Love

Red Star

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Red Star

“Fly me to that red star,
the one outside the window.”
Teddy’s voice droned
its mosquito in my ear,
but made no sense.

“I’ll try,” Owl said.
I hadn’t noticed him there,
snuggled in beside me.

“That’s not a star,” I said.
“It’s a planet, Mars.
It’s in conjunction with Venus,
that other bright blob.”

Owl flapped his wings
and flew out of the window.
Up and up he went
until he faded out of sight.

“He’s gone,” said Teddy.
“He’ll never come back.”

But return he did and
“A star too far,” he said,
as he pulled up the blankets
and snuggled into bed.

“It’s not a star,” I said,
but my words were ignored
by the snores emerging from
two nodding, sleepy heads.

The Return

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The Return

I opened the car door
and he ran across the parking lot
and jumped into the back seat.

“Where have you been?” I asked.
He thumped his great tail, sniffed,
and licked the hand I placed on his shadowy head.

As we drove back home, he thrust his head
between the seats and placed his paw upon my shoulder.
Then he licked my ear and the side of my face.

I pulled into the garage and let him out of the car.
He raced to the end of the drive, surveyed the neighborhood,
and drilled an invisible pee into the snow.

I whistled, and he ran back to the door,
whimpering and scratching, impatient.
I held the door open and he bounded in.
“You’re back home now,” I told him.

He ran to the cat’s bowl and lapped some water,
scoffed her kibble, and lay down in his usual place.

At night, he lies beside me in bed,
a fluffy spoon carved into my body’s curve.
In the morning he walks through the kitchen
and doesn’t make a sound.
The cat senses he’s there and bristles and hisses
at rainbow motes dancing in the sun.

He’s sitting beside me now,
head on my knee, as I type these words,
one-handed, because I’m scratching him
in his favorite spot behind the ear.

Raccoon

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Raccoon

Two footprints on the dew damp chair
show that he has been here.

We know he visits at night.
The cat wakes up, jumps off the bed,
leaps to the window, and hisses.
Then she falls silent.

The raccoon steals food from the feeder
and shuffles the pottery shards
we leave out to gather water for the birds.

We never see him.
Sometimes we hear him grunt;
occasionally the wind chimes rattle furiously
as if caught by a giant gust..

We peer into the dark,
turn on the outside lights,
but his absence greets us
like a long lost friend.

Last night, nothing:
this morning, an empty feeder,
those footmark in the dew on the chair:
we know he was there.

Full Moon Fading

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Full Moon Fading

Full Moon fading outside my window
still draws up water, attracts high tides,
drags the wolves by their drawstrings
struggling, bedraggled, out of my chest.
Soon to be invisible, they clutch and claw
as they climb the moon path’s golden light.

The piper has paid his rent and packed
up his pipes, leaving me at last alone.
A silence rules my lungs. Five deer stand
silent in the woods beneath my window
and I watch them as they watch the piper go.

My body’s house lies drained and empty.
The Fading Moon flushed out my body,
leaving it high and dry like a great white whale
abandoned, breathless, on a summer shore.

It’s all over now, the cough, the splutter,
the sharp reality, the aches and pains
that told me I was alive. I miss my music.
I miss the swish and roar of my incoming,
outgoing breath. I miss those Full Moon
fingers tinkling the tides of my inner being,
making me strive to keep myself alive.

Pibroch

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Pibroch

This morning, the bailiff, Mr. Kovdrop,
evicted the two gnomes from my lungs.

Landlord Bodie placed an ad on Kiji
then rented the free space in the left lung
to a tiny piper who took up residence by my heart.
This piper piped a pibroch, sad to play,
on his worn and wheezy bagpipes.

A pack of miniature wolves infiltrated
the midnight forest flourishing in my other lung.
When the pibroch played, they pointed their noses
at that spot in my throat where the full moon
would have been, if she could have broken in.
They mingled their howls with the bagpipes caterwaul
and I lay awake all night with my heart beating
arrhythmic suspicions on its blood red drum.

The drum played, the pibroch wailed, the wolves howled
and my body lay scarred by an absence of moon and stars.

Sun and Moon 11

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Sun and Moon 11

nochebuena[1] – a star spreading crimson fire
girasol – bright mirror to his golden face
colibri – hovering on a whirr of wings

am I less than a flower or a bird?

if my fingers could grow feathers…
if my face could sprout petals and leaves…

hollow bones whistle a sad song
the sailor lost at sea
the wanderer asleep in foreign soil

both far from home

[1] Nochebuena / Poinsettia; girasol / sunflower; colibri / humming bird.

Two Gnomes

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Two  Gnomes

Two small gnomes
have set up camp
in my lungs.

All night long
they play their squeeze
box, wheeze box concertinas,
never quite in unison.

Sometimes they stamp
their feet and dance.
Their wild night music
catches in my throat
and I cough up
unmusical songs
that splutter and choke.

An east wind blows
outside my window.
It whistles and groans
as it herds the stars
from left to right.

The stars chase
the westering moon.
The planets dance
to the rhythms
of the accordion music
playing in my chest.

Comment: Raw poem, raw sore throat. I wish this flu on nobody. And yes, I had my flu shot, so the flu bug probably mutated and created a version just for me. This is also an “I need sympathy poem” so, moan and groan … splutter and cough, breakfast’s ready and I’m off.

Sun and Moon 10

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Sun and Moon 10

Sun thrusts his fierce face
through night’s dark window
his voice booms out like a golden gong

“What have you done with my child?”

curled and flaming his orange corona
head lucent with a coronet of radiance and fire
his eyes sweep night beneath day’s rug

New Moon pales and fades in a corner
Serpent escapes through a crack in the wall

 

Sun and Moon 7

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Sun and Moon 7

Old Woman weaves a crinoline from stars
she plucks roses from the void and turns them into haloes
nochebuena blossoms on the perfume of her breath

the cardinal’s song is a crimson voice hidden among leaves
mercurial in the moonlight
Old Woman coils her relentless cage

one by one the cardinal’s tunes are imprisoned
a butterfly impaled on a moonbeam
the last note of his song

 

Sun and Moon 3

 

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Sun and Moon 3

at midnight Serpent slithers through
a gap in the fence of my dream
he slides close to my shivering body
and lies there chill against my skin

his length – a sword without a scabbard
unscaleable wall of unblemished steel
severing all warmth

“Tomorrow,” he says, “I will take you to the sky.
But first, you must watch me dance.”

he twists in circles winding and unwinding
infinite loops and figures of eight
endless cat’s cradle of bottomless shape

sleep draws my feet deeper into quicksand
the night wind whispers me a head full of dreams