nature

STAINED GLASS REALITY

Wings moving through humidity

Faux Monarch butterfly

Orange, black and white

Flutters around the pink blooms

Red Lady Bug

Paddling in the rain water

House on fire like the

Old singers sang

Twittering Love Dove

Preening gray feathers

Waiting for her mate

All attracted by the painted

Colorful flowers on the

New glass bird bath

Wings

A lesson from teachers

That appeared

Lesson of Elemental Air

Demanding logic, thought

Think this, my dear

Winged creatures

All that glitters

May merely be

Glass…

IMAGE: Bird Bath

SEDATELY SAUNTERING

Brambling buckets of blackberries
Hands torn by thorns
Moving from bushy density
To towering treeful forest
Lightning-struck structures
Of burned bark becoming
Horizontal forest barriers
Keeping some out
Some in
But either way we can win
Crackling clumps of leafy deciduosity
Red-orange-green
Self-composted bridges breaking
Bubbled muddy carpetry
Winding through lean, mean lanes
And I hear my name
Sung through dappled sunshine
Leading me mysteriously
As I walk erect and brave
Passing hidden graves of
Unknown feathered poets
Who serenaded their ribbon
Of life’s silken road
Composing high-strung music
Of unrecognized joy and tears…’

DOUBLE HEADS: CAPSICUM ANNUM

Games, guitars

Clicking keyboards

As adrenaline heroically

Breaks through the heart’s

Beta blockers

Poetry struggling to be born

Amid piles of paper goods

And useless cans of

Presidentially-declared

Canned chicken

Trying not to worry

About my well of semi-poisoned

Water

Dependent on electric power

All that matters

Are the words

Typing ferociously

Occasionally glancing

Out the glass door

Into the swamp

For desperate eyes

Watching me

With a full refrigerator

Typing maniacally

With a keychain pepper sprayer

Protection against

Those eyes

And I think how

Pepper spray is Capsicum annuum

Chili peppers

An herbal hemostat to stop bleeding

And a savior hemostat

To stop the eyes

Watching me

In the semi-darkness

In a time of chaotic pandemics

But to me

In this teardrop of time

Only the words matter…

IMAGE: SWAMP WOODS

HAIKU STACK (EMPIRICAL)

We talk to Nature
She always explains herself
In a voice like ours

How do we know, though
That voices of trees and clouds
Are not in our mind

That is when we need
The company of humans
To say yay or nay..

Familiar voices
In their own unique timbre
Empirical proof

Trees, animals, waves
Even wind-caressed grasses
A way to recharge

But don’t lock us down
Because even introverts
Will crave human touch…

HANGING AROUND

Bananas ripening
Hanging from the canopy
Attached to Max’s old blue collar
All recycled
Not pretty
But, oh, what’s the buzz word?
Sustainability
So the ugliest part of the yard
With smelly compost heaps
Algae-infested kitchen appliances
Reverse osmosis unit purifying the water
Hurricane beating its chest
A few hundred miles away
Swamp mist and lightning
Thunder and hot rain
But sweet pineapples,
Bananas and tart ginger
Abundantly growing
Thanks to the farmer worms
And I know it’s why
I cannot face moving
To a safer, saner spot
On a crowded map
I guess I’ll just have to vent
My fright
As Nature nurtures the back yard
While I play the bard
Singing the Blues about danger…

ANTONYMIC LIFE (song in progress)

In the morning flowers frame the waning moon
A blue-tailed skink startles me in the afternoon
Dogs welcome the evening chasing raccoons
And in the night stars form opulent festoons

Experiencing life in antonyms
Strange and atonal rhythms
Imagine Xanthium strumariums
A yellow or blue dye like fraternal twins

Can’t distinguish in my tritanopia
Am I happy, blue, or is it myopia
Listening to the guitar of Segovia
Music banishes my unhappy phobias

In the morning birds quarrel over food
Noon thoughts of the past bring disquietude
Yet evening my emotions become subdued
And the night sky enfolds its breathless magnitude…

YOU CAME BACK! (Haiku Stack)

mosquito control
is an elected office
how crazy is that?

last on the spray list
dead-ending into the swamp
malathion? no!

surely it’s water
mosquitoes more numerous
they bite and i scratch

but what a surprise
after over a decade
bats in the twilight!

three against the sky
echolocating dinner
nature’s pesticide…

MUSA PICASSO*

fan of bananas
inflorescence spent
muppet-like in profile
seed sack sprouted
as the sub tropical fruit
like rows of infants
in neonatal incubators
absorbs the heat and humidity
soon to mature
and offer themselves up
to mammalian mouths
impatiently waiting

*Specially bred banana tree with purple stripes and purple leaf backs

TANKA (ANANAS COMOSUS #2)

THEY ARE GROWING! HERE IS THIS MORNING’S TANKA AND THE ONE I WROTE ALMOST TWO YEARS AGO WHEN THE COMPOST HEAP BEGAN TO SPROUT PINEAPPLES…

(Another morning surprise in my compost pile)

Almost two years passed
And two pineapples appeared
Rubbed my morning eyes
Prickly in overgrown green
Armor hiding yellow treats

ORIGINAL TANKA WRITTEN 12-23-17:

TANKA (ANANAS COMOSUS)

(Morning surprise in my compost pile)

Fresh pineapple stems
Tossed in fertile Florida
Treat for backyard birds
Silent, self-rooting surprise
Pineapple fields forever…

EARTH DAY (APRIL 22nd & Every day)

Despite date rapists

Feeding her chemicals

For quiet pliancy

Despite thieves

Stealing her jewels

Of gold, silver, uranium

Hidden in her

Deep, dark pockets

Despite ripping at her

Strongly skillful hands

Lovingly tending the roots

Of trees

That shelter, oxygenate, and feed

Of weeds

Intrinsic providers for healing

Of fruits and vegetables

To nourish her hungry children

Through it all

Her molten core

Fecund to the end

Like a Baby Boomer

Listening to the music

In her soul

Dancing, singing

Shouting out

“I am the mother

Of you all

And will never die”

Because the future holds

Glorious consensual couplings

With water, air, fire

And while they helplessly fail

To protect her now

She maintains her sanity

Knowing what is right

And she will never give up…

Image: my newest garden

	poeturja on GENERATIONAL CURSES
	Steve Simpson on GENERATIONAL CURSES
	poeturja on MEMORY SPOONS
	poeturja on CRYSTAL DOG VIBRATIONS
	Steve Simpson on CRYSTAL DOG VIBRATIONS