Color Theory, Poetry Goals, Gong Replaced by Castanet

When Mixing Colors, Take Care Not to Let Compliments Mingle

Orange mixed with light blue day,
dark early November air thickened
like the steak some neighbor is cooking
outside, probably wearing a parka--

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I have been teaching about comlimentary colors a lot lately. There's just something about orange and blue next to each other in a painting. I have one student who prefers to mix them always. Somedays, to a startling, surprising effect.

Since the gong is done, at least for now, I have promised to write 5 poems a week: a mini-gong, a tiny gong, a cymbal, let's say. Or a castanet.

Submitting to four journals in November. Writing 5 poems a week. Editing 2. Reading a poem a day, three times. Once to read, once to listen, once to pick apart with a poet's aplumb. Is that a word?

I need sleep.

What the Rain Does Not Wash Away

Old terrycloth robes
matted and flecked with cat hair.

Last night's sharp words
cutting wet grass
that sticks to our ankles.

A rusted scythe, each blade
tinged with old blood.

Smallest cat's paw blood
draining in a winding path
through cracks in new sidewalk.

Trust.
Hours-old, week-long
melted by one wrong move.

Melted popsicle juice,
leftover lemonaid,
hot puddles teeming
with mosquito larvae.

Hopes and dreams of raising tadpoles
even if the wiggling paisley spots
turn out to be frogs after all.

The last kiss
of the last frog prince.

Dark wet leaves
heavy with daytime dusk.

One hundred green maple leaves
wrapped around your body
in one last attempt
at staying warm in a cold summer.

Heat,
radiating from wayward firemen,
black suited policemen,
men armed with mail,
men with bulging arms.

Rain washes nothing away.
Even dead bodies remain
anchored in the ground.

NaPoWriMo #26

Nose to the Ground

When she had a dog
he would lead her to the dead.
Now she tromps in search of rot alone.
She does not tell her husband.
She does not bring the children.
She goes alone in search
of what winter left behind.
Dried bones put a skip in her step,
walking trail
head on a swivel
lifting stones with boot toe
kicking rotten limbs with heel
both feet hoping
for a tuft of fur
and beneath that
bits of flesh.

When I was a child,
hikers found a dead body
in the woods near my summer home.
A sad man, killed by his lover, hauled
up from the city to the country.
I wanted to be the one
to find the next big news story.
My greatest wish,
to find a decaying body
missing hands,
feet and head.
Remnant of a homicide maybe.

Do not think less of us.
We do not wish for death,
do not wish for people to die.
But people die,
people kill,
and we have but to look
and remember.

I have not found
the woman. I have seen
her. She looks just like me.
You might remember us both.