Quote:Shelby Foote Poem:Jesus and Junk Yard Dogs

Shelby Foote said, "A writer's like anybody else except when he's writing."



Jesus and Junk Yard Dogs

You found a door
And just had to paint
Jesus, or would it
Make sense to say Christ-
Resurrected from such
Yard junk?
That’s where He is most
The refuse of our being.

Sorting
He looks over His shoulder
Hounds of the self are unleashed
In fits of healing. And at that
Moment of pouncing, all dogs pounce
Christ uncurls to expose
Wounds of belonging
Dogs adjust their snouts
Sniff, and unsnarl, lick persecution
Till scabs form.

The door, where it is
That’s the key, consenting us
Into ourselves and Christ’s
Love, unsure foot by unsure foot
Over and over.

Quote:Arthur Miller /Poem:Getting Sentimental Over You

Arthur Miller died on February 11, 2005. He said, "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."



Getting Sentimental Over You


I had an older sibling
I never knew- aborted
Decades before I was conceived.
I pondered my siblings trail
Down birth canal, assisted
By stainless steel, body cramps
Shame and scrubbed hands.

Mom was wounded to silence
Leaving bits of unborn
On all of us children
As we slid down
Her common tideway.

Prior to their wedding day
Mike loved Ellen and Ellen
Said I will, and she did.

Quote:Nathanael West Poem: Rules

Nathanael West said, "Forget the epic, the masterwork ... you only have time to explode."

Rules

Dad had a rule
that he could punish me
till I was taller than
the chest of drawers.

I was already over-height
and did not know
it was the one in his brain
he measured me to.

Quote: Arthur Miller Poem:

Arthur Miller died on February 11, 2005. He said, "Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."


Shopping Cart Blues

Wurlitzer sounds bring me down
Isles that once held that big fire
Truck over frozen peas.
Hold my hand and squeeze
Cantaloupes. Push the cart
As I disappear underneath.
Ridged steel and unpaid
Groceries, essentials
Dad would mutter throwing
A bag of potatoes
Behind my small bones.
Take me where you oughtta
To the end
Of meat counters
To the beginning
Of checkout lines.

No one pushes me down
Linoleum isles anymore.
I am the giant to smiling eyes
Under the haul of carted food.
Gone are the organ sounds
Of Montavani in return
Is the smell of Havarti,
And so much responsibility.

Poem: Yakima Fruit Market in Winter/ Quote: Eugene O'Neill

Yakima Fruit Market in Winter

Funny fruit people adorn
articulated doors as vacancy
erupts all around.
The Christmas trees are gone-
a carpet of needles shifts
above the ground.
Steel poles holding nothing.
they are the last structures
to go before March.


Eugene O'Neill said, "One should either be sad or joyful. Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers." And he said, "There is no present or future, only the past, happening over and over again, now."

Quote: Eleanor Roosevelt Poem: Carrion News

Eleanor Roosevelt, who said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."


Carrion News


The word from the curb was
Crow had been snatched
By eagle; taloned through.
The sky dripped unseen red
As black wings made eagle flee.

The crow on the curb
Who told me this story
Verified what I had seen.
Crow had to tell someone
Part of crow’s trickster nature.

Like an anxious mother waiting
Her child’s return crow
Pecks the ground over and over.

Quote:Isak Dinesen / Poem:Tsunami Signs

Isak Dinesen said, "All sorrows can be borne, if you put them into a story."

Tsunami Signs


On highway 101 a Tsunami sign
Comes out of the twists
And turns in the road.
Blue and white warnings
Of where to go in the event
Of an inundation.
It is a sign of woe
Like the yellow and black ones
Or duck and cover practices.
Tsunami signs lead to the hills
And like sheep we follow.