"fenceposts" poems
Some love to watch the sea bushes appearing at dawn,
To see night fall from the goose wings, and to hear
The conversations the night sea has with the dawn.
If we can't find Heaven, there are always bluejays.
Now you know why I spent my twenties crying.
Cries are required from those who wake disturbed at dawn.
Adam was called in to name the Red-Winged
Blackbirds, the Diamond Rattlers, and the Ring-Tailed
Raccoons washing God in the streams at dawn.
Centuries later, the Mesopotamian gods,
All curls and ears, showed up; behind them the Generals
With their blue-coated sons who will die at dawn.
Those grasshopper-eating hermits were so good
To stay all day in the cave; but it is also sweet
To see the fenceposts gradually appear at dawn.
People in love with the setting stars are right
To adore the baby who smells of the stable, but we know
That even the setting stars will disappear at dawn.
9.5k
He figured the birds were chirping.
It's a beautiful day, just warm enough in direct sunlight. Squirrels hopped around the fenceposts.
The neighbour boys, splashing and jumping in the swimming pool,
mindful they didn't run around the concrete edges or their father would step outside and firmly correct them. He loved them, didn't want them hurt.
Spring is alive.
Birds are chirping.
He wondered what birds sound like.
Jun 26, 2013
Jun 26, 2013 at 5:40 PM UTC
we, all of us, all these
kids
who make lists
and count, count doorknobs
and bus stops and fenceposts and cars on the highway
and scars and broken bones and illnesses
we make lists and reasons and categorize
categorize, organize, memorize
we know, we KNOW how many steps it takes to get to the mailbox
the bus stop
the garage and the car
we count the steps to putting on shoes
1. pick up shoe 2. open 3. pull on 4. tie
we remember the things everyone tells us to stop worrying about
like we don't KNOW
that the weight of this big big world doesn't rest on us alone
and that turning the lock three times doesn't lock it tighter
that going right sock right shoe, left sock left shoe
isn't gonna make things better in the long run we KNOW
we know we've got everything categorized and memorized
and then people have the audacity to say our mental states
are disordered
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 12:07 AM UTC
Home to me is more than just
A place I lay my head,
More than just four walls about,
Home to me instead....
Is my wooden swing that creaks a bit,
Everytime I sway.
Smelling jasmine when I walk out front,
Watching the puppies play.
The photo albums in my cedar chest,
My favorite Formosa tree,
The birdhouses on the fenceposts,
All of this is Home to me.
It's picking myself a tangerine,
From the car as I come up the drive,
Just sitting around the bonfire,
And waiting for Fall to arrive.
It's the kites that got tangled long ago,
In the top of the pecan tree.
It's everything I remember here,
All of this is Home to me.
Home to me is more than just
A place I lay my head,
More than just four walls about,
Home to me instead....
Sep 12, 2010
Sep 12, 2010 at 1:04 PM UTC
Kids set fire to southern churches
and god turned a blind eye
to this spectacle
when he sent flames to ravage
the flatlands.
the dirge of a dying politician's
diseased voice strains
through the blown out
crackling speakers in my
car that was shaking apart
as we drove further West
towards the smoke and sirens,
the highway coddling it's median,
black with charred grass.
Sun shone through a cracked window,
while outside, the shimmering
wheatfields and acres of sunflowers
were pushing us farther
into unknown territories,
the many fenceposts passing like hours,
we want them to go quickly...
something better must be hiding
beyond that next plateau.
We clung religiously
to our notebooks
and copies of "Being and Nothingness ",
a pen in one hand,
a lighter in the other,
discussing ways to twist the words of others
into our own truths.
The butane flames dance,
igniting the scorched images
of smoldering plains and wooden beams,
angels crucified with the
damning politics of hope.
Dec 11, 2014
Dec 11, 2014 at 11:15 PM UTC
Dawn breaks on the quiet countryside.
The nightlife ghosts shuffle away to their daytime hideaways.
The strand of oak, bough of pine,
crevice of cypress.
The final inhalation of night.
The early bird janitorial crew wakes and makes sounds
to each other as the sun spreads across
the quivering Bahia yard. It drinks up the dewdrops
and straightens the fenceposts with kindness as it finds error.
The sun finds me, too, naked again, on the porch
and seeks to stretch my skin taught against my frame.
I scrape a toe callous across the brick of the porch step.
It is Wednesday the nineteenth.
It is 6:27am and I am grateful to be here.
As the morning mist unravels in the exhalation
and the crows set to work aerating the soil,
my attention drifts to the breeze and how I can nearly taste October on it. A red-tailed hawk observes this scene as well,
unbothered by the fettering mockingbird,
patiently waiting for the over zealous rabbit
or the confused field mouse to make itself apparent.
The girl in my bed routinely suggests coitus
on mornings such as these, with crispy autumn leaves drifting down outside the window. Which begs to be painted, white chips peeling in the dry fall air, but she says leave it --
she likes to pick them out of the flowerbed
after we ram the bedframe against the interior.
She likes to keep them.
Instead, this morning she’ll settle for bacon and eggs without much complaint. Although she will leer at me murderously
from behind her mustachioed cup of creamed coffee. She won’t tolerate my advances afterward, either --
insisting on her lateness, or mine,
or the cat pawprints
on the hood of her car.
She’ll hum through my comments
about the sunlight, the dew, my personification of the hawk.
She looks over the top of her phone when I mention ghosts, but happily returns to scrolling when she realizes I’m full of it.
And so, then, off we go.
Each with a bushel, and a peck, and a hug around the neck.
The quiet morning has been ruined. Although I tried, I failed to grasp it in its totality, failed to convey to you its extreme beauty.
It lies at our feet in shreds.
I know I will never have
a morning like this again,
not exactly like this,
and I’ve let it slip away.
Oct 19, 2022
Oct 19, 2022 at 7:33 PM UTC
*barely hold frazzled wire
no obstacle now
with intention lacking
this former boundary
condition..
But now these elderly posts
seem quaint with beauty
beauty acknowledging
separation as
temporary thought...*
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 11:57 AM UTC
When you watch something alive get shot
In the head
Where the third eye would be
The gateway to the spiritual realm, so they say
You see the gate knocked off its hinges
It becomes quickly and jarringly clear
That this was never just wood slats
Sandwiched between fenceposts
Grown over with ivy in someone’s backyard
It is a floodgate, a levee
And once the water starts climbing the banks
There is no putting the horses back into the stable
The blood is insistent, demanding for somewhere to go
And that freshly minted hole cannot handle the volume
It’s opening night and the staff can’t keep up
The kitchen is sinking
**** we’re in the weeds
The patrons are storming back out the front door
In search of immediate accommodation
They get what they want, there are options nearby
Cavernous spaces that acquiesce to their needs
The mouth becomes a waterfall
The nose a babbling brook
At the start of spring when the rains fall hard and heavy
But time passes quickly in seconds and seasons
No sooner have you accepted the flood
Than summer comes, drought begins
The wells and the waterfalls
Begin to run dry
May 6, 2017
May 6, 2017 at 2:12 PM UTC
I don't understand any of you
as the front runner does not
understand what is behind
And I am you in your pocket
or on your edge balancing
an admission you resist
Fenceposts aren't
your thing to go by
are they
Smaller now
we lunge
past
Apr 6, 2021
Apr 6, 2021 at 2:35 AM UTC