Coevolution

We build shelter

Alike in industry.

Hindered,

We strike defensively.

We tend the garden

For the greater good.

We share our stripes

Misunderstood.

We understand

It is their reaction

That makes them swell indignantly.

Transformer

Bird of paradise -

High-voltage territory

If you're an insect.

Wildflowers

To blooming daughter

I have passed the torch of spring

Fire in flower.

My Hero

My hero is not the sort 

I've read of in the books,

But a frail man in a wheelchair

Who's giving me the looks.

Knees shot up,

Bayonet in the arm,

Shrapnel in the head.

He says,

"I've got a bronze star,

a silver star,

for letting people shoot at me."

I also know he has three purple hearts

and 173 are dead.

My hero is the sort

I've read of in the books,

But now he's old and forgotten

His courage never waning.

Poetic Dementia

The Lord's sitting on a haystack laughing.

The bees look up, tilt their heads.

A farmer's afraid to put his hand near.

The Lord pets the bees.

The Lord is going to pick you up

And use you in a way you don't expect.

I know you love the Lord.

I know you love bees.

You can't swear around the bees, it upsets them.

Do you know what happens to your communication

When you say God damn it, God damn it?

It gets broken.

As a nurse I receive a lot of jumbled words from minds crazed by pain, drugs, or dementia.  Some of the words make vague sense, like a poem.  If there is already a poetic form which is a transcription of such altered mind states, then this is my attempt at one.  If not then here it begins.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #148.

Woods Not So Heavy

Down a road where spiderwort

Weaves a web around the woods

That swallow up the way

An abandoned turtle shell

Points in circles

And the weight of the world

Falls on the intruder who is lost

Until deep-rooted wonder

Displaces fear

And warnings given branch to branch

Transform to comforting chatter,

The woods not so heavy anymore.

Read All About It

Nine earthquakes shake state since early Tuesday morning
Severe weather possible Wednesday
Please join us for a renovation celebration

Cigarette makers send billions in payments to states
Honor what is sacred, quit commercial tobacco
How do you define 'best interest of a child?'

Norman man arrested in child's death
Man accused of running around naked in front of children
Dr. King is now accepting new pediatric patients

Alleged coon-dog killer collared
What government found in meat
Take our 90-day food challenge

Boston bombs said to be made from pressure cookers
Stress management, night guard help relieve bruxism
Photo of young victim Martin Richard now a symbol


A Found Poem taken from headlines and advertisements in the Talihina American, poteaudailynews.com, tulsaworld.com, and bostonglobe.com.

Abstruse

Abstractions of Civilization

grow a Tree

but fell the black oak

the white oak and

the red oak

to make Floors,

first floor Deep and

penthouse Towering Transcendent,

and as Words less particular

expand in number and meaning

Man climbs out of his Cradle

and ages Wise and Philosophical 

but there is a Grave that lies in wait,

for what Civilization has been able

to stand its Ground without

the Black Oak

the White Oak and

the Red Oak.

     This poem grows out of my epiphanic confusion brought on by reading the following from The Story of Civilization:  Our Oriental Heritage by Will Durant.  ". . . Choctaw Indians had names for the black oak, the white oak and the red oak, but no name for oak, much less for tree . . . abstract terms seem to grow in a reciprocal relation of cause and effect with the development of thought; they become the tools of subtlety and the symbols of civilization."  But it seems to me that as civilization matures itself in abstractions, the ability to know the difference between an oak and a maple, much less between a black oak, a white oak, and a red oak, is civilization's dementia and ultimate demise.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #146.

Crataegus

Crataegus

A word

Impaled on my brain.

Crataegus

A name

For the family tree.

Crataegus

A rose

That drought could not quench.

Natural Selection

Where pondside edges dissipate

Into molecules of calm and space

And restful alertness supercedes 

The weariness of modern dramas

Natural selection

Ebbs and flows in every breath

And this is living.

Where edges are defined

Building towers to the skies

Sidewalks crack the bottom line

And from this ecological niche

A dandelion thrives

Reminding passersby

That nature's not a fragile mother.

Posted at Poets United Poetry Pantry #145.

Stages of Humor

Trying to catch a sunbeam
My little guy
Reaching for the shaft of light
Shining through a closed door
Chubby fingers grasping on emptiness
And giggling like only babies do.

My little genius
Philosopher to be
Giggling like only a teen can do
When left unattended for one minute
In a Hobby Lobby
Rearranging wooden letters
Painted in sparkling pastels
To spell the word "poop."

Proud I am he showed restraint
Having imagined some other word
But saying to himself,
"Well, that's too vulgar
For there are little kids here,
And they will think 'poop' is funny."

Map Turtle

Map turtle
Show me the way
To stretch out my neck
For a good cause
Bearing the weight
Of my own small world
Yet knowing there is time
To set aside
That never-ending task
For time to bask.

Henbit and Chickweed

If henbit could cluck

And chickweed could chirp

Then green-combed roosters

In fine flowered finery

Would be to spring

What their avian counterparts are today:

Sound settings to wake people up

The good old fashioned way.

For few avian patriarchs

See enough light of day

To remember their job to greet it,

Subsisting as they do in free-range factories

To feed cloned appetites.

If henbit could cluck

And chickweed could chirp

Would they spread gloom and doom gossip

Of a weed killer come to judge the earth?

Fool

Damned if I am
Damned if I ain't
The fool for the day.

Not wanting to draw down
The attention of the gods
I didn't say my prayers.


But there's freedom in knowing I am
Damned if I do
Damned if I don't.