Poems on this page were judged “winners.” Some were published later, as noted in the listing below. I like quite a few of my “losers” better, but then who am I to judge a poem’s merit? Answer: An obsessive-compulsive poet, staying out of worse trouble by keeping track of such things as “wins.”
Driving in Rain: First honorable mention, 90th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle National Poetry Day Banquet, 2009, Loss category.
Returning: Fourth honorable mention, 90th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle National Poetry Day Banquet, 2009, Journeys category.
Nexus: Third prize, 83rd Annual Poets' Dinner, 2009, Spaces and Places category.
She Carries Herself: Second prize at the Bay Area Poets Coalition Maggi H. Meyer Memorial Poetry Contest - 2008, Midi category (25 or fewer lines). Published in Issue 215, February 2009 Crockett Signal. Published in 2009 Gathering 10 (Ina Coolbrith Circle).
Explanation to a Grief Group: Third prize, 82nd Annual Poets’ Dinner, 2008, Beginning and Endings category. Published online at FlakeHQ.com
Fenced: First prize, California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc., for November 2007’s theme: Fences. Published in CFCP newsletter.
To Our California Landlord: First honorable mention, 87th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Day Contest, 2006, California category.
Mango: Third prize from the California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc., for August 2006’s theme, Wine and Food. Published in CFCP newsletter.
Imaginary Occupants: Second prize with Mary Reusch at Lowell Arts Center, Lowell, MI, Hudson Gallery in 2006, where my poem accompanied her “Chelberg House Wash” painting. A pretty good photo of the painting is included below.
Amygdala: Third honorable mention, 86th Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Day contest, 2005.
Berkeley Poetry Walk: Third prize, 79th Annual Poets’ Dinner, 2005, Spaces and Places category. Published in Peter Bray’s Taproot & Aniseweed.
Heart of Darkness: Third prize, 79th Annual Poets’ Dinner, 2005, Humor category.
Published in Issue 173, May 2005 Crockett Signal, in the 2007 Carquinez Poetry Review, and is on my Caffeinated Poems page at this site.
Before 6 A.M: First prize at 78th Annual Poets’ Dinner, 2004, Beginnings & Endings category. Published 2006 in Gathering 8 (Ina Coolbrith Circle).
DRIVING IN RAIN
We traveled the wet roads once,
but you’ve been gone five years,
and it hasn’t rained in five months.
This afternoon the clouds finally let loose.
Expected accidents were announced.
Oily rain slicks were cited as the excuse.
Autos glisten and the air feels clean.
Red, green, and golden ivies
cling to the freeway sound walls
as if enjoying their bath with a drink.
Seeing those refreshed leaves
I think of you, much loved husband,
best road companion, funniest friend.
Past our working lives,
beholden to no one,
we’d nap when it rained
with no need to explain
or pretend,
but the windshield wipers
nod their negation
as if I’ve forgotten,
telling me
relentlessly,
the end, the end, the end.
RETURNING
Wind whips us, us two,
sitting on a metal bench
the way we did in high school.
From the back of a ferry
we watch the city
disappear over water.
San Francisco, buttoned up then,
nothing like it is now,
shimmers memories of youth.
The two next to us
are making their own memories.
Dark hair blowing, they focus
only on each other. They don’t see
the expansiveness of a bay beyond beauty,
gleaming like vinyl under a diamond needle,
playing last century tunes on rippling grooves.
Covered over by the ferry’s motor,
the faraway music bubbles into a wake of foam.
The two next to us melt into each other.
Silently we watch our watery path recede
in fading light, as we’re bumped and blown
over the briny currents towards home.
NEXUS
We’re tall structures, crammed into a corner
of a Michigan farmhouse, the bathroom
mirror reflecting us as we brush our teeth.
Far away, Lake Michigan reflects giant
structures packed along its shore, a crowd
of buildings called Chicago, able to sway
but not move. In this house we move,
commuting to the bathroom from its suburbs.
We travel invisible highways to and from
our current nexus, the city of us, we five,
upright, repetitiously performing our duty
with brushes. Atop Chicago’s tallest,
window washers do the same, scrubbing
rows of white windows to a clean gleam.
SHE CARRIES HERSELF
out of the coffee shop
into spring’s billowing day
as if her prow were not
high and voluptuous,
her stern in full sway.
Each fellow follows her
up to the swinging door
with his unrestrained eyes.
When she fidgets a bit
with a flexible strap,
and it suddenly breaks,
we're all surprised.
Luckily, youth prevails.
Her parts stay intact.
After she sails away,
men slowly relax
into their steaming brews
of boring decaf
while I shrug to myself
from my chair in dry dock,
long past my sailing days
ticked off by the clock.
EXPLANATION TO A GRIEF GROUP
He started with an empty blackboard.
Pairing illustration with explanation,
he drew a rectangle, trisected it,
and announced, “The first box
is for the living.” I located myself there.
“The middle box is the relationship
to the departed, and the far right box
is the departed.” To make death
definite, he erased the right box,
and you were gone. Then
he explained that we had lost
not only our loved one
but the connecting box between,
where most of us remained stuck.
He erased that box too, leaving us
diminished by two thirds
of what we had before needing
this group of others like us,
fractions of our former selves.
FENCED
Wrists without watches
freed us as youngsters.
"Two hairs past a freckle,"
we'd giggle when asked
to tell them the time,
which then seemed so vast.
Two shrubs past a cow
on my route near its bend
make me glance at my wrist,
where time has an end.
Now worn by a watch,
fenced by schedules, I’m led
like a freckle of cow,
jogging off to her shed.
TO OUR CALIFORNIA LANDLORD
Please replace these weatherworn mats.
Most of their threads are missing or smashed
like yellow shags gone flat. It’s August,
and they’ve been like this for months.
Your summer neglect disturbs our aesthetic bent.
How can we cows, horses, and llamas abide
such aridity, much less thrive on the decrepit dryness
you provide? Carpets should be lush and plump,
not rough cement. We need fall's velvet green
to walk upon. Turn on the rain. We’ll pay the rent.
MANGO
I hadn’t eaten a mango since childhood,
so I bought one. For nearly a week
the fruit ripened on my kitchen counter,
losing green as its orange and red deepened.
When it gave enough to my touch,
I peeled its circumference, as my dad had done.
Gazing at late afternoon clouds over water,
I leaned against the counter to begin.
The first sliced bite of yellow flesh
entered my mouth. Clouds rolled back,
and the sun began its early winter plunge.
Mango juice rolled down my chin into the sink.
Each piece barely resisted my teeth and tongue
before giving way. Over and over I tasted,
finally opening my eyes for a last glimpse
of mango and sun, slippery orbs of color,
disappearing together.
IMAGINARY OCCUPANTS
after Mary Reusch's "Chelberg House Wash"
When hung clothes move like this, they must use
fastened clothespins for shoes. These small brakes
hold their place on a rope stretching longer than most.
Treetops shade a low roof, but that angular slant
of hot light off the sidewall is seen upside down
by the pair as a portal for ghosts.
Spooked, they dance. Overalls have no arms,
only straps to control the unsettled shirt, puffing out
in a spasm of fear not quite clear to the wearer.
And who’s that? Who could be so unknown,
so unseen? If a girl, does she feel (I hope not)
that the care of these garments ensnares her?
Did the male do the wash, or did she, somewhere else?
We assume there are folks in the house.
(What we've said speaks of us more than them.)
Shadows grow, breezes blow questions back, stop,
and start up again, while our probing ignores
thinning sleeves, a torn hem.
AMYGDALA
On a Scientific American
PBS presentation
Alan Alda
explained the brain’s amygdala.
He pointed out its location
at the end of the hippocampus,
where whatever stamps us
leads to memorization.
When showing scans of male brains,
Alda seemed surprised
that only their right amygdalas
lit up during emotion
as opposed to females,
whose left amygdalas did the same.
He went on to explain
how women, when rehashing an argument,
will review the details of it,
which is the left brain’s specialization,
while men will remember
the big picture,
the focus of the right brain,
and recall that overall, they won.
BERKELEY POETRY WALK
I like poetry
that takes me out
on a limb
and reels me in again,
me, a late sixties
freeze-dried fish,
principal-punished
school skipper,
reading a Rosetta stone's
fourth language
above the cement
without a looking glass,
watching words swim
past their origins
and dictionary definitions,
some hidden by sidewalk trash,
then leaving my finned footprints
near the Addison Street plaques
to let the gleaming words
carry me, sated at last.
HEART OF DARKNESS
[this poem is the last of my CAFFEINATED POEMS page at this site]
BEFORE 6 A.M.
Why this need awoke me,
brought me here before dawn,
two cats at my feet,
discombobulated into expecting food
hours too early,
one yowling in his cranky, old man way
(the one who was your teenage rough-house cat),
the other subdued but expectant,
why it, or maybe you,
brought me to this living room we shared,
where you so often sat
alone before dawn under a single lamp,
peeling an orange, drinking coffee,
thinking in the early hours about your own death, oh yes,
I have that documented, since when you left,
you left your journals open –
Reading them after you died
brought no relief.
You were so much more in life
than on the page,
having left there your tortured, inky catharsis,
whereas I had seen your joy in living, your easy laughter,
and known my best self with you.
Why am I here so early at this task?
Maybe it's you who woke me to write,
to get this on the page
before I too am gone to wherever you are,
to make me submit
this official, written request,
this order, this command,
as I do now:
Be there to meet me.
