Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

book meant for meadows
grew pale with dust all winter—
guide to butterflies

Seventeen syllables
for your birthday
I will always
remember

safe to say
sadness can be counted
contained in a shape
then poured out

after words the nearly empty
jar holds this
slender layer of sludge

good for growing green days.
The rest? Clear glass again
shining in the sun

When the world hands you a gift
open it
fast or slow, whatever suits
your mood maybe
you’ll decide to carry it
tucked into a pocket
for a day or a season
where it can whistle joy
all day close to your skin
unopened and fizzing
waiting while you get ready
for what’s inside.

restless cat today
snow forecast juts and topples
his plans for sun naps

The ones who wander
restless all night in the streets
Oh, the ones we secretly loved best of all
the ones who won’t be tamed or contained
the ones who run wild

turn off the radio, quick
before the weather man says things
you will regret hearing

sick of snow that hasn’t even
fallen yet.

In that school, it is administration’s habit
to hire poets to proctor all
examinations in mathematics.
Tired desks and fidgety chairs
line up in straggled rows
across the gymnasium.
The poets bring flowers
or the idea of flowers
nasturtiums or chrysanthemums
And the flowers or the poets or
the chairs themselves Something
fills the huge space with the scent
of nectarines and sunlight
which can seldom drown out
but certainly dulls
the itchy snick
of all those ticking clocks.

Cold for so long
becomes habit.
Whisper this,
lips close to the ground,
to every frozen fallow field.
Say, you’ve been quiet
long enough.
Say, time to stretch a million
million green fingers to the light.

Spring melt and freeze
builds a sugar shell
over the world
fragile and as easily
broken as the eggshell
the world is imitating
Or is it that eggshells
are tiny replicas built
to be shaped like a world?
Chicken egg world
whichever came first
it is here and cracking
open now, ice dazzled
by unfamiliar sunshine
breaks beneath each footstep
ready to reveal the heart
of it, whatever it is
we’re walking on
Eggshell, World
about to be born.

When you were four years old
Twirlability was your guiding rule
for dressing every day
And now you choose
from all the mountains of
satin and lace this you choose this
dress constructed as flower petals
just before they bloom
You choose the dress that twirls
and swirls and opens around you
You, who were lured here by love
You, who dislike poetry
You, who mistrust sentimental tears
You choose a dress this lovely dress shaped
like dreams for the future laced
in every seam with memories
a dress intricate as a flower
a dress layered as a poem