ROOSTER FISH

I took my lunch at a café a block away from work. We were living in Ohio then, where there were different birds like the cardinal, and there weren’t any salmon as far as I knew. They had walleyes and bluegill and raccoon perch. The weirdest one appeared on the menu one day. I asked the waitress about it. She told me it came with a side order of soup.

RHUBARB RADIO

The tulips are coming up again. They will let all the other flowers know; they will tell it on the radio. Right now their music is faint, only the cobweb of a song, like the drone you hear in the background of a supermarket, played for a vegetable audience.

wrote 4 poems today

KING in a TAXI, 1944, 1973, The FOREST of the MOON

VIENNA CUCKOO CLOCK CLEANERS

They’re located on Magnolia Street, just a block from the bus station. Open the door and right away you’re greeted by an orchestra of tick-tocking clocks, suspended from the ceiling track like clean laundry. This is where time is taken care of, steamed, pressed like musical notes into a player piano eternally unrolling.

The FARMERS' ALMANAC PREDICTS

Spring will arrive in a month. It won’t be an easy journey. We will have 3 more weeks of rain and wind, but occasional sunny days when you swear it’s just around the corner. Be patient. When it gets here you’ll know. The engine will hiss, the kids will jump off the roped stacks and already be playing when they hit the ground, trampling the daffodils.

10,000 Spring Flowers

Two ducks on the pond. They stare suspiciously. No wonder. Underwater, one of them has a foot on the safe dial, turning it to the left, to the right, listening for that last click that will open the vault buried in the mud all winter long. Inside it is a treasure. 10,000 spring flowers, frogs, and a clutch of redwing blackbirds on tall cattails. Quite a haul for two ducks from Lake Whatcom.

OHIO FAIRY TALE, part 2

Only in a story would you see a Chinese restaurant in the woods. After the Ming Palace went broke, he bought every part and moved it all out here. Jade tiled roof, pillars with dragons, round red windows, and the big neon lettered sign. It made you hungry to look at: the thought of spring rolls, wontons, hot chow mein noodles, steamed rice, and chop suey. An old man lived alone inside. No that’s not quite true, he had a slow-moving Siamese cat.

OHIO FAIRY TALE, part 1

There needs to be a fairy tale about it for the future children of Ohio. I only went to his house once. It was a long drive—you could easily fall asleep—past the farms shut down for winter. Snow grew in the fields. Route 13 turned into smaller roads and the car kept turning until it went into woods. Just when you had no idea where you were, that’s where his house was. It was raining when we got out of the car. The sound came down through the trees.

KAREN WAGNER'S DOG

What happened to Karen Wagner’s dog? It was a rescue that was a street dog for a year and a half. Living in a house made it nervous: the clean floor, carpets, the sigh of heating vents, food in a bowl, the TV and telephone. When it ran away, she called a detective, a guy in a plaid suit who drove all around town in a yellow car. She spoke to a reporter at the Herald and they ran a picture in the classifieds. Jobs, want ads, the horoscope. Where it’s gone is right among us in the lost and found.

The AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION

I don’t know why I keep taking buses in dreams. I never get where I want to go. I end up bending the wrong way, staring out the window at an architecture of anthills. Then it always stops for me in some cemented part of a city I’ve never been. Like anyone caught in this situation, I’d be interested if the transit authority is any better in someone’s else’s mind. Maybe I just need to give the drivers a raise.

Mary Tyler Schwartz

73 year old receptionist

The BLUE OCTOPUS

On another planet or a cartoon universe, they have a streetsweeper too. You hear the rumble for half a block as it nears. The birds of the neighborhood flee in front. Next door it sounds like a three-headed dog is warning us. Then it appears. A steam-driven wheelbarrow steered by a blue octopus, clearing the pavement with a dustpan and broom.

mars

A BITE of APPLE

Been working on a new book of poetry. Over 50 so far. Here's one:

MARY SHELLEY'S NOTEBOOK, 1817

A thank you to J. Genius who saved my email from 2011:

telephone tales

I finally got a copy of TELEPHONE TALES, by Gianni Rodari. This is the most beautiful new book in the world! You must pick up one quick from Enchanted Lion. I love love love it.

losing

Our dog Luna sitting on the spot where our old dog Zoe used to sleep. Losing a friend is hard.