yet another poem about coming home to croaking frogs
i try to make the titles
turn out to be better poems,
than the poems they precede.
like how the chorusing
(turn your nouns into verbs
for maximum effect)
the chorusing frogs, and
toads, and
crickets.
(the chorusing miasma)
like how they flood
my head
with pond water
when I step out of my car
to go in,
(the reverb is reverberating)
having driven home
through skyscrapers, and
granite blocks, and
freeway veins,
(the chorusing croaks)
to walk up to my cityhousedoor
to the sound of
country.
(frogs)
fissures start small i think
fissures start small i think
a morning’s cup of joe not brewed
not sipped
not shared over toast
the midnight conversations
put off till
morning
the handprints and pencil marks
on the wall
to measure the growth
that i don’t bother recording
fractures form from fissures
fissures form from tiny cracks
in the foundations
of important things.
telescopes and lead balloons
my fingers would go
not numb so much as
remote and thick
and lead taste would fill the air
we grew up next to
the iron range taconite
railroad tracks on a
wrist rocket sunday
dodged a train once too
it scared me clear down
to my shoeflaps
so that was kinda what
it was like when i was young
and too tired but bent on
reading anyway
and my fingers would get
too thick and my mind
would just
telescope out.
i am out here in the middle of everywhere
(title courtesy of pokey lafarge)
my belly is flat on a corn truck
in kansas
and
my knee is bent to touch
minnesota soil
my tears fall
somewhere south of houston
“Bay yaya taya taya bah bah buh brobba!”
“Did you hear that? She said dada
clear as day!”
and reenie mutters something in
her language
that we are yet
to be
privy to
my feet and toes are floridian
with alaskan teeth
and a tucson smile
the south side of philly
glints from my
eye, i
cannot sing but that i use
my oregon voice
“Braaaaah-ba! Braaaaaaaaaah-ba!
ba baba da la la gah ah.”
“Did you hear that?
She said dada,
clear as day!”
as reenie barrels off down the hall
holding elvis by his tail
saying nothing to any of us
at all
while saying everything.
bone
my puppy thinks i am a chew toy
that my arms are made of hamburger
and my feet are pie
my calves are sausages
and my hands are bones
to bite
to slobbery nibble
to lick
my son thinks i am a chew toy, too
only he wants me
to bite back
wrestling
cavorting on the carpet
on the couch
never tired
never torn
worn, or weary
a fresh stick of leather
for his milk teeth
my wife thinks i am a chew toy
but that’s a whole ‘nother
poem.
