Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

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.

If you forget
for days on end
to take a deep
breath
try now a sip
of air Look
out a window
study
how the clouds
move the day along

Today is the birthday of James Merrill, rich boy poet who
according to The Writer’s Almanac, did not believe in alcohol
for inspiration, describing it as
“like the wet sponge on the blackboard”

Another perfectly clear image
added to the long list
of Archaic Things
my students can’t
understand having
never seen a blackboard
gray with chalk smudge
much less one
wiped clean
turned to
gleaming black

Possibility

Written in response to a word list prompt at The Sunday Whirl.

Kissed enough? Then off to sleep
Sleep tugging at you like a run
in a silk stocking or the threat
of a run a catch in the silk
Catch at it now and you’re there
In this dream You must cross through
Cross through the mist alone
You may hear others, whole groups
of them They are crossing too
Voices carry in the mist carry over
evergreens voices from another path
Directionless? Who can say? Not you,
busy as you are ringed with mist
thickening to fog folds around you
a dampened blanket, gray and deep
Listen for the scarlet bell of your destination
ringing somewhere loud and close
then soft and farther but ringing
Always till you arrive.

trying to fall asleep
balloon tugging gently
I keep repeating
Let go
of the string

In the Teaching Handbook
section one, page one:
Field Guide to Teenagers
Highly skilled at power struggles
Like musicians practicing scales

Answer Key:
Remember
power struggles are
always
a smoke screen

old cat and shamrock
sleep both folded inward
sharing the warm radiator

Lions have all the answers
but we’re too fearful
to ask them the questions
Ditto, tigers. And possibly pythons.
Pythons and tigers have all the answers, too
bringing us, for our purposes,
to the end of the road in the
Animal Kingdom because nobody
believes answers from the less ferocious
goldfish in his cloudy bowl
duck-billed platypus
pygmy goat Why does
it have to be an animal? Paint
brushes dipped in phthalo blue
watercolor— Those paintbrushes? They
Have All The Answers
Or was it the painted pictures the
painters or the scenes themselves
all those sunsets mountains
crashing waves flowered meadows had
all the answers after the painters
packed up and went home to their dinners
when the landscapes could stop posing
and breathe again back to being dirt
covered in rocks flowers oceans
Each strata with its own answers or Hey
Here’s An Idea—
ask the yellowbark oak at the edge of the frame
thick with full rings of new answers every year
but only one way to see his answers
laid out on view in slices crosswise
and I’m not cutting down an oak tree
just to finish a poem so that’s
out and we’re straight back to lions
because rumor on the savanna is
Lions have all the answers