Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

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.

Season changeable as
a teenage girl
unsettled package
full of restless.
Glitter nail polish
one minute before
the slammed door.
Bystanders can choose:
bewilderment at packing
for the day’s many moods or
grumbling at the inconvenient
weather or remembering it will be
gone soon, grown to full summer
Might as well grab
rainhatsnowbootsunscreen
enjoy her passion and quirkiness
while she passes through

was two days ago
and I only know
Now
because he said,
Hey, you like poems.
I saw something, he said,
on the news about it.

Words Everywhere
and I missed it
just like that dream
where you wander hallways,
lost and late on your way to
A Big Event
an exam a party or that other
dream where you wake up
after you’ve missed it.
I missed it.
March 21, World Poetry Day
How did you celebrate the day?

Written from a prompt list at the site  The Sunday Whirl

Oh, Jenny—
Tell me again about the journey here
before you were born your
atoms unaligned and scattered
across a big star-filled sky
or about that time when you
were one of those stars in
that star-filled sky one among
all your sisters or Remind me
about the time you were one
of the stones standing
so still beneath the stars full
of wonder at that sky, full
of wonder that a stone
could see and stand in awe
without wondering at the source
without measuring the cycle
back then before you returned

Another dream message, gone. She was too stubborn and sleepy in the middle of the night. So when the messenger in the dream said, You’d better write this down, she didn’t. Instead, she waved them away, imperious and so certain. It’s not as if I could forget this, she said.

But she did. Of course she did.

All that’s left come morning is this: the Virgin Mary on a surfboard. Mary’s shouting to someone in the boat. Whatever her message, it was shouted loud.  It was Extremely Important. Whatever her message, that’s the part that is
gone
now.

Written to a prompt-list from the very fun Sunday Whirl:

It’s a very small door
and who knows, without
alarm bells we might
never find it. For hours
we make sense of every
single thing the silver flowers
coworkers swimming in
the sharkening light even
the shine of the Model T Ford
careening down the hill
full of girls with enormous
hats frilling in the breeze
carrying bags of chicken thighs
as presents for the king. Talking
cats, pie plates the size of your thumb,
purple opossums, none of it seems
odd until you listen to the bell
and ease your self back to this World
full of objects that make perfect sense
with no help from you.

Poetry like breath
Poetry like a long drink of water
when you’ve been thirsty for hours
Poetry like a short drink of rum, when
you’ve been thirsty for something else
Poetry like your running shoes
running and poetry like the same shoes
kicked off and sleeping on the door mat
Poetry like the blizzard
and the breeze, like truffle oil
and hot dogs poetry like
Shakespeare and
poetry like this.

Things fall or drift
or climb up into a poem
depending on someone to notice and
scoop them into the basket of the poem
they belong in no matter
that they are squirming like a bunch
of puppies or toddlers or
worms for that matter who also
squirm though not so adorably
And this? This is a poem where
I want you to picture puppies.
One straggler gently tucked
back into the poem without
Drama and by “Drama” I mean
to say Shakespearian actors on
a stage, not what happened in
homeroom which is what the
giggling 12-year-olds thought
I meant another moment I knew
would get scooped up into
a poem, someday.