Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

that keeper of cool
that proselytizer of poems
gone thirty years
by the time we meet

No matter.

Bob bops into my brain
fills me with fine instructions on
the folding of sorrows
Deep inside, my frantic self calms
some thing small but vital clicks into place
just as this morning’s birds begin

being transformed to who knows what
we discover and we wisely cherish
this view—cottage full of women
with our gray hair, aging parents,
emptied nests, non-lethal medical
conditions Oh what comfort for those
young careless girls we were to grow
into this, all our selves
Reflected
in a loud shiny gaggle
of laughing mirrors

haiku and rain meet
in the forest to tell tales
and hear each other

That grizzled tough guy
leather cap
battered Harley jacket
scuffed work boots?
Turns out, he makes
snickerdoodle cookies for a living—
French bread, apple pies, pink
frosted cupcakes too. With sprinkles.
Doesn’t this constant unlikeliness
make you leap out of bed each day?
Life keeps itself lively and full of
alliterative amusement for us all
like today, the day we met
that biker baker

April drizzles by
bad tempered seat-mate
on a long trip by slow train
The local—which stops
everywhere whether there’s
a there
there
or not

some days you lose that
small gratefulness for
what doesn’t shake the world
but opens you to turn
your face to the sun
even for a minute to be
thankful for remembering
how to imitate a flower
any flower even the tiniest
strawberry blossom

Slow Down
is what I
whisper or yell
to every single thing. Listen
to that, wind rushing as always
Smell the bacon frying mingled
with your aftershave both of you
egged on by the sun that wants
to rise and get on with the day
Oh, for crying out loud, I cry
out loud
Could you all just settle down
sit and love this dark minute we’re here
in the middle of?
Well–No, says the whole planet
hurtling Forward

sleep has left town from
the train station, late at night.
Fog, of course.
And sleep is the train
I almost caught not by
running down the platform
but by (sleepily) switching
metaphors to stand in
a cool river wearing waders
breathing in the damp clean
air Sleep is the clever fish.
One testing tug
then gone. If only
I’d held myself differently
I might be asleep right now
instead of back at the station
unread novel unopened
on my rumpled lap
floor covered with scattered
fish hooks shiny with
shed scales
hoping another train
swims by soon.

and you’re still gone
though you’d laugh at me
to hear this future this
unexpected turn of events
brain tumors? hah. a punch
line from the made up world
of amnesia evil twins wicked
stepmothers all the stuff of
novels, Lifetime movies
nightmares. this punch
line? oh, it packs a punch.

From a word list at the Sunday Whirl: Wordle 244

 
Miles To Go moved like a phantom when he chose, which was useful for a pickpocket, god knows. But sometimes, just for fun, Miles turned himself to something silent as smoke when there were no coins to be had, deep in the woods where there was nothing to steal. Miles smiled his crooked smile when he startled a herd of deer at the water’s edge. It was so restful, far from cities where everything was named—people, streets, shops, even the animals, named and named and—well, it was exhausting. In the woods, or by the edge of the lake, nothing had a name except Miles. He could stay there all night, casting pebbles into the water, singing the words to the moon’s favorite song, till first light when some hunger would lead him back to work, back to stealing from the named.