April fool
I talk with the passion
of a nonconformist
yet wish for quiet
my tune is a tune
of night and knot
swearing at all the roaches in the world
I am on the whole
a fool to see things ordered
so unlike gentlemen of reason
Cheerful poems
Cheerful poems — a collection of the best works on PoemShip.
Quick lay for John Donne
a mouth can die
for want of mirth
and the skin for want
of a mouth to read it
coming together in
a merry lay
Purlieu
The art museum’s smallest room
is filled with miniature landscapes.
We stop in front of each,
& my 8-year-old niece waits for me
to hoist her up by the armpits
for a five-second look.
I learn a new word from the exhibit’s title: purlieu. “A frequently visited place, an outlying district,” says Merriam-Webster’s New Collegiate. In the plural, “Confines, bounds” as well as “Neighborhood, environs.” From the French, “to go through,” it came into use in the Middle Ages, when it had a fairly specific denotation: “ME purlewe land severed from an English royal forest by perambulation.”
Later, she watches from
the back seat of the car as
a ten-dollar bill change hands. Giggles.
“They hold the money
Swallowtail
big fake stare
the caterpillar is tired
of being a caterpillar
Party
Anyone who was everyone was there.
I love your new work
with shadows, I exclaimed
to a wan-looking moon.
Bad analogy
A ripe sweet pepper
may look like a heart
but is really more like
a lung—full of naught.
Often enough, its seedy knob
has already begun to rot.
It isn’t any sort of pump,
nor does its plumpness come
from love’s leaven.
Most damning of all:
despite being red, and a pepper,
it is not hot.
Green house
A rank yard
and part green in my parlor
where I am out
of land and pleased
to house the dirt.
First hot day
Huge tulip poplars
holding tiny leaves to the light,
each with its four incisors—
the sun doesn’t stand a chance.
Already it’s staging a sunset
on the back of my neck
as I crouch down
to puzzle over the maze of roads
on a yellow morel.
Spring appetites
I eat my enemies by the handful:
spicy leaves of the invasive
garlic mustard.
Back home, I strip
in front of the mirror,
checking for ticks.
A squirrel walks past the window
with bulging cheeks,
carrying one of her young.
Return of the warblers
Mayapples are coming up:
green parasols shedding
the soil as they open.
A coyote trots across the road,
looking back
over its shoulder.
Above the trembling surface
of the vernal pond,
the first warblers’ buzzy songs.
Sleight-of-hand
A chickadee in the garden
fills its beak with thistle down
and flies off to its nest.
I take a closer look:
that’s no down, but my own white hair
from last month’s haircut.
A spring azure butterfly
lands on the blue gravel road
and disappears.
Trailing arbutus
The first warm day.
The mountain hums with insects
and the valley with motorcycles.
Between twists of old coyote scat
and dried grass curled
tight as pubic hair,
close to the ground, the trailing
arbutus’ fragrant parts
begin to open.
Describe a feeling — we’ll find a poem
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