Cheerful poems

Cheerful poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.

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Dave Bonta

In the Heel of Italy

Too hot to sleep, they call a friend in the U.S. & listen to him drink a cold beer.

Dave Bonta

If there were such things as ghosts

They would be white & watery as boiled potatoes. They would shimmer like the moon in a ditch. They would have no eyebrows. They would frequent banks & stock exchanges instead of cemeteries. They would step into traffic like swimmers into a cold mountain lake. They would be able to murmur only a single word: Ah. They would be afraid of the dark.

Dave Bonta

Cutleaf Toothwort

Cardamine concatenata Deeply divided & coarsely toothed, they say about its leaves, as if describing some barbarian horde. Even the rhizomes sport tooth- like projections, a root said to be peppery, good raw or boiled, pickled or fermented until sweet— in short, a toothsome thing. The mordellid beetle knows nothing of this, perched on a petal’s lip,

Dave Bonta

Signs of Spring

UNDER CONSTRUCTION ONE WAY NO STOPPING MIND THE GAP YIELD

Dave Bonta

Trout Lily

Erythronium americanum How did this trout escape the stream? It’s not only the leaves— ichthyomorphic & mottled, glossy as fins— but the salmon- colored stem’s leap & arc, & the way it falls with a sun-

Dave Bonta

Wild Geranium

Geranium maculatum Alum Bloom you of the shocking blue pollen Chocolate Flower root once used as a styptic Old Maid’s Nightcap fruit like the head of a bird Cranesbill bursting open expelling the seeds Crowfoot each seed with a tail that curls & straightens

Dave Bonta

Spring Beauties

Claytonia virginica Prim pink pinstripes beckon from the wet soil beside the creek. But like most beauties, they’re choosy about their suitors, unmoved except by just the right bee visiting in just the right order: one day they hokey- poke their stamens out; the next, it’s the pistel’s turn. Petals close even for a cloud. And when flowering’s done, they do their best to pass for grass.

Dave Bonta

New Year’s haiku

New Year’s Eve so pleased my balled-up tissue made the waste basket “Next year will be different” watching others party on TV “Happy New Year!” The night-shift cashier stifles a yawn Rainy New Year’s the stench of scalded feathers fills the farm kitchen A mouthful of what once were leaves broken tea bag Listening to the rain I pick at an old scab The dead cherry’s branches still manage to sway amorous squirrels Mid-afternoon bottle rocket it’s still New Year’s

Dave Bonta

House Sparrow

They said you were blue so I got you a card. It sings when you open it. The clouds move, & the usual stars & crickets: a card like a garden, missing only the mated pair of primates flinging their feces at some snake. I’ve just flown out from the tree beside the tree beside the tree & there you are, your eye on my hugger-mugger life. I have to say you’re beginning to creep me out. Where did that enormous coffee mug come from

Dave Bonta

Leaf Peeps

My friend Jesús has a glass paperweight in the shape of a mountain with one red maple leaf trapped inside. Jesús, I say, what do you need a paperweight for? You have no papers. He frowns, then smiles. Sometimes I bring the mountain to Mohammed across the hall, he says. We think it’s funny. I take both of them on a ride in the country to look at the leaves. They keep asking things I don’t know the answer to. Which tree is that? Why

Dave Bonta

Stenographer to the powerful

he who will conform will get bled will get clear ink I would advise him to love the beautifulest hands not the pen

Dave Bonta

Doppelgänger

who goes with me whoever I am born with a beard like a red bush thick as gossip and a smile like fire on Christmas

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