Puff Of Smoke Poems

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

Florida that flamingo-flaunting
state of mind crooked her finger
and we fled south shedding
boots and parkas for bare toes
for sun on our faces for old friends
in a palm frond world where drinks
are the only frozen thing
Back home tanned and loose-limbed
from laughing so hard it’s hard to believe
this is fact not fiction
not a fable but our lucky lives
our fabulous fate

Here is your gift—
take some hours or days (a few)
Remove your sturdy costume
of cool disaffection
your face’s practiced slack of boredom
Jump in with your naked brain act
as if you are fascinated long enough
It will become true Trust me
You will discover a burning passion
to Find Out it begins when you
explore the little alleyways disguised
as footnotes Follow
Paths open into cathedrals and public gardens
thick with fountains and larks
Parrots who fly off over the crumbling stone wall
the wall you never noticed before
those exotic birds of not knowing they are
beckoning to you

your
letter sits
like a bomb
hidden in a drawer
I can hear it ticking
no matter how far I walk
which is strange when you consider it
How many weeks have passed? How many months?
There is no going back. Can’t you still see
irrevocable words written in the smoking air the bomb already
exploded

February thaw
uncovers leftover leaves
skittering ghosts rise
from new green, the hopeful grass
shaking off fall’s memories

Lucky for me
on the mornings
no poems come
there is another way

I keep emergency supplies:
bunch of bright green onions
box of mushrooms
fresh ginger
in its plain brown wrapper
so I can make soup

Later in the day
far from this sweet
quiet morning
I’ll remember this soup,
forgotten in the day’s rush I’ll
spoon it up to warm and
feed and brighten
the rest of the day
Which is a different flavor but
exactly
the taste of a poem

Someone made a lot of money today
Who was it? Select from the following:

The children slept in, then played video games all day

The teachers spent the day in an Educational Workshop. Students again, they dozed or texted, checked for sales, graded papers on the sly. Some took Diligent Notes.

The Educational Workshop presenter used clever strategies to say it was Important to Identify Critical Information for students. Her suggestions included speaking in A Loud Voice and Waving Your Hands in the air.

If teachers needed more clarification, her advice was also available in book form

Written in response to this lovely list, from the site Sunday Whirl

Rose knew some things. She knew there was a spare spell under the old bridge. And she knew how a human could get it. The spell, marked by no sign, had wedged itself tight into the right angle where bridge met ground. In high summer, a wide flair of purple loose strife hid it from view. In winter, the spell was plainly visible, tarnished gold and glowing, for anyone to see. But since the trouble a few years back with the goats and the bridge troll, humans were scared to come down here. Rose knew that had been a different bridge, clear across the county and besides that, that old troll was long gone. But humans stayed away. And the others wouldn’t come here. There were some lines even royalty did not cross. This bridge was one such line.

So the spell stayed, hidden for half of every year. Rose tried to tell the humans who jumped from the bridge, usually late at night and always ending badly, that this was no way to retrieve the spell. Magic didn’t work that way and following the only logic she knew, Rose thought they jumped to get the spell for themselves. They never listened. So Rose waited for the right human to come along. She knew for sure—the only way to find the spell was to fall from the bridge. Jumping didn’t count.

In this story, the amateur sleuth is a poet
everywhere she goes, this dame,
with her silk stockings and bobbed hair
her wise mouth, rhinestones, heels—
instead of murders she uncovers
metaphors in the drawing room or train car,
country estate, vicarage, village or
Speakeasy. Our sleuth keeps at it until
the reader is convinced—
every single day
is chockful of mysteries waiting to be revealed
Waiting for any of us, poets all, to notice