Abram's ears

It is the smell of goats
and sheep that fills
my days, my dreams;
my house is strong cloth,
and poles. What is
my father’s inheritance
is mine.

Yet the voice says I am
to leave, abandon
what I know for a promise
of what I do not.
I go, less for the promise,
more for the voice.
My wife laughs.

This poem is dedicated to Leslie Moon and Pete Marshall, two of the founders of One Stop Poetry.

This poem is submitted to the final One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Shot Poetry. To see other poems submitted, please visit One Stop Poetry. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Leslie will be keeping the site online – a kind of digital memorial to slightly more than a year of a publication that encouraged poets, taught us about form, recognized our work, introduced us to each other, explored great photography, and created lasting friendships. They did well, and they served us well.

Illustration: The Call of Abraham, ceramic relief by Richard McBee (1980).

Umbrella conversation

Our conversation floats
under a yellow umbrella,
words rising in a mild wind.
July hot, and light warm sweat
traces our backs, chests, temples.
Your hand moves away.
We talk in slight murmurs,
soft tones; I watch droplets
slide down our glasses
in iced condensation.
You look away and ask,
when will it turn cool.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more submitted poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Straw Umbrella on Beach by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Physical Therapy

Shift your weight,
she says, to the left,
breathe deeply
to lift the right;
my brain laughs
at the novelty
until I laugh back.
Focus. Left. Focus.
Re-teach the brain.
Re-learn, brain,
counterintuitive
as it is. Lean into
the pain, she says,
place the weight
on the pain. Don’t
fight it; move into it.
Surprised, the pain
complies.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more submitted poems, please visit One Stop Poetry. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Cultivating Autobiography

This Missouri clay:
it stains my fingers
when it rains;
zero organic matter
requires topsoil,
compost, fertilizer if
anything is to grow:
some of that New Orleans
gumbo mulch cooked
by river floods, swamp-basted;
baked Texas sand;
red cotton dirt from Tara;
crushed Mississippi magnolias;
stomped Languedoc grapes (dry);
spilled Alsatian blood;
Irish emeralds; dirt from under
the fingernails of English tradesmen,
barely emerged yeoman;
Swedish ice; and for the future,
ash from Mt. Fuji.
I plant the seed
someone else bought.

This poem is submitted for the Books & Culture poetry prompt, Writing Poems in Your Own Backyard.

It is also submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more submitted poems, please visit One Stop Poetry, which just happens to be celebrating it's first anniversary. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Indiana Farm by David Wagner via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Forest Cathedral

I walk in the whisper
of the wind, splashes
of sunlight dappling
the arched nave,
shadows playing
in flickering green.
A prism’s refraction,
slight peels of light
color my way
toward the shrouded,
trunked apse. Saints
on their wooden perches
watch, approving.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more submitted poems, please visit the site.

Photograph: Tow Path by Peter Griffin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Firebird Suite

The shadows of blades
for feathers, a bird
swoops with blue thunder,
borne on a wind of violence;
accelerates,
surrounds,
captures,
fills,
transforms;
born into a fire of violence,
then separates
into burning tongues;
speaks.


This poem is submitted to One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more submitted poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Fire by Jaroslav Pavlov via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

I'm not good with words

I’m not good with words.
One time we saw all those
newspapers piled up,
rubber-banded, so we
thought we’d help dad and
stacked them in the red wagon
and delivered every one, mostly
to the wrong houses.

I’m not good with words.
One day we were cold so
we said let’s build a campfire
like the pioneers did and
we piled up sticks and paper
and some books and lit it,
our bedroom suffering
only minor damage.

I’m not good with words.
He got sick, you know. That’s
not supposed to happen
when you’re young enough
to live forever but it did,
and he kept laughing as he
faded, laughing harder
until he faded, then gone.

I never was good with words.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. Too see more submitted poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Grief at Cemetery by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

He becomes a road

He becomes a road,
not only to Damascus
or Jerusalem or one
less traveled in snowy woods
or even open and
going west, young man;

A road filled with light,
even, straight, obvious,
a road logical
marked by a multitude
of signs and directions, paved
true under cloudless skies;

A road darkened, crooked
and curved and snaked,
disappearing into forest, night,
with asphalt crumbing, potholed,
stones missing, a road ending
at rivers, gorges, swamps;

A road forked, straight,
mapped, hidden,
a road to a destination,
a road to sudden, unknown exile,
a road from and to and neither,
a road.

*Dedicated to Duane Scott

This poem is submitted to the One Word Blog Carnival on “road” hosted by Peter Pollock. To see more posts prompted by the word “road,” please visit the site. The links will be live at 10 p.m. Central time tonight.

This poem is also submitted to One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Shot Poetry. To see other poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time Tuesday.

*This poem is dedicated to Duane Scott. If you make a donation to The High Calling during the month of May, I've committed to dedicate a poem to you. Just let me know via the comment box or an email that you made a donation (not the amount).

Photograph: Country road by Teodoro S. Gruhl via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Lightning Bugs

I chased them
two-fisted
with open jars
and sometimes
hands, hoping
for glow on
demand, until I
understood that
their pilgrimage
lasted a lifetime
or but a moment,
flashing in trees,
hovering above
flowers in dusk,
illuminating hope.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

A Mother's Song

She turns her head,
the slight curve of her neck
shimmering a slight movement
of her shoulders, just enough
to remind me of
my fingers tracing her back
as we dance
the embrace of oneness,
her arm clasped lightly
on mine, touching,
the low murmur of our voices
its own sweet music.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see other poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

This poem is also submitted for The High Calling’s Random Act of Poetry, which is seeking poems about mothers, grandmothers, motherhood, or son- or daughter-hood, for Mother’s Day (deadline is April 29).

The violence of forgiveness

This thing so evil
required a violence,
a torturing of body
of spirit
of soul
a rending wail
tearing the fabric of time
no hand could tear,
no curtain or veil could hide.
A fine spring day until
the paroxysm
the convulsion
of the ninth hour
the upending of before
into the transforming of after,
the vinegary blackness
ripping the sky,
unleashed fury
de-plating tectonics,
slicing rocks open,
smashing open tombs
to shake the dead alive.
A child is born this day.
A man is killed this day.
A child is sacrificed this day
in the violence
and supremacy
of forgiveness.

This poem is submitted for The High Calling’s Random Act of Poetry, with the prompt word of forgiveness. To see other poems on forgiveness, please visit the site.

It’s also submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see other poems submitted, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time.

Photograph: Storm Clouds 1 by Mikaela Dunn via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

All the News That...

Linotype: each letter
a metallic piece
of context,
of understanding,
or metal on wood,
selected by hand,
inserted by hand
into large frames
of what will be
consumed with
the morning coffee
and toast.

Fast forward.

Offset: typed and cut,
waxed and pasted up
and placed on a page
to be handed
to the printer;
the news goes faster
if not the context,
if not the understanding,
but faster is better,
especially during
the morning commute.

Fast forward.

Operations
computerized,
if not the context…

Fast forward.

Online:
all the bytes
that fit,
all the time.

Fast…

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. today.

Photograph: Newspaper on Beach by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Major Motion Picture

I fell into a movie
the other day,
a major motion picture
(is there any other kind?)
coming soon
to a multi-plex near you.
I descended the stairs
at sunset; Mr. DeMille
was waiting, cameras
rolling: my closeup
whether I was ready
or not (I wasn’t; I hadn’t
learned my lines).
The director’s staff
was held up so
the camera crew
divided and parted,
waving.
I became a spectacle,
Cleo and Marc combined
to reign over
the greatest show
on earth.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see other submitted poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

A Rose in the Water

The boatman poles on, oblivious
even to the chilled pale loveliness
before him, oblivious to all
except grief, a grief
more consuming
more profound,
more destructive
with each stroke, each thrust,
each sound pushing into
the shallowness of silence.

A small jarring; the boat
shudders in slight movement,
a barely felt motion of death
as a soul wings free.
A rose falls from its wreath,
its promise of beauty unfulfilled,
its heavenly scent submerged,
its promise of life drowned
by true devotion unreturned.
The boatman poles on, oblivious.

Painting: Elaine (1874) by Toby Edward Rosenthal; Art Institute of Chicago.

This poem started with a simple glance at a short news brief in the Art Institute of Chicago’s magazine – a regular feature on a work “from the collection.” The painting was created in 1874 by Toby Edward Rosenthal; it depicts the body of Elaine of Astalot being taken to Camelot, as described by Alfred Lord Tennyson in Idylls of the King. She had died of a broken heart, her love for Sir Lancelot unrequited. Something about the work moved me so much that I went searching and found my copy of Idylls on a bookshelf in my basement and read that section of the epic, entitled “Elaine and Lancelot."

Following exhibits in Berlin (the American artist lived in Munich) and Boston, the painting created something of a national frenzy by the time it was displayed in a San Francisco art gallery for 12 days in 1875. More than a thousand a people a day lined up to pay 25 cents to see the painting. According to research by the Art Institute, Elaine clubs sprang up, an Elaine waltz was written and even an Elaine cigar was manufactured and sold. Something about the painting struck some kind of chord in the American psyche. The painting was also shown at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876 in Philadelphia. It was given to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1917 by Mrs. Maurice Rosenfeld, the year that the artist died in Munich.

Inspired by the story of Elaine and Lancelot, the American composer Edward McDowell created this symphonic poem, "Lancelot and Elaine, Op 25" in 1886:



This poem is submitted to One Shot Wednesday sponsored by One Stop Poetry. to see other poems, please visit the site. the links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

The Angle of the Chinese Shadow

The light in the hall angles
a shadow across the bedroom door,
shaping a Chinese hat.

I read The Hardy Boys: The Mystery
of the Chinese Junk (sounding like
a pile of refuse in Shanghai),

Or Judge Dee, period mysteries
by an expatriate Dutchman, both relics
of imperialism littering the landscape.

Birthing the love affair with all things
Chinese in the 20s and 30s, including
Charlie Chang and No. 2 son, and

San Francisco tong wars;
noir novels wouldn’t be noir
without an opium den.

Henry Luce exploded
Madame Chaing and her husband
on Time’s cover how many times?

Edgar Snow lionized Mao;
Warhol lionized Snow’s Mao;
pop culture lionized Warhol
and gave him his 15 minutes.
Mao’s heirs de-lionized themselves
at Tiananmen Square (iconic photo
of the young man staring down
the tank) and re-lionized themselves
by embracing the Japan Inc cliché.

Rosemary wanted to get you
on a slow boat to China;
Marco Polo if you can and
Genghis Khan if you can’t.

Matteo Ricci angled his own
memory palace while Dunaway
and Nicholson added California
incest to Chinatown’s legends.

They built the railroads;
we built the stereotypes.

Leave the door open, Mama,
I need to see the light,
I need to see the shadow
of the Chinese hat
cast upon the door.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see more poems, please visit the site.
Photograph: Side Alley by Peter Griffin via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Silence of the Crowds

                                 
                                     The most remarkable thing

about this house is

the somber silence,

the quiet always maintained,

always observed

no matter how large

the crowd inside.

She read “A Tale of Two Cities”

that first day, a story of men
seized with madness,
determined to destroy.

What did she read
on her last day here? Or
what did she live
on her last day here?

The silence of crowds
replicates the silence
of the eight who lived here

                                     for a time, lives

                                     constricted and contained

                                     within old storerooms

                                     full of hope and dust.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday hosted by One Stop Poetry. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Anne Frank House by Essential Architecture.

Romance for Flute and Piano

Emerging from soundlessness,
quiet pools, small eddies,
tiny swirls of motion
dance, slow, stand.
A single note of perfection
holds for an extended moment,
a shining, crystallized rivulet
of sound, and then
the music flows
again into silence.

Last week, my wife and I attended a program at The Sheldon Concert Hall in St. Louis called “French Impressions,” a group of selections by Jacques Ibert, Claude Debussy, Lili Boulanger, Camile Saint-Saens and Carlos Salzedo. Only four instruments were played – flute, harp, viola and piano. The Sheldon is an old building, well maintained, with one of the most acoustically perfect auditoriums in the country. Musicians of all kinds love performing there because the sound is wonderful. (There’s also an art gallery connected to the theatre, with the paintings of Max Lazarus currently the main exhibit.)

The selection played before the intermission was "Romance for Flute and Piano" by Saint-Saens. The musicians were Mark Sparks on flute and Peter Henderson on piano. It was stunning. When the lights came up for intermission, I sat there, staring at the stage, and then scribbled the poem above on the back of a program insert.

You can hear the music by clicking on the link below (it's a university recital, not the one at the Sheldon).



This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, hosted by One Stop Poetry. To see other poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

The Song of the Phoenix

The clanging stills,
the distraction settles,
the heart hears
the song calling, and
then sings, resurrecting
the phoenix.
But I'm not too sure
of where I go
after the phoenix rises
and the phoenix soars
to the sun's new song
but I hear its rays
as they grasp my heart,
smoldering.

This poem is submitted for One Shot Wednesday, sponsored by One Stop Poetry. To see other poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time.

Photograph: Phoenix by Vojko Kalan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

View from Terminal C, Birmingham Airport

The sun sheds its gold
upon these hills, gentle
rolling landscapes,
some treed, some bare,
glowing in late afternoon.

I have been here before,
seen, walked these hills,
watched, walked the shadows
of rich yellow edging
into completed darkness.

The fading sky as golden
as the hills, streaked
by blues and whites,
a final exuberance
of day, light.

This poem is submitted for One Stop Poetry’s One Shot Wednesday. To see more poems, please visit the site. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Awesome by Smith Smith via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Couple, Not Odd

he: kind, a gentle man
and gentleman,
a ready smile for children,
as if they alone
could grasp the life behind
blood-shot eyes
of unshed tears.

she: determined,
ambitious but in a time
that wouldn’t do
for a woman so
she moved
in other ways
other circles.

he: rooted
to companions
in bars, watered
by rock-and-rye.

she: rooted
to a place, an idea
of place, the same place
for fourscore and six.

Gentleness matched
determination. So they
lived, simply, if
sometimes quarrelsome.

he: missed her
passionately
when he died.

she: mourned
him until she died,
passionately.

This poem is submitted for One Stop Poetry’s One Shot Wednesday. To see other submitted poems, please visit One Stop Poetry. The links will be live at 4 p.m. Central time today.

Photograph: Couple, by Bobby Mikul via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.