever
but the weight of it was too much and
I ran out of boxes and shelves
and the will to haul crates of books
Everywhere
and so chose a different way to see
Books as fish in a river
never the same twice
Reel one in catch and release
back to the wild this wide wet view lets
me believe the book in my hands
is always the right one and the book
I catch and offer to you
well that is the perfect book
Go ahead. Dive in deep.

What was it, that conversation
Overheard, the one I was never
going to forget? You know
the one I mean—our eyes met
in silent laughter at whatever
it was whoever said it. No need
to write it down I felt my mind
Remembering and later I could
place it into this poem. How clever
for having noticed for holding on
then the magic of keeping it
not in amber but in words
whatever it was whatever we
laughed to hear is gone now
gone like our rumpled old gray
Beloved Cat gone like so much else

morning,
thick turtle fog
carries home
our little gray cat

I set aside
every day a few
minutes to make
plans I’ll break
later.
Early morning
is best. Scoop them up
(sleepy little minutes)
ladle them gently into a container
compartmentalized and labeled
Organizational Splendor. Admire it,
the Imaginary Day Ahead
shining with good intentions and
predictability. Tamed.
Here is a useful moment to pause and picture
the stoic serenity of Buddhist monks the
look on their faces when they step back
from the yellow blue mandala
intricacies carved in sand prepared
for the next breeze,
the breeze born holding its breath
the breeze longing for the chance to
demonstrate chaos theory

The mandala reflects back to us much information about the nature of the human mind, which has a strong tendency toward the illusion of permanence. The medium of sand, however, reminds the viewer of the ultimate impermanence of this existence as well as of all things.
From Mandalas, Losang Samten 

the kind of party
where the best salad
mixed pretzels and strawberry
Jello. Time passed
we looked at old pictures and rain
from our chairs in the garage
studied your father’s Many Enthusiasms
hanging from rafters and walls. “Is that a beekeeper’s hat?”
someone asks in awe. Everyone has a bear story to tell
or a snake story
or both
When the sun comes out, someone else
says, You can actually see the corn grow
We admire the long curve of wet raked lawn
The allium and bachelor button and thick
stand of what we all call bishop’s weed
how your garden stretches the eye upward
to the edge of the vineyard. Later I drive home
through the bright green hills of our whole lives
from my kind of party

Last night was the last night
for the lemony green of
early spring
This morning the world has
deepened
to true
leaf green
opened by the midnight rain

Sometimes this world
builds a poem
from the simplest things—
Hurrying to capture a poem
about the solemn grace
of slowness— conjuring
majestic maple trees and the
elegance of elephants—

Instead I’m chasing blueberries
spilled from the bowl
(the bowl knocked over in my
Haste to write an Ode to Slowness)
And though I know
I anthropomorphize every single thing
I do suspect those blueberries
(the ones rolling across the hardwood floor)
are laughing at me