Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

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.

Written from a prompt at the Sunday Whirl

Odin and Zeus, three good eyes between them
are slumped on my couch, surrounded by
crumpled chip bags, pizza crusts, soda cans
trash piling up while the gods play video games

They yell Yes! and slap high-fives when they defeat
an evil troll using only the strength of their wits
which gets them to the next level. Zeus cheats,
banging his lightning bolt on the ground
to shoot sparks of light into the darkness of
this cave built by story. Deep underground
is an ancient dragon to vanquish.
Sleeping now, he hoards a giant amethyst
with magical properties. Our heroes battle
forward while I order in Chinese and let them play.
Sometimes, far from home, even gods
need a break from their ordinary world.

Hah! According to Garrison Keillor, at The Writers Almanac, today is the birthday of an odd (but inspiring!) pair of writers.

Mickey Spillane
and
Vita Sackville-West
walk into a bar.

Which is peculiar
but not as anachronistic
as you might think being
born only 26 years apart

They spend a mutually Educational Hour
on cracked leather barstools
tossing back bon-mots and shots of whiskey
comparing calibers of various lovers and weapons.
They walk out arm in arm
unlikely to ever meet again
having rubbed off on each other
enough to carry the mingled scent of
cabbage roses and gun powder

I have been her
and so have you—
Woman who opens her mouth
and subtractions fall out
sharp little sticks of minus signs

It’s a warm day, but
too early, she says.
She says, Watch
A cold snap
Will kill
All those buds.

It’s not that she’s wrong.
but still—
I am
sick of being her
Let’s vow
Now, together
to stop or at least
cut back on words
which leave the world with
Less.