Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

My shiny new words of the day–
an academic discipline
which studies old,
abandoned knowledge
once common as
alchemy and magic but
swept aside now,
episodes the world
would just as soon forget
like history’s hair in a bad photo
buried in the high school yearbook

The map you were given years ago
says Every day, every moment,
is another chance
to Get It Right,
to step onto this path
to move remembering how
to Breathe how to
Look Up at the faces of people and
Stars in their eyes reflecting
Stars in our eyes
reflecting this other light.

Spineless
is the scariest word
among the books.
Spineless
is the bogeyman
picture books and
easy readers use to
frighten themselves
into delicious shivers.
Spineless
is the fate awaiting
many an old hardcover
Badly bound, frayed,
disintegrating.
Remember,
the Bennett girls whisper
to the Bagginses,
Age crumples us all
but, Oh, the stories we’ve held.

Curious sleepy season
offers, amid the loud mechanical
carols and fluorescent shopping,
quieter gifts beneath the glare.
Here, light this candle a
reminder on fire Look
trees through lit windows
plastic reindeer on the lawn
a box of light to open strand by strand
in this, the only season that twinkles.

Winter in her soul
sounds so Shakespeare
High Drama the reflected light
of colliding fates exploding lives
the only light there is in the
thick cold dread
frozen in place after

But
it is winter in me
finally and it is not
as advertised it is
the opposite of Drama
opposite of dread
Winter is calm and so quiet
Quiet enough to hear the wind through
trees before it rattles all my windows
I am inside myself tending winter
which feels not Shakesperian
but like a farmer tending sleeping crops
tulip bulbs or a deep root vegetable
a carrot maybe a radish
dreaming slow and resting
waiting for the spring

You were right to pester
until we painted
the room opened those cans
closed the dark-cornered season
and set the mood to Glow

The cure
if you yearn
for a whole day
of family time?
Take it.

Every story, every song, must end. Not true.
Logic fails. Longing, never. At dusk there is always
Something more to yearn for
grit of need
raw pulse
wet shine against what we call void but
there is a light reflected in the eyes of wild
Creatures stag, wolf, old house cat
on the prowl in deep night beneath
the trees where parasites need and gnaw
on apples left to fall
O this tree turned to pulp for paper
to writearecipe for strudel made from
those other apples, while it bakes discuss
How Spirit moves our many many lives
legerdemain or enlightenment
Boddhi satva, appletree, applestrudel,
Appleofmyeye thing I yearn for
ever, the next story in
the braid that links the worlds
In this one the horse so hungry
for the world beyond the stall
Giddy with desire he eats all
the apples and then

Voliolence is what you mis-typed
while texting me about Ferguson
last night for one moment Missouri
lit up with this new word, signifying
violets or silent volleyball, or
my favorite
I wish I could wrap up
and send to a whole city, violas
softly playing for a peace we
are in a circle dance
lances laid aside
violets crushed and fragrant
the only dead things beneath
our dancing boots.

On this high shelf, place
the boxed problems
you have not
Solved.

For a season,
desist
Let them stew
and scheme

Let them march
themselves in
tight little circles
on their shelf

Let them wear
themselves out
waiting let them give up
hope of your return.