Creativity

Tara Pine

 

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Tara Pine
(1770 / 1977 AD)

maritime jack pine
arm-waving
declamation
sonnet to wild growth
a wilderness now

lop-sided
forest church
spired with birds
crows’s nest
crowning savage
extravagance

radical disorder
flustered
clicking needles
clustered
knitting the wind

salted the air
old man’s beard
sprouting fresh bristles
old salt sea salt

“ill fares the land
to hastening ills a prey”
without a helping hand
to point the way

each broken limb
an olive branch extended
scorched earth policy
salt-sown earth

Nightmares

 

 

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Nightmares
(1797 AD)

coming from nowhere
plucked from nothing
colored vowels
a child’s first alphabet

dark recesses
descending
invading
night’s starless
unenlightened mind

silent owls
flit in and out
predatory beaks
claws clutching
calling for skull
doors to open

sticky silk
this spider-spun
substance clutches
clings like plastic
gluing eyelids
shadowy lives
dance on walls
night’s drugged
dream cave

endless the gangplank
stretched over
troubled waters
reason’s dream
producing monsters
until dawn brings
its swift release

Tangled Garden

 

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Tangled Garden
(1916 AD)

indoor daffodils
drink water
dosed with chemicals
survive in a vase
refuse to crumple
won’t furl their flags

outside
sunshine and shade
Cape Daisies Peonies
Sunflowers
Black-eyed Susan
threading her colored ribbons
through butterflies
and Bees Balm

towering the Hollyhock
seeded by a surprise wind
coming in from nowhere

weeds crowd together
vox populi
these dandelions
beloved of the gods
ubiquitous
totally indestructible

Waste Knot

 

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Waste Knot
(6th Century BC)

finger-nails crack
red sealing wax
liberating gathering
knotted parcel string

broken finger nails
hard scarlet chips
blood flash-frozen
beaded on blade

underground
clawing for clues
damp walled
this cave-walk
distant the exit
thread leading out

reef knots slip knots
sheep-shanks bowlines
bowlines-on-the-bight
tight he tied them
used them
to measure distance
to distance him from doom

behind him
the bull head
boisterous
bellowing him on

Dark Night

 

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Dark Night
(1577-1579 AD)

candlelight
stole the moon’s halo
moth sputtering to its death
this owl high-flying

a cat tears out
mouthfuls of hair
swallows
spits out a hairball
swallows
steal it for a nest

dish and spoon
dance
cats and dogs
rain golden
milky the way
earth’s
thirst is quenched

blind hands
deaf fingers
no longer deft
voices breaking
waves
an unstrung
guitar of sound

fire will one day
come to claim us all

Eight Deer

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Eight Deer
(1113 AD)

eight deer visit
my garden each night
they raid my feeders
capture my birdseed
lusting for gold
anything to keep out
this winter cold

raccoons
leave claw-marks
grubbing for grubs
dug up like donuts
circled on my lawn

who captures whom
when the full moon
descends from the sky
walks among men
making them mad

death by snow plow
snow-melt and crows
Eight Deer emerges
his sacrificed body
preserved on this page
and in salt snow

May Second

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May Second
(1808 AD)

bottle tops unscrewed
tighter than the tightest
oyster refusing to open
even at knife-point

plastic this many layered
onion-skin’s pliant defiance
waging its guerrilla war
against arthritic fingers

words tongue-twisted
damning dark mouths
white picket fences
midnight the faces
lightning the teeth

felonious figures
grimy with grimaces
Mother Hubbard’s
cupboard empty hearts

robin redbreasts
battering heads wings
against stony cobbles
this city this square

Autograph

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Autograph
(1603 AD)

it spews out words
bones to hungry
academic dogs
gnawed the word-knot
grammar’s gristle
doubly chewed
then eschewed

wet concrete sets
where the statute’s
clay feet whisper
damp follies
to waiting bergères

prance advance
macabre the dance
ink its acid burning
fragile the page
held to the light

pin-holes where stars
peep through thin paper
more fragile than
parchment

parched for knowledge
crisp pages crumble
under the fumble
thumbed
by dumb hands
lusting eagerly
for  wisdom drawn
from bone-dry dust

Polyphemus

 

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Polyphemus
(1613 AD)

Davey-lamped
one-eyed king
caged in his cavern

a songbird
dispels shadows
lights up his life

pit pines creak
can’t strike a match
walking by touch

lungs black and scarred
following the seam
back to iron cages

singing dark hymns
hoping to surface
to walk in sunlight

a jail cell
these bars’ lifelong
death sentence

below the pit-ponies
frantic and anxious
the pit’s pet canary
dead on his perch