Deer Poem #1
Deer Poem #2
Deer Poem #3
This Halloween
The Old House
The Astronomer
Deer Poem #4
Nothingness
32nd & Seagull
Who Wouldn’t Want A Gorilla Mask?
Raking Leaves
The Lepidopterist
Deer Poem #5
Short Wave Radio
Salmon Candles
The Mechanic
The Brooklyn Deer
The ½ Creature
The Gardenia
December Sun
The Peach Can
Deer Poem #1
Spied a deer
across the ditch
behind the branches
in someone’s yard
just standing there
When they freeze
they go back
hundreds of years
you can almost
watch them disappear
Through this century
the walls we put up
the motorized age
our time is temporary
The deer fade
further and further
to a place where
they know
we don’t remember
Deer Poem #2
Walking along
the museum of 7 AM
a deer painting
in the trees
above the wall
Deer Poem #3
The second day
noticing the deer
in the corner
Their yard is calm
He waits for
houselights to go on
This Halloween
I knocked on our window
with a ghost on a stick
Rustle met me at the door
laughing, looking to see what
I held behind my back
The Old House
It’s been repainted
dark gray, not green anymore.
The lights are on as we go past
there’s still a pumpkin on the steps,
someone else lives there now.
The Astronomer
The only time he phoned her
it was a comedy nightmare.
Loving her wasn’t meant to be
but that truth was never clear
like a song by the Clovers
until one day after school
when he spotted her sister.
She missed the bus.
He went over to her,
and offered a ride.
His mother drove them.
By the time they got to her house
it was obvious. She was the one
he would climb a ladder for
and throw a rope around the moon.
Deer Poem #4
Before I got there
I was thinking I’d like
to bring a present.
What would a deer want?
I could bring an apple
but they already have
their share off the trees.
Maybe a tangerine, or
some supermarket fruit
flown here from overseas?
One taste of that and
he would never forget.
For the rest of his life
that deer would be looking
for another pineapple.
Nothingness
Where the road valleys out
with the little pond on the right
and the cluster of houses on the left
there’s a fog laying down like a blanket
I wonder if there’s some bird
a stork or heron that gathers
the early morning mist and
twigs it together into a big nest
I was so intent walking into it
trying to see if I could tell
I was in nothingness
where cars disappear
and people wander aimlessly
32nd & Seagull
Along 32nd Street
there’s a little house
sometimes with a seagull
standing on the rooftop.
When it’s there it makes noise
turning and shaking its wings out.
Sometimes another gull appears.
I only see these things if I’m out
walking the dog, or going to the store.
With the whole town to nest on,
it’s odd for a bird to choose there.
There’s nothing about the place
to notice. Sometimes I forget
which house has the seagull on it.
One day as I walked past
a man was kneeling on the sidewalk.
He was digging dandelions.
I stopped and said hello.
He looked up and cupped his ear
as I asked, “What’s the story with
that seagull on top of your house?”
He didn’t mind telling me,
“It started showing up three years ago.”
“Do you feed it anything?”
I pictured him throwing fish up there.
At my bus stop once I saw a woman
wearing a bright pink bathrobe
tossing bread on the roof of her house.
Seagulls and crows were perched
all around, waiting for her to leave.
“No,” he said. “He just likes it here.”
Who Wouldn’t Want
A Gorilla Mask?
One warm summer evening in Ohio
I was at Goodwill and saw a gorilla mask.
I didn’t have any money on me,
I was wearing a tourist costume
shorts and a t-shirt
but I thought I could return
in the morning to buy it.
So I stepped back into the crickets
and twilight, thinking of all the things
I could do with that gorilla mask.
It never occurred to me there was
someone else, someone with $5
entering the store at that moment.
As I was crossing the wide parking lot
walking in the weeds next to the road
someone was pulling that mask down
off the wall and holding it like a flower.
Raking Leaves
maple, alder
oak, poplar
and a red
soy sauce packet
someone dropped
The Lepidopterist
When he went to work
he would leave his wife
notes in the kitchen
he would long to stay
in their warm bed
but he would go
into a cold new day
without her.
Over the years
his letters dried
into things like grocery lists
or simplicities, reminders
like where are the keys?
things that said so much
like the car needs gas.
Deer Poem #5
I told Rustle about the deer and asked,
“What do you think he’s doing in their yard?”
as we passed that spot in our car.
Rustle said, “He’s a spy deer.
He spies on whatever goes by.”
Of course. I never considered
I’m not the only one watching
he’s wearing the slouch hat and raincoat
disguised, taking notes and melting back
into the forest to report on us.
As if to lend truth to this 6 year olds’ theory,
I haven’t seen the deer since then,
his cover is blown.
Short Wave Radio
A rusted box
full of hum
and orange light
bringing him
the world
at night
Salmon Candles
They are timing out
to the last sway
intent on the current
pointed upstream, knowing
the place they are going
their death shows
on fins and blotched
along their skin
white growing on them
in patches the way age
grows on us too
turned into ghosts
tossed out on the stones
along the curb of creek
even from a distance
up on the bluff
looking down the cliff
through the layers of trees
you can see the flow
the salmon shipwrecked
like pale yellow candles
waiting for nighttime
to glow in the dark
The Mechanic
Seeing everything
belonging to something
larger, connection to
a thing that will work
The Brooklyn Deer
Once upon a Brooklyn
we found a deer head
propped on the street.
Of course we carried it
down stairs into the station.
It was between trains
we climbed the wall and
stuck it in the rafters.
Glassy eyes watching
from the shadows
window lights flickering
the people come and go
from the city to the city.
It was a good hiding place
lasting there several days
until someone spotted it
or maybe it took
the subway home.
The ½ Creature
It was prairie, all yellow colors.
The highway exits onto a road
that turns into dirt that leads
to a gas station.
We were on the way
back from Ohio.
I got out of the cab.
It was cold and quiet
except for the rush of traffic
on the interstate beyond.
Inside the store I paid
for a full tank and also
bought a refrigerator magnet,
a jackelope, that creature
native to this land
half rabbit/half antelope.
Carrying it, staring at it,
I half believe it’s real.
The Gardenia
Yes, of course she looks
like a knockout in her green
and white caped uniform
but she sticks to the little yard
she tends growing vegetables
and some flowers. “What about
all the crime out there?” I ask her.
We were sharing tea on the porch
the sun was climbing gently down
the branches of the apple tree.
She made a kind of flat tire sound
and smiled, her hands tipped
the way they talk in Italy.
December Sun
listening
ice is melting
off the white
alder trees
tapping onto
blackberry leaves
The Peach Can
filled up
outside with
three day’s ice
riding in it
overnight
it turns to water
waiting for winter
to be over
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