Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems

Clearing out the old, a bit of magazine housekeeping. This found poem, composed of phrases from an article about baseball in an airline in-flight magazine and, from a fashion magazine, a makeup article about Kate Winslet.

Show up.
It’s not going to be perfect right away
Picture all those collisions
with the old guard
with the last year
the roots are too heavy.
You are always Trying
with stolen faces
tubes of lipstick
and family money.
Just stop.
Go back to the beginning
feel the night
how it softens
past Time
how it opens itself
to darkness. Perfect.
There is no such thing
as Finished.

Written in response to prompt at the lovely site, Red Wolf Poems

Sparkling refraction, also known as
Above. Can be said of waterlilies
green vibrations, patterned water,
arched surface of heaven
swaying over bewildered fish,
fish still trying to take all this in—
blackened boats sank here
planks softened, rounded by water
enormous dark pearls full of
opal bones holding dead sailor dreams.
Fish scatter and gather, drink in much that puzzles—
horses and buckets, God and handwriting,
Secrets. Kindness. Verse. Much they ignore, consider it
ravings of the dying. What need could there be
for a bucket, or a creature unlikely as a horse?
Long shadows of waterlilies are kin to handwriting
leaves of grass green in neat rows is verse,
which means secret, which is soft.
Kindness, the oldest teach, is the name for
what we move through all our lives
this shining lullaby, what the sailors meant by God.

third cup of morning coffee
and a poem
breeze stretches out
stirs the maples
into their own green music
while I make mine

While the world builds poems
of beauty without words
Humans build other things.
Israel, Palestine
Your storied histories
Stop here.
You will always be famous
to me, now, Not for wars
between nations,
Not for fierce love of home,
Not for the bravest of you
pushing through deep sand
with olive branches
but for this—
for raising those
Who murder teenage boys.
If I could ask you anything
I would ask, How
can your countries not
collapse in grief beneath this?
And you (perhaps) would answer
with a litany of the long, dark sins
of my country, which are many.
And while we shout our true and
Righteous accusations,
somewhere on this earth,
this earth that would build beauty,
mothers weep at children’s graves.

blue-shirted walker
gray dog, yellow leash
above these flash
cardinal, maple
one flying in front of the other
another sample, art or
is it craft
or something altogether
different
World’s best habit
let it never grow tired
of building these pictures
from one thing and another
let me never grow tired
of noticing.

Measure heat by
how grateful we
become in its absence
early morning grass
cool and damp
beneath us
green decorated
with clover,
flecked with the
iridescent webs
of optimistic spiders.

Summer keeps writing
passionate notes
wherever you turn what else
could be meant by
pink geranium petals
floating to land on your leg
while you read on the front porch?
Even now, summer can’t stop—
She signals as you write—
splash of goldfish in the pond,
note stuck to the damp sparkle
of lemonade pitcher
Read it quick
before the green ink
dampens and evaporates.

Schooled to be docile
all the assembled information
allowed itself to be tied up into
neat little packets bound with
twine, double-knotted.
In late June, all that data—
reports and scores, accumulated
evidence of the year
untied itself
gathered, ungathered
scattered across the tile floors
or pressed against the windows
till it found one Open
and then the flow of information
flew.

When you Know
without any recipe
exactly what you need
cook golden broth
chopped greens
bright srirachi
limes
A little gift
from you to you
in this now world
of necessary rain
work that is all tallies
grades, target scores,
children pinned to paper.
Intuition soup
breathes wisdom
reminds you to laugh
talk and stretch, create and sleep
and stir this perfect intuition soup
for dinner.

When the fog lifts
you see again
how the trees glisten
as if filled with light
Light, thick and sweet,
pours itself all over this world
World grows clearer
and more delicious
with every passing
moment
Once you can see,
you can hear it
This world that has been
calling your name
over and over
Now,
beckons again.