solar promenades
display considerable
flare flair. solar wins!
.
when her fever broke
shattered-fever pieces went
flying all around
.
the warmth of a kiss
may well lead to some heat in
another chakra
.
luke warm luke cooling
luke starting to shiver now
cuts open a beast
.
hearts are never cold
but pitiless souls go to
absolute zero
To Jack Evans on his birthday
In this Valley is a poet/As eloquent as Robert Frost, but warmer.
He manages to be Modest and Majestic with equal immenseness, and a propensity/To shift the focus to his friends, for whom/He produces a neverending supply of care and loving kindness.
His poetry stitches reality-swatches of variable size/into quilts that startle or soothe/or absorb your teardrops/and at the same time, in quantum superposition/the quilt is also a symphony. It is remarkable
What thundering crescendos come from a man/who never raises his voice.
Hardship and grief have never managed/To extinguish the twinkle in his eye.
See him: Walking a hospital corridor as a volunteer, firing up a favorite, obscure film for an appreciative audience, hosting a poetry event with jovial anecdotes and well-deep insights, at home wherever he goes, but most so at the side of his beloved Judy.
Now, please, wish him Happy Birthday, as I do, with love.
the potter is back from hand surgery,/given a green light for unrestricted hand-use. the strictures against water-submersion/and lifting anything heavier than a box of tissues/have been waived goodbye.
now it is time to make stuff./he pretends to be receiving a secret recording á la the old tv spy show “mission: impossible.”
good morning, mr. feldspar. the clay you are looking at is a cone-five porcellaneous clay body colloquially known as “cashmere.” it is fine-grained and will fire white in both bisque and glaze. your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to use two one-kilogram portions of this clay, sculpting a bird worthy of gallery display with one portion, and crafting a sixteen-ounce mug of swan-like elegance with the other. as always, if either or both creations prove to be unremarkable, you must disavow the existence of one or both unremarkable creations, rewedging the clay, which isn’t cheap, for a future attempt. good luck, frank. this recording will shelf-destruct in five seconds.
and then comes the fun part,/selecting his mission accomplices from the tools in the studio./like dan briggs and then jim phelps of old,/he peruses the candidates one by one/and puts his choices aside./soon he has françois garrote, the wire tool;/marlo and nero v., the sponge siblings;/natasha stiletto, the needle tool;/arnold t. thyme, the wood rib;/joe kingly, the ribbon trimmer;/and cannes openair, the pry tool.
he beams.
“are we ready, lady and gentlemen?”
they rattle, squinch and scratch in nod-equivalents.
the mission leader smiles, dips marko v. in the bucket-water,/and begins.
you should know what you are breathing/ just as with nutrition labels you know what you are ingesting
science to a rescue secular/sensors of a size molecular
so one day the air itself will answer when you ask
and its ai will respond with everything from “pristine” to “ay ay ay”
but meanwhile our meteorologists produce air quality indexes
read them and weep and grab on to your windexes
Once upon a time I was walking afield
And the field was walking me.
From the ground I heard a Squeak
But upon visual inspection it was coming
Not strictly from the ground
But from a Field Mouse thereon
And upon aural inspection the squeak
Was actually the Mouse saying “Hey.”
“Yes, sir?” I politely rejoined.
“Hi.”
“Hi, yourself, O Mouse,” said I. “What can I do for you?”
“Can I give you a hug?”
“Thanks, O Mouse, but no. Impossible. You are too small and your forelegs cannot reach around me.”
“I can hug your ankle!” The Mouse squeaked, imploring me with his or her eyes. —HIS eyes, I mused, eyeing his impressive, fur-enwrapped jewels as he stood up with his “arms” wide.
“Promise not to bite?”
“I promise.” And the Mouse gave my ankle a Ground Zero warm hug, and I was suddenly filled with toasty contentment. The Mouse backed up and beamed.
“Thank you, Mouse. That was the best hug my ankle ever had. But why?”
“Because you were trudging, and I could tell you needed a hug. And for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes,” said the Mouse, with a grin in his squeaky voice. “A day early, today, but I won’t see you tomorrow, for you shall be long gone. So…” and here he paused for comedic timing…
“Happy Ground-Hug Day!!”
I groaned appreciatively. “You are my kind of Mouse, buddy–” but behold he had disappeared.
***
And Happy Ground-Hug Day to you, my distant Friend, and thanks for reading my Bad Pun of Groundhog Day Eve. 🙂
One with Clay, Image and Text 