Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

Shelves built stair-stepped
up the garage wall
not a stairway to heaven
he told her, more practical
than music.
Storage. Stairway
of dusty jars
nuts and bolts and nails
jam and pickles and beans
provisions to carry them
not to
but through
hard winters
with all the tools to hold
their rickety house together

The idea was cheer
in the middle of winter
but these photos
drenched in plastic sheen
shine that’s true and bright
but nowhere is that fat bee
from the real garden
so heavy his body
bending each blossom
to the warm ground

A tiny story:
As always, when we pulled up in front of the shop and climbed down from the carriage, I stopped first to read the sign while everyone else climbed down and got themselves sorted, and mother lifted baby Carey a toddler really by now, stood her wobbly self on the sidewalk then straightened her tiny red hat.
The sign, as ever, read:
The Corner Store
Books & Ice Cream
Remember The Rule!
Always
Books First,
Ice Cream Second
Because Nobody Wants
Sticky Books
Or
Words Mixed In The Ice Cream

I loved this sign every single time I read it. It’s the first time I remember words painting a picture in my head, a story illustration of puzzled people— some opening sticky books to blanks pages, others startled to find words instead of jimmies sprinkled over ice cream. It made an odd kind of flutter in the stomach–a magic trick that turned out to be real magic, conjured from letters painted on wood.

“I only read I books,”
she told me.
“I’ve tried the other kind.
They’re just not me.”

January ritual:
Evergreens outside again,
where they belonged,
poinsettias long gone
dried dropped leaves
and pine needles swept up.
Winter’s wall rebuilt
between us
and all that colder nature.

Noodling along through the fiction shelves
trash and treasures and mysterious messages
arranged alphabetically, witness to
Revelation, to lightning bolt beginning
from the next aisle
A woman on her cell phone says
“I’m at Barnes & Noble.
I don’t know why.
I just decided to read a book.”

Garage light ignored
at noon becomes a cheerful
beacon before dawn

Tidy winter rooms
welcoming as silk
haiku count themselves
in tumbled fingers
full of syllables
finding their rhythm again
while clocks tick forward
through all the new years
clear uncluttered minds

Acquiring as a habit
dulls the world overloads
the circuits sure
at first there’s all the sparkle
and fizz till one huge pop
of light and it goes dark
another cookie or gift
wrapped unwrapped deals
delivered to your inbox while
you are busy wrapping unwrapping
but always more to buy time
Time. Time is pounding at my
heart yelling Stop. Just stop. Listen
to the snow. Drink the tea already in
our cupboards. Light
the shabby candles we already own
since the circuits are blown open
our arms let all the giving and
receiving dissolve in the air
let it become the snow
as it rises, as it falls.

Make the best of this
Eve’s Christmas quiet
Rollicking future tumbling closer
Rolling echo in every room of
Yesterdays, all the rushing past