A New Batch, An Idea About Sketches, and Not a Lot of Words

The Three Crow Brothers: A Sketch

Well, I do not want to waste a bunch of words here because I am giving you so many poems to read below, but I must write a few--words, that is. Yes! I am revising now at a pace that will get the book A Walk with Words ready for your shelves sooner than later.

Anyway, I thought about putting some sketches like the one above in the previous book of poems. Now, I am thinking about it again. I am no artist, but I like to try and draw a little bit. My sketches always seem to look better as pictures than as sketches. Let me know what you think about putting some black and white sketches in the book A Walk with Words.

Here are the poems. As I asked and advised last week, I ask and advise this week. Do not read them all together in a row. Let each on settle in and marinate in its own space before moving on to the next. You will enjoy them more that way, and the poems deserve to be treated as individuals. No more me writing like I am talking! ENJOY!

The Bluejay

He never picks a fight he cannot flee.

He never finds a fruit he does not peck.

He shrieks at every songbird in the tree

But never hears a noise he does not check.

Today, he chased a house wren from her nest

Then flew and took a big dump in the bath.

He argued with the sun which way was West

Before he squawked at squirrels with all his wrath.

I saw him take blackberries from the vine

And drop the unchewed seeds beneath the rose.

He doesn’t know I keep the thornless kind

But hopes the plant’s unwanted if it grows.

I’ve never seen his nest nor where he sleeps.

I have no doubt he makes his home in Hell.

His howls, his wails, his yelps, even his peeps,

Expose his fowl demonic soul quite well.

An Explanation of My Religion

I thought I drew a practical straight line,

A seam where faith and conscience both may fold

Into a system I would say was mine

As easy to explain as right to hold.

I think that light and life involve a power

That permeates the universe undying,

But darkness also grows from hour to hour.

If I say it recedes, then I am lying.

I said the sun will rise, but its last ray

Will sink into a sea of amethyst,

And chaos fills the vault of former day

With neither good nor evil in its mist.

I once swore I would never judge a book

By the three words written on its cover,

But after taking more than a quick look,

I found it more enlightened covered over.

The science says the sun will outlive Earth

And some say will consume it in its dying.

If I’ve no place to go for my rebirth,

I cannot figure out the point of trying.

Trying to do what, I do not know,

But I think I must have a place to go.

The Rain Won’t Come

(A Folk Chant)

The crickets sing.

The tree frogs hum.

The sky is clear.

The rain won’t come.

The mourning dove

Is stricken dumb.

He lives in fear

The rain won’t come.

The rain won’t come.

The rain won’t come.

Don’t waste a tear.

The rain won’t come.

Our last whole loaf

Is just a crumb.

The wheat is sere.

The rain won’t come.

Our jar of black

Strap’s turned to rum.

We’ll have no beer.

The rain won’t come.

The rain won’t come.

The rain won’t come.

Don’t waste a tear.

The rain won’t come.

The possums eat

The unripe plum.

Such food is dear.

The rain won’t come.

A bumble bee

Buzzed in his hum,

“The end is near.

The rain won’t come.”

The rain won’t come.

The rain won’t come.

Don’t waste a tear.

The rain won’t come.

The lightnings flash.

The thunders drum.

Too late, my dear.

The rain won’t come.

Bluebird Pugilist

BAM! BAM! BAM!

The bluebird rams the window with his chest.

Tick! Tick! He strikes the glass pane with his beak.

He acts like he’s a champion pugilist

Who’s training to prolong a winning streak.

For hours, I watch him parry, bob, and thrust,

Then sit on a near limb and pant for breath.

His breast is bloody smudges tinged with dust.

It seems he thinks this fight is to the death.

I wish that I could stop you, Little Blue.

Your enemy is formed of double-glass.

It never needs to rest, and, unlike you,

It does not feel the pain of every pass.

It’s only a reflection of a bird,

A fowl that looks, no is, the same as you.

His battle cry, I know you’ve never heard

Unless the glass panes echo your song too.

And now, you sit exhausted in your nest,

Too tired to gather straw to help your mate.

You should give up this fight, blue pugilist.

You’ll never best this foe till it’s too late.

Awake on the First Frost of Fall

I saw the morning fling its vicious stars.

It cast them in a stinging shroud of frost

That brought with it the vehemence of Mars

And clipped the life from all where it was tossed.

I watched the mantle of white death that passed

Like poisons poured over a veil of sleep.

I saw the aster petals nod their last.

The blossoms shriveled up like frozen sheep.

The sun arrived with warmth his willing slave,

But all his worshippers lay dead and bare.

None opened flowers to the light he gave

And so, he ambled on. He did not care.

The Sun King

His rays dissolve the sky’s delights

And liquify his nearest neophytes,

And even stellar titans must obey

The oblique courses of his astral helm.

Sol with either rule or overwhelm

Their shrinking light that seeps from far away.

Within his system, his great mass

Controls the paths where dreams may pass,

And he creates the colors dreams may wear.

He seeks the words of ancient songs

Once sung to him by fearful throngs

But finds a scornful silence huddled there.

Midsummer Funk

Midsummer funk has settled in.

No birds cry out but doves and crows.

A thorn gleams at the nettle’s end

That stalks and stabs at shoeless toes.

At night, a fog lies on the creek

Then elevates its stagnant smell

And lets the sun disperse the reek

Across a landscape miming hell.

Mirage-like waves don’t move tree leaves.

A dripping sweat won’t cool the skin.

Only one tree toad still believes

That he can call rain back again.

And so, he cries until the heat

Chokes out his hopeless chitter.

The sneezeweed thrives along the street,

And, man! its scent is bitter

I Think I Am Me

And what is this I call a thought?

An urge that prods but creates not?

An inkling of advancing stress?

Discomfort at an abstract gaze?

A pathway through an unstringed maze

That ends inside a wilderness?

Or is my thought a piece of soul

Seeking a chaos to control

Like bulkheads aim to curb the sea?

I thought one time I did conceive

A truth that wise folk might believe.

Then, I realized the thing was me.

A crisis of identity

Has led me to the brink.

Am I a sea anemone

Or am I me because I think

I am to be?

The Shadow of a Cloud Passes Over Me

It moved me though it lacked both light and mass.

I sensed a hint of coolness as it passed

And climbed the lily’s stalk and veiled its flowers.

I watched it as its specter spread

And sucked the essence from the dead

And breathed the spirits up like inverse showers.

The shadow was a squall caged in a prison,

A whirlwind guillotined as it had risen,

A thunderstorm that never soared to being,

Yet its presence made me shiver

Knowing chaos spreads forever

And light and life and love are always fleeing.