If life were a blue bird I'd ask it to fly
To soar and to sing up there in the sky
If life were a blue bird I'd build it a nest
Because I like blue birds, I think they're the best
If life were a blue bird I'd watch it for hours
'Cause sometimes I think they have magical powers
If life were a blue bird I'd teach it to dance
On candle-lit beaches with trust and romance
If life were a blue bird I'd sit in a tree
So that it could watch and then wonder like me
If life were a blue bird I'd let it know why
And how sometimes blue birds can just pass us by
If life were a blue bird I'd know it was true
Because only this life can sing while it's blue
Clouds
Thin like an old wool blanket
Drift across the daytime moon
I've been watching
The last few hours
The rivers current pulling me
And our canoe
Clouds
Thin like our wedding sheets
Thin like the nightgown I last saw you in
Thin
Like you hair as it fell though my fingers
Or the night before the dawn I gave you to
Thin like your fair but aging skin
That Magical beauty
And Horrifying frailness
Clouds
Drift slowly
Across
A daytime moon
And I'm alone
Drifting too
Lost in thoughts of you wrapped
In hospital sheets
Clouds
Intangible wisps of steam
Clinging to a particle of dust
The spilt ash the wind
Carried away
It is made of old, wrinkled wood,
which keeps interrupting me
with those creaks and groans,
like an old man sitting in a rocking chair
while he mutters childhood stories
and old proverbs to the child
leaning against his legs.
I put my pen down, lean
against the dusty, cracked wall,
and listen.
The table in the shop is permanent in
The springtime of our youth but
With the fall comes the sense that it
Fades and in the winter of our
Discontent we are filled with anguish
Over the relativity of our
Morals that our mothers gave us when
We were young
And it was spring
And we knew the truth
That was no truth
And now the truth
Is that we'll never know truth
Except for that one truth
And also
Romance
You are not very much like a shepherd,
guarding the images and metaphors
and keeping them in line.
You are more like the sheep,
who's wandered away into a forest.
After a few hours, dusk settles
and you roll yourself tight
into a ball of wool, shivering
at the cold and the howling of wolves.
But it's not too long
until the metaphor comes,
calling your name,
carrying a thick rod.
He'll bring you home
to the other sheep,
where, hopefully, you'll stay
after he breaks your legs.
to stand and stare at greatness,
to steal the moment.
in artistic haze
turn a corner
an unexpected Van Gough.
timeless brush strokes,
a random realization
Vincent purchased this Canvas.
We're stuck in a dance hall that floats on top of clouds
It spins out of control like a dandelion seed
Cast overboard by a breath
A little girl cries;
She has lost it, because it's gone away.
The world is blown away; it's all been blown away.
It's floating by right now, because it's gone away.
And streams grow from the faucet between her ears.
I curse the earth for what it's done.
Those tears are gathering, and now they've come.
Waters are coming to fill the room and drown us out.
We cannot be any more than we are,
and so we cannot be anymore.
But the ceiling is high above,
and there is lots of furniture.
There are no doors, so we board up the windows.
The dinner chairs turn into cotton stuffing foam.
Water seeps bluely onto the maple-stained floor.
I build a boat and rise to the top,
where I sit on crystal chandeliers and hope it subsides.
The room is near filled to the brim,
but the walls grow too.
Floors are mere memories, belonging to the deep.
I sit and recall the day before in the gift shop.
I looked for you there,
where the porcelain figures sat in the window sill,
on sale now.
You were out sipping wine a la café and laughing.
I had made you a painting.
It was a teddy bear in a puddle.
But you had gone away,
and all I found was a wisp of a woman
and her daughter.
The two had raised the price of those
porcelain figures,
So I couldn't buy them.
I couldn't afford those dreams.
A giant razor was spinning in a dungeon.
The ground was granite and the wheel was iron.
Between the spokes were dum-dums and bon-bons.
Children stood around the wheel;
fear kept them away.
But desire made sure they'd stay.
So I risked it all and grabbed a few, to give to them.
What worth was my hand in face of their dreams?
If I could no longer dream of hope,
who was I to deny the hopes of my dreams?
God sipping coffee,
smoking cherry tobacco.
- Dorianne Laux, "After Twelve Days of Rain"
I sit in my office, blowing
lightly over a mug of coffee,
gently bringing the brim
to my lips, sipping
slightly, while I write.
God writes, too, the world,
the ten commandments
on stone, and I've heard
even on mens' hearts
from time to time.
But does He write
with a cup of coffee
in His left hand?
Does He even drink at all,
maybe a cup of water
from heaven's fountain,
or some tea, brewed by angels,
steam looping up before His face
as He looks down on the earth.
And does He eat? Does He ever
share some manna with the angels,
or did He ever pluck a piece of fruit
from a tree, during one of His
early morning walks through Eden?
And when He sits down with us
at heaven's table, does he reach
across the white, lace tablecloth
to take a piece of bread?
Does He fill His cup with wine
until it runs over the sides
like He does for us?
Or does he simply sit
at the head of the table
watching and waiting
for us to finish?
A stack of books sits
on the corner of my desk,
next to a pipe rack,
holding three, brown pipes.
God reads alot, too, I'm sure,
nature, the stars, the book of life,
the words angels write in the sky
as they fly through the clouds.
He probably even reads theology,
has a library of books written
by Calvin, Luther, Augustine,
Acquinas, a pope or two,
for good measure, just to see
if they actually got it right
But after one of His librarian angels
slides a book from the shelf,
and lays it open in front of Him,
does He reach across the desk,
lift a pipe from His pipe rack,
and hold it in the air as He opens
the small glass jar to the left,
stuffing the pipe full with pinch
after pinch of black tobacco?
Could this be the glory-cloud,
God, sitting at His desk on Mt. Horeb,
leaning back in His chair, reading,
smoking His favorite pipe,
little white clouds puffing up
from His mouth, spreading
through the air and covering
the mountain, while angels
fly through the smoke,
grabbing new books,
re-shelving old ones,
because God reads very fast,
even when He smokes.
I visited the frosty parks
studying the children's swings,
frozen into apathy.
*
I hiked the frozen woods
witnessing leafless trees,
calling to the snow for company.
*
I traveled the sleeted roads
listening to the chained tires,
crying about lost time.
*
I grieved over the icy graves
examining the glacial stones,
begging not to be forgotten.
A blank page is scary.
It stretches to fill your vision,
As if to prove that there isn’t
anything else but its whiteness.
It mocks you.
It reminds you of the quiet that comes
when your fan is broken,
And you’re lying in bed at night,
With silence so thick that it makes you
wonder if you have anything to say at all.
Take heart.
Silence is nothing. You have only to
speak, and it is gone.
And the whiteness of a blank page can
be chased off
With simple lines of ink.
I asked God once, I asked Him why
Why He hid a whisper deep within a sigh
I asked Him next, I asked Him how
How He could, and why just now?
I asked some questions to Him twice
Why some things were sad, why some weren't right
Bless you child - be gone your fears
Let them fade into dusk as rain at dawn
Forevermore let echoes be your song.
I asked him next, I asked him then
What is the truth to the story of men?
What is our reason, and what is our rhyme?
And is there a purpose to earth, space, or time?
He said, "Do not worry."
He said, "Stay your fear."
I told Him, "I'm sorry,
But You'll have to be more clear."
I forgets U once
Twice, thirty times a day
But I never forgets US
US skies doubles behind a boat
As august dawn creeps through trees
And warms the water US skims across
US walks through corn fields covered in snow
US points to where D - E - e and R
Huddle at night for warmth
And when I thinks of US
I remembers U
Pulls out I's cell phone and scrolls
Name by name
Through a list of temporal friends
No lovers, no family, no U
Cause I doesn't know U
U is just another face in the subway
Another car on the freeway
Another jogger on the walkway
And all I knows is the meaning
U and I make among other letters
And so afraid
I puts I's cell phone away
In that moment aware
Of its inadequacy
Of its inability
Aware that I and U can never be US
U waiting for I
Who is unable to be S
That great transformation needed
So U and I can be
Harmoniously conjoined in beautiful meaning
I forgets U
The friend in a distant land
U, The teacher who made poetry alive
U, The Sister, the Brother
The Mother, the Father
The letter caught and forgot
Between T and V
I forgets U
But must it also be pointed out
How I longs for U
And how I longth for thee
In Michigan, at 10:30 PM,
I smell it -
the melting ice-cream
sea-salt smell of summer.
It is faint, weakened through
April's filter,
only a whisper past my face -
out of time and season.
I keep my ocean summers
in my memory like a
peach left to ripen in a
brown-paper bag,
my intention being to remove
them and taste when spring-time
lingers too long.
They serve to pass the waiting time
until the first heat sweeps in
and the night air begins to feel like August, its humid arms
wrapped around my chest,
its breath in my hair.
But these come unbidden,
these memories riding this
curiously-scented wind,
mellow and sweet.
They linger in the corners of my lips
as I make my velvet way
under the street-lights.
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