Les plus lus ▸
Dave Bonta
i put a single stem
of beebalm – bright
red shaggy head – in
a green, wide-
bottomed wine
bottle & set
it outside to see if
the hummingbirds
would come
the first summer crickets
playing their rasps
pick right up where
they left off at
the intermission,
going on as if
this brief stage
Here we are: a strange
dry din
again in
the afternoon
again in
the night.
a nameless fear approaches
the crickets fall silent
i hear thin things
like teeth chattering
a heart thudding against
its slaughterhouse pen
my caught breath
turns tenuous as a frayed rope
i hear myself saying go on
you don’t exist yet
oh future
voracious as a vacuum
my own appetites have changed
i can count my ribs
what else would you have
me consume
Never having believed in happiness, it occurs to me, might have had something to do with why i never actively pursued it. If it showed up regardless, well and good, but in general, day-to-day contentment seemed enough. And you know, maybe it is. For far too many around the world, it’s an unattainable dream.
But what about love, Dave?
And you call yourself a poet!
Pleiades
syncopating
crickets
sawgrass
the crickets fall silent
when the wind blows
blueberry bog
the soft clink of car keys
in my pocket
blue star
at the end of each berry
filling the bucket
picking berries
against the winter
a fly on my lip
wind in my ears as if
a wood thrush could whisper
i hear someone taking
improbably far-apart steps
in the sound of black cherry trees
putting their pieces into play
those who like certainty
have the solace of mathematics
those who love the wild
empty themselves
if my ears conspire
to keep me thick-headed
tonight their little begging bowls
have returned to primal condition
let me dream too
in surround-sound
Two crickets call
nearly in unison.
Fireflies rise blinking
from the grass.
It’s the new moon
& the summer solstice:
a dark night, but short.
Heat lightning
on the horizon.
The humid air like silk,
like an unwound cocoon:
will we be cool enough
to sleep? Already
I hear the beginning
of a low growl.
Born into this world,
All alone,
Tears streaming down my face,
Knowing no one,
Illness isolates me,
Abuse holds me in tatters,
Shyness makes it all the more difficult,
Alone I feel at home, at church, in class,
Fearful of talking to women,
Fearful of rejection,
Fearful of opening up to others,
Alone I am in the end,
When I awake in the morning,
Go to sleep at night,
I hear the crickets chirp,
Not another soul in sight,
No one here but me and these gently bleating crickets
I caught crickets
at their singing —
then flung them
out far, to hear fish
rising to my gift.
All night the crickets chirp,
Like little stars of twinkling sound
In the dark silence.
They sparkle through the stillness
With a crisp rhythm:
They lift the shadows on their tiny voices.
But at the flickering note of birds that wake,
Flashing from tree to tree till all the wood is lit
With their golden coloratura of dawn,
The cricket-stars fade softly,
One by one.
All through the garden I went and went,
And I walked in under the butterbean tent.
The poles leaned up like a good tepee
And made a nice little house for me.
I had a hard brown clod for a seat,
And all outside was a cool green street.
A little green worm and a butterfly
And a cricket-like thing that could hop went by.
Hidden away there were flocks and flocks
Of bugs that could go like little clocks.
Such a good day it was when I spent
A long, long while in the butterbean tent.