Ending the Month

This April has been too busy for much posting, so I have been unable to post excerpts from favorite poems as I have done in the past. However, I am happily able to close out National Poetry Month 2009 with a new poem of my own. Once again, a few minutes at One Word has produced pay dirt.

Glossy

the sky yesterday
where it edged
the roofs of buildings
and lay on the surface
of the water in the
fountain basin in the park
and how the sun poured
down and gave
a sheen to the feathers
of the grackle bathing
in the fountain and to
all of us just
and unjust alike
out under the sky

The poem evokes a lunchtime walk I took on Tuesday to Lafayette Park (last four pictures).

Happy May!

Listen

The Smoking Book has posted a sound file of my reading my poem, "Mescal." They continue to receive and post some excellent work, both poems and prose, so visit often.

Until Everything Goes Dark

Drinking Weather

Sky perfect dull gray
intermittent spits of rain
not cold or warm
and just enough wind
to get inside a jacket
and I have nothing to do
and all the time in the world
to do it. A good day
to go home early
turn out all the lights
open the bottle
and look through the window
at the sky until everything
goes dark.

Just about a week ago, the weather was as described in the poem and and it made me feel as described in the poem. Instead of getting drunk, I wrote the poem.

Gray

It's a gray and cool early Spring day in Washington and I've been in a mood to match. This weather is excellent for poetry, however, so in honor of National Poetry Month, here's an older one of mine from an unpublished manuscript called The Sunflower Notebook. Though the season it depicts is different, the mood and color are the same:

Cold Day in June

Gray thoughts on a gray day.
Gray wind drives gray rain
into gray faces. Tires hiss
on gray pavement. And yet
on a cold day in June
the work of a year
is finished after all,
and reading Rilke,
“feeling yourself among stones
that listen,” you feel something
stir: a gray happiness.

I seem to be busier this year, so my poetry month postings may be fewer than in previous years. Don't let that stop you from going out and trying some new poetry or revisiting old favorites this month!