Unexpected

I've completed a couple of new poems recently, but haven't had a chance before now to post them. Here's one:

Unexpected Joy

The way it wells up
suddenly unsought:
The other night I read
a poem about a snipe
wading in a pond and
tonight I was thinking
about it while brushing
my teeth and on the way
to bed I remembered
that just last spring
I saw only my second
snipe in twenty-two
years of birding
and I stopped dead
in the middle of
the room shivering
with joy at the
memory.

November 20, 2007

A Publication

I just received my copy of issue #1 of If, a new locally based poetry journal, in which my poem "Trouble" appears. Contact the editor for your own copy. There are many good poems therein. At $4.00 a copy it makes for good reading or a thoughtful gift for the poetry lover on your Christmas list.

Here's the poem:

Trouble
(for Naomi)

I remember
everything we talked
about Dostoevsky
our children writing
of course and
I can still taste
the food you served
and smell the faint
aroma of the wine
you drank and the way
your eyes sparked and the
electricity crackling moment
to moment and how we
kept talking as you
drove me through the park
and especially I remember
kissing you goodnight
in the car and we were
blocking the driveway
and I said we’ll get in trouble
and you said let’s do.

Contingency

A bit of a departure for me:

Over Coffee

Nothing happens because
he says everything
is contingent like
the steam from his cup
rising in random
intricate patters
between them as
they talked over coffee
almost forgetting to drink
their eyes meeting
through the steam
then she lowers
hers and regards
the surface of the
coffee in her cup
following the rise
of the steam upward
look at the steam
she says.

November 6, 2007

Smoothing the Texture

One more small revision:

The Texture of Water

The water crinkles
in the pool of a
fountain crumpling
and rippling out to
smooth along the rim
as jets rise and arc and
fray, spilling back, spattering
and pocking the surface,
rippling the texture,
rise, fall, and spatter,
the rhythm of it, the almost
music of it.

Thanks, Jim P., for a very helpful comment!

I've also added a link to a very fine blog, Trout Fishing in Minnesota. As the name implies, Jim H. is a Brautigan fan; he also comments wisely and wittily on other literary matters and baseball. He has left nice comments here and said a few kind words about my work on his blog, and I'm delighted to return the favor.