I’m tired
my body seems to be telling me
to go to bed and sleep
but I know I couldn’t,
for this poem is lurking inside
and won’t be denied
as much as I try.

Can poems be found in the tired
in the brain of one who’s wired
to look here and there and everywhere
like the bird perched atop the chair
in the backyard, its head swiveling to and fro
watching for cats or humans or hawks flying low?

I guess I shall see if there is a poem taking flight
here and now teasing twilight
will it swoop and settle in my mind
will my muse become archly inclined?
Or maybe I’ll dwell on that attentive bird
and in that dwelling find the words
and take a lesson from the throat of its being
breaking forth in its flight or its singing.

Is there a verse down there I’ve been saving
while the sapling Tallow is waving
saying goodbye to the dying day
dancing the wind in ***** ballet.
Is there a line
in the recesses of time
between vital concerns
and issues that burn?

I hear the cello’s refrain
playing nearby in mournful bane
it takes me back to practicing Strauss
on the piano, filling our house
with dissonance and verve
getting on my mom’s last nerve.
But oh how music flourished and reigned -
the joy in my soul could not be contained.

Thinking of what music has meant to me
and composed in me a sweet symphony
brings me alive here in this sacred space
replaces fatigue with energy and grace.
I stayed here long enough to find
these wisps of memory and rhyme
that so often provide the spark
to lift and fly me out of the dark.

He is walking slowly where step by step
measure by measure in the lush meadow
he plays a dulcet meandering air
inviting me to join him there
unbound by dark and foreboding forces
of the viral pervasive present.

I join him and we fly to the open plain
recently refreshed by rain
Oklahoma and its green fields
where the spirits of Native peoples reside
and in soft spring breezes glide
and remember their ancestors’ names
and the simple childhood games
they played kicking up dust of earth
in earshot of their mothers who gave birth
to those precious souls and bodies brown
made of love and Red River and ground.

The flute’s tune again catches me
in its lively streaming strain
and pulls me up to airy heights
to join the dance of darkness and light
in spirit realms where beauty
and reality tango together in peace.

There is the ancient story of a shepherd boy
whose king outfitted him with armor
to ready him for the challenges of the day
and the boy could not walk
so he threw off the armor
picked up his sling
and tended his father’s flock
with peace and joy freely erupting in song.

My armor is not wealth or wit
I cannot make myself fit
into the current conventions and hype
trying to conform to the normal type
stops up the energies that yearn to flow
freely and gleefully and urge me to go
to the dawn, darkness, clouds and sun
to wrap myself in words that run
like sparkling streams
and windswept dreams.

Poetry is my armor for each day
where worries and problem allay
where I search my feelings and mind
for the word elixir loosening knots that bind.
This armor does not weigh me down
but frees me to my triggering town
where I find and create the poet me
and the landscape of my soul’s poetry.

Well beneath my sarcasm
My hatred for the world

There is a different story waiting
Waiting to be told

For I am made of poetry
Of sunsets
And the moon

Of summer rain
And chocolate smell
And nights that end too soon

It's hidden well
It's out of sight
It's on you to find the key

For my fragile little world,
My dear,
Is not for everyone, you see?