Puff Of Smoke Poems

Story of my life: condensed version

this morning, I meant to
check my bank balance
but
with the time I had
wrote a poem
instead

one of those days when
some thing
restless and lost runs
its furtive race
along the baseboards
or through your heart

for a while I posted
favorite poems to share
the gorgeous and true
masking-taped to the walls
by drinking fountains
copy machines bathroom doors
all the places we pause
But now there is a New Rule
signs must be approved
and stamped Approved
or be torn down
It’s some small comfort that
Shakespeare and Stafford,
Whitman and Rexroth
and all the others
will never know
if they made the cut

Like so much else,
One batch of
Star-shaped cookies
Forgotten, burning
In the home ec oven

We are just as puzzled as the ground
here without snow in this usually
weather-battered world now bereft
of blizzards no snow falls at all
Winter leaves the world’s bones bare
every broken branch visible
so we can see both
the beauty left behind
and all the damage done

Word for the day

another gift
from somewhere else—

To wake
on a dark Monday morning
in a country
beset by so much
like so many others
in a family
beset by so much
like so many others
and to unaccountably
feel Joy
sudden as Christmas lights
Joy
right here, right now
Joy
this perfect word for the day

It was the other kind of jazz
not horns trying to impress you
Shouting, This Is Jazz
then mumble-wandering all over
improvising your jangled nerves.

No, this was piano slow jazz
built for martinis and kitten heels
smoky lounges and rhinestones
this dimly lit dance floor
where we sway close, barely moving
drifting nearer, quietly swept away

this never grows dull
though it’s always the same trick—

Drop your guard. Listen.
Blend sleepy mind paper pen.
Cook fast. Savor each small gift.

At night, lost in the dark,
our dreaming selves wander long hallways
trying every door till something opens.
All night, we step in and out
of so much already in progress
with those particular and mysterious
hidden origin stories.
Any night, every night, the tiniest details
tether us to our ordinary days now
turned fantastic or gruesome
melancholy or hilarious.
Often, there is rain in the night
a staticky presence masking
the dreamer on the other side who keeps
tapping on our shared window
knocking hard to get our attention

heart like a cold engine
unstarted for too long
promised leisurely Sunday drives
or thrilling racetrack curves
when what you truly mean
is Stay Put,
quietly
in the dim and cobwebbed garage