I wanna just sleep all night out here.



(sonnet #MMMMMMMCCCXLIV)


Out where the bullfrogs loudly chorus, dense
Night cut by lightning flashes' silent tale
Above the North, an airplane's voice in frail
Excuse at intervals 'non slicing thence
Through deeper calm as crickets' throbbing sense
Of playing at second fiddle in the pale
Chill keeps time, where ne winds pass through t'avail,
Yet as the moist air smells like summer, whence?
I wonder.  It's like camping as it were
Upon the city's edge, where trucks sift through
The intersection, cars now too, but fer
All that none speaks.  Clouds are worn fragments blue
E'en watches melt away.  And ne soul'd stir.
I hug my knees and wish YOU were here too.

20Aug18b

I tried my luck  
with catching frogs,
and must have found my prince.

He picked me up
when I was down,
and hasn’t dropped me since.

afore the rains fell
river dwelling frogs croaked
in a profuse thrum

I hope I die in summer

on a humid night
when the grass is yawning and stretching out
toward the moon,

and the frogs are croaking on
like a chorus of metronomes
as the last curls of life wisp away from my body,

a final reminder
that things and time
will continue beautifully,

harmoniously,

without me.

Leaping frogs catch the breeze
And air between speckled thighs.

I can’t help but mourn the frogs, flattened
like Wile E. Coyote after the inevitable boulder
plummets from a great height, leaving him
mashed on the pavement while the Roadrunner
speeds off -  vroom, vroom, beep, beep.

I try to steer around them, but they blanket
the road in biblical numbers during the rain
and it’s like some impossible video game
weaving through masses of randomly hopping life
a certain amount of death is unavoidable.

When I walk the road I can’t stop
counting one, two, five, ten, twenty
cartoon-flat bodies littering the pavement
where I extinguished their glittering
copper and golden-green existence.

Last night, on the panes of every lit window
frogs of all sizes and colors gathered
outside, they covered doors, watering cans
even lined up single file on the coiled garden hose
like they were climbing the ladder to frog heaven.

Through the glass, I admired their rhythmic
throats and soft, creamy, underbellies
one, two, five, ten, twenty
fragile creatures seeking warmth
in the hastening darkness.

Run away to a foreign country, one with plush yellow green pastures. The grasses hiss soothingly as the breeze brushes them down this way and that. My home, a simple one room shelter built atop a broad and wise dark leafed tree who has welcomed me to its strong open arms. The skirt of my plain brown dress tickles the tops of my feet as I step down onto the soft soily earth.

There are no people here but I am not alone. The wind is here to lift the overflow of thoughts from my ever questioning mind and the water is here to soothe me and commiserate like an old companion purified from the complications of humanity. The dirt is my mother and my father, providing for me. Nurtures me with its succulent plants and cups its hands so that I might take a few small fish from them now and then.

A spotted sun perch hangs behind me as I perambulate meditatively. I see a few delicate vibrant blossoms on the side of my arborous home. They chime a brilliant tune that I will later compose onto a clay canvas. The afternoon is spent cleaning the small token and then toasting it over fire. I tend the patches of nearly wild vegetables and fruits. The most desirable ones plucked for my plate.

Guardian stars begin to dot the serenity of a dazzling dusk that demands my awe. I am aware of my tiny existence and its grand insignificance yet at the same moment I feel as though I was specially chosen by the cosmos to witness this perfect event. An intoxicating shiver grips me suddenly as a gust flits up my spine and through the back of my hair. Slowly it falls and the lulling chirps of a million violinists begin to play to one another. An admiring amphibian adrift the pond lilies relinquishes some commending croaks.

As the dark begins to settle in I climb to my aerial cottage to lie down. The rustling of my nest-bed reminds my neighbor owl of the time and she hoots appreciatively before flying off to begin her hunts. The splendid nocturnal symphony soon sends me to my dreams.