Sleep Walk

I wrote today's poem with a collection of magnets that I bought some time ago at a thrift store. I decorated the metal border under my window with the words as soon as I was back in my room, thinking I would use them daily for creative exercises. Sadly, with less than a month left in the semester, this is the first time that I have made a point of using them. I pushed a few words together once or twice, while avoiding homework. I remember the combination

season 

of

love 

seed

staring at me from my favorite spot by the window for about a month. Other silly pairs like "but crack" made appearances as well.The following poem, however, is the longest strain of magnet words I have yet to string together. Enjoy!

Without a Manual

Chains, washers, and spokes

You are a great mechanic,

But girls are not bikes.

Ich habe das wort Apfel gelernt

"Guten morgen"
"Gut geschlafen?"
"Ja"
Du liest mir ein buch vor.
Du sagst "Du machst mich glücklich,
meine liebe."
...
Das feld
Der berg
Du sagst "meine liebe" 
aber du sagst nein. 
Nein nein nein und nein 
meine liebe
...
Das licht, die wand, die tür
Ich mache die tür auf.

Elementary Decisions

There are 10 people --
one rope.
The last event of the day
and the mothers have their cameras out.
The brick school is behind.
Miss Fisher's room
(and it's Miss. Fisher, you hear?
Mrs. Fisher is my mother)
has a window with a nice view
of the scene,
but no one's inside today
to watch out the windows.
Mrs. Groff, blue shorts
and tight tan calves, stands
by the orange cone.
It looks like a witches hat
but more erect,
more stolid,
more ...orange.
Maybe it doesn't look like a witch's hat after all.
They line up,
facing each other.
They lift the rope off the ground,
red hankies tied to its middle, marking the win.
The whistle is in her mouth.
Everyone knows what they want --
except for the rope.

National Poetry Month -- Part Two

April is a month
30 days in length
Today is April first,
(15 more minutes for a prank!)
but this is not a joke,
my friends,
I'm telling you the truth,
that by the time that May arrives
I'll have some poems for you.
30 to be exact --
a poem every day.
I'm counting on some sloppy ones,
but I think that it's okay
to write a rhyme-y silly thing
at 11:48
Just to keep the poems coming
each by its due date.

To Cover Tulips

Red Tulip in a bed of purple
flowers below you, like grass.
All alone, tall, striking
mouth open,
flaunting your bits
for the bees and the bugs,
hoping that someone will
notice you and, drawn to the
tall red cup,
enter you,
take of you,
that the art that you are
may live on,
that it might extend
to new gardens and lawns
tall red cup in a new bed,
lips open wide
in the spring.

And who would call you a sin,
tall red Tulip?
For flowers bring glory to God.
No one covers a tulip when it blooms
in the spring,
not in protection from hungry eyes- eyes that
move hands to pick.
Not to shield children from looking inside
at the clandestine work
of the bees.
Where is the shame
in the making of honey,
the giving of pollen
to the wind?

Stand tall, beloved tulip
above purple grass
that kisses your roots,
tilts to see your red cup.
Stand tall to the sun,
with no shame
for your beauty,
never to be covered
never to feel guilty.

Southern Exposure

If I had a house,
the violin would be in the front room
on the east side,
the one
with the southern exposure.
And each morning,
I would play the sun
into the sky,
sing with a voice that only exists
in my fingers,
in the wood and the strings and the bow.
In the fall, I would play the leaves their soft descent
down to earth,
play them
into their brown,
their red, their yellow,
orange and purple shades,
out of their green summer dress. And
on Tuesday evenings,
I would sweep up the dust
from my rubber eraser,
collect all the notebooks that are scattered about,
and I'd read from the pages
to my guests.
Read them welcome
and love and
loss, and death
and beauty and new. And
I'd sing the leaves down,
their soft descent,
with the words that escaped
the rubber eraser. They
have their own words to sing,
the leaves,
in the fall, and I'd
play them welcome
and love
on the violin, try to translate them
on the page smeared with rubber eraser.
The leaves, dying in the shades of the season.
Death is beauty, falling from trees
in the room
in the front of the house
on the east side
with the southern exposure
with my fingers that sing
to the leaves that were green
turned brown,
releasing their grip
on the trees.